The Johannine Discourses and the Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics TANZ 57 Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter herausgegeben von Klaus Berger, Matthias Klinghardt, Günter Röhser, Stefan Schreiber und Manuel Vogel Philipp F. Bartholomä The Johannine Discourses and the Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics A Contribution to the Discussion Concerning the Authenticity of Jesus’ Words in the Fourth Gospel Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über http: / / dnb.dnb.de abrufbar. Gedruckt mit Unterstützung des Arbeitskreises für evangelikale Theologie e.V. © 2012 · Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH + Co. KG Dischingerweg 5 · D-72070 Tübingen Das Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Gedruckt auf säurefreiem und alterungsbeständigem Werkdruckpapier. Internet: www.francke.de E-Mail: info@francke.de Printed in Germany ISSN 0939-5199 ISBN 978-3-7720-8457-7 Für Andrea Preface This book is a slightly revised version of my Ph.D. thesis that I successfully defended at the Evangelische Theologische Faculteit (ETF) in Leuven, Belgium, in 2010. In the meantime, a summary of my basic approach together with additional application has been published in Biblica 92.3 (2011). It is with great thankfulness that I acknowledge those who have played a role in bringing this research project to fruition. I am more than grateful to my supervisor and friend, Prof. Dr. Armin D. Baum, who continues to have a great impact on both my academic as well as my personal development. His scholarly acumen and insightful guidance have certainly improved my line of argumentation. Never before have I met someone who is able to formulate his feedback with such clarity. His constant encouragement and great sense of humor have been essential in keeping the right perspective. And, most importantly, his personal interest in my well-being especially during difficult times simply meant a lot. He has truly been a "Doktorvater" in a holistic sense of the term. “Thank you” does not begin to express my gratitude. Further, I want to thank Profs. Dr. Gie Vleugels (Leuven) and Dr. Craig Blomberg (Denver, USA) for serving as the internal and external examiner, respectively, for this dissertation project. I benefited from their perceptive feedback and encouraging comments. It is also my privilege to thank all of those who have contributed to my theological education, particularly in the field of New Testament. I am especially indebted to Prof. Dr. Heinrich von Siebenthal and Dr. Joel R. White at the Freie Theologische Hochschule (Giessen), as well as to Profs. Dr. Darrell L. Bock, Dr. Hall W. Harris III., and Dr. Daniel B. Wallace at Dallas Theological Seminary. They all have taught me a lot (both academically and personally), and I am trying to emulate their ability to combine careful theological scholarship with personal spirituality and a heartfelt concern for the well-being of the church. Writing a dissertation in a language that is not one’s mother tongue is not an easy task. My American friend, Dr. Markus Klausli (now Korntal, Germany), deserves my sincere thanks for tirelessly reading through the original dissertation and helping me to sound less German than I actually am. In the last stages it was especially Dr. Günter Becker (Landau, Germany) who did not shy away from diving into what he would call the “mysterious world of theological scholarship and nomenclature” in order to help proof-read the final manuscript. VII VIII I am very grateful to the members of the editorial committee for accepting this manuscript for publication in the TANZ series and for their helpful comments and suggestions. Mrs. Karin Burger and Mrs. Susanne Fischer from the Francke Verlag have provided professional and friendly assistance as I prepared the manuscript for publication. This book was partly sponsored by the Arbeitskreis für evangelikale Theologie (AfeT) through a substantial and much appreciated financial grant. A note of appreciation also belongs to my parents, Dieter and Magdalena Bartholomä, for providing abundant support for my education over the years. Without their generosity, many of the steps that led to this monograph would not have been possible. It has been a special privilege and blessing to write this dissertation while pastoring a local church. I am deeply convinced that theological work ought to have deep roots in and significant impact on the community of faith. In this regard, my pastoral work has been a constant reminder of both the framework and the ultimate goal of my theological scholarship. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my colleague, mentor, and friend, Harald Nikesch, for his wise guidance and constant encouragement in my early years as a pastor and his sincere interest in and support for my academic endeavor. Last, but by no means least, I want to thank my wife, Andrea, for her incredible patience and willingness to selflessly support me even when a personal crisis for us as a couple put an extra emotional burden on her. With her contagious lightheartedness and practical wisdom she continues to provide an enjoyable and secure home for us. I therefore dedicate this book to her with love and gratitude. Above all, I thank the One who declares of himself in the Fourth Gospel that “the person who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14: 9). Getting to know the Father better through the words of the Son has definitely been the greatest benefit of my engagement with the Johannine discourses and Jesus´ teaching in the Synoptics. Soli deo gloria. Landau, June 2012 Philipp F. Bartholomä Table of Contents Preface VII Table of Contents IX Prologue: Jesus’ Discourses in the Fourth Gospel 1 Part One - Introduction: Review and Approach Chapter 1: The Authenticity of the Words of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel: A Critical Review of the Literature 11 1.1 The Authenticity of the Johannine Words of Jesus in the Early Church 11 1.1.1 The Earliest Evidence Before Irenaeus 11 1.1.2 John among the Gospels from Irenaeus to Augustine 15 1.1.3 Challenges to Authenticity in the Early Centuries 20 1.2 The Authenticity of the Johannine Discourses in Modern Research: Four Views 23 1.2.1 The Skeptical View: The Johannine Discourses as Mainly Inauthentic 25 1.2.2 The Moderate-Skeptical View: The Johannine Discourses as Containing Pieces of Authentic Tradition 36 1.2.3 The Moderate-Optimistic View: The Johannine Discourses as Representations of the Authentic Content of Jesus’ Words 44 1.2.4 The Optimistic View: The Johannine Discourses as Containing the Authentic Wording of Jesus’ Teaching 56 1.3 Conclusions and Prospect 59 1.3.1 The Heart of the Matter: The Johannine Discourses and the Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics 59 1.3.2 The Purpose and Scope of the Study: A Comparative Approach 61 X I X Chapter 2: Methodological Considerations 65 2.1 The Historical Intention of the Fourth Gospel 65 2.2 The Authenticity of Direct Speech in Antiquity 69 2.2.1 The Authenticity of Direct Speech in Greco-Roman Historiography 69 2.2.2 The Authenticity of Direct Speech in Hebrew Historiography 76 2.2.3 Summary: Implications for the Authenticity of Direct Speech in the Fourth Gospel 80 2.3 Comparing the Johannine Discourses and the Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics 83 2.3.1 Introductory Remarks 83 2.3.2 Levels of Closeness Defined 85 2.3.3 Conclusions 90 2.4 Johannine-Synoptic Parallels: A Preliminary Inventory 91 Part Two - The Teaching of Jesus: John and the Synoptics Chapter 3: The Johannine Dialogues with Individuals and Jesus’ Teaching in the Synoptics 107 3.1 Jesus’ Dialogue with Nicodemus about the New Birth (John 3: 1-21) 107 3.1.1 Introduction 107 Structure and Character of the Dialogue 107 The Authenticity of the Discourse in Johannine Research 109 3.1.2 Sequence 1: John 3: 1-8 (The Necessity of the New Birth) 112 3.1.3 Sequence 2: John 3: 9-15 (The Prerequisite of the New Birth) 117 3.1.4 Sequence 3: John 3: 16-21 (Jesus’ Discourse Continued) 124 3.1.5 Summary 132 3.2 Jesus’ Dialogue with the Samaritan Woman about the Water of Life (John 4: 1-30) 134 3.2.1 Introduction 134 Structure and Character of the Dialogue 134 The Authenticity of the Discourse in Johannine Research 135 3.2.2 Sequence 1: John 4: 1-14 (Living Water) 138 3.2.3 Sequence 2: John 4: 15-18 (Dubious Morality and Supernatural Insight) 143 XI 3.2.4 Sequence 3: John 4: 19-30 (Worship in Spirit and in Truth and the Identity of Jesus) 145 3.2.5 Summary 152 Chapter 4: The Johannine Discourses Addressed to the Jewish Public and Jesus’ Teaching in the Synoptics 155 4.1 The Bread of Life Discourse (John 6: 22-59) 155 4.1.1 Introduction 155 Structure and Character of the Discourse 155 The Authenticity of the Discourse in Johannine Research 156 4.1.2 Sequence 1: John 6: 22-27 (The True Significance of the Feeding Miracles) 160 4.1.3 Sequence 2: John 6: 28-29 (The Importance of Faith in the Divine Envoy) 164 4.1.4 Sequence 3: John 6: 30-40 (Jesus as the True Bread from Heaven) 166 4.1.5 Sequence 4: John 6: 41-51 (Jesus as the True Bread from Heaven Continued) 176 4.1.6 Sequence 5: John 6: 52-59 (Identification with Jesus as the Key to Eternal Life) 183 4.1.7 Summary 189 4.2 The Light of the World Discourse (John 8: 12-59) 191 4.2.1 Introduction 191 Structure and Character of the Discourse 191 The Authenticity of the Discourse in Johannine Research 192 4.2.2 Sequence 1: John 8: 12-20 (The Double Testimony about Jesus as the Light of the World) 194 4.2.3 Sequence 2: John 8: 21-30 (Jesus as the One from Above) 204 4.2.4 Sequence 3: John 8: 31-38 (The Descendants of Abraham and the True Source of Freedom) 215 4.2.5 Sequence 4: John 8: 39-47 (The Descendants of Abraham as Children of the Devil) 226 4.2.6 Sequence 5: John 8: 48-59 (The Descendants of Abraham and the Superiority of Jesus) 237 4.2.7 Summary 249 XII Chapter 5: The Johannine Discourses Addressed to the Disciples and Jesus’ Teaching in the Synoptics 251 5.1 The Farewell Discourse - Unit 1 (John 14: 1-31) 251 5.1.1 Introduction 251 Structure and Character of the Discourse 251 The Authenticity of the Discourse in Johannine Research 255 5.1.2 Sequence 1: John 14: 1-14 (Jesus Comforts His Disciples) 260 5.1.3 Sequence 2: John 14: 15-24 (Jesus Promises the Spirit-Paraclete) 278 5.1.4 Sequence 3: John 14: 25-31 (Jesus Continues to Encourage His Disciples) 293 5.1.5 Summary 304 5.2 Jesus’ Post-Resurrection Words to his Disciples (John 20: 11-29) 307 5.2.1 Introduction 307 Structure and Character of the Post-Resurrection Narrative in John 20 307 The Authenticity of the Post-Resurrection Appearances in Johannine Research 310 5.2.2 Appearance 1: John 20: 11-18 (The Risen Jesus and Mary Magdalene) 317 5.2.3 Appearance 2: John 20: 19-23 (Jesus and His Disciples) 323 5.2.4 Appearance 3: John 20: 24-29 (Jesus and Thomas) 329 5.2.5 Summary 333 Chapter 6: Conclusion: Implications for the Question of Authenticity 335 Part Three: Literary, Theological, and Historical Perspectives Chapter 7: The Johannine Discourses and the Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics: A Tentative Characterization 343 7.1 Literary Features of the Johannine Discourses 344 7.1.1 The Johannine Discourses Feature Significant Repetition 345 7.1.2 The Johannine Discourses Operate with Reduced Semantics 351 7.1.3 The Johannine Discourses Display a Propensity for Abstraction 353 XIII 7.1.4 Additional Literary Characteristics of the Johannine Discourses 359 7.2 Theological Features of the Johannine Discourses 361 7.2.1 The Johannine Discourses Offer a More Extensive and Explicit View of Jesus’ Christological Identity 362 7.2.2 The Johannine Discourses Have a Clearer Focus on Jesus as the Personal Object of Faith 368 7.2.3 The Johannine Discourses Put Greater Emphasis on Life as a Present Soteriological Reality 371 7.2.4 The Johannine Discourses Contain a Distinct Dualistic Emphasis 377 Chapter 8: The Johannine Discourses and Jesus’ Teaching in the Synoptics: Historical Implications 383 8.1 The Authenticity and Relevance of Synoptic Parallels 384 8.1.1 Criteria for Authenticity of Synoptic Parallels 385 Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 387 Mark 14: 62 pars. 388 8.1.2 The Authenticity of Synoptic Parallels and Jesus’ Teaching in the Fourth Gospel 391 8.1.3 Johannine Passages without Synoptic Parallels 392 8.2 The Historical Trustworthiness of the Fourth Gospel outside the Discourse Material 394 8.3 The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel 399 8.4 Early Christian Prophecy and the Origin of Johannine Speech Tradition 403 Summary 409 Appendix: The Johannine Discourses and the Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics: An Overview of Parallels 415 Abbreviations 429 Bibliography 431 1. Ancient Sources 431 2. Reference Works 432 3. Commentaries 433 4. Monographs 437 5. Articles 453 Index of Scriptures and Other Ancient Writings 471 Index of Authors 487 Prologue: Jesus’ Discourses in the Fourth Gospel The Gospel of John has frequently been compared to a pool in which a child can wade and an elephant can swim. This particular pool, we may add, owes at least some of its characteristic appeal to the fact that it is filled to a significant degree with discourses. In his Preface to the New Testament from 1522, Martin Luther poignantly remarks: “Now John writes very little about the works of Christ, but very much about h preaching, while the other evangelists write much about his works and little about his preaching. Therefore John’s Gospel is the one, fine, true, and chief gospel, and is far, far to be preferred over the other three and placed high above them.” 1 However one rates the significance of John among the canonical Gospels, Luther’s impression about the amount of direct speech in the Fourth Gospel is not exactly right. John’s Gospel contains a total of 15,420 words of which more than half, i.e., 8,993 words, are direct speech. 2 The percentage of speech material within the Fourth Gospel (58 percent) is thus similar to, yet even lower than, that of Matthew (66 percent) and Luke (60 percent). Only Mark has less direct speech (46 percent) than narrative material. Within all four canonical Gospels, most of the oratio recta is found on the lips of Jesus. In John about three quarters of all direct speech can be attributed to Jesus (6,547 words or 42 percent of the Gospel’s total). Apart from the so-called high-priestly prayer (John 17: 1-26; about 500 words) and several shorter sayings like those uttered on the cross, more than half of Jesus’ oratio recta is found in dialogues (about 3,600 words) and more than a 1 Martin Luther, Word and Sacrament, ed. E. Theodore Bachmann, vol. 35 of Luther’s Works (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1960), 362. The German original reads: “weil nun Johannes gar wenig Werk von Christo, aber gar viel seiner Predigt schreibt, wiederum die anderen drei Evangelisten viel seiner Werk, wenig seiner Wort beschreiben, ist Johannis Evangelium das einzige, zarte, rechte Hauptevangelium und den andern dreien weit, weit vorzuziehen und höher zu heben.” (Idem., Das Neue Testament Erste Hälfte: Evangelien und Apostelgeschichte, vol. 6 of Die Deutsche Bibel, ed. Ulrich Köpf, D. Martin Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe 46 [Weimar: Böhlau, 1929], 10.) 2 These statistics as well as the percentages below go back to a hand count provided by Lars Kierspel, The Jews and the World in the Fourth Gospel: Parallelism, Function, and Context, WUNT 2/ 220 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 133-34, based on the total numbers in Robert Morgenthaler, Statistik des neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes (Zürich: Gotthelf, 3 1982), 164. All other numbers in this section are based on my own hand count and are rounded. 1 third in longer, contiguous speeches (about 2,400 words). In this last count, an utterance had to contain at least 200 consecutive words in order to be considered as a speech. 3 However, if we include those dialogue elements with hundred or more consecutive words, the extent of speeches increases to about 3,200 words. 4 The bulk of Jesus’ speech material in the Fourth Gospel is contained in nine discourses or rather extensive dialogues, which comprise a total of about 4,700 words: 5 (1) The Discourse on New Birth [John 3: 1-21] (2) The Water of Life Discourse [John 4: 1-42] (3) The Discourse on the Divine Son [John 5: 19-47] (4) The Bread of Life Discourse [John 6: 22-59] (5) The Discourse on the Life Giving Spirit [John 7: 1-52] (6) The Light of the World Discourse [John 8: 12-59] (7) The Good Shepherd Discourse [John 10: 1-42] (8) Words on the Glorification of the Son [John 12: 23-50] (9) The Farewell Discourse [John 13: 31-16: 33] In these Johannine discourses Jesus turns to three groups of addressees: individuals (Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman; discourses 1 and 2), his disciples (discourses 8 [at least parts] and 9 [as well as parts of discourse 2]), and a broader group of people, either designated as “the Jews,” “the Pharisees,” or “the crowd” (discourses 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8). Jesus’ Oratio Recta in the Gospel of John 6 3 Extended discourse sections with 200 or more words are John 3: 10-21; 5: 19-47; 10: 7- 18; 14: 9-16: 16; 16: 19-28. 4 More than a hundred consecutive words of Jesus are found in John 6: 35-40; 6: 43-51; 6: 53-58; 8: 14-19; 8: 42-47; 12: 23-28; 12: 44-50. 5 We may possibly add to this list the dialogue with Pilate in John 18: 33-38 and 19: 9-11. 6 The parentheses in the right column indicate the numbers when dialogue elements of a hundred or more consecutive words are included. Speech Material (total) 6,500 words Dialogue 3,600 (2,800) words Extended Discourse 2,400 (3,200) words John 3: 1-21 [The New Birth] Individual 308 words John 4: 1-42 [The Water of Life] Individual (4: 1-30, [39-42]) Disciples (4: 31-38) 176 words 102 words John 5: 19-47 [The Divine Son] Jews 512 words John 6: 22-59 [The Bread of Life] Jews 480 words John 7: 14-39 [The Life Giving Spirit] Jews 213 words John 8: 12-59 [The Light of the World] Jews 431 words John 10: 1-42 [The Good Shepherd] Jews 497 words 2 When it comes to the function of these Johannine discourses, it has often been observed that they are closely linked to the narrative parts of the Gospel. In fact, “the incidents narrated receive an interpretation of their evangelical significance in the discourse; or, to put it otherwise, the truths enunciated in the discourses are given dramatic expression in the actions described.” 7 Words and deeds are closely knit together and within this structural unity the impact and importance of the discourses in the Fourth Gospel can hardly be overestimated. Several of the “signs” narrated in the Fourth Gospel can even be linked to a specific discourse that functions as a theological explanation of the particular event or action. This interpretive role of the Johannine discourses further highlights “that [in John] the spoken words function as the main vehicle for communicating the author’s point of view.” 8 Jesus’ words are foundational for the literary and theological purposes of the Gospel of John. As we look at characteristic features of Jesus’ discourses in the Gospel of John, we encounter numerous noteworthy distinctives, most of which come to light when we confront them with accounts of Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics. 9 Already the literary form of the elaborate discourses used by the author of the Fourth Gospel stands in general contrast with the Synoptists’ portrait of Jesus’ teaching that predominantly features short, pithy sayings and parables (but cf. several lengthy teaching sections in Matthew). Several of the singular sayings, parables, and metaphorical words in John 7 C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: University Press, 1953), 384. 8 Kierspel, The Jews, 138. Others have even more poignantly emphasized the significance of direct speech in the Gospel of John. E.g., Kierspel (ibid., 134) quotes Morna Hooker: “The bulk of the rest of John’s gospel - until we come to the passion narrative - is theological discourse, held together by a slight narrative framework: his material is essentially a brief account of certain activities of Jesus, together with lengthy theological comment on the significance of those activities, usually in the mouth of Jesus himself.” Cf. also Stephen S. Smalley, John: Evangelist & Interpreter (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2 1998), 129-33. 9 As a general introduction to the speeches in the Fourth Gospel, see Johannes Beutler, “Literarische Gattungen im Johannesevangelium. Ein Forschungsbericht 1919-1980,” in Religion (Vorkonstantinisches Christentum: Leben und Umwelt Jesu; Neues Testament [Kanonische Schriften und Apokryphen], Forts.), vol. II.25.3 of ANRW, ed. W. Haase (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1984), 2550-58. For a more general overview of Johannine distinctives compared to the Synoptics, see, e.g., Craig Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Leicester: InterVarsity, 1987), 153-56; or Brooke F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John: The Authorized Version with Introduction and Notes (repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958), lxxviii-lxxxiv. John 12: 23-50 [The Glorification of the Son] Jews (Disciples) 310 words John 13: 31-16: 33 [The Farewell Discourse] Disciples 1,650 words 3 cannot obscure the fact that the Johannine pattern of extensive speeches is unique among our canonical accounts of the life of Jesus. Within these discourses, Jesus is often in dialogue with different interlocutors, whose misunderstandings further the conversation and enable Jesus to develop his theological teaching in more detail. Differences in vocabulary are obvious as well: distinctive Johannine terms commonly used by Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (e.g., light, darkness, eternal life, truth, or witness) do not occur frequently, if at all, in the Synoptics. In addition to this typical Johannine vocabulary, no less conspicuous is that within John’s Gospel, it is hardly possible to distinguish between Jesus’ style (within direct speech) and the style of the author (within the narrative parts). 10 The distinctive nature of Jesus’ words in John’s Gospel may also be seen in their theological emphases: while the Synoptics highlight Jesus’ announcement of the basilei,a tou/ qeou/ and the temporal dualism between this age and the Age to Come, the Johannine Jesus focuses on his self-revelation as the eternal son of God (see especially the “I am”-sayings in John) and speaks more in terms of a cosmic tension between the above and the below with life being already imparted to the believer. 11 In light of these and other more general differences between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics, John has been charged with “excessive individualism and introspective exclusivism.” 12 Consequently, for over two centuries the Johannine discourses have received little attention as valuable contributions among scholars undertaking a quest for the historical Jesus. Norman Perrin probably represents a large part of the contemporary guild of historical Jesus scholars when he explicitly denied the usefulness of the Fourth Gospel for rediscovering the teaching of Jesus. 13 More than a quarter century later, E. P. Sanders looked back on 150 years of Jesus research saying that scholars “have almost unanimously, I think entirely correctly, concluded that the teaching of the historical Jesus is to be sought in the synoptic gospels and that John represents an advanced theological development (…).” 14 Even those, like N. T. Wright, who do not completely deny 10 Charles K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 2 1978), 7-8. 11 Cf. George E. Ladd, A Theology of the New Testament, rev. ed., ed. Donald A. Hagner (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 292-95 et al. 12 Stephen Neill and Tom Wright, The Interpretation of the New Testament 1861-1986, (Oxford: University Press, 2 1988), 436 (repeating the lament of John A.T. Robinson in his book The Priority of John). 13 Norman Perrin, Rediscovering the Teaching of Jesus, The New Testament Library (London: SCM, 1967), 48-49: “(…) the gospel of John is not a source of knowledge of the teaching of Jesus. (…) we have felt it necessary to ignore the Johannine material altogether.” 14 E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993), 71. Cf. also, among others, Marcus Borg, “Seeing Jesus: Sources, Lenses, and Method,” in The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions, ed. Marcus Borg and N. T. Wright (New York: Harper- 4 the historical authenticity of the Gospel of John, have voluntarily limited themselves to the usage of only the synoptic accounts of Jesus’ words. 15 Generally speaking, only a minority of gospel scholars would agree with Pope Benedict XVI., who has confidently included the Fourth Gospel among the reliable sources in his latest books on Jesus of Nazareth. 16 Only recently, however, in two volumes containing their deliberations from the years 2002-2004 and 2005-2007, the John, Jesus, and History Study Group of the Society of Biblical Literature re-opened the case by reconsidering the prevalent critical views that have lead to the modern dehistoricization of the Gospel of John as well as the de-Johannification of Jesus. 17 Despite the Collins, 1999), 12: “John’s gospel is very different from the synoptic gospels and is not a primary source for the historical Jesus;;” James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered, vol. 1 of Christianity in the Making (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 165: “Few scholars would regard John as a source for information regarding Jesus’ life and ministry in any degree comparable to the Synoptics.”Although John P. Meier, The Roots of the Problem and the Person, vol. 1 of A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 45, is able to say that the “‘tyranny of the synoptic Jesus’ should be consigned to the dustbin of the post-Bultmannians,” he later insists regarding the words of Jesus (53n22): “In the quest for the historical Jesus, the former [i.e., the narrative part of the Fourth Gospel] is much more useful than the latter [i.e., the sayings tradition].” Cf. also below chapter 1.2.1 and 1.2.2. 15 N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, vol. 2 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), xvi; contrary to Rudolf Schnackenburg, Die Person Jesu Christi im Spiegel der vier Evangelien, HTKNTSup (Freiburg: Herder, 1993), 24-27, who is skeptical about the historical value of John, yet uses the “fourfold gospel” for his reconstruction of the life and teaching of Jesus. 16 Joseph Ratzinger [= Pope Benedict XVI.], Jesus of Nazareth: From the Baptism in the Jordan to the Transfiguration (New York: Doubleday, 2007), 218-86, esp. 235: “It [i.e., the Gospel of John] shows us the real Jesus, and we can confidently make use of it as a source of information about him.” See now also the sequel Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week - From the Entrance Into Jerusalem to the Resurrection (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011). But cf. Jörg Frey’s criticism in “Historisch - kanonisch - kirchlich. Zum Jesusbild Joseph Ratzingers,” in Das Jesus-Buch des Papstes. Die Antwort der Neutestamentler, ed. Thomas Söding (Freiburg: Herder, 2007), 43-53. Very few scholars would integrate the Johannine portrait into their representation of Jesus as unhesitatingly as Darrell L. Bock, Jesus According to Scripture: Restoring the Portrait from the Gospels (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), esp. 17, 407-08 (but see also those scholars mentioned in chapter 1.2.3 and 1.2.4). Gerd Theissen and Anette Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), 36, maintain that the Gospel of John “clearly presents the Jesus of the Gospels who is most stylized on the basis of theological premises,” yet they also affirm that it is “not worthless” as a source. Cf. also Matthias Kreplin, Das Selbstverständnis Jesu, WUNT 2/ 141 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001), 74, who states that the Gospel of John has a “ergänzende Funktion” in the quest for the historical Jesus. 17 The 2002-2004 papers of this Study Group are now published in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 1: Critical Appraisal of Critical Views, eds. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, SBLSymS 44 (Leiden: Brill, 2007). The terms “dehistoricization” and “de-Johannification” were coined by the chairmen of the Study Group to describe the critical consensus. The 2005-2007 essays appear in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: 5 broad spectrum of perspectives represented, the findings of the scholars involved in this project generally testify to a growing trend in Jesus studies to question the absolute hegemony of the Synoptics and to recognize the historical value of John with its discourses not necessarily excluded. 18 And despite some methodological uncertainty about how to further an effective critical analysis, Paul N. Anderson, member of the group’s steering committee, can summarize the “sense of the meeting,” saying that the scholarly perspectives presented in the first volume “[call] for a more sustained focus on aspects of historicity in John.” 19 It is such a focus, albeit somewhat narrowly adjusted, that this study seeks to capture. Despite some postmodern voices more interested in the Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel, eds. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, Early Christianity and Its Literature 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 18 See, among others, the essays of Paul N. Anderson, “Why this Study is Needed, and Why It Is Needed Now,” 13-70, and Mark Allan Powell, “The De-Johannification of Jesus: The Twentieth Century and Beyond,” 121- 32, esp. 132 (both essays published in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 1), as well as Anderson’s earlier work The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered (London: T&T Clark, 2006). These kinds of contributions have been labelled as being led by a “neoconservative interest” by Jörg Frey, “Grundfragen der Johannesinterpretation im Spektrum neuerer Gesamtdarstellungen,” ThLZ 133 (2008): 744. For an interesting discussion of the significance and limits of the critical majority view on Johannine reliability from a more philosophical perspective, see C. Stephen Evans, “The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: From What Perspective Should It Be Assessed? ,” in The Gospel of John and Christian Theology, eds. Richard Bauckham and Carl Mosser (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 91-119. 19 Paul N. Anderson, “Getting a ‘Sense of the Meeting’: Assessments and Convergences,” in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 1, 289. Cf. the concluding comment by the same author in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2, saying that “all the essays in this volume argue that Johannine historicity remains an important object of ongoing critical research. If there is a single point of consensus within the present collection, this is it.” (Paul N.Anderson, “Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel: Consensus and Convergences,” 380 [italics his].) Although the Fourth Gospel seems to be slowly drawn back into the picture and despite some noteworthy proponents of a more positive view towards the authenticity of John, overall, Köstenberger’s estimation that “John’s Gospel stands today widely rehabilitated as a reliable witness” has to be considered as an overstatement (Andreas J. Köstenberger, John, BECNT [Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004], 2). Note the cautious words of Anderson, who refers to the critical consensus perspectives of the dehistoricization of John and the de-Johannification of Jesus, still being “[happy] to grant them privileged status as prevalent modernist views” while the question is simply “how well they stand up to critical scrutiny as predominant platforms for conducting further critical investigation” (“Why This Study Is Needed,” 13n1). Cf. also Gilbert Van Belle, “The Return of John to Jesus Research,” LS 32 (2007), 33, who concludes a historical survey of views regarding the historical reliability of John saying: “We conclude (…) with the assertion that in recent exegesis the Gospel of John has indeed been used as a source for the reconstruction of the life of Jesus. Nevertheless, I am not so confident that we can speak of a ‘Return of John to Jesus Research,’ as D. M. Smith (2003) claims.” 6 readers’ perspectives and ready to lay the historical task to rest (or at least to banish it to the back room of Johannine Studies), 20 we frankly concede, right at the outset, that we consider the historical questions worthy of being asked. 21 As our title suggests, the question of whether the typical Johannine discourses provide us with an authentic account of the historical teaching of Jesus looms in the background of this present inquiry. To what extent does the author of the Fourth Gospel take us back to Jesus’ original teaching? Would there be any warrant for including the Johannine discourses into a serious portrayal of the historical Jesus? When talking about authenticity, we are thus asking whether the Fourth Gospel is a reliable witness to what Jesus has actually communicated. In this regard, our methodological considerations in chapter 2 will reveal that the ancient source material necessitates a differentiation between an authenticity of wording and an authenticity of content. In addition, it is important to note that, within the framework of the more comprehensive questions mentioned above, we are not dealing with the authenticity of the Johannine discourses as such. Rather, we are choosing one particular access route to the matter at hand. This is to say that we will analyze and discuss only one single aspect of a much broader historical question. To state it clearly, we are evaluating Jesus’ speech material in the Fourth Gospel as compared to his synoptic teaching, since it is our contention that a preliminary examination of the relationship between the Johannine and the synoptic words of Jesus can shed light on the historical problem of the authenticity of Jesus’ discourses in the Gospel of John. The following history of research (chapter 1) will help us to identi- 20 See now, among many others, especially (indeed as a member of the John, Jesus, and History Study Group) Robert Kysar, “The Dehistoricizing of the Gospel of John,” in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 1, 75-101;; also his essay “What’s the Meaning of This? Reflections Upon a Life and Career,” in What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies, ed. Tom Thatcher (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007), 163-77. Cf. also as a representative of the growing field of “ideological criticism” Fernando Segovia, “Johannine Studies and the Geopolitical: Reflections upon Absence and Irruption,” in What We Have Heard from the Beginning, 281-306 (with references to several of his earlier pertinent works). 21 In this we agree with John Ashton (although disagreeing significantly on how to answer historical questions pertaining to John) who concludes his contribution to Tom Thatcher’s recent anthology, by saying that “I was then and remain still an unrepentant advocate of historical criticism” (“Second Thoughts on the Fourth Gospel,” in What We Have Heard from the Beginning, 17). On the legitimacy of a historical “Rückfrage” to Jesus, see also Jörg Frey, “Der historische Jesus und der Christus der Evangelien,” in Der historische Jesus: Tendenzen und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Forschung, ed. Jens Schröter and Ralph Brucker, BZNW 114 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 287, 293-94;; as well as David Wenham, “Paradigms and Possibilities in the Study of John’s Gospel,” in Challenging Perspectives on the Gospel of John, ed. John Lierman, WUNT 2/ 219 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 2: “The history versus theology question remains as interesting and important as ever, so far as John’s Gospel is concerned.” 7 fy more precisely the connection between the Johannine-Synoptic relation and verdicts of authenticity and thus provide the basis for setting out the main objectives of our study of the Johannine discourses (cf. 1.3.2). 22 22 For an exhaustive review of the Fourth Gospel’s history of interpretation with scattered remarks pertaining to our particular topic, see now Seán P. Kealy, John’s Gospel and the History of Biblical Interpretation, 2 vols. (Lewiston: Mellen, 2002). The earliest period of interpretation (see our chapter 1.1) is covered in the first volume (19- 95); the Johannine scholarship of the 19th and 20th century (see our chapter 1.2) is reviewed in the second volume (361-544). 8 Part One Introduction: Review and Approach Chapter 1 The Authenticity of the Words of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel: A Critical Review of the Literature 1.1 The Authenticity of the Johannine Words of Jesus in the Early Church Before we address the history of modern research regarding the authenticity of the words of Jesus (2.), the purpose of this section is to review the attitude towards Johannine authenticity with regard to the words of Jesus in the earliest centuries. Initially, we will briefly survey the literary evidence of early Christian writers before Irenaeus focussing only on some significant contributions in chronologically descending order (1.1.1). This procedure has the advantage of focussing first on some specific references before briefly assessing the more general evidence of earlier decades. For the next step (starting with Irenaeus and moving all the way to Augustine), we will examine several of the writings of the Greek and Latin Fathers that are more explicitly concerned with the question of Johannine authenticity (and with the authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel in particular) within the framework of a fourfold gospel canon (1.1.2). Finally, we will give an overview of the challenges to the authenticity of Jesus’ words within the canonical Gospels in the first four centuries (1.1.3). 1.1.1 The Earliest Evidence Before Irenaeus Within the earliest Christian writings, seldom do we find an explicit discussion of the historicity of the Fourth Gospel nor any kind of formal considerations about the authenticity of Jesus’ sayings therein. However, the general reception of Johannine material together with spontaneous references and/ or parenthetical statements about the Fourth Gospel provide us 11 with at least an implicit picture of its status in those early stages of Christian literature. 1 In his Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius preserved most of a letter sent out probably around A.D. 177 by the leaders of the church in Gaul who were facing severe persecution. This so-called Epistle of Vienne and Lyons not only contains several allusions to the Gospel of John but, more importantly for our purposes, it refers explicitly to the words of Jesus as reported in the Fourth Gospel. It seems that the Christian community in Gaul understood its own experience of persecution as an explicit fulfillment of what Jesus had predicted in John: “(…) all were so savage in the treatment of us (…). Then was fulfilled the declaration of our Lord, ‘that the day would come when everyone that slayeth you will think he is doing God a service’ [John 16: 2].” 2 Charles Hill aptly concludes that “the author, hardly ‘tentative’ in his appropriation of this saying, obviously accepts it as a real prediction of the historical Jesus, and his use of it is consistent with a very high regard for the written source of this prediction.” 3 Several Apologists made use of the Fourth Gospel. For example, in the tenth chapter of his Legatio pro christianis (written around A.D. 176/ 177) Athenagoras of Athens refers to the Son of God as the Word, apparently using the Johannine prologue as the starting point of his thinking. Furthermore, several of his statements seem to rest upon words of Jesus spoken in John 10: 30, 38; 14: 10, 11; and 17: 21. 4 We may thus conclude that Athenagoras regarded the Johannine sayings of Jesus as a valid source for his own theological reflections. It has long been denied that Justin Martyr (who died in A.D. 165) knew and used the Fourth Gospel in his writings. 5 However, in the last decades 1 The following survey is obviously not exhaustive. For a more detailed discussion about the usage and status of the Fourth Gospel among the earliest Christian writers compare the secondary literature mentioned in the footnotes. For most of the information given in this chapter, see esp. Charles E. Hill, The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (Oxford: University Press, 2004); and Titus Nagel, Die Rezeption des Johannesevangeliums im 2. Jahrhundert: Studien zur vorirenäischen Aneignung und Auslegung des vierten Evangeliums in christlicher und christlich-gnostischer Literatur, Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte 2 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2000). For a discussion of Johannine Christology in the second century, see T. E. Pollard, Johannine Christology and the Early Church (Cambridge: University Press, 1970), 23-48. 2 Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 5.1.15. [English: Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History. New Updated Edition, trans. C. F. Cruse (Peabody: Hendrickson, 1998), 150.] 3 Hill, Johannine Corpus, 85. 4 Athenagoras, Leg. 10.2 [English: Athenagoras, Legatio and De Resurrectione, trans. William R. Schoedel, Oxford Early Christian Texts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1972), 21.] 5 Cf., e.g., A. J. Bellinzoni, The Sayings of Jesus in the Writings of Justin Martyr, NovTSup 17 (Leiden: Brill, 1967), 134-38; and Helmut Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (London: SCM, 1990), 246. 12 scholars have been increasingly convinced that the Fourth Gospel was part of Justin’s gospel canon. 6 Regardless of the fact that Justin refers to synoptic material more frequently and does not quote the Fourth Gospel explicitly, a good case can be made for the view that Justin was not only familiar with John’s Gospel but received significant impulses from the Johannine material for his own theology. Justin refers to the Gospels as “apostolic memoirs.” Those memoirs, according to Justin, were used as authoritative writings in Christian worship services (1 Apol. 67.3) and were composed by Jesus’ apostles and their followers (Dial. 103.8). 7 This attribution is most naturally understood as implying that “at least two of the evangelists were apostles, and at least two were companions of apostles.” 8 In this case, we may safely assume that for Justin those Gospels written by apostles were Matthew and John, which would mean that he regarded the Fourth Gospel as having the same (apostolic and thus authoritative) status as the Synoptics. Further, in 1 Apol. 61.4 Justin reflects on the Christian practice of baptism, referring to a saying of Jesus that closely resembles John 3: 3, 5: “Then they are brought by us where there is water, and are born again in the same manner of rebirth by which we ourselves were born again. (…) For Christ also said, ‘Except you are born again, you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.’” 9 It has been argued by many that this dominical saying has its roots not in the Fourth Gospel but in the general tradition of the church. 10 But the fact that in the text of Justin’s apology this saying of Jesus is immediately followed by a clear reference to the misunderstanding of Nicodemus in John 3: 4 makes it more than likely that the Fourth Gospel should be considered as the underlying source of Justin’s statement. It is therefore reasonable to follow Hill in his conclusion that “Justin’s use of John 3: 3-5 in his explanation of Christian baptism in 1 Apol. 61.4-5 indicates that he considered John’s narrative of Nicodemus’ encounter with Jesus to be the record of a historical event, and the words there attributed to Jesus to be authentic— though he did not care to be verbally exact in his reproduction of it.” 11 The writings of Justin Martyr represent further evidence to the reception of the Fourth Gospel as an authentic witness to the life of Jesus in earliest Christianity. The so-called Epistula Apostolorum (written around A.D. 150) is a revelatory dialogue in epistolary form containing the post-resurrection teaching 6 Nagel, Rezeption, 94-116; Hill, Johannine Corpus, 312-51. 7 Justin Martyr, The First and Second Apologies, trans. Leslie William Barnard, ACW 56 (New York: Paulist Press, 1997), 71; Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, trans. Thomas B. Falls, Selections from the Fathers of the Church 3 (Washington: Catholic University Press, 2003), 157. 8 Hugh J. Lawlor, “Eusebius on Papias,” Herm 19 (1922): 202n1. 9 Justin Martyr, The First and Second Apologies, trans. Barnard, 66. 10 Bellinzoni, Sayings, 136-37; Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels, 361 et al. 11 Hill, Johannine Corpus, 328. 13 of Christ to the apostles. Though a fictional work, it is significant that allusions to the Gospel of John play a predominant role. According to Martin Hengel, the fact that the author of the Epistula Apostolorum places John at the head of a list of the apostles (Ep. Apost. 1) indicates that he considered his favourite Gospel as the work of the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee. 12 But not only does the author seem to assume apostolic authorship for the Fourth Gospel, he was also affected by its content. The Johannine prologue clearly informs his understanding of the incarnation of the Logos and several of his dominical logia most likely have their origin in the Fourth Gospel. Among others, he alludes to Jesus’ saying, “I am in the Father and the Father is in me” (Ep. Apost. 17.4; 25.3; 39.15, cf. John 10: 38; 14: 10 et al.), the similar statement that his disciples will be “in Jesus” as he will be in them (Ep. Apost. 19.18; 36.12, cf. John 14: 20; 17: 21 et al.) and Jesus’ new commandment to love one another (Ep. Apost. 18.5, cf. John 13: 14). 13 The least we may say is that the author of the Epistula Apostolorum ascribes significant value to the Johannine sayings for his own representation of the teaching of Jesus. As we move chronologically towards the first quarter of the second century, it has frequently been argued that prominent figures in these first post-apostolic decades such as Papias of Hierapolis or Ignatius of Antioch have been silent about the Gospel according to John. For one thing, this assumed silence of Papias or Ignatius does not necessarily imply a negative judgment about the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel including its speech material (as Walter Bauer has all too quickly concluded 14 ). Rather, there are now a growing number of patristic scholars who maintain that there is ample reason to belief that Papias as well as Ignatius knew and used the Gospel of John as part of their teaching material. 15 This would indicate that the Fourth Gospel was reckoned among the other Gospels as a genuine representation of Jesus’ ministry already in the early decades of the second century. If this argumentation is valid, it offers additional testimony to the general perception drawn from this brief survey of second century writings, namely that already before the time of Irenaeus early Christian writers in various parts of the Mediterranean world considered the Fourth Gospel as an authentic source for their knowledge of the works and words of Jesus. 16 12 Martin Hengel, The Johannine Question (London: SCM, 1989), 12, 20, 74. 13 English: “Epistula Apostolorum,” trans. C. Detlef G. Muller, in vol. 1 of New Testament Apocrypha, ed. Wilhelm Schneemelcher, trans. R. M. Wilson (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1991), 252-84; cf. also Hill, Johannine Corpus, 368. 14 Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (London: SCM, 1971), 186- 87. 15 So Nagel, Rezeption, 207-65; and Hill, Johannine Corpus, 383-96, 421-43. 16 It was especially Charles E. Hill, whose study on the Johannine Corpus we repeatedly quoted, who irrevocably enervated what he called the “orthodox Johannophobia paradigm.” This long-reigning paradigm had argued that orthodox Christianity in the 14 1.1.2 John among the Gospels from Irenaeus to Augustine In the following decades and centuries, it was the differences between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John that increasingly moved into the focus of the orthodox community and became a critical problem. The solution to this problem of the consensus evangelistarum was now destined to significantly impact the assessment of the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel by the church fathers. With the adoption of a fourfold gospel canon during the second century, it was now important to consider the relationship between these Gospels. While differences between the four accounts could still be explained as complementary perspectives on the life of Jesus, contradictions between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John were principally inconsistent with the assumption of an authoritative fourgospel canon. 17 Irenaeus of Lyons has left us with the classic defense of the four-gospel canon, including the Gospel of John. Irenaeus is aware of the fact that some rejected the form of the Fourth Gospel, 18 yet in the third book of his Adversus Haereses (written around A.D. 180) he strenuously maintains the authority of all four Gospels recognized by the church: “It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are.” 19 For Irenaeus, the plurality of the Gospels and the differences between their accounts of the life of Jesus must not lead to a rejection of either one, since “He [the word] who was manifested to men, has given us the Gospel under four aspects, but bound together by one Spirit.” 20 If we examine the status of the Gospel of John within this framework of an authoritative four-gospel canon, there can be no doubt that Irenaeus regarded the Fourth Gospel as scripture, and that as an eyewitness account by John, “the disciple of the Lord,” 21 it played an important role in the development of his own theological thinking. It is therefore justified to regard Irenaeus as a “Johannine earliest centuries was dismissive against the Gospel of John. Thus, as a wellconceived critical framework it used to provide a strong basis for skepticism about the historical reliability of this Gospel. See now also the summary of this larger study in Charles E. Hill, “The Fourth Gospel in the Second Century: The Myth of Orthodox Johannophobia,” in Challenging Perspectives on the Gospel of John, ed. John Lierman, WUNT 2/ 219 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 135-69. 17 Helmut Merkel, Die Widersprüche zwischen den Evangelien: Ihre polemische und apologetische Behandlung in der Alten Kirche bis zu Augustin, WUNT 13 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1971), 32. The rejection of John’s Gospel by the so-called Alogoi was probably based on its differences to the Synoptics; cf. ibid., 34-37; and Walter Schmithals, Johannesevangelium und Johannesbriefe, BZNW 64 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1992), 27-28. 18 Irenaeus, Haer. III.11.9. [English: Irenaeus, “Against Heresies,” in The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus, vol. 1 of ANF, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (repr., Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995), 429.] 19 Irenaeus, Haer. III.11.8. [Ibid., 428-29.] 20 Ibid. 21 Irenaeus, Haer. III.1.1. [Ibid., 414.] 15 theologian” who viewed the Fourth Gospel as a dependable source, since the Corpus Johanneum in general, and John’s Gospel in particular, constitute the backbone of his salvation-historical and anti-Gnostic theology. 22 Furthermore, his manifold and unqualified citations of the words of Jesus reported in the Fourth Gospel (often alongside synoptic quotations) seem to suggest that he regarded them as a trustworthy representation of the teaching of Jesus: “For when the Lord said to them, ‘Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day;; and he saw it, and was glad,’ [John 8: 56] (…)” 23 “For He [Jesus] says, ‘He that committeth sin is the slave of sin.’ [John 8: 34]” 24 The relationship of Clement of Alexandria (ca. A.D. 140/ 150-220) to the Fourth Gospel is similar to the one exhibited by Irenaeus. Clement perceived the Johannine Gospel to be an apostolic writing and acknowledged it as part of his authoritative scriptures. 25 Thus, he had no reservations to appeal to the Fourth Gospel and the teaching of Jesus inherent in it, “sometimes citing it formally, many more times simply alluding to or incorporating phrases or ideas from this Gospel.” 26 “Work,” says the Lord, “for the food which lasts to eternal life, not for the food which perishes. [John 6: 27]” 27 Further, one of the most famous statements about the Gospel of John is his observation: “John, last of all, perceiving that what had reference to the body in the gospel of our Savior, was sufficiently detailed, and being encouraged by his familiar friends, and urged by the spirit, he wrote a spiritual gospel.” 28 For Clement, there was no need to pit the Synoptics against the Fourth Gospel and deny the latter’s authenticity. He perceived no con- 22 Bernhard Mutschler, Irenäus als johanneischer Theologe: Studien zur Schriftauslegung bei Irenäus von Lyon, Studien und Texte zu Antike und Christentum 21 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 266-75. For more details on the significance of the Gospel of John for Irenaeus, see also idem., Das Corpus Johanneum bei Irenäus von Lyon: Studien und Kommentar zum dritten Buch von Adversus Haereses, WUNT 189 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), or Hill, Johannine Corpus, 95-118. 23 Irenaeus, Haer. II.22.6. [Irenaeus, “Against Heresies,” 392.] 24 Irenaeus, Haer. III.8.1. [Ibid., 421.] For more Johannine quotations, see Hill, Johannine Corpus, 97. 25 Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 8 and 42. [Greek and English: Clement of Alexandria, “The Rich Man’s Salvation,” in Clement of Alexandria, trans. G.W. Butterworth, LCL (repr., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 285-86, 357.] 26 Hill, Johannine Corpus, 123. 27 Clement of Alexandria, Strom. I.1.7. [English: Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis - Books One to Three, trans. John Ferguson, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation (Washington: Catholic University Press, 1991), 27.] 28 Clement of Alexandria quoted in Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 6.14.7. [English: Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, trans. Cruse, 205.] 16 tradictions between them, and regarded the Gospel of John as a (spiritual) supplement to his predecessors. Tertullian (ca. A.D. 160-220) is another prominent figure of the early centuries who held the Fourth Gospel in the same esteem as he did the other three, treating it as the work of the apostle John and as part of the church’s gospel canon. 29 In several of his writings, Tertullian unhesitantly quotes or alludes to sayings of Jesus reported in John’s Gospel: “(…) as also in another place He [Christ] says plainly, ‘Search the Scriptures, in which ye expect (to find) salvation;; for they testify of me’ [John 5: 39]” 30 Despite of the differences, the Fourth Gospel could apparently serve alongside the synoptic accounts as trustworthy portrayals of the words (and works) of Jesus, without calling into question the authenticity of John’s representation. In his Commentary on John, the studious theologian and exegete Origen (A.D. 185-253) presupposes four canonical Gospels that are homogeneous witnesses to the one gospel. 31 Far from devaluing the status of the Gospel of John, he ascribes to it a prominent place among the four, calling it “the firstfruits [in a qualitative sense].” 32 In his criticism of Heracleon’s proto- Gnostic interpretation of John, 33 Origen, in spite of his allegorical tendencies, demands a kind of faithfulness to the text that seems to imply at least the general trustworthiness of the written reproduction of Jesus’ life in the Fourth Gospel. 34 At the same time, he openly addresses the problem of discrepancies between the different gospel accounts in general and between the Synoptics and John in particular. According to Origen, many who are unable to account for those discrepancies loose their trust in the Gospels or abandon the four-gospel canon in order to cling to just one. Origen’s solution to the problem is an interesting blend of “redaction criticism” and allegorical method. Contradictions in the text may be explained by the different theological conceptions of the evangelists and/ or by their 29 Hill, Johannine Corpus, 142-43. 30 Tertullian, De Praescr. 8 [John 5: 39; as well as John 16: 13]. See also the allusions in Tertullian, De Bapt. 9 [John 4: 14; 7: 37-38 et al.]. [English: Tertullian, “The Prescription Against Heretics” and “On Baptism,” in Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian, vol. 3 of ANF, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (repr., Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995), 247 and 673 respectively.] 31 Origen, Comm. Joh. I.29. [English: Origen, Commentary on the Gospel According to John - Books 1-10, trans. Ronald E. Heine, The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, (Washington: University of America Press, 1989), 36.] See also Origen, Comm. Joh. X, where the Scriptures are described as an organic unity. 32 Ibid., 38. 33 For an instructive assessment of Heracleon’s work, see Ansgar Wucherpfennig, Heracleon Philologus. WUNT 142 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002). 34 Origen, Comm. Joh. II.105ff. [Origen, Commentary on John, trans. Heine, 122ff.] 17 spiritual (allegorical) intent. 35 Thus, in order to express this mustiko. j sko,poj in a comprehensible way, the gospel writers have occasionally altered chronological or geographical details or even individual sayings, since the spiritual meaning had to take precedence over the material: “But I do not condemn, I suppose, the fact that they have made some minor changes in what happened so far as history is concerned, with a view to the usefulness of the mystical object of [those matters]. (…) For their intention was to speak the truth spiritually and materially at the same time where it was possible but, where it was not possible in both ways, to prefer the spiritual to the material. This spiritual truth is often preserved in the material falsehood, so to speak.” 36 Even if Origen applies these considerations to the Gospels in general, we have to deduce that he is one of the first Christian theologians to explicitly allow for non-historical material in the Fourth Gospel. Yet, since these material misrepresentations are even considered necessary to draw out the essential, spiritual truth, Origen is able to maintain the general credence and validity of the Johannine account. Ultimately, Augustine (A.D. 354-430) addresses the critical problem of the differences between the Gospels in his work De consensu evangelistarum. First, he insists that a fixed number of four canonical Gospels exist, which reliably preserved “the words heard from His [i.e. Jesus’] lips, and the deeds wrought by Him beneath their eyes.” 37 This includes the Fourth Gospel, whose credibility is not least ensured by its apostolic authorship. Augustine not only regards the Gospel of John as an authoritative source for the life of Jesus, but he repeatedly and confidently quotes dominical sayings even if they only have their single attestation in this last of the four Gospels: “And the same John is also the only one who has recorded that witness which the Lord gave concerning Himself, when He said: ‘He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father also;;’ and, ‘I am in the Father, and the Father is in me;;’ [John 14: 9, 10] ‘that they may be one, even as we are one;;’ [John 17: 22] and, ‘Whatsoever the Father doeth, these same things doeth the Son likewise’ [John 5: 19].” 38 “(…) where he states that Jesus spoke of the temple of His body in these terms: ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’ [John 2: 19].” 39 35 Origen, Comm. Joh. X.10 ff. [Ibid; 256ff.] For more details and references, see Merkel, Widersprüche, 109-21. 36 Origen, Comm. Joh. X.19. [Ibid., 259.] It is important to note, however, that Origen speaks about “certain modifications” in the presentations carried out by the evangelists, which is a different concept than that of “free inventions.” 37 Augustine, De Cons. I.1, also I.2.3-4. [English: Augustine, “Harmony of the Gospels,” trans. S. D. F. Salmon, in Saint Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels, vol. 6 of NPNF, ed. Philip Schaff (repr., Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995, 77-78.] 38 Augustine, De Cons. I.4.7. [Ibid., 79-80.] 39 Augustine, De Cons. IV.10.12; see also IV.10.19. [Ibid., 234-35.] 18 In light of his general convictions, assumed contradictions between the different gospel accounts had to grip Augustine’s attention because they called into question the authenticity of the Gospels. For him, contradictions between the Gospels, especially between the Synoptics and John, were virtually impossible: “For, however the evangelists may each have reported some matters which are not recorded by the others, it will be hard to prove that any questions involving real discrepancy arises out of these.” 40 Yet, the differences called for an explanation which Augustine tried to supply in two ways. 41 On the one hand, he used the method of strictly historical harmonization by assimilation and dissimilation; 42 on the other hand, especially with regard to a comparison between the words of Jesus in different Gospels, he relied on the progressive axiom according to which the authenticity of certain sayings depends on an accurate reproduction of their content and not an absolute agreement in wording. 43 “It is therefore a useful principle, and one particularly worthy of being borne in mind, when we are speaking of the concord of the evangelists, that there is no divergence [to be supposed] from truth, even when they introduce some saying different from what was actually uttered by the person concerning whom the narrative is given, provided that, notwithstanding this, they set forth as his mind precisely what is also so conveyed by that one among them who reproduces the words as they were literally spoken. For thus we learn the salutary lesson, that our aim should be nothing else than to ascertain what is the mind and intention of the person who speaks.” 44 Not least this latter principle, which we will have to examine further in chapter 2, allowed Augustine to maintain the authenticity of the Johannine discourses in spite of their different character when compared to the Synoptics. While the Gospel of John was accepted as an apostolic witness and thus as an authoritative and reliable part of the four-gospel canon already in the earliest centuries, the differences between the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel were also observed in the writings of the church fathers. With criticism of the historical trustworthiness being the exception rather than the rule, different attempts of harmonization accompanied the positive conviction of the early fathers about the authenticity of the Gospel of John in general and the words of Jesus contained 40 Augustine, De Cons. IV.10.11. [Ibid., 231-32.] See also H.-J. Vogels, St. Augustins Schrift De consensu Evangelistarum unter vornehmlicher Berücksichtigung ihrer harmonistischen Anschauungen, BibS(F) 13/ 5 (Freiburg: Herder, 1908), 93-130. 41 Augustine was well aware of the special character of the Fourth Gospel, see De Cons. I.4.7 and I.5.8. [Augustine, “Harmony of the Gospels,” trans. Salmon, 79-80.] 42 Merkel, Widersprüche, 227-50. 43 Armin D. Baum, “Die Diskussion der Authentizität von Herrenworten in altkirchlicher Zeit: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung,” TBei 30 (1999): 310- 11. 44 Augustine, De Cons. II.12.29;; see also II.24.55 and II.14.31. [Augustine, “Harmony of the Gospels,” trans. Salmon, 118-19, 129, and 119 respectively.] 19 therein in particular. In this regard, Augustine has argued that the authenticity of dominical sayings does not rest on exact conformity in wording but on the correct rendition of its content. 1.1.3 Challenges to Authenticity in the Early Centuries The careful examination of the authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Gospels is part of the tradition of ancient literary criticism. 45 Hellenistic historians like Polybios (about 200-120 B.C.) or the ancient physician Galen of Pergamon (A.D. 129-199) were already concerned not only with the literary authenticity of writings as a whole but with the authenticity of particular sayings attributed to certain historical characters. 46 Papias of Hierapolis, who must have written sometime between A.D. 117 and 138, was probably the first early Christian writer to apply certain critical considerations concerning authenticity to the oral or written Jesus traditions. In the introduction to his logi,wn kuriakw/ n ev xhgh,sewj , he states, “For I have never, like many, delighted to hear those that tell many things, but those that teach the truth, neither those that record foreign precepts, but those that are given from the Lord, to our faith, and that came from the truth itself.” 47 However, in light of Papias’ general appreciation of the gospel material at hand, his critical attitude towards certain instructions (“commandments”) attributed to Jesus was most likely limited to material outside of the writings that would later be considered as canonical. 48 The notorious heretic Marcion (probably born in A.D. 85) was among the first to challenge the authenticity of Jesus’ words within the canonical Gospels. Marcion believed in the existence of one uncorrupted Pauline gospel that was already lost during his lifetime. Since the original apostles had not written anything, he considered the Gospels of Matthew and John as well as the Gospel of the apostolic disciple Mark as complete forgeries. In Marcion’s eyes it was the Gospel of Luke which contained the authentic gospel message, yet Luke had been falsified in a Judaistic manner. 49 In his attempt to cleanse the Lukan Gospel from its Judaistic contamination, he was necessarily forced to distinguish between authentic and spurious words of Jesus. Based on his theological convictions (e.g., that Jesus could 45 For the following discussion, see esp. Baum, “Authentizität von Herrenworten,” 303- 17. 46 See also below 2.2.1. 47 Quoted by Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3.39.3. [Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, trans. Cruse, 104.] 48 Baum, “Authentizität,” 304-05. 49 Adolf von Harnack, Marcion. The Gospel of the Alien God, trans. John E. Steely and Lyle D. Bierma (Durham: Labyrinth Press, 1990), 25-51 [from the 2nd German edition 1924]. 20 not have referred to the Old Testament due to the general incompatibility of the God of the Old Testament with the Father of Jesus in the New Testament) he had to discard several of Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Luke in order to restore the assumed authentic Urevangelium. 50 As the canonical Gospels increasingly found their way into the Christian community, challenges to their authenticity became part of the pagan polemic against Christianity. It was frequently claimed that the representation of Jesus’ life in the Gospels (including his works and words) was not authentic. Celsus, the well-known platonic philosopher and adversary of Christianity, explicitly referred to the fictional character of the Gospels. In his work avlhqh.j lo,goj (which can be reconstructed for the most part from Origen’s refutation Contra Celsum and dates around A.D. 179), the disciples of Jesus are blamed for inventing the reports about their master: “Although you lied you were not able to conceal plausibly your fictitious tales.” 51 Among other things, the plurality of the Gospels and assumed inconsistencies between the different accounts seem to have led to Celsus’ accusation. 52 What we do not learn from Origen’s references to Celsus is whether he explicitly applied his criticism to the words of Jesus or only to the general events reported in the Gospels. 53 In this regard, the Plotinian philosopher Porphyry (about A.D. 234-304) is more specific. In his fragments Against the Christians he calls into question the authenticity of the Gospels based on obvious contradictions between different renderings of Jesus’ words. 54 In fragments 61 and 62 Porphyry points to contradictory accounts of dominical sayings in Matt 26: 11 and Matt 28: 20 as well as in Matt 10: 28 and Matt 26: 39. 55 Additionally, Porphyry refers to the multiple variants of Jesus’ last words on the cross that were handed down by the authors of the Gospels. For him, the incoherence between these accounts either suggests that not only one but many had suffered on the cross or that the reported lo,goi VIhsou/ were freely invented: 50 For details see von Harnack, Marcion, 36-41. 51 Origen, Cont. Cels. 2.26. [English: Origen, Contra Celsum, trans. Henry Chadwick (Cambridge: University Press, 3 1980), 90.] 52 So Merkel, Widersprüche, 11. 53 Baum, “Authentizität von Herrenworten,” 306. 54 It is assumed here that the fragments quoted by Makarius Magnus actually go back to Porphyry as Adolf von Harnack has argued in his reconstruction (Porphyrius, ,Gegen die Christen‘. 15 Bücher, Zeugnisse, Fragmente und Referate, Berlin, 1916). However, for our purposes, it is not greatly important whether those statements belong to Porphyry or any other anonymous author. 55 English: Porphyry, Against the Christians, trans. and intr. Robert M. Berchman, Ancient Mediterranean and Medieval Texts and Contexts (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 197-98, 201-02; also Merkel, Widersprüche, 17-18. [The numbers of the fragments are taken from Harnack’s edition.] 21 “The evangelists were inventors not historians of the events concerning Jesus. For each of them wrote an account, especially of the passion, which was not in harmony with other respective accounts. (…) From this archaic and contradictory record one accepts it as the statement of the suffering - not of one man but of many. (…) But if these men were unable in a truthful way to report the manner of his death [i.e., they reported different variants of Jesus’ words on the cross], and rhapsodized it in every respect, then in regard to other issues they also have not stated anything clearly.” 56 Thus, Porphyry’s negative judgments about the authenticity of Jesus’ words in the canonical Gospels are primarily due to observed contradictions in content and a lack of coherence within the different gospel accounts. 57 Furthermore, his suspicion towards the Johannine tradition in particular is instigated by another line of reasoning. In fragment 69 Porphyry denies the credibility of the Johannine logion of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus (John 6: 53), saying that “truly this saying is not merely bestial and absurd - but is more absurd than any absurdity, and more bestial than any beast’s art (…). And if someone preparing these stories from apocryphal sources fabricated the whole thing in order to lead them into obscurity, he harms them thereby. (…) It seems that neither Mark, nor Luke, nor even Matthew recorded this because they regarded the saying as indecent, rather odd, and discordant and far removed from civil life.” 58 Apparently, the silence of the Synoptics is used by Porphyry as an argument against the authenticity of this saying of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. 59 Thus, Porphyry is an early witness to a negative usage of the criterion of multiple attestation, a tool which would gain significance in later historical Jesus research. Another prominent figure to challenge the authenticity of dominical sayings in the canonical Gospels was the Christian heretic Faustus of Mileve. His critical attitude towards the reliability of the gospel tradition is recorded in Augustine’s work Contra Faustum Manichaeum (about A.D. 397/ 98). Regarding Jesus’ statement about the ongoing validity of the law in Matt 5: 17, Faustus notes that “it is unclear (…) whether Jesus said any such thing.” 60 The reasons Faustus challenged the authenticity of Jesus’ words are similar to those of Porphyry. Besides the fact that he did not conceive the authors of the canonical Gospels as eyewitnesses and thus denied the Gospels’ apostolic origin, 61 Faustus based his critical evaluations on the two criteria of multiple attestation and factual coherence. The above- 56 Porphyry, Against the Christians, trans. Berchman, 194. 57 Baum, “Authentizität von Herrenworten,” 307. 58 Porphyry, Against the Christians, trans. Berchman, 202-03. 59 So Merkel, Widersprüche, 16. 60 Augustine, Cont. Faust. 17.1. [English: Augustine, Answer to Faustus, a Manichean, trans. Roland Teske, vol. I/ 20 of The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century (New York: New City Press, 2007), 227.] 61 Augustine, Cont. Faust. 32.2. [Ibid., 409.] 22 mentioned rejection of Matt 5: 17 was also due to the fact that Matthew was the only evangelist to testify to this saying of Jesus. And to Augustine’s challenge to prove that the publication of the Gospels cannot be traced to the apostles, Faustus would have replied that “they contain many contradictions among various books and within individual books.” 62 In fact, he considered the Gospels to be full of error and discrepancies (both in their narrative sections as well as in the discourses they report). 63 Therefore, he concluded that “it is not without merit that we never listen to such passages from the scriptures, which are so discordant and different, without exercising judgment and using out reason. Rather, considering them all and comparing them with one another, we weigh whether or not Christ could have said any of them.” 64 If Faustus considered a saying of Jesus as noncoherent with other dominical utterances that had to be conceived as genuine (according to his own judgment), he would regard it as inauthentic. This concise overview reveals that challenges to the authenticity of the canonical Gospels in general (and of the words of Jesus in particular) during the first centuries came either from pagan authors (Celsus, Porphyry) or heretics (Marcion, Faustus). As such, they were considered to stand outside the orthodox church. It should be further noted that these earliest challenges to authenticity were - to a significant extent - based on the assumed existence of factual incoherence between the different gospel accounts as well as on a lack of multiple attestation for particular sayings or deeds of Jesus. 1.2 The Authenticity of the Johannine Discourses in Modern Research: Four Views After the writers of the early church and the theologians of the following centuries 65 had been almost unequivocal about the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel and the words of Jesus contained therein, a significant shift in the assessment of its historical value occurred with the rise of critical scholarship. The Johannine discourses came increasingly under suspicion as reliable representations of Jesus’ teaching, and thus the authenticity debate gained substantial attention within Johannine studies. As one of the most widely ramified fields of New Testament studies, Johannine scholarship has occupied itself with a host of questions that have at least implicit 62 Augustine, Cont. Faust. 32.16. [Ibid., 418.] 63 Augustine, Cont. Faust. 32.2. [Ibid., 409.] 64 Augustine, Cont. Faust. 33.3. [Ibid., 426.] 65 For a brief summary of the so-called “pre-critical period,” see Schmithals, Johannesevangelium, 29-32. 23 relevance for the discussion about the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel. 66 Yet, in this section we will only review those scholarly contributions that (more or less) explicitly address the issue of the historical trustworthiness of the Johannine discourses and consequentially of the Fourth Gospel as a whole. 67 While our classification of four views may seem somewhat artificial, especially in light of a broad spectrum of opinions, it will serve to facilitate further discussion by identifying the major perspectives regarding the authenticity of the Johannine discourses. Within each of the four views we will review several classic (i.e., influential) voices as well as more detailed contributions of the last decades, with special focus on their main arguments and basic methods. This should help us to identify our own approach to the questions in view, and will thus pave the way for the remainder of the study. In order to arrive at a useful classification of the different views on the historical reliability of the Johannine discourses, every scholar mentioned in this section has been categorized according to his assessment of two main criteria: (1) the assumed authenticity of content, and (2) the assumed authenticity of wording. This classification process results in four general views each representing a discrete verdict about the authenticity of the Johannine discourses that is more or less distinguishable from the others. However, there certainly are differences in degree between the particular perceptions of various scholars portrayed within one view. The Skeptical View: Scholars classified under the skeptical view would generally assume that neither the wording nor the content of the Johannine discourses as a whole are authentic to any noteworthy extent. This does not 66 The most exhaustive reviews of Johannine research are those of Robert Kysar, “The Fourth Gospel: A Report on Recent Research,” ANRW II.25.3, H. Temporini and W. Haase, eds. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1984), 2389-480; as well as Schmithals, Johannesevangelium; and the already mentioned two volume work by S. Kealy. Among the questions that have implications for the assessment of Johannine authenticity is the one about the authorship of the Fourth Gospel (see also below 8.3). For example, if the Gospel of John has been written by an eyewitness it is more likely to contain historical material than a work of a much later evangelist. At the same time, it is true that eyewitness testimony can not lead to the direct inference that such an account is historically reliable. Similarly, sourceand redaction-critical inquiries have led to certain convictions about the authenticity of John. The so-called Überbietungshypothese (i.e., the judgment that John has somewhat surpassed the Synoptics), for example, has increasingly entailed the tendency to deny the historical value of the Johannine accounts, although this is by no means a necessary conclusion. 67 For a somewhat shorter overview of the scholarly discussion about Johannine historicity in general, see Anderson, Quest for Jesus, 9-23; as well as the brief outline of different views pertaining to the historical question in William R. G. Loader, The Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Structure and Issues, BBET 23 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2 1992), 189-91; cf. also Warren Carter, John: Storyteller, Interpreter, Evangelist (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2006), 6-7. 24 rule out, however, the possibility that one or the other Johannine saying may actually be considered as resembling what Jesus may have said, both in terms of content or even in style or wording. The Moderate-Skeptical View: Although the confidence in the historical trustworthiness of the Johannine account varies among proponents of the moderate-skeptical view, they would all ascribe the content of a more or less significant amount of sayings to the historical Jesus. Without excluding the possibility that several dominical sayings closely represent what Jesus actually said, most scholars reviewed do not address the question of the authenticity of wording so that we have to assume that they infrequently reckon with a verbatim rendering of Jesus’ words. The Moderate-Optimistic View: Those who advance the moderateoptimistic view generally affirm the authenticity of the content of the Johannine discourses. As a general rule, scholars of this type are not overly confident that the Fourth Gospel contains many verbally or stylistically authentic words of Jesus, although some proponents might be open to a certain extent for this possibility. The Optimistic View: The least prevalent perspective within scholarly circles of the four views we have classified is the optimistic view. Widespread among lay people, this view also considers the content of the Johannine discourses by and large reliable. In contrast, however, to the moderate-optimistic view, it assumes a greater closeness to the authentic words of the historical Jesus, within which the spectrum goes from the supposition of several verbal reminiscences to the belief that what we have before us in John are generally the “very words” of Jesus. 1.2.1 The Skeptical View: The Johannine Discourses as Mainly Inauthentic The historicity of John was very rarely challenged during the first seventeen centuries after its composition. Among the first to deny the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel was Edward Evanson (1792), whose skepticism was aroused by what he called the “dissonance” between the canonical Gospels. 68 In German speaking scholarship it was Erhard Friedrich Vogel (1801) who raised the first massive attack against the historical trustworthiness of John’s Gospel. As a strong rationalist, Vogel not only denied the validity of what he called “transcendent events,” but he was convinced that the Fourth Gospel must have been written after the death of the apostle John. 69 68 Edward Evanson, The Dissonance of the Four Generally Received Evangelists and the Evidence of Their Respective Authenticity Examined with that of Some Other Scriptures, Deemed Canonical (Gloucester: Walker, 2 1805), esp. 267-304 [ 1 1792]. 69 Erhard Friedrich Vogel, Der Evangelist Johannes und seine Ausleger vor dem jüngsten Gericht (Hof, 1801), 8-11. 25 He maintained regarding the Johannine discourses that the (non-apostolic) evangelist put into Jesus’ mouth words that could not be reconciled with the character of Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptic Gospels. 70 Even more influential than Vogel was Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider’s work Probability Concerning the Character and Origin of the Gospel and Epistles of John, the Apostle, Modestly Submitted to the Judgement of the Erudite, published in 1820. 71 Written in Latin to avoid public dispute, this work anticipated most of the critical arguments that would be raised against the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel in the following decades. 72 Bretschneider was convinced that the author of John’s Gospel, far from being an eyewitness, was non-Jewish and wrote at the beginning of the second century, probably in Egypt. Already in the first chapter of his work, Bretschneider strongly insisted that we find in John a rather different description of Jesus than in the Synoptics. With regard to the representations of Jesus’ teaching in John and in the Synoptic Gospels he was led to the conclusion that they cannot both be accurate: “It is accordingly quite impossible that both the Jesus of the [first] three Gospels and that of the Fourth can at the same time be historically true, since there is the greatest difference between them, not only in the manner of discourse but also in the argumentation and the behavior of the two.” 73 After comparing the Johannine discourses with the synoptic words of Jesus, Bretschneider concluded that they not only significantly differ in style but also in content. According to him, strong dissimilarity especially comes to the fore in the Johannine Jesus’ emphasis on his divine nature and character. Bretschneider’s observation that Jesus’ utterances can be, at times, hardly distinguished from the words of the evangelist only served to confirm that the Gospel of John does not contain the actual words of Jesus. And although he did not specify the amount of non-historical material he assumed in the teaching of Jesus in John, Bretschneider clearly stated that “it is also quite incredible that the first evangelists invented Jesus’ practices, teachings, and method of instruction;; but it is quite believable that the author of the Fourth Gospel could have created his Jesus.” 74 70 Ibid., 26-44. 71 Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider, Probabilia de evangelii et epistolarum Joannis, apostoli, indole et origine eruditorum judiciis modeste subjecit (Leipzig, 1820). [The English translation of the title is taken from William Baird, History of New Testament Research: From Deism to Tübingen (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 312.] 72 Cf. Schmithals, Johannesevangelium, 56-60. 73 Citation taken from Werner Georg Kümmel, The New Testament: The History of the Investigation of Its Problems, trans. S. McLean Gilmour and Howard C. Kee (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), 85-86. Almost a half-cenutry later, a similar argumentation was taken on in England by John James Tayler, An Attempt to Ascertain the Character of the Fourth Gospel; Especially in Its Relation to the Three First (London: Williams & Norgate, 1867). [See the summary of Tayler’s views in Baird, New Testament Research, 314-19.] 74 Ibid., 86. 26 In 1835 David Friedrich Strauß published his Life of Jesus, frequently appealing to Bretschneider in his treatment of the Fourth Gospel while at the same time preparing the way for all subsequent critical study of the Johannine discourses. Although Strauß applied his historical criticism to the gospel tradition as a whole, he considered the Fourth Gospel, when compared with the Synoptics, as an advanced form of unhistorical myth. 75 He emphatically asserted that both form and style of the Johannine discourses are not only significantly different from Jesus’ teaching style in the Synoptic Gospels, but are clearly reminiscent of the evangelist’s own dictum. This suggests that the evangelist has foisted them on Jesus in order to promote his own theology. 76 The content of Jesus’ words in John may still be authentic, as Strauß himself concedes. However, giving precedence to the practical and less dogmatic teaching of the Synoptic Jesus, he was not able to find in the Johannine discourses valuable material with content going back to the historical Jesus. Thus, for Strauß, apart from several foundational convictions of Jesus, which may have some historical plausibility because of their parallelism to the synoptic tradition, Johannine discourses as a whole have to be considered “as free compositions of the evangelist.” 77 While Strauß had confronted New Testament scholarship with a choice between the Synoptic Gospels and John, only to devalue subsequently both as historical sources, it was Ferdinand Christian Baur who proclaimed the superiority of the Synoptic Gospels as the more reliable representations of the life of Christ. In the wake of the “Tübingen criticism” the alternative “Synoptics or John” became paradigmatic. Baur’s historical analysis allocated to the Fourth Gospel an origin not earlier than the mid-second century thus excluding the possibility of John’s Gospel being an eyewitness tes- 75 David Friedrich Strauß, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined, ed. Peter C. Hodgson, trans. George Eliot [from the 4th German edition] (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1972). See also the comprehensive summary in Kümmel, The New Testament, 120-26, who not only quotes significant texts concerning Strauß’ view of the Fourth Gospel, but also notes that Strauß has eased his criticism of the Fourth Gospel in the third German edition (1838/ 39) of his Leben Jesu, only to restore his original text in the fourth edition (1840). 76 For Strauß’ whole argument regarding the authenticity of the Johannine discourses, see chapter 7 in the second part of his Life of Jesus, 365-86: “Discourses of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel.” 77 Ibid., 386. For a more detailed summary of Strauß’ views concerning the Fourth Gospel, see Schmithals, Johannesevangelium, 61-63. Another 19th century scholar who rejected the historicity of the Johannine discourses on the grounds of its assumed differences with the Synoptic Gospels was Ernest Renan, The Life of Jesus, trans. Charles Edwin Wilbour (New York: Carleton, 1864). For a fuller discussion of Renan’s perspective on the speech material in John, see Justin Taylor, “The Johannine Discourses and the Speech of Jesus: Five Views,” ScrB 14 (1984): 35-36. 27 timony. Within his broader theological framework, Baur understood the Fourth Gospel as a document of Johannine theology superseding earlier forms of Christian tradition (including both synoptic and Pauline traditions) and more interested in spiritual ideas than in their historical grounding. 78 In his essay “Über die Composition und den Charakter des johanneischen Evangeliums” (1844) Baur had already stated that the main argument, according to which the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel had to be assessed, was its relationship to the three Synoptic Gospels. 79 As for Jesus’ discourses in John, Baur identified one major difference between the first three and the Fourth Gospel: whereas Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptic Gospels was heavily concerned with the basilei,a tou/ qeou/ , Jesus’ discourses in John were simply explications of the Johannine logo,j -theology - a strong indicator for their inauthenticity. 80 The unintelligibility of the Johannine discourses as well as their connexion with events that Baur regarded as historically improbable were considered as further arguments for the non-historical character of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel. 81 In Baur’s view, the Fourth Evangelist had Jesus speak according to his own imagination: “Alles ist also durch seine [i.e., the evangelist’s] Subjektivität hindurchgegangen.” 82 Finally, Baur’s rejection of a strict differentiation between the authenticity of wording and the authenticity of content (which had been proposed by Friedrich Lücke) needs to be seen as a corollary of his evaluation of the Johannine-Synoptic relationship. To say that the Johannine discourses are authentic, yet not rendered verbatim, is no solution to the critical problem, since the same is true of the synoptic sayings. Thus, Baur seems to insist that for the observable differences between Matthew, Mark, and Luke on the one hand and for John on the other remain and call for a negative assessment of Johannine authenticity. 83 78 Ferdinand Christian Baur, Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien, ihr Verhältnis zu einander, ihren Charakter und Ursprung (Tübingen: Fues, 1847), 312ff.; Ferdinand Christian Baur, Vorlesungen über Neutestamentliche Theologie (Leipzig: Fues, 1864), 401; cf. Schmithals, Johannesevangelium, 67-69. 79 Ferdinand Christian Baur, “Über die Composition und den Charakter des johanneischen Evangeliums. Zweiter Abschnitt,” ThJB 3/ 1 (1844): 439. 80 Ibid., 467. 81 Ibid., 458-59. 82 Ibid., 455. 83 Ibid., 452-54. In France, it was Alfred Loisy, who in his commentary Le Quatrième Évangile (Paris: Picard, 1903), 55-56, severely questioned the authenticity of John (including the discourses) on the basis of its difference to the Synoptics: “Sur ce point comme sur beaucoup d’autres, la différence avec les Synoptiques est tout à fait remarquable (…). Tous les matériaux que l’auteur a utilisés ont passé par le creuset de sa puissante intelligence et de son âme mystique. (…) Le quatrième Évangile n’est donc pas à interpréter comme la simple expression de souvenirs traditionnels, comme le témoignage authentique (…). A prendre les choses en général, les Synoptiques ne sont pas à compléter par Jean, ni Jean par les Synoptiques.” 28 No discussion of the authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel can manage without mentioning the work of Rudolf Bultmann. Already in 1925 Bultmann introduced his thesis of a “revelation discourse source” as part of his answer to the literary and historical riddles of the Fourth Gospel. 84 This thesis was further developed and executed in the several installments of his commentary on John between 1937 and 1941. 85 Armed with the methods of literary criticism and the tools of the history-of-religions school, Bultmann suggested that the evangelist used for his own representation of Jesus’ teaching an independent “discourse source” that contained the Gnostic redeemer myth. The author of the Fourth Gospel thus took over a non- Christian source, pervaded by Gnostic mythology, in order to communicate his own theology of Jesus’ revelatory incarnation. In addition, Bultmann repeatedly maintained that these “revelation-discourses” were characteristically different from the synoptic speech tradition and that the relation of John to the Synoptics already reveals a removal from the history of Jesus. 86 The consequences of Bultmann’s contribution for the historical value of the Johannine discourses are all too obvious. In his book Jesus and the Word he concluded that “the Gospel of John cannot be taken into account at all as a source for the teaching of Jesus.” 87 Although his reconstruction of Johannine origins has been frequently and severely criticized, 88 many have followed Bultmann’s path and have discounted the Fourth Gospel’s picture of Jesus’ teaching as mere theological myth. 89 84 Rudolf Bultmann, “Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und manichäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums,” ZNW 24 (1925): 100- 46. 85 Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. G.R. Beasley-Murray (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971) [first complete German edition 1941; English version translated from the 1964 printing]. 86 Rudolf Bultmann, “Johannesevangelium,” in H - Kon, vol. 3 of RGG, ed. Kurt Galling (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 3 1959), 842-46. 87 Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus and the Word, trans. L.P. Smith and E.H. Lantero (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1958), 12 [first German edition 1926]. Cf. Ernst Käsemann, “Sackgassen im Streit um den historischen Jesus,” in vol. 2 of Exegetische Versuche und Besinnungen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2 1965), 54: “Insofern legt Johannes sie [i.e., the tradition] ja auch dem über die Erde schreitenden Jesus in den Mund und gestaltet sie in Form eines Evangeliums (…). Es spielt keine Rolle, dass nichts historisch im Sinne des Authentischen ist.” 88 See, e.g., Eugen Ruckstuhl, Die literarische Einheit des Johannesevangeliums: Der gegenwärtige Stand der Forschungen, NTOA 5 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1987). 89 John Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 9-117, has provided us with an interesting assessment of Bultmann’s relevance for Johannine studies as a whole in his description of the development of research both before and after Bultmann. Without focussing explicitly on the Johannine discourses, Ashton himself concludes that John has no interest in the historical Jesus as such so that what the Fourth Gospel reports about Jesus is not “history in any meaningful sense” (427). Close to Bultmann is his student Helmut Koester, who argues in his book Ancient 29 The catholic scholar Franz Mussner in his small monograph The Historical Jesus in the Gospel of John (1967) has similarly addressed the question of whether and to what extent the Johannine Christ may be identified with the historical Jesus. 90 In this regard, it is especially the typically Johannine character of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel that catched Mussner’s attention. As he reflected on the “Johannine mode of vision” (“johanneische Sehweise”) he took up H.-G. Gadamers hermeneutical approach and interpreted the Johannine representation in the sense of “Vergegenwärtigung.” This means that “Jesus of Nazareth is so expressed by John in his act of vision that the history of Christ projected and presented by him simultaneously gives an answer to the Christological questions of the time of its composition.” 91 The Johannine discourses are thus understood as kerygmatic words of the risen Christ imparted by the promised Spirit-Paraclete whereas this pneumatic interpretation of the history of Jesus is based on the preceding tradition of the early church. This is to say that while the Johannine account of the words of Jesus is somewhat bound to history, it is yet impossible to distinguish between the historical Jesus and the risen Christ. With respect to the question of authenticity this concept of theological anamnesis led Mussner to conclude that “the question of the ipsissima vox Jesu, which in regard to the synoptic tradition is an entirely meaningful one, becomes almost without object, if not meaningless, in regard to the fourth gospel.” 92 Thus qualified as a mainly theological reinterpretation, the Johannine discourses are merely words of the evangelist (or his community) that do not allow a specific query into the underlying, historically authentic tradition. When in 1996 the well-known Jesus Seminar published its research findings in The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus, it claimed to represent a wide spectrum of North American scholarship involved in the quest for the historical Jesus. 93 The Jesus Seminar was founded in 1985 and eventually over two hundred critical gospel specialists, called Fellows, were part of the group. The explicit purpose of the deliberations of the Jesus Seminar was “to assess the degree of scholarly consensus about the historical authenticity of each of the sayings of Jesus” 94 and to make these research findings accessible for the general public. The Fellows of the Seminar considered themselves as critical scholars (as opposed to non-critical scholars), not willing to let dogmatic considerations to interfere with their historical judgments. Christian Gospels that the evangelist used and expanded older existing sayings with a Gnostic imprint to compose his discourses, which implies a similar judgement as regards the historical value of the Fourth Gospel. Cf. also Michael Theobald, Herrenworte im Johannesevangelium, Herders Biblische Studien 34 (Freiburg: Herder, 2002), 538-53. 90 Franz Mussner, The Historical Jesus in the Gospel of John, trans. W.J. O’Hara, QD (London: Burns & Oates, 1967) [first German edition 1965]. 91 Ibid., 46. 92 Ibid., 81. 93 Robert W. Funk and Roy W. Hoover, eds., The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Scribner, 1996). 94 This purpose statement goes back to Marcus Borg (one of the members of the Jesus Seminar), “The Jesus Seminar and the Church,” in Jesus in Contemporary Scholarship (Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1994), 162. 30 Having adopted the central methodological premises of form criticism, the Jesus Seminar emphasized the fundamental discrepancy between the Jesus of history and the Christ of faith. 95 This, of course, directly influenced their assessment of the historical reliability of the gospel accounts. Claiming that none of the gospel writers was actually an earor eyewitness of the words and events that he reported, it was the basic conviction of the Jesus Seminar that the evangelists felt free to invent sayings and to put into Jesus’ mouth words that did not reflect his own teaching but rather addressed the needs of the contemporary church. The evangelists thus functioned as storytellers who imported into their narratives fictitious sayings of Jesus that reflected the theological agenda of their community. 96 In doing so, they simply followed the common practice of historians of their own time. 97 Further, the Jesus Seminar also refers to the gospel writers’ “christianizing Jesus,” meaning that “[Jesus] is made to confess what Christians had come to believe.” 98 When it comes to the authenticity of Jesus’ words reported in the Gospels, the Seminar collaboratively rated about 18 percent of the 1,500 sayings of Jesus (including those of the Gospel of Thomas) as undoubtedly going back to him (in red letters) or as probably close to what he said (in pink letters). 99 The findings of the Jesus Seminar with regard to the authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel in particular were explicitly based on the assumption that the portraits of Jesus and his teaching given by John and the Synoptic Gospels could not both be historically accurate. Not surprisingly, in their evaluation the Fellows of the Seminar “were unable to find a single saying [in John] they could with certainty trace back to the historical Jesus.” 100 Despite this conclusion, they did find at least a few 95 For an overview of their methodological premises, see Funk and Hoover, Five Gospels, 2-34, as well as an earlier publication of the Jesus Seminar, Robert W. Funk and Mahlon Smith, The Gospel of Mark: Red Letter Edition (Sonoma: Polebridge Press, 1991), 1-26. 96 Cf. also the following statement by D. Moody Smith, “The Problem of History in John,” in What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies, ed. Tom Thatcher (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007), 313: “That the Johannine Jesus is preaching the gospel of the post-resurrection church has been apparent to most exegetes since the rise of historical criticism.” 97 Funk and Hoover, Five Gospels, 29. 98 Ibid., 24. 99 As the title of their publication already suggests, the Jesus Seminar uses the Gospel of Thomas as a source for the authentic words of Jesus alongside the canonical Gospels (ibid., 15). See also 549-53 for the complete list of what the Jesus Seminar perceived to be authentic or probably authentic speech material. 100 Ibid., 10 (9-13). Only some years earlier, A. T. Hanson, The Prophetic Gospel: A Study of John and the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 318, had stated in a somewhat more moderate fashion, that “John (…) has his own historical tradition, which appears to be inferior to that of the Synoptics, though not without some value.” Howev- 31 sayings with possible synoptic parallels, thus leading to a slightly more positive assessment. For one saying the scholars conceded that Jesus probably said something like this (in pink letters): “A prophet gets no respect on his own turf.” [John 4: 43;; cf. Matt 13: 57;; Mark 6: 4;; Luke 4: 24] In view of two other dominical words they would at least maintain that the underlying ideas are close to his own (in grey letters): “I swear to God, unless the kernel of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains a single seed; but if it dies, it produces a great harvest. Those who love life lose it, but those who hate life in this world will preserve it for unending, real life.” [John 12: 24- 25; cf. Matt 16: 25; Mark 8: 35; Luke 9: 24] “I swear to God, if they welcome the person I send, they welcome me;; and if they welcome me, they welcome the one who sent me.” [John 13: 20; cf. Matt 10: 40; Luke 10: 16] The rest of Jesus’ words are printed in black in the Seminar’s Gospel edition, signifying that the vast majority of Johannine sayings represent inauthentic theology colored by the convictions of the early church with no link to the historical teaching of Jesus at all. 101 A preliminary climax in the skeptical evaluation of the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel has been reached with Maurice Casey. In his earlier work From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The Origins and Development of New Testament Christology (1991) Casey already classified the Fourth Gospel not as an authentic representation of the historical Jesus but as a deceptive development, the theological product of the early church. 102 With the publication in 1996 of his book Is John’s Gospel True? , Casey started an even more radical attack against the historical authenticity of the Fourth Gospel. 103 With no less a goal than “to prove beyond all reasonable doubt” 104 the historical inaccuracy of John’s Gospel, Casey’s answer to his title’s question is a resounding “No.” For him, one of the strongest arguments against the trust- er, even he comes to the final conclusion that “[John has] not provided us with a reliable historical account of Jesus.” [italics mine] 101 Being himself a member of the Jesus Seminar, Gerd Lüdemann’s assessment of the historical value of the Fourth Gospel is even more negative. In the register of all authentic words and deeds of Jesus at the end of his book Jesus after 2000 Years: What he really said and did, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM, 2000), 695, he lists not even one (! ) passage in John; cf. also 416-588 for a detailed discussion of the Gospel of John by co-author Frank Schleritt, who starts his treatment with the words: “Anyone who is in search of the historical Jesus will not find him in the Gospel of John. For the Fourth Gospel has already left far behind what Jesus really said and did.” 102 Maurice Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The Origins and Development of New Testament Christology (Cambridge: Clark, 1991). 103 Idem., Is John’s Gospel True? (London: Routledge, 1996). 104 Ibid., 2. 32 worthiness of the Fourth Gospel is its relationship to the other canonical Gospels. A comparison between John and the Synoptics reveals significant differences; so serious that both representations cannot be right. Focusing especially on the Christology inherent in Jesus’ teaching, Casey argues that most of this christological material “is quite unlike anything in the synoptic Gospels,” which shows that it is historically inauthentic and originated within the Johannine community. 105 He assumes, for example, that if the term “the Son” or “the Son of God” had been used by the historical Jesus as extensively as John says he did, the authors of the Synoptic Gospels would have certainly transmitted it extensively. He applies the same line of reasoning to the teaching of Jesus’ preexistence and incarnation as evidence for his deity. The absence of these concepts in the Synoptics makes it almost impossible that Jesus had actually expounded them. Similarly, with regard to the Johannine “I am”sayings, Casey maintains: “The synoptic Jesus does not make statements of this kind. If the Jesus of history did in fact make them, the omission of every one of them from the synoptics is simply incomprehensible.” 106 Generally, Casey’s skepticism regarding the authenticity of the Johannine material is embedded in (and even legitimized by) a more detailed reconstruction of the Sitz im Leben of the Fourth Gospel. Against the background of the common pseudepigraphical habits of the first century, he suggests that the Gospel of John is a non-apostolic and historically inauthentic rewriting of tradition in accordance with the needs of the Johannine community. 107 This theological portrayal of Jesus and his teaching (as opposed to the one of the Synoptics) has to be interpreted in light of the community’s rejection by the Jewish synagogue which was accompanied by an increasingly Gentile self-identification and led to a developing Christology which was incompatible with the Jewish monotheism that Jesus himself and his apostles had embraced. It is this hermeneutical framework that allows Casey not only to expose the supposedly anti-Semitic and thus morally dubious character of the Fourth Gospel but also to maintain with almost unsurpassable poignancy the historical inauthenticity of the Johannine discourses and their narrative context. 108 105 Ibid., 33. 106 Casey, Jewish Prophet, 26 (23-27). See also chapter 3 “Christology” in idem., Is John’s Gospel True? , 30-62, as well as 80-81: “As so often, it is the absence of Johannine material from the synoptics that makes its historicity so unlikely. When we recall how much of the contents are likewise not found in the synoptics, a very strong argument of cumulative weight has been formed.” For a critical evaluation of Casey’s argument, cf. Evans, “Historical Reliability,” 109-14. 107 Cf. also the somewhat similar reconstruction of Johannine origins by J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Nashville: Abingdon, 2 1979). 108 Casey, Jewish Prophet, 27-40; as well as idem., Is John’s Gospel True? , 98-139. 33 In 2002 Michael Theobald published his voluminous work Herrenworte im Johannesevangelium. Though Theobald is not primarily concerned with the historical authenticity of the dominical sayings in John, his tradition-critical study is built on the assumption that the discourses reported in the Fourth Gospel are mainly fictitious compositions of oral speech: “The historical Jesus did not speak in such a manner [i.e., as represented in the Fourth Gospel].” 109 In his attempt to uncover the transmission process behind the Johannine sayings tradition, he differentiates between those sayings that have a “synoptic basis” and those that are unique to John’s Gospel. 110 In both cases the formative role of the Johannine community in the transmission process is axiomatic. Johannine sayings bearing reference to the Synoptics actually go back to pre-literary material and have been characteristically shaped within Johannine circles. However, even among those early, pre-Johannine sayings, there are only few that may have some credibility as being utterances of the historical Jesus: 111 “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. (…) I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.” [John 3: 3.5] “I tell you the truth, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.” [John 13: 16] “I tell you the truth, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me;; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me.” [John 13: 20;; cf. the Jesus Seminar above] “And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” [John 14: 13-14] The Sitz im Leben of the uniquely Johannine material is similarly located by Theobald within the community of the evangelist. The ev gw, eivmi -sayings, for example, are said to reflect the theological attempt of the Johannine community to come to terms with the schism from and the challenge by the Jewish synagogue. 112 Jesus’ christological predications in the Fourth Gospel 109 Michael Theobald, Herrenworte, V: „Der historische Jesus hat so nicht gesprochen.” [English translation mine] 110 See ibid., esp. section B: “‘Herrenworte’ auf synoptischer Basis” (60-244) and section C: “Dem Johannesevangelium eigene ‘Herrenworte’” (245-524). 111 Ibid., 197. According to Theobald, for John 12: 25 and 20: 23 an authentic origin is less likely. In as much as he recognizes authentic dominical sayings he comes closer to the moderate-skeptical view introduced under 1.2.2. 112 Ibid., 245-333, esp. 329: “Die Gruppe, aus der die joh. Gemeinden hervorwuchsen, hatte sich notgedrungen von ihrer jüdischen Muttergemeinde trennen müssen, da sie mit ihrem Bekenntnis zu Jesus als dem von Gott selbst herstammenden einzigen ‘Sohn’ in den schwerwiegenden Verdacht eines ‘Ditheismus’ geraten war, der als grobe Verletzung des biblischen Monotheismus (vgl. 5,18; 10,33.36; 19,7) mit der Ausstoßung aus der Synagoge geahndet wurde (vgl. 9,22.34;; 12,42). (…) Der Evangelist reagiert mit seinem Buch auf dieses Schisma, dessen nicht zu unterschätzende Folgen 34 are likewise drawn from earlier traditions that have been creatively enhanced. 113 What serves as the hermeneutical paradigm for such a presentation of the development of the Johannine discourses is the well-known form-critical assumption that canonical words of the earthly Jesus may have their origin in the utterances of early Christian prophets who communicated words of the risen Christ to the assembled congregation, a view already popularized by Bultmann. 114 With regard to the origin of the Johannine discourses this kind of understanding is theologically legitimized by what Theobald has called a “hermeneutics of remembrance” (“Hermeneutik der Erinnerung”). The transmission of dominical logia rests upon the promised Spirit-Paraclete, whose function it is to remind the disciples post resurrectionem of the words spoken by Jesus. Yet, in the eyes of Theobald, this process of remembrance is not an antiquarian repetition of the words of Jesus, but is understood as creative interpretation, as a theological actualization for the present. “As the Paraclete commemoratively utters the words of Jesus in a new way, he thereby legitimizes the process of producing dominical sayings (…).” 115 Theobald does not specify his convictions regarding the actual degree of historical content in the Johannine discourses; again, he is not primarily interested in the historical question. However, his tradition-critical reconstruction with its underlying hermeneutical framework makes him a representative voice among those who regard the Johannine speech material as a secondary development and thus as mainly inauthentic theology. 116 er mit ihm theologisch aufarbeiten will.” See now also idem., Das Evangelium nach Johannes. Kapitel 1 - 12, RNT (Regensburg: Pustet, 2009), 46-47, 62-63, 66-70. 113 Ibid., 423-77 (under the heading “Weisheitsworte”). Johannine christological statements are perceived as a “sehr eigenständige und kreative Fortschreibung eines Typs von Weisheitsworten” (477). 114 Ibid., 332. Cf. Rudolf Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, trans. John Marsh (Oxford: Blackwell, 1963), 127-28. 115 Ibid., 611: “Sagt er, der Paraklet, die Worte Jesu - an sie erinnernd - ganz neu, dann legitimiert er so auch den Prozess der Produktion von Jesus-Worten (...).” [English translation mine] Cf. the whole chapter 12: “Hermeneutik der ‘Erinnerung’” (600-18). Cf. also, more generally, Jean Zumstein, “Der irdische Jesus im Johannesevangelium,” in Kreative Erinnerung: Relecture und Auslegung im Johannesevangelium, ATANT 84 (Zürich: TVZ, 2 2004), 80: “Aus der österlichen Retrospektive versucht das Evangelium, das Geschehene sowohl zu wiederholen (Mimesis), als auch neu zu schaffen. (...) Die Tiefe der Interpretation [by means of the Paraclete] macht die Fiktionalisierung des historischen Berichts notwendig.” 116 For similar voices as regards the legitimizing role of the Paraclete among German speaking scholars, see now the essays by Jörg Frey (“Das Vierte Evangelium auf dem Hintergrund der älteren Evangelientradition,” 60-118 [esp. 105-09]) and Udo Schnelle (“Theologie als kreative Sinnbildung: Johannes als Weiterbildung von Paulus und Markus,” 119-45 [esp.135-36]) in Johannesevangelium - Mitte oder Rand des Kanons? Neue Standortbestimmungen, ed. Thomas Söding, QD 203 (Freiburg: Herder, 2003). 35 1.2.2 The Moderate-Skeptical View: The Johannine Discourses as Containing Pieces of Authentic Tradition Already in 1953, C. H. Dodd began to consider the historical aspect of the Gospel of John in his work The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. He regards “the Fourth Gospel as being in its essential character a theological work, rather than a history” while maintaining that “it is important for the evangelist that what he narrates happened.” 117 At the same time, Dodd is able to say as regards the Johannine discourses that the author of the Fourth Gospel “has put into the mouth of his characters speeches which (…) cannot be regarded as historical.” 118 Ten years later, in his influential study Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, Dodd further elaborates on the historical value of the Gospel of John, including a long section on the sayings of Jesus. 119 His method of tackling the historical questions is an examination of the relationship between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics. Denying any literary dependence between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics, he argues that where Johannine material is close to the Synoptics we have strong evidence for the assumption that both streams independently go back to an oral, pre-canonical tradition. 120 Throughout his study, Dodd implies that this early traditional material has a strong historical pedigree. Since he is able to put forward a significant number of contacts between John and the Synoptics, Dodd is led to the conclusion “that behind the Fourth Gospel lies an ancient tradition independent of the other gospels, 117 Dodd, Interpretation, 444. 118 Ibid., 444-45. 119 In his introduction, Dodd refers to one of the classic advocates of the kind of middle position sketched in this section, namely that we find authentic, historical material even in a theological work as the Fourth Gospel. Dodd rightly summarizes the view of Edwyn Hoskyns and his editor Noel Davey exposed in their commentary The Fourth Gospel (London: Faber and Faber, 1940), 4, saying that “they regard with suspicion any attempt to distinguish between the facts themselves and their interpretation; and they discourage any expectation of finding an answer to the question whether the Fourth Evangelist had command of trustworthy information upon the facts beyond that which is accessible to us in the Synoptic Gospels.” Thus, although Hoskyns would certainly disapprove of any attempt to answer the historical question, he nevertheless agrees with those scholars we classified here as moderate-skeptical that “there is no evidence that the Fourth Evangelist invented (…) sayings of Jesus out of the air” (127), while, at the same time, the existing historical tradition has been significantly and untraceably interwoven with the theological interpretation of the gospel writer. For a short, yet insightful overview of Hoskyns’ answer to the “problem of history and theology” in John, see Ashton, Understanding, 40-43. 120 For this line of reasoning cf. also his earlier article “Some Johannine ‘Herrnworte’ [sic! ] with Parallels in the Synoptic Gospels,” NTS 2 (1955/ 56): 75-86, in which he compared four Johannine Jesus-sayings (namely, John 12: 25; 13: 16, 20; 20: 23) with their synoptic parallels. 36 and meriting serious consideration as a contribution to our knowledge of the historical facts concerning Jesus Christ.” 121 Regarding the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John, he writes that “much of the teaching in the Fourth Gospel is embodied in literary forms which are an original creation of the evangelist. But it is clear that he had at his disposal a body of traditional sayings, parables, and dialogues, handed down separately or in formal sequences, which were drawn from the same general reservoir as those in the Synoptic Gospels, dealing with the same, or kindred, themes.” 122 Yet, Dodd’s comparative approach is far from leading to the conclusion that all or even most of the speech material presented in John is historically accurate. All that Dodd does is trace the content of certain elements of Jesus’ teaching in John to a pre-canonical (and thus supposedly historical) tradition that has been molded into its distinctive literary form by the Fourth Evangelist. This is to say that the author of the Fourth Gospel did not create his discourses ex nihilo, but used pieces of traditional material that he incorporated into his own theological exposition and that he (mainly) expressed in his own idiom. Thus, without regarding the Fourth Gospel as historical per se, Dodd finds a significant amount of authentic tradition within the Johannine discourses. The importance that this renowned Johannine scholar ascribes to his comparative approach for the retrieval of historical material in the Gospel of John becomes apparent as Dodd states that he does not “at present see any way of identifying further traditional material in the Fourth Gospel, where comparison with the other Gospels fails us, without giving undue weight to subjective impressions.” 123 121 C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: University Press, 1963), 423. Already in Interpretation, 446, Dodd had remarked: “The question is, whether the fundamental significance of this episode in the history of mankind (…) is expressed more adequately, or less, through the one set of conceptions or through the other [i.e. John or the Synoptics! ]; or whether the two modes of expression are complementary to one another, and both essential to a view of the facts which shall be historical in the widest sense. I believe that the course which was taken by Leben-Jesu- Forschung (…) proves that a severe concentration on the Synoptic record, to the exclusion of the Johannine contribution, leads to an impoverished, a one-sided, and finally an incredible view of the facts-I mean, of the facts, as part of history.” In his work The Authority of the Bible (London: Nisbet, 2 1955), 228-29, which was first published in 1928, Dodd still sounded differently: “We may now say with confidence that for strictly historical material, with the minimum of subjective interpretation, we must not go to the Fourth Gospel. (…) But it is to the Synoptic Gospels that we must go, if we wish to recover the oldest and purest tradition of the facts.” 122 Dodd, Historical Tradition, 430. Cf. also idem., Interpretation, 451. 123 Ibid., 431. [italics mine] It seems that C. K. Barrett, in his influential commentary on the Fourth Gospel, comes to similar conclusions regarding its historical reliability, when he writes, “This means that the chronicler can sometimes (though less frequently than is often thought) pick out from John simple and sound historical material (…)” (Barrett, John, 141). 37 In the rarely noted 1967 essay “The Portrait of Jesus in John and in the Synoptics,” Dodd takes his methodological insights even further. He compares the Johannine discourse in John 5: 19-30 with the portrait of Jesus in the Synoptics with special focus on similarities on the level of ideas. His comparison yields positive results as he finds several conceptual correspondences (some closer than others) that led him to the conclusion: “the similarities we have noted will go far to assure us that behind the two renderings of the portrait [i.e., the Synoptics and John] there stands a real historical person.” 124 At roughly the same time as Dodd, A. J. B. Higgins addressed the question of the historical value of the Fourth Gospel in his work The Historicity of the Fourth Gospel, taking its relationship to the Synoptics as the starting point. While regarding John’s Gospel as literary independent from the other three Gospels, for Higgins it is axiomatic that the differences between the Johannine and the synoptic account of Jesus’ life and teaching may not be exaggerated, yet where they exist they are caused by theological motives. 125 Although the teaching of Jesus in John contains thoughts that are superimposed by the evangelist, Higgins is willing to ascribe some historical validity to the Johannine discourses, “for there appears to be no good reason to deny that Jesus may on occasion have spoken at some length on a particular topic.” 126 Regarding individual elements of Jesus’ teaching, Higgins is confident to find genuine tradition especially in those places where the words of Jesus in John closely resemble in form those in the Synoptics. He presumes, however, that the sayings that are uniquely Johannine “were derived from as reliable a tradition as those which are guaranteed by their Synoptic parallels.” 127 This is then combined with the suggestion that the Johannine discourses may represent an expansion of dominical logia according to the nature of “Jewish targumistic paraphrase and explanation,” a view that would be further developed by Barnabas Lindars (see below). 128 A few years later, Raymond E. Brown in the introduction to his commentary on the Fourth Gospel gave some thought to its historical reliability. In this magisterial work Brown posits five stages in the development of the Fourth Gospel, which has strong implications 124 C. H. Dodd, “The Portrait of Jesus in John and in the Synoptics,” in Christian History and Interpretation: Studies Presented to John Knox, ed. W. R. Farmer et al. (Cambridge: University Press, 1967), 195. See below chapter 1.3.2. 125 A. J. B. Higgins, The Historicity of the Fourth Gospel (London: Lutterworth, 1960), 65. 126 Ibid., 67. 127 Ibid., 71. See also his later article “The Words of Jesus According to St. John,” BJRL 49 (1966/ 67): 363-86, where he further tried to recover genuine sayings of Jesus in John (even on the level of ipsissima verba [! ]) with the conclusion that Johannine tradition “may well preserve also some authentic features of Jesus’ teaching, both in form and content, different though these commonly are from the synoptic record” (385). 128 Ibid., 69. Several decades earlier, W. F. Howard (following E. A. Abbott) has stated in The Fourth Gospel in Recent Criticism and Interpretation (London: Epworth, 1931), 229, that “the Fourth Evangelist has given a Targum upon the text of some words of the Lord spoken (…). The Targum is sometimes an almost literal translation of the actual words that were spoken; sometimes a free paraphrase; sometimes an interpretative exposition.” 38 for his evaluation of the Gospel’s authenticity. 129 Although at this point Brown is not particularly concerned with the Johannine discourses, he would assume, as a first stage, a body of traditional sayings of Jesus. As stage two, Brown posits that the sayings of Jesus “were woven [by a supposed Johannine school] into lengthy discourses of a solemn and poetic character.” For the third stage, this material was assembled into a first edition of the Gospel, followed by a secondary edition (stage four) that became necessary because of contemporary challenges that again required “the introduction of new material [apparently including newly created speech material] designed to meet new problems.” All this was completed by a final redaction. In a revised version of this introduction to the Gospel of John, posthumously published and edited by Francis J. Moloney, Brown assumes only three stages in the genesis of the Fourth Gospel with stage one being an eyewitness tradition of Jesus’ ministry, and stage two being the oral proclamation of this tradition in which the beloved disciple (who is, according to Brown, not one of the Twelve) played a crucial role. Stage three contains the creative writing of the evangelist as well as a final editing by a redactor of the Johannine school. When it comes to the historical value of the Fourth Gospel as a whole (and thus the Johannine discourses in particular) it seems that these revisions in his developmental theory have not significantly altered Brown’s historical judgement, since it is still true that “we cannot neglect the inevitable modifications made in the various stages of Johannine composition.” 130 While assuming for the Johannine discourses a core of underlying, primitive material with plausible claims to authenticity, he maintains that John’s Gospel is far more theologically stamped than its synoptic counterparts and therefore should not to be reckoned as, what Brown calls, scientific history. Thus, he concludes that “although I think that the Fourth Gospel reflects historical memories of Jesus, the greater extent of the theological reshaping of those memories makes Johannine material harder to use in the quest of the historical Jesus than most Synoptic material.” 131 In 1980 another leading catholic Johannine scholar, Rudolf Schnackenburg, published his essay on tradition and interpretation in the speech material of the Fourth Gospel. 132 In this essay, Schnackenburg examines different types of Johannine sayings, which he distinguishes as follows: (1) synoptic logia within John’s Gospel;; (2) Johannine logia based on synoptic tradition;; and (3) Johannine logia with no connection to synoptic tradition. Schnackenburg assumes underlying traditions that are somewhat historically credible only for the first category of sayings. With regard to the other two categories, he repeatedly refers to them as enhancements of traditional material (“Weiterentwicklung”) or entirely new Johannine formations (“Neuformulierung, Neubildung”) - terminology that signifies more than a 129 Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (i-xii), AB 29 (New York: Doubleday, 1966), xxxiv-xxxix. 130 Ibid., li. 131 Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the Gospel of John, ed. Francis J. Moloney, ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 2003), 107; also idem., John (i-xii), xlix, where he used the same words, only saying that to use Johannine material is “much harder.” 132 Printed in the fourth supplementary volume of the German version of his commentary: Rudolf Schnackenburg, “Tradition und Interpretation im Spruchgut des Johannesevangeliums” in Ergänzende Auslegungen und Exkurse, vol. 4 of Das Johannesevangelium, HTKNT IV/ 4 (Freiburg: Herder, 1984), 72-89. 39 simple stylistic or verbal recasting of Jesus tradition by the author of the Fourth Gospel. Rather, Schnackenburg maintains that the Johannine discourses reveal both the willingness and the capability of the evangelist to articulate his own theological interpretation in the words of Jesus. 133 Less optimistic than Dodd, Schnackenburg’s traditionand redaction-critical deliberations still lead him to conclude that elements of the Johannine discourses have roots within an earlier (and thus basically authentic) tradition of speech material. 134 This fits his view on the authorship of the Fourth Gospel that he proposes was written by a close follower of the apostle John who had at his disposal genuine information from the apostle. The controlling factor in the formation of the Johannine Discourses is thus the intention of the evangelist to bring forth, according to his own christological convictions, a kerygmatic re-interpretation of the life of Jesus, yet tied to earlier dependable tradition. 135 In the footsteps of C. H. Dodd, Barnabas Lindars has concerned himself with redaction-critical approaches to the Johannine discourses focussing on the evangelist’s handling of underlying traditional material. 136 In dealing with John’s representation of the teaching of Jesus, Lindars does not factor out the historical question “whether Jesus actually said the things that are attributed to him in the Fourth Gospel.” 137 This question is not least ignited by the observation that the discourses of John stand in sharp contrast with all the known sources for the life of Jesus, including the Synoptics. 138 Yet, similar to Dodd, Lindars is able to find synoptic-type of material within the Johannine discourses that seems to prove that John made use of some kind of early sayings tradition. The Johannine discourses as a whole are classified by Lindars as homilies of the evangelist. In his view, each discourse is principally a sermon elaborating on an element of the Jesus-sayings tradition. This is to say that the evangelist composed his discourses by starting with an authentic core saying rooted in the early Jesus tradition and then 133 Ibid., 84-85: “Die großen Selbstoffenbarungsreden und die Abschiedsreden Jesu im Johannesevangelium belegen zur Genüge den Willen und die Fähigkeit des Evangelisten, seine Theologie in Worten Jesu selbst zu artikulieren.” [italics mine] 134 See in the first volume of his commentary Rudolf Schnackenburg, Introduction and Commentary on Chapters 1-4, vol. 1 of The Gospel According to St. John, transl. Kevin Smyth (New York: Crossroad, 1980), 73 [original German edition 1965]. 135 Ibid., 100-04;; as well as Schnackenburg, “Tradition und Interpretation,” 89. 136 Most of Lindars’ essays on the Johannine themes are now collected by C. M. Tuckett in Essays on John, SNTA 17 (Leuven: Peeters, 1992). Cf. also Lindars’ commentary The Gospel of John, NCB (London: Oliphants, 1972), 46-54. 137 Barnabas Lindars, John (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), 11. 138 Ibid., 33. Cf. also Barnabas Lindars, “Traditions Behind the Fourth Gospel,” BEThL 44 (1977): 113, where he refers to the Johannine discourses saying that “here we have a strand in his gospel which is totally different from anything found in the Synoptic Gospels.” 40 proceeded to elucidate on this historical Jesus material “along the lines of targumic exegesis.” 139 Thus, although we may find genuine motifs of what Jesus actually said within the Fourth Gospel, most of the discourse material in John has to be regarded as a free, midrash-like composition of the evangelist, who “has felt free to place so much of his creative writing upon the lips of Jesus.” 140 In spite of this emphasis on the creative development of the Johannine discourses, Lindars is eager to maintain that the author of the Fourth Gospel did not regard himself as an “innovator,” but rather attempted to draw out the actual meaning of the dominical sayings for the contemporary situation of his community. In this way, his own theological beliefs are grounded in “the truth of the tradition.” 141 Such an independent extension of authentic material is hermeneutically linked by Lindars to the promised guidance of the Spirit-Paraclete that served for the author of the Gospel as the necessary legitimation for his creative activity. 142 In several publications, James D. G. Dunn has addressed the problem of the historical authenticity of the Johannine discourses. Influenced by the findings of both Dodd and Lindars, Dunn makes a comparison with synoptic tradition the major factor for determining the historical value of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel. His observation that John’s Gospel “is so obviously different from the other three Gospels” makes him ask the question 139 Ibid., 115. Especially those sayings introduced by the Amen-formula were considered by Lindars as traditional (and thus for the most part authentic) sayings of Jesus (see Lindars, Gospel of John, 48). R. Alan Culpepper, “The ‘Amen, Amen’ Sayings in the Gospel of John,” in Perspectives on John: Method and Interpretation in the Fourth Gospel, ed. R. B. Sloan and M. C. Parsons (Lewiston: Mellen, 1993), 57-101, has concerned himself with the Amen-sayings as well, asking the question whether the Amenformula is indeed a “reliable indicator that the saying which follows belongs to a sayings tradition which contains primitive or authentic sayings” (60). Less optimistic than Lindars, Culpepper concludes that those sayings with clear parallels in the Synoptics (namely John 3: 3, 5; 6: 26, 53; 8: 51; 13: 16, 20, 21, 38; 16: 23-24) are most likely to be included among the traditional/ authentic words of Jesus. Cf. also Culpepper’s rather similar article “The Origin of the ‘Amen, Amen’ Sayings in the Gospel of John,” in Jesus in Johannine Tradition, ed. R. T. Fortna and T.Thatcher (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 253-62. 140 Lindars, “Traditions Behind the Fourth Gospel,” 118. 141 Barnabas Lindars, “Discourse and Tradition: The Use of the Sayings of Jesus in the Discourses of the Fourth Gospel,” JSNT 13 (1981): 98. 142 Lindars, “Traditions Behind the Fourth Gospel,” 121. Cf. also Loader, Christology, 197, who similarly concludes, that the Fourth Evangelist was “aware that what he was producing was not primarily a historical report of what Jesus once said and did. At the same time we have to place beside this the author’s concern for the Jesus of history. (...) He probably saw himself as expanding upon a central christological claim already going back to Jesus himself. But beyond this, he also felt inspired and free to expand upon and elaborate the traditions he had received and saw this as part of the continuing work of the Paraclete.” 41 whether the Johannine discourses may serve as direct testimony to the original teaching of Jesus. 143 Dunn’s skepticism is aroused by the apparent Johannine distinctives that argue against viewing John’s representation of Jesus’ teaching as mainly historical. 144 However, the view that attributes the Johannine discourses more or less to the creative imagination of the evangelist seems untenable for him as well. 145 In light of his own traditionhistorical considerations, Dunn takes a via media when he classifies the Johannine approach as “theological elaboration of history.” 146 By this he means that, similarly to his compatriot Lindars, the discourses in the Fourth Gospel are “meditations or indeed sermons (…) on particular teachings of Jesus.” 147 These sermons, says Dunn, are a combination of theology and history. The recognition of historical material is now methodologically linked to a close comparison between the Synoptics and John. Wherever this comparison reveals synoptic or synoptic-type parallels, Dunn is confident that the Fourth Gospel contains valuable, historical tradition. 148 In other words, although all the discourses are phrased in Johannine idiom, the content of certain individual sayings are rooted in historically authentic Jesus tradition. Here, once again, the presentation of Jesus’ teaching in John is seen as a free development of an earlier tradition that has not only been adapted to Johannine literary style, but whose content has been “refracted through the prism of John’s theology” and adjusted to the needs of the Johannine community at the end of the first century. 149 Finally, having formulated more clearly than most the assumption that the Synoptic Gospels provide something of a norm for the identification of older, historical Jesus tradition, Dunn, in his most recent opus magnum, summarizes his 143 James D. G. Dunn, The Evidence for Jesus (Louisville: Westminster Press, 1985), 31-32. 144 James D. G. Dunn, “John and the Oral Gospel Tradition,” in Jesus and the Oral Gospel Tradition, ed. Henry Wansbrough, JSNTSup 64 (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1991), 352; also Dunn, Evidence, 36. 145 Ibid., 36-39, esp. 37: “Again and again it can be shown with a high degree of probability that they [i.e., the Johannine discourses] are dependent in some measure at least on traditions which go back to Jesus.” Cf. also James D. G. Dunn, “Let John be John: A Gospel for Its Time,” in: Das Evangelium und die Evangelien, ed. Peter Stuhlmacher, WUNT 28 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), 315: “Moreover, I am confident that the Fourth Gospel does draw on good tradition at many points.” 146 Dunn, Evidence, 39-43. Similarly, Reinhard Nordsieck, Johannes: Zur Frage nach Verfasser und Entstehung des vierten Evangeliums. Ein neuer Versuch (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1998), 56-74, has argued for the Fourth Gospel as a whole that while it does contain historical elements (though less than the Synoptics) what we find is mostly superimposed with theology. 147 Dunn, Evidence, 39; cf. also idem., Christology in the Making: An Inquiry into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London: SCM, 2 1989), 30. 148 In fact, Dunn goes as far as saying that “we cannot exclude the possibility that material lacking actual Synoptic parallel was also rooted in historical tradition neglected by the Synoptics” (“Oral Gospel Tradition,” 377-78). 149 Dunn, Evidence, 43. 42 view saying that “John’s Gospel cannot be regarded as a source for the life and teaching of Jesus of the same order as the Synoptics.” 150 Although the evangelist intends to present us with the real Jesus, this does not mean that the Johannine discourses are historical in the strict sense of the term. Rather, they have to be regarded as a secondary enlargement of Jesus’ teaching that has grown out of elements which actually go back to Jesus as verified by the Synoptics. 151 In his recent article “Historiographical Characteristics in the Gospel of John,” 152 Richard Bauckham has tackled the “historical problem” from a different angle. He primarily asks the question whether the Fourth Gospel is historiography, a question he considers as prior to the one of historical reliability. Taking the other three Gospels as a reference point, Bauckham concludes that “to its contemporaries the Gospel of John would have looked considerably more like historiography than the Synoptic Gospels would.” 153 As regards the teaching of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel, Bauckham, after a brief discussion of ancient historiography, questions the belief that contemporary historiographical standards could accommodate whatever view one might take of the historical validity of the Johannine discourses. 154 In fact, Bauckham differs semantically from other scholars discussed under this heading in that he judges the assumption of “compositional freedom” on the part of the evangelist as inappropriate within the Fourth Gospel’s historiographical framework including its claim to eyewitness testimony. 155 Rather, he goes on to say that Jesus certainly did not teach in short aphorisms or parables only, which may point to the conclusion that “formally speaking, Johannine discourses and dialogues could well be regarded as more realistic than the typical Synoptic presentation of his teaching.” 156 However, it is only as “representations of the way Jesus taught” that Bauck- 150 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 166. 151 Ibid., 167, where he also states that “the Synoptic tradition provides something of a norm for the recognition of the oldest traditions [including John]. In what follows, therefore, we shall certainly want to call upon John’s Gospel as a source, but mostly as a secondary source to supplement or corroborate the testimony of the Synoptic tradition.” 152 Richard Bauckham, “Historiographical Characteristics of the Gospel of John,” NTS 53 (2007): 17-36. Also published in a slightly different form in Richard Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 93-112. 153 Bauckham, “Historiographical Characteristics,” 36. 154 Ibid., 31. 155 Ibid., 29-31: “(…) compositional freedom to attribute speeches to him [i.e., Jesus] would seem inappropriate without special justification.” 156 Ibid., 32. 43 ham may ascribe to them a certain historical credibility. 157 As regards their content, he still maintains that to a significant degree the discourses in John reflect the evangelist’s own theology and cannot, in their present form, be attributed to the Jesus of history. 158 At the same time, Bauckham remains more hesitant than many when it comes to seeing the Johannine discourses as innovative reflections of the post-Easter church. He rather emphasizes that the Johannine presentations generally “display a degree of continuity with the traditional sayings of Jesus [and] (…) have been designed as appropriate developments of the teaching of the pre-Easter Jesus.” 159 Although the designation as “appropriate developments” is somewhat ambiguous and leaves the reader wondering how far removed from Jesus’ actual teaching the content of the Johannine discourses is considered to be, Bauckham is a prominent example of those moderately skeptical scholars who actually find a significant amount of authentic teaching tradition within the Fourth Gospel and thus maintain a considerable degree of continuity between the words of the historical Jesus and its Johannine reproduction. 160 1.2.3 The Moderate-Optimistic View: The Johannine Discourses as Representations of the Authentic Content of Jesus’ Words One of the classic voices raised in order to vindicate the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel is that of Daniel Friedrich Ernst Schleiermacher. For reasons that cannot be traced further here (yet, which might have to do with the Gospel’s accordance with his personal doctrinal convictions), 161 Schleiermacher indeed gives John’s account pride of place among the Gospels. Despite the incipient criticism of Bretschneider and others, Schleiermacher defends the Gospel of John as not only the most primitive of the canonical Gospels but also as a reliable work of an eyewitness. His degree of appreciation for John can be seen in his lectures on The Life of Jesus (1832) that he bases entirely on the representation of the life and teaching of Christ in the 157 Ibid., 33. It is important to note that for Bauckham this historical credibility is limited to the general form of the Johannine discourses. Their wording is far less authentic than the one of the Synoptics as he states that “it [i.e., John’s presentation] required much more than theirs did the putting of words into Jesus’ mouth.” Cf. now also the recent comment of J. Ramsey Michaels in the preface of The Gospel of John, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), xii: “Sometimes I am asked, ‘Does the Gospel of John put words in Jesus mouth? ’ My answer, which will become evident in the commentary, is ‘Perhaps so, though not as often as some might think, and when I conclude that it does, my job is to leave them there.’” 158 Ibid. 159 Ibid. 160 For a similar evaluation of the historical value of John’s speech material, see Smalley, John, 223-29. 161 Schmithals, Johannesevangelium, 31-32. 44 Fourth Gospel. 162 Although Schleiermacher’s particular comments on the Johannine discourses are scattered and not as specific as one would hope (at least for our purposes), he leaves no room for doubt that the Johannine Gospel is an excellent historical source for determining the words (and works) of Jesus. Against the view that the evangelist has interwoven his own thoughts with greater or smaller nuggets of Jesus’ teaching, Schleiermacher maintains that what John reproduces as the content of Jesus’ discourses has truly been uttered by Jesus and there is no reason to assume that the evangelist has added non-dominical material. 163 As far as I can see, he would not go as far as saying that what we have before us in the Fourth Gospel are the original words of Jesus in every instance (or even very close representations of what Jesus might have said in Aramaic). Yet, it seems fair to say that Schleiermacher tends to assume, as he compares the Johannine with the synoptic speech material, that the entirety of the Johannine discourses could be conceived as a more precise rendition of Jesus’ original way of teaching (which in all likelihood included a fair amount of words that come close to Jesus’ own idiom). 164 For Schleiermacher, the Johannine discourses are as close to the content and the manner of the teaching ministry of the historical Jesus as one can possibly get. He states, “we must mention the fact that the Gospel of John provides us with our most important source material and at the same time with the matter that we can use with the greatest confidence (…).” 165 One of Schleiermacher’s students, Friedrich Lücke, has likewise rejected the view that the Johannine discourses are free compositions of the author of the Fourth Gospel. In the introduction to his Commentar über das Evangelium des Johannes (3rd edition 1840) he observes that several sayings of Jesus reported in John have an almost verbatim counterpart in the Synoptic Gospels as he compares John 2: 19 with Matt 26: 61 and Mark 14: 58; John 162 Friedrich Schleiermacher, The Life of Jesus, ed. Jack C. Verheyden, trans. S. Maclean Gilmour, Lives of Jesus Series (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975), esp. 257-62. [The original lectures were given in 1832, the German edition was published in 1864.] In the preface of the English edition Jack C. Verheyden states: “In a way, Schleiermacher agreed with Bretschneider’s point that the critic must choose between the Synoptics and John, but Schleiermacher chose the latter rather than the former.” 163 Ibid., 262: “So then, what John represents as the content of the discourses of Christ must have been what Christ really said, and there is no reason to believe that John introduced any of his own ideas into Christ’s discourses.” [italics mine] 164 Daniel Friedrich Ernst Schleiermacher, Einleitung ins neue Testament, Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Sämmtliche Werke I,8, ed. G. Wolde (Berlin: Reimer, 1845), 335: “(…) so kann man sich aufs klarste denken, wie rein auf dem Grunde einzelner Aeußerungen Christi diese Darstellung hat entstehn können (…) und so wird klar, wie dieser Eingang das Product der Reden Christi ist, und daß nicht umgekehrt diese Reden Christi das Product des Johannes sind (…).” 165 Schleiermacher, Life of Jesus, 240. 45 12: 8 with Matt 26: 11; John 12: 25 with Matt 10: 39 and John 13: 20 with Matt 10: 40. 166 At the same time, Lücke states that there are compelling reasons for denying the Johannine discourses an absolute, verbatim authenticity. Yet, for him, this does not annul the general reliability of the Fourth Gospel and of the discourses contained therein, since he - as one of the first who did so with such clarity - opts for a clear distinction between the authenticity of wording and the authenticity of content. 167 In this regard, Lücke is confident that the Johannine discourses contain a reliable representation of the essential content (“wesentliche Inhalte”) of Jesus’ original words. He thus concludes that we should surely gain the strong conviction that the Fourth Gospel, in the same way as the Synoptics, contains “the true story of Jesus Christ.” 168 In the wake of F. C. Baur’s historical criticism of the Fourth Evangelist’s account we find in Germany a strand of conservative counter-criticism eager to maintain the essential reliability of the Johannine discourses. 169 In one of the more influential treatments Friedrich Bleek in his Einleitung in das Neue Testament (1862) vigorously denies the critical “Johannine-Synoptic either-or” arguing that both accounts show an amount of coherence that allows us to attribute them to one and the same person. In his argument against the view of Bretschneider and Baur, Bleek observes that, at least to some extent, so-called Johannine features both of form and (theological) content are visible in the synoptic rendering of Jesus’ words as well. Thus, there is no need to drive a wedge between the Fourth Gospel and its synoptic counterparts. Although the words of Jesus are couched in Johannine idiom and thus probably not rendered verbatim, this does not, according to Bleek, disavow the historical truth of the Johannine discourses. Affirming the apostolic authorship of the Fourth Gospel, nothing within the common critical argumentation is able to invalidate the contention that John has reproduced with essential reliability the content of what Jesus has uttered. 170 166 Friedrich Lücke, Allgemeine Untersuchungen über das Evangelium des Johannes und Auslegung von Kap. I-IV, vol. 1 of Commentar über das Evangelium des Johannes (Bonn: Eduard Weber, 3 1840), 240-41. 167 Ibid., 245: “Indem wir die absolute, wörtliche Authentie der längeren Reden und Unterredungen Jesu bey Johannes aufgeben, heben wir die wesentliche Glaubwürdigkeit desselben nicht auf.” 168 Ibid., 246: “(…) so weiß ich (…) nicht, was man mehr fordern kann, um die fest Ueberzeugung zu gewinnen, daß wir in dem Evangelium des Johannes, wo nicht mehr als in den synoptischen, doch eben so gut aus reinen Quellen und reiner Hand die wahre Geschichte Jesu Christi besitzen.” 169 Besides those scholars mentioned, see also the overview given by Schmithals, Johannesevangelium, 78-84. 170 Friedrich Bleek, Einleitung in das Neue Testament, vol. 2 of Einleitung in die Heilige Schrift, (Berlin: Reimer, 3 1875), 223-32, here 227: “(…) da musste die Darstellung Vieles von der Eigenthümlichkeit des Schriftstellers und Referenten annehmen, ohne dass desshalb die geschichtliche Treue in der Mittheilung dieser Reden braucht verloren zu haben.” 46 Other German scholars have also opposed the contemporary critical attitude towards the Fourth Gospel. Against the common assumption of the vast difference between John and the Synoptics, Christian Ernst Luthardt in Der johanneische Ursprung des vierten Evangeliums (1874) attempts to show that, although there are significant discrepancies in form, there are also considerable contacts between the two gospel traditions not only on the level of content, but even on the level of vocabulary and style. Both the synoptic as well as the Johannine account of Jesus’ teaching are, as it were, two sides of the same coin. They require each other, yet are not literary dependent. The often alleged “subjectivity” of the Fourth Gospel is not tantamount to “historically random,” but it is due to the fact that only the inherent content of the Johannine discourses and not the language and form go back to the historical Jesus. 171 Similarly, in several publications, Theodor Zahn stood against the tide of critical scholarship in his sustained attempt to vindicate the historical integrity of the Fourth Gospel. 172 Having generally argued for the apostolic authorship of the Gospel and having refuted in detail arguments for Johannine inauthenticity based on discrepancies with the Synoptics, Zahn maintains the general trustworthiness of the Johannine discourses. 173 Since a greater consistency between John and the Synoptics has often been recognized and since the author’s self-testimony regarding his willingness to report history should not too easily be dismissed, there is no reason to deny that the content of the Johannine discourses is dominical. Zahn goes on to say that, as an earwitness, we may grant the apostle John some (stylistic) freedom in reporting the words of Jesus; how much he made use of such freedom, however, we do not know. 174 Brooke Foss Westcott has argued in his commentary on The Gospel According to John (1908) that it cannot be denied that the Johannine discourses have to be considered as summaries of more elaborate expositions of Jesus. Thus, Westcott maintains that the value of such a compressed record “will depend not upon the literal reproduction of the exact words used here and there (…) but upon the power of the historian to enter into the spirit of the debate and to sketch its outline in right proportion.” 175 The fact that the evangelist used 171 Christian Ernst Luthardt, Der johanneische Ursprung des vierten Evangeliums (Leipzig: Dörffling & Franke, 1874), 178-203, here 202: “(…) wenn wir auch anerkennen mußten, daß zwar der Inhalt, aber nicht ebenso auch die Form der Reden Jesu bei Johannes auf Jesus selbst zurückzuführen ist (…).” 172 Theodor Zahn, Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1953), 3: 333- 55; also idem., Das Evangelium des Johannes unter den Händen seiner neuesten Kritiker (Leipzig: Deichert, 1911), where he deals with critical arguments of Wellhausen and Spitta; as well as idem., Das Evangelium des Johannes, KNT 4 (Leipzig: Deichert, 5/ 6 1921), 23-41. 173 On the relationship with the Synoptics, see esp. Zahn, Introduction, 3: 254-98. 174 Ibid., 566-67; as well as Zahn, Johannes [1921], 37-38. Although Zahn is somewhat vague on this issue and we certainly should not read too much into his statements, he seems to allow at least for some literal renderings of Jesus’ teaching, something that brings him closer to the view represented below under 1.2.4. He actually suggests that the literary style of the evangelist was to some degree stamped by Jesus’ own manner of speaking. This might lead to the assumption that John’s Gospel could be, in certain instances, a witness to the original words, i.e., the original style of the historical Jesus. 175 Brooke Foss Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John. The Greek Text with Introduction and Notes (repr., Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), cxv. 47 his own language and idiom to report Jesus’ teaching does not argue against the historical reliability of the Johannine discourses since “the thoughts of the speakers are more important than the style of the speakers.” 176 According to Westcott, the content of what the evangelist represents in the Johannine discourses is entirely credible on the lips of Jesus within the circumstances of his ministry, not least because there is significant correspondence between the Synoptics and John with regard to key elements of Jesus’ teaching. 177 Despite the fact that Johannine scholarship has been dominated in recent decades by a somewhat skeptical approach regarding the historicity of the Fourth Gospel, more positive voices have not been completely missing regarding the question of Johannine authenticity. Leon Morris, in his Studies in the Fourth Gospel (1969), presents a collection of essays that deal, to a large extent, with issues regarding the integrity of John’s Gospel. One essay directly addresses the relationship of history and theology in the Fourth Gospel. Here Morris strongly concedes that John is not giving us an unbiased account but interpretations of historical events, just as the Synoptics do. Yet, Morris regards it as a “live question” to ask whether the Fourth Evangelist retained to historical accuracy in doing so. 178 While all New Testament Gospels are to be considered as theological documents, Morris challenges the results of form criticism according to which the early Christian communities were eager to create sayings and put them into the mouth of Jesus. Rather, he maintains that the New Testament evidence suggests that the evangelists (including the writer of the Fourth Gospel, who Morris takes to be the apostle John 179 ) had a strong interest in conveying historical information, especially when compared with their docetic and gnostic counterparts. Further, Morris finds it hard to believe that the 176 Ibid. 177 Ibid., cxix-cxxviii, clvi-clxx. Similarly to Westcott, the renowned French scholar Marie-Joseph Lagrange, Évangile selon Saint Jean (Paris: Gabalda, 1936), has held the view that the Johannine discourses represent the speeches of Jesus, yet are characterized by Johannine style (see chapters 2 and 3 of his introduction). Lagrange also includes John in his Gospel harmony L’ Évangile de Jésus-Christ (Paris: Gabalda, 1928). Cf. also A. C. Headlam, The Fourth Gospel as History (Oxford: Blackwell, 1948), 71-80. E. H. Askwith, The Historical Value of the Fourth Gospel (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1910), has also addressed the critical argument of severe differences between John and the Synoptics and maintains the historicity of the Fourth Gospel (especially focussing on the main events of Jesus’ life as represented in John). In explaining the differences between Johannine and synoptic speech material, Askwith argues that Jesus might have had more than one method of teaching (313). 178 Leon Morris, Studies in the Fourth Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1969), 67, where he asks as part of his essay “History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel”: “Does he [i.e., John] in the last resort allow his history to be dominated by his theology? ” Cf. also idem., The Gospel According to John, NICNT, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 35. 179 See his essays “Was the author of the Fourth Gospel an ‘Eyewitness’? ” and “The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel” in Studies, 139-214, respectively 215-92. 48 fourth evangelist’s concept of truth was broad enough to allow him the plain invention of words and facts that lack a historical basis. 180 For Morris, the heart of the matter seems to be that, “often the attempt is made to separate the Fourth Gospel from the Synoptics in such a way as to compel us to choose. The picture of Christ we get in the one, it is said, is incompatible with the picture of Christ we get in the other.” 181 While opting for no direct literary dependence between the Synoptics and John, Morris rejects the view that the distinctions between the former and the latter can be used to dismiss the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel, not least because from the earliest times the church has considered the fourfold gospel as being essentially in harmony. He admits that there are differences indeed, “but there is not a different message and there is not a different Christ.” 182 In this regard, Morris notes that the Johannine discourses should not be too quickly dismissed as secondary theological constructions because of their supposedly “high Christology,” especially when compared with the Synoptics. Rather, he observes that the christological teaching of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel does indeed stress his dependence on the Father, a feature that may not be found with such insistence in the other three Gospels with their supposedly “lower” Christology. 183 In what may be regarded as a programmatic default for his own solution to the historical problem in John, Morris goes on to say that, “there is no question but that the language of the Fourth Gospel is different from that of the Synoptics. But it is important to penetrate beneath the surface of the words to the meaning they are expressing.” 184 Thus, he insists on a basic unity on the level of ideas (i.e., on the level of content) between the Synoptics and John, which still stands even if the terminology and literary style are significantly different. The apparent differences of expression do not a priori rule out the basic reliability of the Fourth Gospel’s rendering of Jesus’ words, since the gospel writer, as an eyewitness, could certainly reproduce the teaching of Jesus from his own memory being “faithful to the original thrust of the words, even though he took no trouble to reproduce the nuances of style.” 185 In light of the fact that the Synoptic Gospels are surely not an all-embracing account of all dominical words spoken, it is entirely possible that the Fourth Gospel supplements the content of Jesus’ teaching using Johannine idiom. It is thus a 180 Ibid., 119-20. 181 Ibid., 103. 182 Ibid., 107. 183 Ibid., 114-15. 184 Ibid., 106. 185 Ibid., 135. Cf. also Archibald M. Hunter, According to John: The New Look at the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1968), 90-102; F.F. Bruce, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 5 1974), 57-61. Bruce certainly allows for the fact that Jesus sometimes spoke in the style represented in John, which brings him close, at times, to the more optimistic view outlined below under 1.2.4. 49 combination of these (and other) considerations that leads Morris to conclude that the Johannine discourses may not be regarded as a fictional, literary creation of the author, but as a trustworthy source for finding the teaching of the historical Jesus. When in 1957 John A. T. Robinson gave a paper on “The New Look on the Fourth Gospel” he was referring to recent critical questions being raised against several presuppositions that had influenced Johannine scholarship for decades. One of those presuppositions was that the Fourth Gospel may not be regarded as a reliable witness to the historical Jesus, but only to the Christ of faith. In several publications, Robinson then became a prominent spokesman for those claiming that John be taken seriously as a historically valuable document. 186 Robinson covers the historical question of the Johannine discourses most extensively in his posthumously published monograph The Priority of John (1985). 187 Drawing on the work of C. H. Dodd, he argues that the often assumed differences in content between John and the Synoptics should not be exaggerated. He observes that “there is a good deal more common material than has often been acknowledged,” even including parabolic material often held to be exclusively synoptic. 188 However, Robinson goes beyond those scholars whom we classified as moderate-skeptical in that he confidently concludes that “the Johannine presentation could be both the most mature and the most faithful to the original truth about Jesus.” 189 At the same time, Robinson states that “no one today 186 John A. T. Robinson, “The New Look on the Fourth Gospel,” in Twelve New Testament Studies (London: SCM, 1962), 94-106 [paper originally delivered in 1957]. Besides the other essays in this collection, see also those in idem., Twelve More New Testament Studies (London: SCM, 1984), as well as the work cited below. The influence of Robinson may be seen in the fact that Maurice Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 199-217, found it necessary to devote a whole chapter to the refutation of Robinson’s views on the Fourth Gospel. In addition, the essays of a recent SBL publication take Robinson’s “New Look” article as a common starting point of their discussion of “New Currents through John” (Francisco Lozada Jr. and Tom Thatcher, eds., New Currents through John: A Global Perspective, SBLRBS 54 [Leiden: Brill, 2006]; for a good summary of Robinson’s “New Look” in general, cf. esp. Tom Thatcher’s essay “The New Current through John: The Old ‘New Look’ and the New Critical Orthodoxy,” 1-26). 187 John A. T. Robinson, The Priority of John, ed. J.F. Coakley (London: SCM, 1985), 296- 342 (chapter 7: “The Teaching of Jesus”), also 343-97 (chapter 8: “The Person of Christ”). N. T. Wright ably summarizes how Robinson would have wanted us to understand the title of the book: “By ‘priority’ Robinson did not mean (…) that John was the first Gospel to be written, but that it should be treated as presenting just as much a ‘primary’, that is, underived, picture of Jesus as the others, and that it can, if so treated, shed more light on them than they can on it if it is regarded as essentially a secondary witness.” (Neill and Wright, Interpretation, 434.) 188 Robinson, Priority of John, 315; cf. the whole section, 315-22. 189 Ibid., 342. [italics his] 50 would claim that we have in John the literal words of Jesus.” 190 Everything in the Fourth Gospel seems to be characteristically Johannine, which, says Robinson, is due to the fact that the Fourth Evangelist is eager to transpose the teaching of Jesus in order to penetrate into the real significance of what Jesus was saying. Even though we might be faced with interpretation and unique stylistic features, in all this, he maintains that the author of the Gospel “is controlled by the historical Jesus.” 191 Arguing for the essential reliability of the content of the Johannine discourses, Robinson is the classic proponent of the moderate-optimistic view. However, at times he seems to be on the verge of being an advocate of an even more optimistic position as described under 1.2.4 below. Robinson is more confident than most scholars in the moderate-optimistic category (with the possible exception of Schleiermacher) that from time to time we might encounter in the Johannine Gospel something fairly close to Jesus’ original utterances. In this regard, he maintains that Jesus’ characteristic mode of speaking may still be perceptible in John and that the way in which Jesus expressed himself certainly left a mark not only on the Synoptics but on the Fourth Gospel as well. The vocabulary and style of the Johannine discourses are thus, according to Robinson, not so foreign to the historical Jesus as to detain us from repeated glances on what Jesus has originally conveyed. 192 In his extensive review article “Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel: After Dodd, What? ” (1981), Donald A. Carson has set forth his own methodologically foundational considerations for the historical authenticity of the Gospel of John, that he later, for the most part, affirmed and applied in the introduction to his 1991 commentary on the Fourth Gospel. 193 As Leon Morris before him, Carson emphatically insists that the Fourth Evangelist’s theological commitment is not necessarily incompatible with both a willingness and the potential to provide a trustworthy account of the life and teaching of Jesus. The argument “that either the Evangelists were dispas- 190 Ibid., 307. 191 Ibid., 323, cf. the whole section, 322-25. [italics mine] By no means did John invent sayings of Jesus, since, “as New Testament study has shown, they [i.e., the evangelists including John] did not merely place their preaching and teaching on his lips, making use of him as the mouthpiece of their message” (ibid., 307 [italics his]). 192 Robinson, Priority, 307-15. Note that Robinson seems to cite with approval Matthew Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Oxford: Clarendon, 3 1967), 151, who states that “much more of the verba ipsissima of Jesus may have been preserved in the Fourth Gospel - with John the Apostle as inspired ‘author’ - than we have dared believe possible for many years.” 193 Donald A. Carson, “Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel: After Dodd, What? ” in Studies of History and Tradition in the Four Gospels, vol. 2 of Gospel Perspectives, ed. R. T. France and David Wenham (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981), 83-145; idem., The Gospel According to John, PNTC (Leicester: Apollos, 1991). 51 sionate observers giving us cold historical facts, replete with endless specimens of ipsissima verba Jesu, or else they were theologians concerned with conveying theological truth and only incidentally (and even accidentally) including solid history (…) forces upon us a needless choice.” 194 Carson argues that we may not too easily dismiss the fact that the author of the Fourth Gospel felt strongly about the necessity to present a reliable witness to the events which he reports. In this regard, he vividly states that “the ease with which many modern scholars simply assume that all ancient ‘biographers’ and ‘historians’ felt free to manufacture speeches and put them on the lips of their heroes, and mingle historical and anachronistic references without any sense of what we would judge to be responsible historiography, is a little disconcerting.” 195 Rather, Carson suggests that those aspects of John that can be corroborated by other evidence should be given more weight. This will then in turn serve to confirm the historical accuracy of those passages in the Fourth Gospel that are not immediately verifiable. 196 This, together with strong doubts about the methodological usefulness of several of the form-critical and literary tools usually employed to question the historicity of Johannine material, forms the framework for Carson’s positive attitude towards the historical content of the Fourth Gospel. At the same time, he is well aware of the challenge which the stylistic unity of Jesus’ words and the words of the evangelist as well as the differences between Jesus’ speech in John and in the Synoptics pose for the authenticity of the Johannine discourses. That there are differences between the various Gospels in their presentation of Jesus and his teaching, Carson does not deny. But, although he gives no detailed comparison between John and the Synoptics, he maintains that the differences should not be exaggerated. Further, he considers it to be methodologically unsound to pit the historical reconstruction of the Synoptics against John (a procedure which he calls “histmatization”), since “it is methodologically superior to suppose that what actually happened is much bigger than any of the presentations, and certainly big enough to support the presentations of both the fourth gospel and the synoptics.” 197 Regarding the stylistic unity (both on the level of vocabulary and syntax), Carson acknowledges that 194 Idem. “Historical Tradition,” 104. 195 Idem., John, 60. 196 Idem., “Historical Tradition,” 115. 197 Ibid., 121. Especially the christological peculiarity of the Fourth Gospel should not be exaggerated since there is a lot of continuity between the different accounts. “The Synoptic Gospels present us in seed form the full flowering of the incarnational understanding that would develop only later;; but the seed is there (…) John lets us see a little more of the opening flower (…).” (Carson, John, 57; also Carson, “Historical Tradition,” 116-20.) Additionally, Carson maintains that much of the historical skepticism regarding the Johannine reconstruction is often due to ideological presuppositions. For examples, see ibid., 121-26. 52 Jesus’ words are phrased in Johannine idiom, which implies that we may find very few ipsissima verba of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. Yet, the freedom of the evangelist to stamp the discourses in his own style does in no way diminish their historical credibility, since it is entirely reasonable to assume that the evangelist, as a sensitive communicator, has reliably preserved the actual content of Jesus’ teaching and tried to cast it “in ways that would make them most easily understood” in his own context. 198 In Carson’s view there is nothing within historical-critical scholarship that should keep us from the conclusion that the Fourth Gospel is a faithful witness, so that “when we listen to the voice of the Evangelist in his description of what Jesus said, we are listening to the voice [i.e., the ipsissima vox] of Jesus himself.” 199 A comprehensive treatment of the question of the historical integrity of the Fourth Gospel has been given by Craig L. Blomberg both in his earlier work The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (1987) and then especially in his fulllength commentary The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel (2001). 200 In what is a seminal defense of the trustworthiness of the Gospel of John, Blomberg challenges the skeptical view of scholars like Maurice Casey and the members of the Jesus Seminar by observing that there is a large amount of evidence that points in the direction of this Gospel’s historicity. Among those features of the Gospel of John that support its general historical reliability are (1) the strong possibility that the apostle John as an eyewitness was indeed the author of the Fourth Gospel, 201 (2) verisimilitude of geographical and topographical material as well as cultural details which give the Gospel a touch of historical realism, 202 (3) the “interlocking” between the traditions of John and the Synoptics,” i.e., passages in the Johannine or the synoptic traditional strand that can only be explained by information provided by the other, 203 and (4) the fact that the Gospel apparently presents itself as part of the historical or biographical genre. 204 As he wrestles 198 Carson, John, 61; also idem., “Historical Tradition,” 122, 127. 199 Carson, John, 49. 200 Craig L. Blomberg, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels (Leicester: InterVarsity, 1987), esp. 153-89; idem., The Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: Issues and Commentary (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001). See also his preparatory article “To What Extent Is John Historically Reliable? ,” in Perspectives on John: Method and Interpretation in the Fourth Gospel, ed. R. B. Sloan and M. C. Parsons (Lewiston: Mellen, 1993), 27-56, as well as the condensed version of his view in “The Historical Reliability of John: Rushing in Where Angels Fear to Tread? ,” in Jesus in Johannine Tradition, ed. Robert T. Fortna and Tom Thatcher (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 71-82. 201 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 22-41;; cf. also Blomberg, “To What Extent Is John Historically Reliable? ,” 30-37. 202 Ibid., 46-48. 203 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 53-54. 204 Ibid., 57-61;; cf. also Blomberg, “To What Extent Is John Historically Reliable? ,” 48-53. 53 with the historical questions pertaining to the Fourth Gospel in general and, for our purposes, to the Johannine discourses in particular, Blomberg perceives that for many scholars the differences and alleged contradictions between John and the Synoptics are the real heart of the problem. If we assume the general trustworthiness of the synoptic representation as has been generally held by those involved in the third quest for the historical Jesus, how can we account for the apparent discrepancies to the Fourth Gospel without becoming convinced of its historically secondary character? 205 Blomberg’s line of reasoning is similar to the one expounded by Carson. He is quick to concede that John has written up the words of Jesus in his own literary style, which is dissimilar from the Synoptics. Yet, Blomberg goes on to argue that what has often been overlooked is that the rendering of the general thrust of speech material in one’s own idiom was a “standard convention among ancient writers.” He thus concludes that “the Synoptics no less than John paraphrase, select, abbreviate, omit, add and interpret the teachings of Jesus according to their theological and literary purposes. But none of these practices necessarily calls into question their accuracy according to the historiographical standards of the first century (…) which are of course the only standards by which we may fairly judge them.” 206 Thus, for Blomberg, there is no need to claim that the Johannine discourses render the actual words of Jesus (his ipsissima verba), but only that they give us a reliable portrait of his authentic voice (his ipsissima vox) representing the historical content of what Jesus said. Having dealt with other major discrepancies between John and the Synoptics elsewhere, 207 Blomberg now delves into a passage by passage commentary designed to put his basic presumption in favour of Johannine authenticity to the test and to further explore the relationship between the different gospel traditions. He does so by employing the recently refined criteria of authenticity, namely that of “double similarity and double dis- 205 In his article “The Historical Reliability of John: Rushing in Where Angels Fear to Tread? ,” 73, under the heading “The Differences between John and the Synoptics,” Blomberg focuses the problem most clearly when he writes, “For many scholars, here is the real heart of the problem. It may be acceptable theoretically to allow that the author of the Fourth Gospel could have been in a position to preserve accurate historical information and that the process of composition and the literary genre chosen do not make it impossible to recover a significant amount of this information. But surely the Gospel of John is just too different from the Synoptics to accept both.” 206 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 52. [italics his] Actually, Blomberg goes as far as saying (ibid., 51): “That John consistently records longer accounts of the controversies Jesus’ teaching generated may suggest that he is closer to preserving the outline of an entire dialogue rather than condensing the material into such short and stylized forms as do the Synoptics.” For similar thoughts on the Johannine handling of Jesus’ words, cf. David Wenham, “A Historical View of John’s Gospel,” Them 23 (1998): 16-18. 207 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of the Gospels, 162-86. 54 similarity” and that of “multiple attestation” in order to examine the historical value of each passage in the Fourth Gospel. The criterion of “double similarity and double dissimilarity” helps to decide whether the Johannine material is credible in its first-century setting by assessing its consistency with contemporary Judaism as well as early Christianity while at the same time retaining the distinctiveness which the historical Jesus undoubtedly exhibited. The criterion of “multiple attestation” may be brought to bear on the subject because Blomberg considers the author of the Fourth Gospel as literary independent from synoptic sources. Multiple attestation is mainly utilized to assess the plausibility of Johannine authenticity by locating either resemblances (which would argue for historical pedigree) or noncorrelations between the different gospel accounts. Methodologically important for that matter is Blomberg’s assertion that “multiple attestation includes not merely the same saying or episode repeated in more than one independent historical source, but the recurrence of similar teachings, events, themes, motifs, or literary forms across those sources. So, too, singly attested material that coheres with passages authenticated by either the double similarity and dissimilarity criterion or by multiple attestation may be considered part of our database for authentic material as well.” 208 As a result of his analysis, using the criteria of authenticity outlined above, Blomberg demonstrates that there is significant evidence which suggests the historical reliability of large portions of the Fourth Gospel including the speech material. With regard to the supposedly problematic relationship between the teaching of Jesus in John and in the Synoptics, Blomberg concludes that there is a striking amount of compatibility and coherence. On the assumption that ancient historiographical standards would have allowed for the evangelist’s recasting of Jesus’ words in his own idiom, this helps us to essentially authenticate the content of the Johannine discourses. 209 Thus, according to Blomberg, there is no reason to deny the historical reliability of the Fourth Gospel. 210 208 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 64. Cf. also Gerhard Maier, “Johannes und Matthäus - Zwiespalt oder Viergestalt des Evangeliums,” in Studies of History and Tradition in the Four Gospels, vol. 2 of Gospel Perspectives, ed. R. T. France and David Wenham (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1981), 267-91, who similarly addresses the problem of historicity in John by a comparison with Matthew’s Gospel and concludes that significant parallels even within the speech material point towards the general authenticity of the Johannine account. 209 Elsewhere, Blomberg has given several additional points that argue against John having invented speeches in his Gospel. Among them are the following: (1) If the author was indeed an eyewitness, it may be that his own style was influenced by Jesus’ manner of speech. (2) The evangelist does not seem to confuse Spirit-inspired insights after the resurrection with words of the historical Jesus (pace Mussner, Theobald et al.) (3) Differences between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics may be due to different settings in which Jesus spoke. (4) The argument that the Johannine discourses contain a few historical sayings joined with fictional additions (cf. Lindars, Dunn et 55 1.2.4 The Optimistic View: The Johannine Discourses as Containing the Authentic Wording of Jesus’ Teaching In the revised version of his dissertation Jesus and His “Works”: The Johannine Sayings in Historical Perspective (1996), Peter W. Ensor sets out to deal with “the problem of the relationship between the Johannine presentation of the spoken ministry of Jesus and Jesus’ own original speech.” 211 Wrestling first with several introductory questions pertaining to the study of the Fourth Gospel, he maintains that in all probability we are dealing with an eyewitness testimony which was written independently from the Synoptics at least on a literary level. In the main, he comes to the preliminary conclusion that within contemporary Johannine scholarship there is nothing that speaks against finding authentic words of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. 212 Regarding the discussion about Johannine authenticity, it is in the Fourth Evangelist’s handling of Old Testament quotations that Ensor finds a most helpful analogy. He observes that the author of the Fourth Gospel would sometimes hand down verbally exact Old Testament quotations while at other places he would merely give a paraphrase that stands some distance verbally from the original Old Testament text. Since we may safely assume that the evangelist regarded both the Old Testament as well as the words of Jesus as the “word of God,” this might give us a clue as to how the Johannine sayings of Jesus should be perceived. Thus, Ensor’s thesis is twofold. First, “we must be open to the possibility that he [i.e., the evangelist] may also have transmitted verbally exact sayings of Jesus” and secondly, “we should bear in mind the possibility that some of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the Gospel may also tell us something about what Jesus originally said, even though they may stand at some verbal distance from that original utterance.” 213 This serves as confirmation for his conviction that the discussion about the authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John al.) looses weight in the light of several studies which show that they form a “tightly knit unity.” (Blomberg, Historical Reliability of the Gospels, 183-86.) Cf. now also Jacques Buchhold, “L’évangile de Jean: une «traduction» des synoptiques,” Théologie évangélique 4, no.1 (2005), 19-30, who has taken John 3 as a hermeneutical test case and has argued that John, when compared to the Synoptics, offers a more dynamic and interpretative “translation” of Jesus’ words. He concludes: “Le témoignage des quatre évangiles suggère ainsi que c’est Jésus lui-même qui est à l’origine de la traduction interpretative (…) qui caractérise l’évangile de Jean.” 210 Cf. also Darrell L. Bock, “The Words of Jesus in the Gospels: Live, Jive, or Memorex? ,” in Jesus Under Fire, eds. Michael J. Wilkins and J. P. Moreland (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 73-99, esp. 94, where he concludes regarding all the canonical gospels: “The voice of Jesus comes through the Gospels, ‘live and in color.’ It is summarized discourse that has faithfully preserved the gist of Jesus’ teaching.” 211 Peter W. Ensor, Jesus and His Works: The Johannine Sayings in Historical Perspective, WUNT 2/ 85 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), preface. 212 Ibid., 1-26. 213 Ibid., 83-84, cf. the whole section, 58-84. 56 needs greater nuancing. In light of an observable imprecision within common definitions of authenticity, Ensor suggests that one should distinguish between three types of authenticity (an approach which he slightly modified in his 2006 article “The Johannine Sayings of Jesus and the Question of Authenticity”). 214 He thus discriminates between (a) the ipsissima verba, which he defines as the original Aramaic words of Jesus; (b) the ipsissima dicta, which he defines as a close representation (respectively translation) of Jesus’ actual words;; and (c) the ipsissimae sententiae, which he defines as a looser representation, yet conveying the essential content of Jesus’ speech. [For the sake of clarity, it needs to be noted that what Ensor calls ipsissima dicta is usually classified as ipsissima verba for practical reasons.] In order to identify authentic discourse material of different types within the Fourth Gospel, Ensor uses the criteria of authenticity generally acknowledged within historical Jesus research. The result of his examination of the evidence is that he finds the arguments for a historically skeptical view waning. As he applies to those Johannine sayings where Jesus talks about his “works” a set of criteria such as multiple attestation, language, culture and personal idiom, coherence, dissimilarity, and anti-redactional features, Ensor is more confident than most that a significant amount of ipsissima dicta of Jesus can be determined within John’s Gospel. 215 A further methodological step outlined in his more recent article leads him to distinguish between paralleled ipsissima dicta (i.e., sayings which have close parallels in the Synoptic Gospels) and unparalleled ipsissima dicta (i.e., sayings which do not have close parallels in the Synoptic Gospels, “yet have an intrinsic claim to being the ipsissima dicta of Jesus” as confirmed by the above mentioned criteria). For both categories Ensor is able to present corresponding examples. 216 Besides these closer representations of Jesus’ actual words, Ensor insists that the application of the criterion of coherence reveals to a remarkable degree within the Johannine discourses sayings of a broader type of authenticity in terms of the ipsissimae sententiae - “sayings which appear in Johannine dress, but which genuinely 214 Peter W. Ensor, “The Johannine Sayings of Jesus and the Question of Authenticity,” in Challenging Perspectives on the Gospel of John, ed. John Lierman, WUNT 2/ 219 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 22-33; Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 33-38. 215 Ibid., esp. 40-47, as well as the summary in 265-68. 216 Ensor, “Johannine Sayings,” 26-28. Among the paralleled ipsissima dicta mentioned are John 4: 44 (cf. Mark 6: 4; Matt. 13: 57 et al.); John 6: 20 (cf. Mark 6: 50; Matt. 14: 27); John 12: 7-8 (cf. Mark 14: 6-8; Matt. 26: 10-11) and several others. Among the unparalleled ipsissima dicta mentioned are John 4: 34-35; 5: 17; 5: 19-20a; 9: 3b-4; and 12: 24. For detailed arguments of the latter sayings, cf. for John 4: 34, Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 130-154; for John 4: 35, Peter W. Ensor, “The Authenticity of John 4: 35,” EQ 72.1 (2000): 13-21; for John 5: 17, Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 164-94; for John 5: 19-20a, ibid., 195-226; for John 9: 3b-4, ibid., 98-129;; for John 12: 24, Peter W. Ensor, “The Authenticity of John 12: 24,” EQ 74.2 (2002): 99-107. 57 reflect the viewpoint of Jesus himself, as we may ascertain it from the evidence of the Synoptic Gospels.” 217 Although Ensor’s focus is mainly limited to “Jesus’ works sayings,” he states that on closer inspection one may find even more considerable correspondence between the teaching of Jesus in John and in the Synoptics at the level of content, if not always at the level of vocabulary and form. Yet, even in light of the confines of his investigation, he claims that “the wholesale historical scepticism concerning the authenticity of Jesus’ Johannine sayings, which characterizes much of contemporary Johannine scholarship, is unwarranted.” 218 Both in his general conviction that the author of the Fourth Gospel has transmitted us a trustworthy portrait of the teaching of the historical Jesus as well as in his argument for the reliability of a large amount of Johannine sayings in terms of an ipsissimae sententiae type of authenticity, Ensor is actually close to scholars within the moderate-optimistic view. Indeed, in some ways, Ensor has more in common with the authors linked in the latter category than with the view of Robert Thomas reviewed below. What distinguishes himself, however, from a moderate-optimistic position is his persuasion that a considerable number of Johannine sayings share in a stricter type of ipsissima dicta authenticity in coming close to the original words of the historical Jesus. Even among those scholars who hold a more optimistic position, Robert L. Thomas adopts a special status in that he assumes that what we have in the Gospels are more or less verbatim records of Jesus’ words. Without focussing uniquely on John, Thomas applies his view indiscriminately to all four Gospels. In the anthology The Jesus Crisis (1998) which contains several articles on the relationship of historical criticism and evangelical scholarship, he argues that much of the evidence favors an ipsissima verba perspective. 219 While several scholars embracing the ipsissima vox (i.e., historical content) view of the teaching of Jesus previously argued that Jesus probably used mostly the Aramaic language (which would imply that his words had at least to be translated into Greek), 217 Ensor, “Johannine Sayings,” 32. Ensor goes on to say that if we assume that the Fourth Gospel contains an independent Jesus tradition, it is entirely possible that we also find in John unparalleled ipsissimae sententiae, whose authenticity cannot, of course, be proven by way of alluding to synoptic parallels. In Jesus and his Works, 227- 62, Ensor argues for the paralleled ipsissimae sententiae type of authenticity in John 5: 36; 10: 25.32.37-38; 14: 10-11; and 15: 24. 218 Ibid., 33. 219 Robert L. Thomas, “Impact of Historical Criticism on Theology and Apologetics,” in The Jesus Crisis: The Inroads of Historical Criticism into Evangelical Scholarship, eds. Robert L. Thomas and F. David Farnell (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1998), 356-77, esp. 367-72. In the wake of the publication of The Jesus Crisis, the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society featured a discussion within evangelical scholarship which (among other things) addressed the ipsissima vox vs. ipsissima verba question and in which Robert L. Thomas took part as well;; see Grant R. Osborne, “Historical Criticism and the Evangelical,” JETS 42.2 (1999): 193-210, esp. 202-04;; Robert L. Thomas, “Historical Criticism and the Evangelical: Another View,” JETS 43.1 (2000): 97-111, esp. 106-07; Grant R. Osborne, “Historical Criticism: A Brief Response to Robert Thomas’s ‘Other View’,” JETS 43.1 (2000): 113-17. 58 Thomas finds it more likely that Jesus spoke Greek most of the time and that his listeners preserved his very words either by shorthand or by memory. 220 As he regards all canonical Gospels as literary independent (including the Synoptics), differences between the various Gospels may actually not be due to redactional alterations but to the fact that each evangelist, enabled by the Holy Spirit, gave his own account of what Jesus had been saying. According to Thomas, discrepancies can be harmonized as they are said to result from addition or omission of accurately remembered words of Jesus rather than from summary or paraphrase. For Thomas, it is also a bibliological necessity that the discourses in the Gospels represent more than the general gist of Jesus’ teaching since “one’s doctrine of inspiration becomes very subjective, elastic, and essentially meaningless unless it adhered to the very words themselves.” 221 Therefore, even for the Johannine discourses, Thomas would claim that they provide a high degree of precision in preserving the original words (the ipsissima verba) of Jesus. 222 1.3 Conclusions and Prospect 1.3.1 The Heart of the Matter: The Johannine Discourses and the Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics The question of the authenticity of Jesus’ discourses in the Fourth Gospel has long been a paramount issue on the agenda of Johannine scholarship. The earliest evidence before Irenaeus reveals an unanimous conviction that what we have in the Gospel of John is an authentic rendering of the words and works of Jesus (1.1.1). Similarly, in the decades and even centuries to follow, we find a widespread acceptance of Johannine authenticity among the church fathers. Yet, despite this generally positive attitude towards the historical trustworthiness of the Johannine representation of Jesus’ teaching, the differences between the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel were increasingly perceived within the orthodox community as an important critical problem that needed to be addressed (1.1.2). Simultaneously, nonorthodox critics of canonical words of Jesus made their case by appealing to the alleged absence of coherence between different gospel accounts as well as to a lack of multiple attestation for certain dominical sayings (1.1.3). The development of (historical-)critical scholarship in the field of New Testament studies brought with it a more and more skeptical evaluation of the historical reliability of the Fourth Gospel. For earlier critics, an increasing lack of confidence regarding the historical value of the Johannine ac- 220 Thomas, “Impact,” 368-69. 221 Ibid., 373. 222 Favorable towards Thomas’ general view is Robert N. Wilkin, “Toward a Narrow View of Ipsissima Vox,” Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society 14 (2001): 3-8 (but cf. Daniel B. Wallace, “An Apologia for a Broad View of Ipsissima Vox,” Paper presented at the 51st Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Theological Society, Danvers, MA, November 17-19, 1999). 59 count led to the questioning of the status of John’s Gospel as an eyewitness testimony. Later, it was the popularity of the newly-developed form-critical paradigm of dominical sayings invented within the context of the early church that increasingly created a framework within which a more skeptical approach towards the authenticity of Jesus’ words could evolve. When it comes however, more specifically, to the authenticity of the Johannine discourses, the focus of the discussion lies elsewhere. Having traced the major lines of argumentation within modern research it becomes evident that the actual heart of the matter is the relationship between the Johannine discourses and the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. 223 There is virtually no major contribution to the authenticity debate which does not appeal - at least to a certain extent - to a comparison between the Fourth Gospel and its synoptic counterparts. Scholars holding a skeptical view towards the authenticity of the Johannine discourses (1.2.1) have mainly based their negative assessment on the perceived differences from Jesus’ words as represented in the Synoptics. It is their conviction that the portraits of the teaching of Jesus given by John and the Synoptic Gospels are mutually exclusive and cannot both be regarded as historically appropriate. Scholars with a more moderate-skeptical perspective (1.2.2) have similarly ascribed significant importance to the comparison between the Johannine and synoptic accounts. As they find at least pieces of authentic teaching tradition within the Fourth Gospel, it is especially the closeness to synoptic material either in form or content which, in their view, gives historical credibility to certain Johannine sayings. Advocates of a moderate-optimistic view (1.2.3) have reacted against the more skeptical interpretations of Johannine- Synoptic relations by frequently arguing against the assumption that a huge difference between their accounts of Jesus’ teaching exists. Although they admit that there are significant differences in wording and style, they maintain that there is also a significant degree of compatibility and coherence so that the Johannine discourses may well be accepted as authentic representations of Jesus’ words on the level of content. The comparison between John and the Synoptics, it is argued, does not allow one to pit them against each other in terms of authenticity. Finally, those adhering to an optimistic viewpoint (1.2.4) also had to repeatedly address the issue of the relationship between John and the Synoptics in their attempt to defend the historical trustworthiness of even a significant amount of the very words of the Johannine discourses. In order to summarize the findings in this preliminary part of our study, we may conclude that this antecedent look at the history of research has revealed an apparent causality between the perceived relationship of the Johannine discourses and the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics on the one hand and the scholarly judg- 223 Cf., e.g., Gilbert Van Belle, “The Return of John,” 24: “(…) the similarities and the dissimilarities between John and the Synoptics is ‘the real heart of the problem.’” 60 ment about the authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel on the other. Especially those scholars with a negative attitude towards Johannine authenticity have frequently employed the argument based on vast differences between John and the Synoptics as to substantiate their view. 1.3.2 The Purpose and Scope of the Study: A Comparative Approach “Attempts to combine the Johannine and Synoptic accounts, not to mention their portrayals of Jesus, is [sic] a tour de force that commands little or no historical credence.” 224 Statements like this by the renowned Johannine scholar Dwight Moody Smith call for special justification from anyone ready to undertake a confrontation of the Johannine discourses and the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics. However, the tendency of much of current scholarship to dismiss outright any harmonizations of synoptic and Johannine material 225 seems misguided (to say the least) in light of the fact that Johannine-Synoptic relations serve as one of the key arguments in the debate about the authenticity of the Johannine discourses (see 1.3.1). Any such argument should have the potential to be tested and either confirmed or falsified. Thus, it is necessary as well as historically convincing to evaluate and compare Johannine and synoptic speech material, a process that is methodologically a far cry from any forced harmonization between several gospel accounts. A thorough comparison between the portrait of Jesus’ words in John and in the Synoptics in light of the larger question of the authenticity of the Fourth Gospel remains a desideratum of Johannine scholarship. Almost 50 years after C. H. Dodd’s groundbreaking The Historical Tradition of the Fourth Gospel a detailed examination of continuous Johannine discourses and their relationship to Jesus’ words in the Synoptics is still lacking. In other words: while critics of Johannine authenticity have repeatedly reverted to the supposedly vast differences between the Johannine discourses and the synoptic teaching of Jesus there has surprisingly never been a sustainable attempt to prove or disprove this particular claim on the basis of an extensive review of the data. In this study we will thus broaden the narrow focus on individual sayings in order to provide a more comprehensive picture of Johannine-Synoptic relations. It was a few years after the publication of his magisterial work on Johannine historical traditions that C. H. Dodd himself, in an already mentioned article entitled “The Portrait of Jesus in John and in the Synoptics,” called for a broad analysis of the Fourth Gospel which anticipated the 224 D. Moody Smith, “The Life Setting of the Gospel of John,” RevExp 85 (1988): 434. 225 See the assessment of Blomberg, “To What Extent Is John Historically Reliable? ,” 42. 61 comparative approach we are about to pursue in this study. As was already visible in his earlier work, Dodd was convinced that the answer to the question of whether the Johannine Jesus was a credible historical figure could only be answered by scrutinizing the Fourth Gospel in comparison with the Synoptics. As an advancement of his earlier method, he now set forth a modified approach on which we are able to build in the remainder of our study. Two features of this approach are especially remarkable. First, Dodd consciously moves away from comparing mainly individual sayings or limited verse clusters and thus chooses a larger part of a Johannine discourse using John 5: 19-30 as a test case. Second, being well aware that to only focus on semantic reminiscences would unnecessarily limit the scope of his study, Dodd more comprehensively examines whether there is conceptual overlap (i.e., similarity in content) between what Jesus says in John and the portrait found in the Synoptics. In doing so, he observes that the concept of Jesus being both the life-giver and the judge, which is most prominent in John 5, is - although with different degrees of abstraction - present in Matt 13: 41-43, Matt 12: 39-42 pars., Mark 10: 17-27, and several other passages. Further, the theme of Christ’s authority to judge (John 5: 22, 27) is also represented in Mark 2: 10 pars. and, more implicitly, in Mark 11: 27-33, or Matt 8: 5-13 pars. In sum, Dodd comes to the conclusion that “we have before us [in John 5: 19-30], in theological guise, a picture of the personality and work of Jesus which corresponds, in point after point, with the picture offered by the synoptics in a very different idiom.” 226 Dodd acknowledges that these conclusions remain provisional “until they are tested through the application of a similar process of analysis to other passages.” 227 Yet, as far as I can see, no one has done so on a broad scale 228 and thereby followed Dodd’s footsteps. In some sense, then, our own approach that we are about to develop is a late response to Dodd’s appeal. With our more extended treatment of the question we are - in part - building on his foundation as we try to get a better and more representative grasp of the evidence. It will be obvious by now that the critical problem of the historicity of John forms the general background of our examination. However, it is not the primary focus of the present study to discuss the authenticity of the Johannine discourses per se. Initially, our aim is much more modest. The essential question which will be addressed in the following chapters is whether a negative judgment concerning the authenticity of Jesus’ discourses in the Fourth Gospel can 226 Dodd, “The Portrait of Jesus,” 194. 227 Ibid., 195. 228 Blomberg’s study on the historical reliability of John probably comes closest - at least in parts - to what C. H. Dodd would have envisaged. The remarks of Annie Jaubert, Approches de l’Évangile de Jean (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1976), 30-33, remain on a rather basic level. 62 be legitimately based upon the differences between John and the Synoptics. Or, to put it differently: Did John accurately render the words of Jesus, when compared to the three Synoptic Gospels? Having said this, it needs to be stressed (in anticipation of possible methodological criticism) that we are fully aware that our comparative approach and the results gained on a literary level may not be readily equated with definitive answers to the historical question. Johannine-Synoptic correlations on a literary level do not necessarily take us back to the historical Jesus, but may be due to common tradition. Thus, for a more general assessment of Johannine authenticity, other historical matters (to which we briefly point at the end of this study) have to be taken into account. With this comparative approach we certainly employ the principle which stands behind the well-established criteria of multiple attestation and coherence. 229 Both criteria rest on the comparison of different sources. Thus, their status within historical Jesus studies again vindicates the historical validity of a comparison between the Johannine discourses and the synoptic teaching of Jesus. In our study, however, these criteria do not serve to tag authentic Jesus material. As stated earlier, our primary intention is to identify whether Johannine discourse material is also attested in the other three canonical Gospels and whether Jesus’ words in John cohere with his teaching in the Synoptics. Since we are not initially asking the authenticity question, it is not necessary for us to compare Johannine material only with those synoptic propositions that have already been established as authentic by means of other criteria (yet see below 8.1). The way by which we will define and assess the occurrence of coherence will be explained in chapter 2. Regarding the scope and design of this study one final issue needs to be addressed. There exists within Johannine scholarship a considerable diversity in methodological approaches, presuppositions, scientific tools, and, consequently, results. Every unseasoned scholar (and really everyone) delving into the vast ocean of Johannine studies is probably able to relate to the challenges and frustrations that come along with this diversification. Donald Carson has lamented not only this increasingly unmanageable diversity but also the idiosyncratic disorientation in the different approaches talking past each other even as related to historical questions. He calls this the “balkanization of Johannine studies,” 230 and tellingly remarks 229 For a discussion of these criteria, cf. Robert H. Stein, “The ‘Criteria’ for Authenticity,” In Studies of History and Tradition in the Four Gospels, vol. 1 of Gospel Perspectives, ed. R. T. France and David Wenham (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1983), 229-32, 250-51; Meier, Marginal Jew, 1: 174-77; Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 115-18; as well as the literature mentioned in chapter 8.1. 230 Donald A. Carson, “The Challenge of the Balkanization of Johannine Studies,” in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 1: Critical Appraisal of Critical Views, eds. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, SBLSymS 44 (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 133-59, esp. 150-53. Cf. also Frey, “Grundfragen der Johannesinterpretation,” 743, who states regarding Johannine scholarship: “Der rege Diskurs ist jedoch weniger durch eine vermehrte oder vertiefte Auswertung antiker Quellen oder eine präzisere historisch- 63 that this balkanization “owes something to the way in which many doctoral dissertations are written: the student is urged, for the sake of methodological rigor, to hold all other considerations to one side while focusing exclusively on one narrow theme or tool, with the result being almost inevitable distortion.” 231 Being aware of this danger, we have nevertheless consciously decided not to frontload this investigation with an array of presuppositions closely related to other issues of Johannine scholarship. We intend to thereby avoid methodological confusion and to keep the discussion focused. Hopefully, this will nevertheless turn out to be productive in providing stimulus for the discipline at large. The present study will be structured in the following way: having reviewed different views about the authenticity of the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter 2 provides some necessary methodological reflections which will prove helpful for later examination. In this part of our study we will situate the Fourth Gospel and its handling of direct speech within ancient historiography. We will also define different levels of closeness between John and the Synoptics, which should give us enough nuance to come to convincing and comprehensible conclusions with regard to the differences as well as the correspondences of Johannine and synoptic accounts of Jesus’ teaching. The main part of this inquiry (Part Two: The Teaching of Jesus: John and the Synoptics) will present detailed comparisons between the Johannine discourses and the words of Jesus in the Synoptics. We will focus on the more extensive teaching sections in John, and in order to get a largely representative result, we will survey both his dialogues with individuals (chapter 3), parts of his public teaching (chapter 4), as well as parts of the words of Jesus addressed to his disciples (chapter 5), before we briefly conclude with the implications of our results for the question of authenticity as stated above (chapter 6). After this analysis of Johannine- Synoptic correlations and non-correlations, in the last part of this study (Part Three: Literary, Theological, and Historical Perspectives) we will first seek to tentatively characterize the differences and similarities, both literary and theological, to be encountered between the Johannine discourses and the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics (chapter 7). A brief reflection upon several historical issues that are of importance for rendering an overall judgment on the authenticity of the Johannine discourses will conclude this work (chapter 8). philologische Erfassung des Textes veranlasst als durch die Pluralität vielfältiger, ›postmodern‹ nebeneinander praktizierter und oft kaum miteinander interagierender Methoden und Lektüremodelle.” 231 Ibid., 152. 64 Chapter 2 Methodological Considerations 2.1 The Historical Intention of the Fourth Gospel Before we can tackle the more specific procedure by which we will pursue the comparison between the teaching of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel and in the Synoptics (2.3), it is indispensable to first lay down some methodological groundwork. Any discussion of the authenticity of Jesus’ words in John is faced with the preliminary question whether the author of the Fourth Gospel actually intended to give a historically accurate account rather than merely a theological reflection with little regard for historical credibility. The least we can say is that the Fourth Gospel’s self testimony serves as significant evidence for the historical pretension of this writing. In John 19: 35, the author explicitly claims to be an eyewitness of the events narrated in the Gospel (or probably more specifically of the verification of Jesus’ death by the Roman soldiers in 19: 31-37): “And the person who saw it has testified (and his testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth), so that you also may believe.” This is confirmed at the end of the Gospel in John 21: 24, where the trustworthiness of the author is again acknowledged: “This is the disciple who testifies about these things and has written these things, and we know that his testimony is true.” 1 It is not of primary importance for our purposes to identify the actual author of the Gospel of John. Rather, we need to be aware that such a claim to first-hand knowledge about what has been reported clearly communicated 1 The “things that are testified to” most likely refer to the entire Gospel of John (cf. John 21: 25). For different possibilities as regards the identification of the “we,” see Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 369-83, as well as now Armin D. Baum, “The Original Epilogue (John 20: 30-31), the Secondary Appendix (21: 1-23), and the Editorial Epilogues (21: 24-25) of John’s Gospel: Observations against the Background of Ancient Literary Conventions,” in Earliest Christian History: History, Literature, and Theology - Essays from the Tyndale Fellowship in Honor of Martin Hengel, ed. Michael F. Bird and Jason Maston, WUNT 2/ 320 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2012), 256-60. 65 to the readers of the Fourth Gospel that its author is presenting not only theological truth but truth of a historical kind. 2 There may well be disagreement about the accuracy of these claims to eyewitness testimony. Yet, we can certainly not afford to ignore statements within the Gospel itself that create certain expectations for its audience. The view that the Fourth Gospel is first and foremost a theological treatise is further called into question by considerations regarding its genre. The willingness of the author to report accurately is, of course, not immediately perceptible by his choice of genre, but certainly mirrored in the literary form of his publication. Thus, “without answering the generic question we cannot even know what sort of historical reliability it might be appropriate to expect in such a work” 3 . Heavily influenced by the early form-critics, the canonical Gospels as a whole have long been considered as a “unique literary product of New Testament Christianity” 4 and thus generically without precedence, sui generis. It was through two influential studies by Richard Burridge and Dirk Frickenschmidt that many within the field of gospel studies became persuaded that all four canonical Gospels 2 Cf., e.g., Johannes Beutler, Martyria. Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Zeugnisthema bei Johannes, FTS 10 (Frankfurt: Knecht, 1972), 46-47. Samuel Byrskog, Story as History - History as Story: The Gospel Tradition in the Context of Ancient Oral History (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 236, comments regarding John 19: 35 that “faith and truth are not swallowed up entirely by the present dimension of the story; rather, truth finds its basis in the concrete observation of a past event, and faith is aroused in relation to that truth. (…) The gospel story, with all its emphasis on a seeing aided by the Paraclete, exhibits an awareness that the present situation of faith is distanced by time from the past history of Jesus.” A similar claim to autopsy as in John 19: 35 and 21: 24 is made by the author of the first Johannine Epistle, who may possibly be identified with the author of the Fourth Gospel; cf. Hengel, Johannine Question, 102-08; Eugen Ruckstuhl and Peter Dschulnigg, Stilkritik und Verfasserfrage im Johannesevangelium, NTOA 17 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991), 52-54; pace Udo Schnelle, Einleitung in das Neue Testament (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 6 2007), 489-91. 1John 1: 1, 3 reads: “This is what we proclaim to you: what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and our hands have touched (…) What we have seen and heard we announce to you too (…).” Note again Byrskog’s remark: “By understanding autopsy as part of the oral history of a group, the author grounds and legitimizes the present writing in the real life of the Jesus of history” (Story as History - History as Story, 242). 3 Bauckham, “Historiographical Characteristics,” 18. In his assessment of the work of Culpepper (who initially wanted to read the Fourth Gospel according to ‘the poetics of the novel’), Carson, John, 65, has argued for the importance of answering the genre question as a basis for proper interpretation: “The question that must be faced, then, is this: What kind of truth claim does John make? Does the work commend itself to the reader as belonging to the genre of fiction (regardless of how much factual truth and/ or theological truth it may contain, i.e. regardless of its truth value), or belonging to the genre of history (again, regardless of its truth value)? Or does it belong to some other genre? ” 4 Norman Perrin, What is Redaction Criticism? , London: SPCK, 1970, 74. 66 have to be placed within the overall genre of Greco-Roman biography. 5 With regard to the Gospel of John in particular, it was the study of the Gospel’s structure, its subject, verbal analysis, allocation of space, as well as further external features (mode of representation, scale, literary units, et al.) and internal features (setting, topics, style, atmosphere, quality of characterization, et al.) which led to the conclusion that the Fourth Gospel displays close similarity in generic features not only to those of the synoptic gospels but to those present in Greco-Roman biographies. 6 Recent scholarship has added some needed nuance to the discussion of gospel genre in locating the generic background of the biographical gospels more within the Hellenistic-Jewish tradition. 7 Additionally, it has to be conceded, of course, that the generic classification of New Testament Gospels as biography does not a priori argue for their historical accuracy as ancient biographies did not necessarily have a primarily historiographical interest. Yet, the least that can be said is that in general terms “ancient biographers intended their works to be more historical than novelistic [and thus fictitious]” 8 . Richard Bauckham has taken these generic studies one step further as he argued that, when compared to the ancient requirements for a work of history, the Fourth Gospel presents itself as a document of realistic histori- 5 Richard A. Burridge, What are the Gospels? A Comparison with Graeco-Roman Biography, The Biblical Resource Series (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2 2004); Dirk Frickenschmidt, Evangelium als Biographie: Die vier Evangelien im Rahmen antiker Erzählkunst, TANZ 22 (Tübingen: Francke, 1997). In his updated and enhanced second edition (published twelve years after the first) Burridge was pleased to note that his study had effected a paradigm shift within gospel studies (What are the Gospels? , 253; cf. also the foreword by Graham Stanton, viii-ix). Already several years earlier, Frickenschmidt had acknowledged Burridge’s original argument concluding that in spite of very different methodological procedures their results were in noted agreement which may be taken as indication for a well-grounded consensus of research (Evangelium als Biographie, 68). 6 Burridge, What are the Gospels? , 213-32 (chapter 9). Frickenschmidt’s summary of evidence contains (among others) the following items: the “beginning of the signs” (John 2: 1-12) as transition to the middle part of the Johannine Jesus-biography; the significance of deeds, dialogues, and discourses as distinguishing marks of the true identity of Jesus, the main character; the voluntariness of self-sacrifice both in John and in ancient biographies; a conclusive explanation for the similarities between Mark and John due to common roots in the biographical genre; the biographical interpretation of John 20: 30-31 (Evangelium als Biographie, 506-07; for more details see chapter 10 “Das Johannesevangelium als antike Jesus-Biographie,” 415-59). 7 Cf. e.g., Marius Reiser, Sprache und literarische Formen des Neuen Testaments: Eine Einführung (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2001), 100-02; also Martin Hengel, Zur urchristlichen Geschichtsschreibung (Stuttgart: Calwer, 2 1979), 33; Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2003), 1: 25-29. 8 Ibid., 1: 12; also among others David E. Aune, “Greco-Roman Biography,” in Greco- Roman Literature and the New Testament: Selected Forms and Genres, ed. David E. Aune, SBLSBS 21 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 125. 67 ography. 9 While the geographical credibility of the Johannine references has been increasingly recognized 10 , Bauckham insists that the geographical features of the Fourth Gospel would have reminded the contemporary reader of good historiographical practice. The same is true, when it comes to chronology. Other features of historiographical practice mentioned by Bauckham include those of judicious selectivity and eyewitness testimony. Regardless of whether or not the Fourth Gospel’s claim to authorship by an eyewitness is valid, Bauckham rightly reminds us that “widespread failure to recognize that this Gospel’s claim to eyewitness testimony is at least a straightforwardly historiographical one (…) has resulted from the influence of the dictum that this Gospel is theology, not history, and the consequent isolation of it from its literary context in ancient historiography.” 11 Therefore, in light of the Gospel’s self-testimony and in light of the more specific discussion about the Gospel’s genre and its overall historiographical characteristics it seems to be methodologically justified to evaluate the historical authenticity of the Fourth Gospel against the background of the historiographical standards of the time in which it was written. 12 Since it is scholarly consensus that the Johannine Gospel originated in a historical context and thought-world with significant Greco-Roman as well as Jewish influences, 13 we thus have to review the standards of authentic direct speech both in Greco-Roman (2.2.1) as well as Hebrew historiography (2.2.2). These criteria of ancient historiography may then serve as a framework for our further examination of the authenticity of Jesus’ direct speech in the Gospel of John (2.2.3). 9 Bauckham, “Historiographical Characteristics.” (Cf. 1.2.2) 10 Cf., e.g., Hengel, The Johannine Question, 110-11, and Brown, Introduction, 92; as well as several recent articles on the topic. 11 Bauckham, “Historiographical Characteristics,” 30. 12 Keener, John, 1: 1-80, is one of the very few Johannine commentators to take appropriate account of ancient historiographical practice in dealing with the historical substance of the Fourth Gospel. 13 See, e.g., ibid., 30, where Keener somewhat broadly states: “The Gospels draw on various Septuagintal, contemporary Jewish, and Greco-Roman narrative conventions to communicate their portrait of Jesus.” Cf. also Jörg Frey, “Auf der Suche nach dem Kontext des vierten Evangeliums. Eine forschungsgeschichtliche Einführung,” in Kontexte des Johannesevangeliums: Das vierte Evangelium in religions- und traditionsgeschichtlicher Perspektive, WUNT 175 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 3-45. 68 2.2 The Authenticity of Direct Speech in Antiquity 2.2.1 The Authenticity of Direct Speech in Greco-Roman Historiography When pursuing the question of authenticity we have to be aware that the ancient correlation of direct speech and authenticity of wording differs quite significantly from our modern understanding. 14 Within modern literature a clear distinction between direct and indirect speech is maintained. As a general rule, quotation marks are interpreted as signals by the author to indicate the fact that he renders the original wording of his oral or written source. Direct speech is automatically considered as verbatim. 15 In contrast, direct speech was not used as a literary device to indicate verbatim rendition among Greco-Roman writers. Rather, the insertion of direct speech created a more diversified and lively account and thus had primarily stylistic reasons - especially among historiographers, as they regarded history as an interplay of pra,xeij kai. lo,goi - both deeds and speeches. 16 By mainly dealing with speeches that were delivered orally, the ancient historian’s potential to give a literal report of what had been spoken was limited. In order to communicate these speeches, they were either dependent on their own memory as “ear-witnesses” or had to rely on information from other oral or written sources. Thus, it seems that only in exceptional cases were speeches recorded as verbatim. 17 Even in those rare circumstances where an approximately literal transcription of a particular speech might have been at hand, the historian was likely to abstain from using it in his work due to the stylistic conventions of his time, which included a cer- 14 For a general treatment of the differences between the standards of ancient biography and modern historical analysis, see Keener, John, 1: 12-17. 15 E.g., Florian Coulmas, “Reported speech: Some general issues,” in Direct and Indirect Speech, ed. Florian Coulmas, Trends in Linguistics: Studies and Monographs 31 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1986), 2-3. 16 Frank W. Walbank, Speeches in Greek Historians (Oxford: Blackwell, 1965), 1. On the function of direct speech in ancient historiography, see also Armin D. Baum, “Hat Lukas Jesus und die Apostel genau zitiert? Die oratio recta im lukanischen Werk zwischen antiker Profan- und Kirchengeschichtsschreibung,” in Israel in Geschichte und Gegenwart: Beiträge zur Geschichte Israels und zum jüdisch-christlichen Dialog, ed. Gerhard Maier (Gießen: Brunnen, 1996), 107-11; also G. H. R. Horsley, “Speeches and Dialogue in Acts,” NTS 32 (1986): 609-14. 17 So, e.g., Michael Grant, Greek & Roman Historians: Information and Misinformation (London: Routledge, 1995), 44-45: “They [i.e., the speeches] could not possibly have been delivered in the forms in which they were reported. For one thing, nobody had taken down full notes of them at the time, and there were no hand-outs describing their contents.” Also John Marincola, “Speeches in Classical Historiography,” in vol.1 of A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography, ed. John Marincola, Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World (Oxford: Blackwell, 2007), 120. 69 tain aversion for verbatim quotations. 18 A comprehensive reproduction would have been also tedious for the reader and was thus not advisable. It seems obvious then that any speech included in an ancient historiographical work could normally not be more than a representation of the original oration. This would have included selection, abbreviation, omission, interpretation, as well as paraphrase “and almost necessarily a degree of recasting in the historian’s own style.” 19 Scholars have been repeatedly quick to transpose the concept of a “necessary recasting” into an assertion that the speeches presented within ancient historiography have to be considered as rather fictitious, at least not as accurate representation of the speeches that had actually been delivered. 20 Charles W. Fornara observed more than 20 years ago that “the general inclination today is to dismiss most of the speeches inserted (a tell-tale world! ) by the Greco-Roman historians (…) on the ground that they are mere rhetorical constructions, no better or no worse than the intellectual power and aesthetical predilections of the individual writers.” 21 However, the observation that ancient historiographers did not quote the authentic wording of the particular speeches may not automatically lead to the inference that the content of those speeches was freely composed. Indeed, there seems to be a rather strong opposition against the view that ancient writers have indiscriminately used the speeches they reported as their own “mouthpiece.” 22 As a matter of fact, the handling of 18 E. Stemplinger, Das Plagiat in der griechischen Literatur (Berlin: Teubner, 1912), 181, who states: “So paradox es klingen mag, für die antike Schriftstellerei kann der Satz aufgestellt werden: je mehr wörtlich angeführte Zitate, desto schlechter der Stil.” 19 Bauckham, “Historiographical Characteristics,” 30. Cf. also Keener, John, 1: 75: “A modern demand for verbatim accuracy in ancient speech reports would be historically naïve;; ancient readers never expected it.” 20 See, among others, Klaus Meister, Die griechische Geschichtsschreibung: Von den Anfängen bis zum Ende des Hellenismus (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1990), 50. Grant, Historians, 45, states that “[the speeches] are not history in the modern sense of the word, because they are unauthentic; if they ever took place at all, they were not delivered in those terms, or even with those contents. Thus, the speeches form an enormous barrier between ancient ideas of historiography and our own conceptions of the same activity.” 21 Charles W. Fornara, The Nature of History in Ancient Greece and Rome, Eidos: Studies in Classical Kinds (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), 142. 22 Ibid., 142-43, 151, 168; in special regard of the speeches of Thucydides (see our discussion below) also Conrad Gempf, “Published Speaking and Published Accounts,” In The Book of Acts in Its Ancient Literary Setting, vol. 1 of The Book of Acts in its First Century Setting, ed. Bruce W. Winter and Andrew D. Clarke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1993), 281;; as well as H.P. Stahl, “Speeches and the Course of Events in Books 6 and 7 of Thucydides,” in The Speeches of Thucydides, ed. P.A. Stadter (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1973), 60-61, who emphatically states concerning the assessment of Thucydidean speeches as free compositions: “Such a concept is as simple as it is false, and it does not contribute to the reputation of our guild that it 70 direct speech among ancient historians allows for a spectrum that extends from diligent paraphrase of the original words to the free invention of a speech never actually delivered. 23 Given this spectrum, what was the actual standard for the reproduction of direct speech within Greco-Roman historiography? Regarding claims of authenticity for direct speech, Thucydides was the first to explicitly reflect on the historical accuracy of the speeches that he reported in his historiographical works. The programmatic statement in his History of the Peloponnesian War reads as follows: “As to the speeches that were made by different men, either when they were about to begin the war or when they were already engaged therein, it has been difficult to recall with strict accuracy the words actually spoken [ calepo.n th.n avkri, beian auvth.n tw/ n lecqe, ntwn diamnhmoneu/ sai h=n ], both for me as regards that which I myself heard, and for those who from various other sources have brought me reports. Therefore the speeches are given in the language in which, as it seemed to me, the several speakers would express, on the subjects under consideration, the sentiments most befitting the occasion [ w`j dV a'n ev do,koun moi e[ kastoi peri. tw/ n aivei. paro, ntwn ta. de,onta ma,listV eivpei/ n ], though at the same time I have adhered as closely as possible to the general sense of what was actually said [ evrxome, nw| o[ti ev ggu,tata th/ j xumpa,shj gnw,mhj tw/ n avlhqw/ j lecqe,ntwn ].” 24 The search for the valid interpretation of this methodological centerpiece has been notoriously controversial. 25 However, Thucydides’ enunciation does not suggest that he considered it a legitimate practice to freely compose speeches and pass them off as the oration of someone else within the historical narrative. 26 An examination of this statement reveals that in presenting historical speeches, Thucydides had to deal with the fact that it was almost impossible to arrive at their original wording. Strict accuracy ( avkri,beia ) was - for the most part - simply out of reach. That Thucydides refers here to a verbatim accuracy seems to be clearly implied by the comparison with the latter part of the statement. If he had only thought of the exact was held (…).” Similarly Keener, John, 1: 17-18: “Sometimes modern scholars write as if ancient historians and biographers lacked historiographic care or interest, but such a sweeping judgment neglects too much evidence.” 23 Baum, “Hat Lukas Jesus und die Apostel genau zitiert? ,” 112. 24 Thucydides, Hist. I.22.1. [English and Greek: Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War , Books I and II, vol. 1 of Thucydides in Four Volumes, trans. Charles Forster Smith, LCL 108 (repr., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 38-39.] 25 See Stanley E. Porter, “Thucydides 1.22.1 and Speeches in Acts: Is there a Thucydidean View? ,” NovT 32 (1990): 121-42, who lists several debatable passages within this statement and concludes (128): “An examination (…) reveals that it is anything but straightforward.” David E. Aune, “Speeches,” in The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christian Literature and Rhetoric (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 448, calls it “an endlessly debated passage.” 26 So, e.g., Walbank, Speeches, 3; also Grant, Historians, 47. 71 content of the speeches, 27 he could not have reasonably confronted this predication with the alternative intent to adhere to that which was actually said ( evrxome,nw| o[ti evggu,tata th/ j xumpa,shj gnw,mhj tw/ n avlhqw/ j lecqe,ntwn ). 28 According to this qualifying statement, Thucydides apparently attempted to report the accurate content of the particular speeches which precludes the view that he deliberately invented orations at his own discretion. Thus, if one is unwilling to assign to Thucydides two contradictory statements within this carefully composed sentence, 29 the words w`j dV a'n evdo,koun moi e[kastoi peri. tw/ n aivei. paro,ntwn ta. de,onta ma,listV eivpei/ n cannot mean that he felt free to create the content of the speeches ex nihilo, but rather that he arrogated for himself the liberty to mould the wording and form of his speech material. 30 Finally, any interpretation of this methodological passage has to consider the reason of why Thucydides included this discussion of the authenticity of direct speech at all. In this regard, it should be observed that “[it] may be that the substance of Thucydides’ statement is capable of being interpreted in such a way as to seem to support the idea that the speeches were purely inventions, but the presence of the statement militates against that understanding.” 31 It is thus more than reasonable to conclude that in his historiographical practice, Thucydides did not reproduce the exact wording and form of the speeches, yet it was his standard of authenticity to report reliably as far as possible the actual content of what had been said. He considered historical faithfulness to be rooted in meaning, not vocabulary. 32 Akin to the methodological approach of Thucydides is the assertion of Callisthenes that “anyone attempting to write well must not disregard the speaker. The writer must compose speeches that are appropriate to the speaker as well as to the situation.” 33 Although 27 So, e.g., Franz Egermann, “Thukydides über die Art seiner Reden und über seine Darstellung der Kriegsgeschehnisse,” Historia 21.4 (1972): 576-77; apparently also Marincola, “Speeches,” 121. 28 Baum, “Hat Lukas Jesus und die Apostel genau zitiert? ,” 115. 29 So, e.g., Walbank, Speeches, 4; also Simon Hornblower, Thucydides (London: Duckworth, 1987), 45-46. 30 Baum, “Hat Lukas Jesus und die Apostel genau zitiert? ,” 116; cf. also Donald Kagan, “The speeches in Thucydides and the Mytilene debate,” in Studies in Greek Historians, ed. Donald Kagan, Yale Classical Studies 24 (Cambridge: University Press, 1975), 74. 31 Gempf, “Published Speaking and Published Accounts,” 269 [italics his]; following M. Cogan, The Human Thing: Speeches and Principles of Thucydides’ History (Chicago: University Press, 1981), xiii: “Thucydides does not apologize for the inclusion of the speeches, he apologizes for any errors of fact. (…) Thucydides’ display of concern here is our proof that he intends us to accept the factuality and accuracy of his reports of the speeches of history.” 32 Baum, “Hat Lukas Jesus und die Apostel genau zitiert? ,” 116; Wallace, “Apologia,” 3. 33 FGrH 124 F 44. [English: Fornara, The Nature of History, 145; see Felix Jacoby, ed., Spezialgeschichten, Autobiographien und Memoiren. Zeittafeln, vol. 2B of Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1929), 654.] 72 this could be taken as an affirmation of invented speeches as long as they are plausible on the lips of the particular person, this is not the only possible interpretation. The critical remark was probably targeted against Thucydides himself. 34 In this case, it may seem that Callisthenes was not more lenient in his historical approach, but his statement was meant as a critical reminder to Thucydides whom he did not consider to be quite in keeping with his own standards. 35 The least we could say then is that although we do not know exactly to which standard of appropriateness Callisthenes actually adhered, it seems evident that for him there existed an orthodox norm of authenticity which he felt obligated to observe. The methodological considerations of Polybius in The Histories follow closely those of his predecessor Thucydides. 36 In his criticism of the contemporary historian Phylarch, Polybius states that the “historical author should not try to thrill his readers by such exaggerated pictures (…) but simply record what really happened and what really was said [ tw/ n r`hqe,ntwn katV avlh,qeian ], however commonplace.” 37 The same standard is implied in his attack on Timaeus: “But to convince those also who are disposed to champion him I must speak of the principle on which he composes public speeches (…). Can anyone who reads these help noticing that Timaeus has untruthfully reported them in his work, and has done so of set purpose? For he has not set down the words spoken nor the sense of what was really said [ ouv ga.r ta. r`hqe,nta ouvdV w`j ev rrh,qh katV avlh,qeian ], but having made up his mind as to what ought to have been said, he recounts all these speeches and all else that follows upon events like a man in a school of rhetoric attempting to speak on a given subject, and shows off his oratorical power, but gives no report of what was actually spoken [ avllV ouvk ev xh,ghsin tw/ n katV avlh,qeian eivrhme, nwn ]. The peculiar function of history is to discover, in the first place, the words actually spoken [ tou.j katV avlh,qeian eivrhme, nouj ], whatever they were (…). But a writer who passes over in silence the speeches made (…) and in their place introduces false rhetorical exercises and discursive speeches, destroys the peculiar virtue of history.” 38 From this statement at least two things may be deduced. First, Polybius maintains the Thucydidean differentiation between the form/ wording and the content of particular speeches. He accuses Timaeus of neither rendering in his speeches the original wording ( ouv ga.r ta. r`hqe,nta ) nor the actual content 34 Fornara, The Nature of History, 146. 35 See Aune, “Speeches,” 448, who states regarding Thucydides’ standard of reliability: “There is little doubt, however, that he did not fully carry out his intentions.” 36 Konrat Ziegler, “Polybius,” in Polemon bis Pontanene, vol. 42 of Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, ed. Konrat Ziegler (Stuttgart: Druckenmüller, 1952), 1525. 37 Polybius, Hist. II.56.10-12 [English and Greek: Polybius, The Histories, Books 1-2, vol.1 of The Histories in 4 Volumes, trans. W. R. Paton, LCL 128 (repr., London: Heinemann, 2000), 379.] 38 Polybius, Hist. XII.25.a.3-5 and 25.b.1.4. [English and Greek: Polybius, The Histories, Books 9-15, vol. 4 of Polybius in Six Volumes, trans. W.R. Paton, LCL (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960), 368-71.] See also Hist. XII 25.i.3-9 et al. 73 ( ouvdV w`j evrrh,qh katV avlh,qeian ) of what has been said. 39 However, while the exact wording of any given speech was dispensable in Polybius’ eyes, a lack of accuracy in substance was not permissible. 40 Timaeus had deviated from good historiographical practice because he did not adhere to the true historical content by inventing speeches which had never been delivered. Secondly, the Polybian statement seems to imply that he expected his readers to disapprove of Timaeus’ approach. This goes a long way to argue that the theoretical reflections on historiographical method uttered by Polybius (and Thucydides, for that matter) do not have to be considered as restrictive exceptions to a more liberal rule, but as a generally acknowledged convention. As C. Gempf put it: “Those (…) historiographers who believe that the insertion of invented speeches into historical works was a ‘normal, perfectly acceptable and universally understood literary convention’ need to explain how it is that Polybius, well-educated, widelytravelled statesman and author of several books, not only rebels against the convention (that may be explainable), but appears neither to know such a practice was acceptable for historians, nor expect that his readers would know.” 41 In sum, Polybius upholds the general standard of his time when making a clear distinction between the form and the content of direct speech within historical works. While the historian is free to use his own language in rendering what has been said, a speech is only considered to be authentic if the sense and substance has been accurately reported. That Greco-Roman historians did not always measure up to the given standards of authenticity is beyond question. Even Thucydides or Polybius themselves might have fallen short of their own pretensions. 42 Others were explicitly more prone to rhetorical modifications of speeches, thus being 39 Klaus Meister, Historische Kritik bei Polybius, Palingenesia: Monographien und Texte zur klassischen Altertumswissenschaft 9 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1975), 36; also Baum, “Hat Lukas Jesus und die Apostel genau zitiert? , ”118-19; pace Frank W. Walbank, Commentary on Books XII - XVIII, vol. 2 of A Historical Commentary on Polybius (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967), 385-86. This understanding of the Greek text is also supported by the English translation of W. R. Paton in the Loeb Classical Library series quoted above. 40 Baum, “Hat Lukas Jesus und die Apostel genau zitiert? ,”118-119; also Walbank, Speeches, 8, who summarizes the Polybian view saying that “in reporting a speech a historian must restrict himself to what was actually said, and indeed the most important part of that, but he may cast it in his own words, which may in fact be identical for different occasions.” 41 Gempf, “Published Speaking and Published Accounts,” 272. 42 Yet, concerning the credibility of Polybius, see Boris Dreyer, “Polybios,” in Pol-Sal, vol. 10 of Der neue Pauly: Enzyklopädie der Antike, ed. Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider (Weimar: Metzler, 2001), 46: “Die Zuverlässigkeit des P. ist hoch anzusetzen. Vorsätzliche Verfälschung wird ihm kaum vorgeworfen.” 74 more interested in stylistic eloquence than in historical accuracy. 43 However, it can hardly be argued that such an approach has ever been widely sanctioned within the contemporary historical guild. 44 Rather, the Thucydidean principle of accurately reporting direct speech seems to have remained the governing standard within ancient historiography through empirical times. In this regard, a concern for reliable reproduction may be observed in the work of the Roman historian Livy. Although he apparently took some liberty in reworking speeches he found in Polybius, there can be no doubt that he reproduced in substance their content while changing their form. 45 A short time later, Tacitus subscribed to a historiographical method “combining stylistic freedom with fidelity to substance,” 46 as can be seen by his faithful rendition of the general gist of a speech delivered by the emperor Claudius, which was preserved on a bronze tablet in Lyons. 47 With verbatim accounts of direct speech being the rare exception rather than the rule, 48 we may confidently deduce that it was customary practice in Greco-Roman historiography to stylistically recast an author’s oration while the content was expected to be faithfully preserved. Among historians of this period there seems to have existed a clear concept of historical truth to which they were held accountable. 49 Contrary to the current assumption of an almost uncontrolled 43 Gempf, “Published Speaking and Published Accounts,” 269-70, 275-76. It has to be noted, however, that many of those arguing for rhetoric to take precedence over historical reliability were not historians in the strict sense of the term. Yet, according to FGrH 70 F 9, even Ephorus, a historian influenced by the rhetorical school of Isocrates, uttered his intention to accurately report speeches. [Jacoby, Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, 2B: 45.] 44 Fornara, The Nature of History, 155;; also Baum, “Hat Lukas Jesus und die Apostel genau zitiert? ,” 120. One possible exception is Lucian’s statement in Hist. Conscr. 58: “If a person has to be introduced to make a speech, above all let his language suit his person and his subject, and next let these also be as clear as possible. It is then, however, that you can play the prator and show your eloquence.” [English: Lucian, “How to Write History,” in vol. 6 of Lucian in Eight Volumes, trans. K Kilburn, LCL 430 (repr., London: Heinemann, 1968), 71.] However, Baum has rightly observed that this does not necessarily mean that Lucian does not expect the speeches to be accurate in terms of content. This passage may also be interpreted in the sense that while the general accuracy of the historian is presupposed (Hist. Conscr. 39 and 47) he has the liberty at certain places to alter the form according to his rhetorical skills. 45 Gempf, “Published Speaking and Published Accounts,” 283; Fornara, The Nature of History, 161. 46 Ibid., 153. 47 Gempf, “Published Speaking and Published Accounts,” 284-85. 48 See Baum, “Hat Lukas Jesus und die Apostel genau zitiert? ,” 125-29, with references to Sueton, Tacitus, and Arrian. According to Baum, Pompeius Trogus was one of the very few to challenge the convention of using direct speech where the original speech has been recast in the style of the author. 49 Within his study of the role of eyewitnesses in ancient history, Byrskog, Story as History - History as Story, 180-81, concludes in general terms: “The historians’ preference for the involved and participating eyewitness, coupled with their sensitivity to the biased 75 liberty in putting words into the mouth of historical figures, it has to be maintained that within the works of ancient historians direct speech was considered to be authentic only as long as it contained the general thrust of what had originally been said. 2.2.2 The Authenticity of Direct Speech in Hebrew Historiography The manifold relationship between the New Testament Gospels and the Hebrew writings of the Old Testament can hardly be denied. It is thus in order to briefly review the standards of authenticity within ancient Hebrew historiography as a backdrop for our study of the discourses in the Gospel of John. Some of what has been said about Greco-Roman historiography and direct speech corresponds to the practice of Hebrew historical writers. Yet, in contrast to their Greco-Roman counterparts, Hebrew historiographers did not leave us with theoretical reflections about the historical standards employed when reporting direct speech. 50 Thus, conclusions can only be drawn with a certain amount of caution. Within the Old Testament direct discourse plays a rather predominant role and is generally preferred to indirect speech. 51 By this means the story is supplied with a certain vividness and immediacy. It is beyond question that the authors of the historical books of the Old Testament understood their narratives (including the reported speeches) as reproducing actual historical events. Nevertheless, analogous to the usage of direct discourse in the works of Greco-Roman historians, it is not self-evident to assume that Hebrew historiographers in directly rendering the speeches of their protagonists actually made a claim of authenticity similar to that of a modern author using quotation marks. Hebrew historiography did not know the equation of direct speech and literal rendition. 52 There are indeed several indicators for the conclusion that the authors of Hebrew historical writings did not claim to quote their agents verbatim. character of the eyewitness accounts, challenged them therefore sometimes to insist more clearly and emphatically on the importance of truth. (…) Even Xenophon, evidently, knew and admitted that an account could be uncertain ( a; dhlon ), thus betraying a sense of what actually constituted historical truth.” [italics his] 50 Armin D. Baum, “Zu Funktion und Authentizitätsanspruch der oratio recta: Hebräische und griechische Geschichtsschreibung im Vergleich,” ZAW 115 (2003): 586. 51 Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1981), 67; cf. also Hubert Cancik, Grundzüge der hethitischen und alttestamentlichen Geschichtsschreibung, Abhandlungen des deutschen Palästina-Vereins (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1976), 35; Cynthia L. Miller, The Representation of Speech in Biblical Hebrew Narrative: A Linguistic Analysis, Harvard Synoptic Museum Monographs 55 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), 93. 52 Baum, “Zu Funktion und Authentizitätsanspruch der oratio recta,” 598-99. 76 They have now been conveniently summarized by Armin D. Baum. 53 First, it needs to be noted that dialogues in Old Testament narrative are often very condensed with the narrated time apparently being much longer than the narration time. 54 In many cases it is obvious that we are not dealing with a verbatim report of a particular conversation but with a summarized account (in direct speech) of what has actually been said. This may be seen, for example, in the stylized brevity of the verbal approach of Potiphar’s wife to Joseph in Gen 39: 7. 55 She certainly said more than that. Similarly, we repeatedly find instances of “authorial abstraction” 56 or “semidirect speech.” 57 These terms designate a direct quotation which replaces specific details with a general substitute. An example may be found in 2Sam 17: 15, where Hushai says to Zadok and Abiathar, the priest: “Ahithophel has advised Absalom and the elders of Israel to do such and such, but I have advised them to do so and so.” Cynthia Miller rightly states that “[such] a quotation does not purport to be a verbatim account of the speech event (…);; it is a literary construct used to condense information in the narrative.” 58 Further evidence can be deduced from the fact that within Old Testament narratives different characters cannot be distinguished by means of idiosyncratic speech styles. Originalities of style can usually not be identified and the speech of the protagonists is hardly distinguishable from the style of the narrator. As Shimon Bar-Efrat stated, “It [i.e., the character’s speech] reaches us through the author’s mediation and is subject to the same stylistic principles which govern the work as a whole, giving it unity.” 59 Direct speech in the Old Testament is recast in the author’s style which makes it clear that the writers of biblical history did not want to reproduce the exact wording of the reported speeches. Thus, it appears to have been legitimate for direct speech to be “condensed and reshaped by the narrator to achieve the particular goals of the narrative.” 60 53 Cf. for the following paragraphs, ibid., 599- 605. 54 Shimon Bar-Efrat, Narrative Art in the Bible, JSOTSup 70 (Sheffield: Almond Press, 1989), 148. 55 Alter, Biblical Narrative, 73. 56 Ibid., 71. 57 Miller, The Representation of Speech, 281. She also refers to Meir Sternberg who calls this literary phenomenon a “departicularization.” 58 Ibid., also Jos 17: 20, Judg 18: 4, 1Sam 17: 27 and many others. 59 Bar-Efrat, Narrative Art, 65; also Alter, Biblical Narrative, 72. 60 Miller, The Representation of Speech, 407. 77 Where the writers of Old Testament history quoted an already reported speech for a second time we have another indicator of their handling of direct discourse. 61 Of the 94 verifiable quotations in the books of Genesis to Kings, only 10 render the exact wording of their original template. 62 In all other instances a change in language can be observed, i.e., either a shortening, a lengthening, or a paraphrase of the original portion of direct speech. About three-quarters of these quotations have actually been shortened, either by omitting a few words (Gen 26: 9) or whole sentences (Gen 3: 17). Contrary to this apparent inclination to shorten a resumed quotation, “the extent of lengthening in quoted direct speech tends to be quite limited, both in the number of texts that exhibit additions and in the extent of those additions.” 63 Only 18 quotations have been expanded in some way. 64 Most frequently, quoted direct speech has been paraphrased. This may comprise slight semantic variations, the employment of synonymous expressions but also more significant changes of language and syntax. 65 Yet, this paraphrastic recasting is not tantamount to a change of meaning of the quoted speech. Indeed, George W. Savran concludes his overview of the formal aspects of quoted direct speech with the observation that “nearly all verifiable quotations are relatively accurate repetitions of the content of the earlier speech.” 66 Armin D. Baum has highlighted these observable variations by means of a comparison of two passages in Gen 24: 1-27 and Gen 24: 34-49. 67 A few examples taken from these two longer texts suffice to demonstrate the kind of changes made: 61 For the following paragraph, cf. George W. Savran, Telling and Retelling: Quotation in Biblical Narrative, ISBL (Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1988), 18-36. 62 This type of quoted direct speech can be found in Gen 20: 5; 26: 9; 38: 22; 44: 25; Ex 32: 8; 1Sam 21: 12; 29: 5; 1Kg 18: 11.14; 22: 18. 63 Savran, Telling and Retelling, 32. 64 Gen 24: 40; 31: 11-13; 42: 34; 44: 23, 26 et al. 65 For several examples of each category, see Savran, Telling and Retelling, 33- 35. 66 Ibid., 35-36. 67 Baum, “Zu Funktion und Authentizitätsanspruch der oratio recta,” 602-03. [Gen 24: 2-4] He said to the chief servant in his household, the one in charge of all that he had, “Put your hand under my thigh. I want you to swear by the LORD, the God of heaven and the God of earth, that you will not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, among whom I am living, but will go to my country and my own relatives and get a wife for my son Isaac.” [Gen 24: 37-38] “And my master made me swear an oath, and said, ‘You must not get a wife for my son from the daughters of the Canaanites, in whose land I live, but go to my father's family and to my own clan, and get a wife for my son.’” 78 All of these quotations of direct speech do not render the exact wording of the original, while the meaning and general content of each utterance has been preserved. These findings as regards the handling of speech material within Hebrew historiography may now be supplemented by a comparison of parallel accounts in 2Kgs 18-20 par. Isa 36-39 and 1Kgs 7-10 par. 2Chr 4-9 respectively. 68 The parallel texts contain a significant amount of speech material and thus serve as further exemplification for the standards for quotation within the Old Testament history books. Both comparisons reveal that the speech material has not only been accurately paraphrased, but that the authors have to a significant extent quoted their original verbatim. The conformity of wording within the passages of direct discourse is an average of 89 percent (2Kgs 18-20) and 91 percent (Isa 36-39) respectively. 69 In 2Chr 4-9, the chronicler has retained 82 percent of the wording of his written source. Although this kind of precision is not evident in all parts of Old Testament history, it seems to serve as further confirmation for the general tendency within Hebrew historiography to reliably reproduce its sources while not trying to attain a 100 percent identity in wording. In view of the absence of any methodological reflection on the part of ancient Hebrew historians, statements of later Jewish authorities have been unearthed which may confirm our hitherto obtained insights. 70 The Jewish scholar Philo of Alexandria was probably also already significantly influenced by Hellenistic literary conventions. Yet, as a member of the Jewish community not that far removed from Old Testament times he might serve as implicit evidence for an existing standard in quoting direct speech. As he states in the 68 Idem., Der mündliche Faktor und seine Bedeutung für die synoptische Frage: Analogien aus der antiken Literatur, der Experimentalpsychologie, der Oral Poetry-Forschung und dem rabbinischen Traditionswesen, TANZ 49 (Tübingen: Francke, 2008), 89-110. 69 We may leave open the question whether both texts are transcripts of a common source or whether one used the other. 70 Baum, “Zu Funktion und Authentizitätsanspruch der oratio recta,” 604-05. [Gen 24: 17] The servant hurried to meet her and said, “Please give me a little water from your jar.” [Gen 24: 45] “Before I finished praying in my heart, Rebekah came out, with her jar on her shoulder. She went down to the spring and drew water, and I said to her, ‘Please give me a drink.’” [Gen 24: 18-19] “Drink, my lord,” she said, and quickly lowered the jar to her hands and gave him a drink. After she had given him a drink, she said, “I'll draw water for your camels too, until they have finished drinking.” [Gen 24: 46] “She quickly lowered her jar from her shoulder and said, ‘Drink, and I’ll water your camels too.’ So I drank, and she watered the camels also.” 79 second book of his Vita Mosis, “Yet who does not know (…) that the same thought can be put in many shapes by changing single words and whole phrases and suiting the expression to the occasion? ” 71 More than a millennium later, Abraham Ibn Ezra used the same methodological insight to explain how biblical authors worded their quotations. In his commentary on Ex 20: 1 he says, “Note that words are like bodies and their meanings are like souls. The body is, at [sic! ] it were, a vessel for the soul. Hence all the wise men of all nations are in the habit of preserving the ideas conveyed by a word and are not concerned with changes in wording when the meaning remains one and the same.” 72 He also observes that Scripture sometimes abridges or elaborates, yet “the meaning remains the same,” thus we need to “note that the meaning, not the wording, is preserved.” 73 Overall, the least that can be said is that even in Hebrew history-writing a distinction was made between the general content of a statement and its semantic and literary form. While Old Testament historians felt obligated to retain the general meaning of the direct speech they reported, it was apparently legitimate to change its original wording through summary, abbreviation, or any other technique of recasting in one’s own style. 2.2.3 Summary: Implications for the Authenticity of Direct Speech in the Fourth Gospel In dealing with questions concerned with historical reliability, there seems to be no methodological alternative to regarding the author of the Fourth Gospel as aspiring (or at least pretending) to report historical truth and therefore to evaluate him and his work according to the standards of ancient historiography. If we are to avoid anachronism, then it is mandatory not to segregate the writing from its literary context but rather to let a contemporary understanding of historical authenticity determine the criteria by which to decide whether what we have before us is a faithful account or not. In this regard, our brief survey of ancient historiographical practice, both Greco-Roman (2.2.1) and Hebrew (2.2.2), has provided a helpful framework for further investigation. Neither Greco-Roman nor ancient Jewish historians claimed to give the authentic wording of a statement when using direct speech. We find in ancient historiography a clear distinction between form and content, and it was entirely legitimate to alter the wording of any given statement as long as its content was authentically reproduced. While contemporary convention gave the author significant freedom to use his own language in rendering speeches, the responsible 71 Philo, Vit. Mos. II.38 [Greek and English: Philo, “De Vita Mosis,” in vol. 6 of Philo in Eleven Volumes, transl. F.H. Colson, LCL (repr., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950), 273-609, here 466-67.] 72 Ibn Ezra’s Commentary on the Pentateuch: Exodus (Shemot), trans. H. Norman Strickman and Arthur M. Silver (New York: Menorah, 1996), 399. 73 Ibid., 400, 404. 80 historian was expected to at least capture the general thrust of what had been said. It was not acceptable to attribute to speakers discourses which had to be traced back to the creative ability of the particular author. Therefore, the allegation of the Jesus Seminar that the evangelists followed common practice in freely inventing speeches of Jesus (i.e., they had the license to do so) is clearly not in line with the historical evidence. 74 Regarding the inclusion of direct speech in historical works, a distinction was made between the authenticity of wording and the authenticity of content, and while the latter was required, the former was not. Thus, when being occupied with Johannine authenticity, we need to maintain this differentiation between exact wording and implied content. 75 According to contemporary standards, the Johannine discourses have to be considered as historically authentic as long as they accurately represent the meaning and substance of what Jesus originally said. In accordance with the historiographical conventions of his own time, the author of the Fourth Gospel does not use direct speech in order to attempt to present a verbatim report of the words of Jesus. Instead he makes use of direct speech in order to communicate to his readers that he is giving them a reliable account of the content of Jesus’ teaching. Whether he reached his own standards remains an open question. It will not do, however, to argue that what was reliable for first century readers is simply not reliable enough for us. The fact that John did not use direct speech in our modern way does not preclude him from presenting speeches which we could accept as an accurate or authentic rendition of the general substance of Jesus’ teaching. A minimalist approach that equates historical authenticity with verbatim quotation has to be considered as inappropriate even by modern standards. Modern Direct Speech Direct Speech in John expected verbatim report reproduction of content required authenticity of wording authenticity of content Peter Ensor has examined the Fourth Evangelist’s handling of Old Testament quotations and has thereby provided us with an intriguing analogy for the way the author might have dealt with the sayings and discourses of Jesus. He argues that since we may assume that the author of the Fourth Gospel believed both the Old Testament and the words of Jesus to be the word of God, his handling of Old Testament quotations “offers us a clue to 74 But cf. Funk and Hoover, Five Gospels, 29-30. 75 Despite the acknowledgement that the Fourth Gospel wants to be read as a historical piece, Derek Tovey, Narrative Art and Act in the Fourth Gospel, JSNTSup 151 (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1997), 201-28, 267-69, 273, has classified the Fourth Gospel somewhat imprecisely between history and fiction. This seems to be at least partly due to an inaccurate understanding of the difference between an authenticity of wording and an authenticity of content. 81 the way he may well have handled the tradition of the sayings of Jesus which he possessed.” 76 Ensor’s observation that the Fourth Gospel’s Old Testament quotations range from almost verbal reproductions to rather freely worded paraphrases may serve as additional confirmation for the strong suspicion that, as an ancient historian, the author of John’s Gospel may have exerted the liberty to recast Jesus’ speech in his own style. Regarding our comparative approach to the authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John (see above 1.3.2), the results of our overview pertaining to the handling of direct speech in antiquity have even more specific implications. When comparing the Johannine discourses with the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics, we need to be aware that differences in wording are not sufficient to argue for the inauthenticity of the Fourth Gospel’s account. In other words, any convincing comparison of this kind has to operate not only on a semantical or syntactical level but also on a conceptual level, i.e., a level of content. Indeed, the gradual differences between Greco-Roman and Hebrew historiography concerning the aspired closeness to the original wording may provide a possible framework by which to explain the verbal distinctions between the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John and his synoptic teaching. A purely synoptic comparison of Jesus’ teaching reveals a significant congruence in wording and thus a willingness of the first three evangelists to remain considerably close to whatever (oral or written) sources they employed. This, of course, is more in line with the Hebrew paradigm of historiographical practice. If, however, the author of the Gospel of John decided to remain closer to the Greco-Roman paradigm of a more liberal recasting of direct speech (an assumption which is entirely conceivable even if one establishes the overall generic location and background more in Hellenistic-Jewish terms), then the verbal differences between the Fourth Gospel and its synoptic counterparts would become increasingly comprehensible. In any event, a methodologically sensible examination of Johannine-Synoptic relations and their implications for the authenticity of Jesus’ words in John will certainly take into account that the concept of authenticity cannot be limited to a strictly verbal sense and will thus also include a detailed comparison of the intended meaning of Jesus’ teaching. It is to the explanation of such a procedure that we now turn. 76 Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 83, cf. the whole section 58-84. 82 2.3 Comparing the Johannine Discourses and the Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics 2.3.1 Introductory Remarks As we concern ourselves with the methodological details of our comparative approach, we may once again address the prevailing scholarly assumption which would consider any attempt to compare Johannine and synoptic accounts with historical questions in mind a fruitless venture. However, the argument from Johannine-Synoptic relations remains a strong argumentative pillar in the historical debate and thus, as noted earlier, can only be neglected to the detriment of a solidly substantiated discussion (see above 1.3.2). Further, to declare a scholarly impasse on the issue, which would justify putting an end to any efforts concerning this matter, is made impossible by a preliminary inventory on Johannine- Synoptic parallels given below (2.4). We consent with David Wenham, who defended the rationale for his study on the relation of Paul and Jesus (an issue in some parts at least akin to ours) by saying that there are “usually moves still to be made in the game, even if they are not always obvious, and the game can move on constructively, so long as the players are willing to explore the possibilities. The danger in scholarly debate is either toohasty despair - unwillingness to engage with new ideas and arguments - or too close attachment to existing ways of looking at things - unwillingness to consider radically different approaches.” 77 Instead of putting up with the game’s determination, our approach seeks to enhance the quality of the game by a closer look at the actual data. One immediate reservation with regard to a close comparison between the Johannine discourses and the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics may arise from fear of a methodologically uncontrolled tendency to find significant parallels based on the author’s presuppositions where there are none. It goes without saying that such “parallelomania” (a term initially coined by Samuel Sandmel 78 ) or unrestrained “maximalism” has to be avoided. Yet, while a particular scholar’s judgment will always have a part in weighing and interpreting the evidence, a sufficiently rigorous method should be able to protect us from an overly subjective picture of Johannine-Synoptic relations and thus provide a comprehensible and useful foundation for further discussion. The specific method we will follow with our comparative approach has as its precursor the methodological arsenal of historical Jesus studies. In his inventory of the Jesus tradition John Dominic Crossan has categorized 77 David Wenham, Paul: Follower of Christ or Founder of Christianity? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 15. 78 Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” JBL 81 (1962): 1-13. 83 each complex of material according to chronology of stratum and multiplicity of attestation. For each cited complex a two-number-bracket is given, e.g., [1/ 3], with the number left of the stroke telling you in what stratum of tradition the complex is found, while the number to its right reveals the amount of independent attestation. 79 In this present study, the focus is not so much on the chronological sequence of sources; and the way we approach the issue of multiple attestation significantly differs from conventional method. However, as we shall see, in a purely formal way our proposed system of synthesizing the evidence closely corresponds with Crossan’s presentation. A few years later, in its quest for determining authentic Jesus material, the renowned Jesus Seminar has adopted four categories in order to classify the level of authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Gospels. The assigned category would indicate the Seminar’s decision on whether “a particular saying or parable did or did not represent the voice of the historical Jesus.” 80 The different categories, or types, are qualified in the following way (the colors indicating the way in which the different sayings are displayed in the Gospel edition of the Jesus Seminar): Type red: Jesus undoubtedly said this or something very like it. Type pink: Jesus probably said something like this. Type gray: Jesus did not say this, but the ideas contained in it are close to his own. Type black: Jesus did not say this; it represents the perspective or content of a later or different tradition. In his study of Jesus’ works sayings in historical perspective, Peter Ensor has determined that there has been some confusion within New Testament scholarship when it comes to a precise definition of the terms “authentic” and “authenticity.” After giving a short review of different ways in which some scholars have defined these terms, Ensor presents his own “fresh approach” to the problem. 81 Somewhat similarly to the Jesus Seminar, he distinguishes three basic types, or levels, of authenticity, which he defines as follows: 79 John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), xxxii-xxxiv. On Crossan’s methodology, see also David E. Aune, “Assessing the Historical Value of the Apocryphal Jesus Tradition,” in Der historische Jesus: Tendenzen und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Forschung, ed. Jens Schröter and Ralph Brucker, BZNW 114 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 258-69. 80 Funk and Hoover, Five Gospels, 36. See above 1.2.1. 81 Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 27-38. See above 1.2.4. He slightly modified this approach in his more recent article “The Johannine Sayings,” 22-32. 84 Type a: The authenticity of the actual original wording. These words would be in Aramaic, and are referred to by Ensor as the ipsissima verba of Jesus. 82 Type b: The authenticity of close Greek translations of the original words of Jesus. This type of authenticity assumes a relative closeness to an original utterance of Jesus and even some stylistic resemblances. Ensor calls this now the ipsissima dicta. Type c: The authenticity of words conveying the general content of the original words of Jesus. Type c does not require the reported words to bear any marks of Jesus’ actual style, but only assumes that they represent the meaning of what Jesus originally said. 83 This type of looser representation is called ipsissimae sententiae. Generally, it may be said, that the differences indicated by these (or similar) types is often one of degree and not of kind. However, in light of the fact that the historiographical standards of the first century included a broader concept of direct speech than the one we have today (see above 3.2.1 and 3.2.2), the implementation of such categories provides a helpful clarification for the discussion about the authenticity of Jesus’ sayings as reported in the canonical Gospels. Now, although this present study is not primarily concerned with issues of authenticity, it seems that a similar system of classification could be methodologically useful for our purposes. With analogy to this nuanced display of authenticity types we thus intend to provide a sufficiently detailed method of comparison able to present with great lucency and accuracy the manner of correspondence between John and the Synoptics without being at risk of uncontrolled “parallelomania.” Every comparison between Jesus’ words in John and in the Synoptics will inevitably reveal different levels of closeness. Therefore, a modified adaptation of the above mentioned types, with the necessary distinctions, should help us to present and evaluate our research findings in a more accurate and precise way. 2.3.2 Levels of Closeness Defined According to ancient standards, a comparison between the Johannine discourses and the Synoptics has to focus especially on the content of what 82 It needs to be noted again that generally the term ipsissima verba is not used for this type for practical reasons. Ensor, “Johannine Sayings,” 25, himself states that “there is only one ipsissimum verbum occurring in Jesus’ speech in John’s Gospel which may safely be attributed to him. That is the word ‘Amen’ (…).” What is usually classified as ipsissima verba is called ipsissima dicta (type b; see below) by Ensor. 83 Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 32-34. 85 has been transmitted as words of Jesus. Our attention may thus not only be confined to the semantic level, but has to be directed rather towards the similarity in content between propositions within the Johannine discourses and the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics. We therefore suggest a bifocal method for examining the Gospels’ evidence that will distinguish between two parameters, namely (a) similarity in wording [parameter x] and (b) similarity in content [parameter y]. For both parameters, three different categories, or levels of closeness, between elements of Jesus’ discourses in the Fourth Gospel and his teaching in the Synoptics will be implemented. A brief explanation follows that describes these different levels of closeness. a. Similarity in Wording [parameter x]. Verbal agreement remains the most obvious indicator for corresponding propositions in John and the Synoptics. We distinguish between three different categories of verbal correspondence. Level 0: Little or no verbal agreement. This category includes sayings or propositions that show no or at least no significant overlap in wording. Level 1: Some verbal agreement. This level requires the conformity of one or more individual words or phrases. These shared words, however, should have at least some significance in conveying the basic assertion of a given saying. Thus, in John 5: 30 Jesus clearly states that he does not seek to please himself, but to do the will of the Father. Significant for the conceptual meaning of this proposition is the Greek term to. qe,lhma , which is shared with another dominical saying in Luke 22: 42. Consequently, we would have to acknowledge some verbal similarity between these two verses. [John 5: 30] I can do nothing on my own initiative. Just as I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just, because I do not seek my own will [ to. qe, lhma to. ev mo.n ], but [ avlla. ] the will of the one who sent me. [Luke 22: 42] Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me. Yet not my will [ to. qe, lhma, mou ] but [ avlla. ] yours be done. Level 2: Close verbal agreement. This level of closeness assumes a veryhigh degree of conformity in wording. In contrast to the preceding level, level 2 requires an almost complete verbal correspondence. The present category would apply to John 12: 8, where Jesus is saying “You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me.” Except for a slight variation in word order, Matt 26: 11 contains all twelve Greek words used in John’s rendition. 86 [John 12: 8] tou.j ptwcou.j ga.r pa,ntote e; cete meqV e` autw/ n( evme. de. ouv pa,ntote e; ceteÅ [Matt 26: 11] pa,ntote ga.r tou.j ptwcou.j e; cete meqV e` autw/ n( evme. de. ouv pa,ntote e; cete\ b. Similarity in Content [parameter y]. Conceptual agreement constitutes another parameter used to evaluate the relation between the Johannine discourses and the synoptic teaching of Jesus. Similarity of thought or meaning may be present even in those cases where there is only some or no verbal similarity. We differentiate three levels of conceptual closeness. Level 0: No similarity in content. In this case, there is no discernible correlation in content between the Johannine rendition of Jesus’ speeches and his words in the Synoptics. Level 1: Some similarity in content. This level of closeness requires a relationship in which the conceptual thrust of a particular Johannine saying or teaching is similar to a synoptic proposition at least to some degree. Whether accompanied by verbal similarity of any kind, there needs to be a partial (even at times remote) resemblance in terms of content. Jesus statement “I am telling you the things I have seen while with the Father” in John 8: 38a, for example, lacks any close conceptual parallel in the Synoptics. However, at a slightly removed level of abstraction, we may observe that Matt 11: 27 [par. Luke 10: 22] shows some similarity as regards the inherent content of the saying. [John 8: 38a] I am telling you the things I have seen while with the Father. [Matt 11: 27] No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. Level 2: Close similarity in content. This category would include propositions which bear a close resemblance in terms of content. An example would be Jesus’ statement in John 20: 23 where there is close similarity in content with his teaching in Matt 18: 18. The transfer of authority to forgive sins to the disciples in John echoes Matthew’s declaration of the disciples’ right to bind and loose. Although the former text uses the verbs avfi,hmi and krate,w instead of the Matthean de,omai and lu,w (which might refer more specifically to church discipline), both passages closely cohere in conferring to the disciples the right to rule with authority on matters pertaining to salvation. 87 [John 20: 23] If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone's sins, they are retained.am telling you the things I have seen while with the Father. [Matt 18: 18] I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven. The goal of the remainder of this study is to compare the Johannine discourses with the dominical speech material in the Synoptics in order to determine if there are significant parallels between the two. As we examine several discourses in detail, we will assign to every Johannine proposition its level of similarity in wording [parameter x] as well as its level of similarity in content [parameter y] when compared to particular passages in the Synoptic Gospels. Thus, if a Johannine-Synoptic relation is designated as [1/ 2], the numbers in brackets communicate that the given propositions reveal some verbal agreement (level [1/ ] similarity) and are closely similar in terms of content (level [/ 2] similarity). For the sake of clarity, i.e., in order to facilitate immediate insights into the nature of any given Johannine-Synoptic relationship, we will constantly refer to both parameters mentioned. Overall, seven different combinations are possible: (a) If a Johannine proposition has synoptic counterparts which show little or no verbal agreement (parameter x: level 0), there are three possibilities for parameter y: regarding content there may either be no similarity [0/ 0], some similarity [0/ 1] or close similarity [0/ 2]. (b) If a Johannine proposition has synoptic counterparts which reveal some verbal agreement (parameter x: level 1), there are also three possibilities for parameter y: regarding content there may again either be no similarity [1/ 0], some similarity [1/ 1] or close similarity [1/ 2]. However, for obvious reasons, [1/ 0] similarities are not specifically searched for in this study. (c) If a Johannine proposition has synoptic counterparts which exhibit close verbal agreement (parameter x: level 2), it follows that the content of these sayings is closely similar as well [2/ 2]. 88 Types of Closeness - An Overview Generally, one could easily imagine an even more sophisticated method of classification with even more subdivisions within each parameter. But it is our contention that this would not be appropriate for our purposes and unnecessarily complicate matters. In this respect, it needs to be noted that even with our three levels of closeness for both wording and content, the differences between those levels are of degree, so that any given classification may well be ambiguous. It is further impossible to avoid the possibility that propositions which are classified with the same level of closeness for either wording or content, actually show slightly different degrees of closeness. But even if one might argue about some of the levels assigned to particular sayings, we are confident that this will not alter the general impression we will discover from our comparison between John and the Synoptics. Finally, we may note that as we look for similarities in content, the basic question we have to ask is whether a saying or teaching in John contains the same or a somewhat similar, i.e., a slightly more abstracted conceptual thrust and thus represents the general meaning of what was said in the Synoptics. This may or may not involve (some) verbal agreement. Generally, it can be said that similarities in content (to whatever degree) may include more or less abstracted paraphrases or summary statements of what is otherwise expressed in a more elaborative way as well as the attempt to verbalize more explicitly what has only been articulated implicitly. Having explained the general method employed, we close this section with a brief legend to interpret the comparative tables featured in the main part of this study. Each table consists of three columns. The column on the left is reserved for Johannine propositions. The column on the right contains the synoptic parallels adduced, extended at times with additional remarks. The levels of closeness assigned to each of the parallels as defined above are noted in the middle column. Each Johannine proposition as well as each synoptic parallel is given both in the Greek text of NA 27 and in an English translation. The version used is the New English Translation [NET] with exceptional minor corrections when deemed necessary by the author. As we compare the Johannine discourses and the Synoptics, both similarities in wording and in content are printed in bold. Semantic relations are made visible in the Greek text. Similarities in content are revealed by bold print Similarity in Wording Similarity in Content 0 0 0 1 0 2 1 0 1 1 1 2 2 2 89 in the English text. Regarding the similarities in wording, common words are highlighted in full. In those cases where certain substantival or verbal forms share the word-stem only, it is only this stem that occurs in bold print ( oi=daj and oi=den ). This approach, however, has its limitations, e.g., when a particular verb features a stem-change from one tense to another (as visible in verbal forms like e`wra,kate and ivdo,ntej ). In those instances we decided to print the entire word in bold face. The same is true with stemrelated words like zh,sei and zwh.n . They too are highlighted as a whole. Similarities in content that have no particular significance are marked with italics (e.g., the repeated introductory phrase “Amen, amen, I say to you”). One final word is in order. In conducting our comparison we constantly refer to the two major strands of gospel tradition only, John and the Synoptics. We do so for two reasons. First, the discussion reviewed in chapter 1 (to which we tie in with our study) does not discriminate between different strands within the synoptic tradition. Generally, when similarities and dissimilarities to the Fourth Gospel are discussed, reference is made to the Synoptic Gospels as a corpus. Second, a classification of synoptic source material would unnecessarily complicate matters. For our purposes (at least in this first attempt to approach the issue) we have very little to gain from a further differentiation between possible synoptic sources and their relation to the Fourth Gospel. Thus, when mentioning particular synoptic parallels, we abstained from fragmenting the evidence into speech material found in the distinguishable strands of the Gospel of Mark, the so-called Q material, or the Matthean and Lukan Sondergut. 84 In referring to the triple tradition, the Matthean passage is usually mentioned first, unless another version of the saying is closer to the Johannine proposition. 2.3.3 Conclusions The purpose of this section has been to provide some methodological foundations for our following examination. Having defined several levels of closeness (which will be presupposed and applied in the remainder of the study), we are now in a better position to address the relationship between the Johannine discourses and the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics. In light of our central question as stated in chapter 1.3.2 above, it is now our goal to compare in detail an extensive portion of the Johannine discourses with the picture of Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics. In this process, it will be important to determine which levels of closeness we may actually 84 For a recent challenge of Q as a literary source, see Baum, Der mündliche Faktor, 383- 86, who argued that the distinctives of the double tradition of Matthew and Luke are more likely due to a process of oral transmission. 90 detect for the different parts and propositions of the discourses under scrutiny. In general terms, it may be said that if it can be shown that a significant amount of Jesus’ words as represented by John show evidence of a link to synoptic material either in wording or content, then a negative judgment concerning the authenticity of any given discourse based upon the differences between John and the Synoptics becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. In other words: not only are we looking for those obvious parallels which reveal a close similarity in wording and thus a [2/ 2] kind of relationship. Rather, a substantial degree of conceptual overlap as represented by [0/ 1], [0/ 2], [1/ 1], and [1/ 2] correlations would argue for a basic unity on the level of content, which, accordingly, would have to be considered when making claims about the inauthenticity of the Johannine speech material. On the other hand, if large portions of the Johannine discourses show very little coherence with the reported teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics, not only in wording but also in content, then the Fourth Gospel’s representation of Jesus’ words would have to be considered as essentially different from the Synoptics, which might (under certain assumptions) serve as an argument against its authenticity. In this case, the evidence of the discourse material would mainly exhibit signs of a [0/ 0], or at best [0/ 1] kind of relationship. 2.4 Johannine-Synoptic Parallels: A Preliminary Inventory Although our introductory review of the state of research has revealed a clear connection between the question of authenticity and the Johannine- Synoptic correlation, it has to be observed that a detailed study of the relationship between Jesus’ discourses in the Fourth Gospel and his teaching in the Synoptics (both in terms of semantics as well as content) is still lacking. Given, however, the fact that some of the scholars reviewed in chapter 1 have provided compilations of Johannine-Synoptic parallels of different kinds, these inventories may serve as a starting point in identifying dominical sayings in John and the Synoptics that feature particular degrees of coherence. Among the propositions repeatedly perceived as Johannine- Synoptic parallels (with both semantic overlap [printed in bold] and overlap of content) are the following examples: 91 [John 10: 15] kaqw.j ginw,skei me o` path.r kavgw. ginw,skw to.n pate, ra( kai. th.n yuch,n mou ti,qhmi u`pe. r tw/ n proba,twnÅ [Matt 11: 27] Pa,nta moi paredo,qh u`po. tou/ patro,j mou( kai. ouvdei.j evpiginw,skei to.n ui`o.n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate, ra tij evpiginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j kai. w-| ev a.n bou,lhtai o` ui`o.j avpokalu,yaiÅ [John 12: 25] o` filw/ n th.n yuch.n auvtou/ avpollu,ei auvth,n( kai. o` misw/ n th.n yuch.n auvtou/ ev n tw/ | ko,smw| tou,tw| eivj zwh.n aivw,nion fula,xei auvth,nÅ [Mark 8: 35] o]j ga.r ev a.n qe,lh| th.n yuch.n auvtou/ sw/ sai avpole,sei auvth,n\ o]j dV a'n avpole,sei th.n yuch.n auvtou/ e[ neken ev mou/ kai. tou/ euvaggeli,ou sw,sei auvth,nÅ [cf. Matt 16: 25; Luke 9: 24] [John 17: 2] kaqw.j e; dwkaj auvtw/ | ev xousi,an pa,shj sarko,j( i[na pa/ n o] de, dwkaj auvtw/ | dw,sh| auvtoi/ j zwh.n aivw,nionÅ [Matt 28: 18] ev do,qh moi pa/ sa ev xousi,a ev n ouvranw/ | kai. evpi. Îth/ jÐ gh/ jÅ The following table is intended to complement our review of the history of research in chapter 1 by providing an overview of Johannine sayings which have been perceived by different scholars as having some kind of synoptic parallels. The table features works of Brooke F. Westcott (moderateoptimistic view), C. H. Dodd (moderate-skeptical view), James D. G. Dunn (moderate-skeptical view), and Michael Theobald (skeptical view), and thus represent various perspectives on the spectrum regarding Johannine authenticity. 85 In addition to these scholars, the rather extensive material provided by Josef Blinzler has also been included, even though he does not directly address issues of authenticity and was not previously mentioned in our review of Johannine scholarship. 86 The far right column provides the Johannine-Synoptic parallels of Jesus’ teaching mentioned in the margin of NA 27 . Some of the scholars included in this overview would differentiate between Johannine sayings with a closer similarity to synoptic sayings, and others with more moderate (or remote) resemblances to synoptic words of Jesus. However, even if this is the case, it is not always clear whether they would put a particular saying in one category or the other. 87 For this reason 85 See (in chronological order) Westcott, St.John [1975], lxxxii - lxxxiv; Dodd, Historical Tradition, 335-420 (as well as some scattered references in the earlier chapters); Dunn, “Oral Gospel Tradition,” 356-58, 368-73; Theobald, Herrenworte, 60-244. 86 Josef Blinzler, Johannes und die Synoptiker: Ein Forschungsbericht, SBS 5 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1965), 10-12. Further lists of Johannine-Synoptic parallels may be found in Howard, The Fourth Gospel in Recent Criticism and Interpretation, 218- 22, 267-68, as well as Schnelle, Einleitung, 530. 87 Westcott, for example, makes a somewhat fuzzy distinction between “common sayings,” “parallels with verbal coincidences,” and “coincidences more or less striking.” In addition to the parallels noted in our table, Westcott (lxxxiv) summarizes the following words of Jesus in the Synoptics which “if followed to their legitimate consequences, involve the claims recorded by St John”: Matt 7: 22, 9: 2ff., 10: 1, 10: 39, 11: 27, 92 it seems both reasonable and sufficient for our purposes to provide for each scholar a single list of observed parallels without distinguishing between different levels of closeness. If the particular scholar explicitly mentioned the parallel accounts, they are noted in brackets. The same is true for the NA 27 parallels. Inventory of Johannine-Synoptic Parallels of Jesus’ Teaching 13: 41, 18: 20, 20: 28, 21: 37ff., 22: 45, 25: 31, 26: 28, 28: 20, Luke 21: 15, 24: 49. Josef Blinzler simply refers to Johannine words with “appeal” (Anklänge) to Synoptic sayings. C. H. Dodd differentiates between “passages which in form and content alike are identical, or closely similar, while differing verbally” and those sayings that have less striking resemblances to Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics. Dunn’s list draws heavily on the work of Dodd to which he adds several parallels perceived by D. E. Aune, B. Lindars, R. Riesner, and J. A. T. Robinson. Finally, in M. Theobald’s tradition-critical work, we find the distinction between “Herrenworte mit synoptischen Parallelen,” and “Herrenworte als Metatexte zu synoptischen Überlieferungen.” Westcott [1881] Dodd [1963] Blinzler [1965] Dunn [1991] Theobald [2002] Nestle- Aland 27 John 1: 43 [Matt 8: 22] John 1: 43 John 1: 51 [Mark 14: 62] John 2: 19 [Matt 26: 61, Mark 14: 58] John 2: 19 [Mark 14: 58 par., 15: 29 par.] John 2: 19 [Matt 26: 61, Mark 14: 58] John 2: 19 [Matt 26: 61] John 3: 5 John 3: 3, 5 [Matt 18: 3] John 3: 3, 5 [Matt 18: 3, Mark 10: 15 pars.] John 3: 3, 5 [Matt 18: 3] John 3: 3, 5 [Matt 18: 3, Mark 10: 15 pars.] John 3: 3 [Matt 18: 3] John 3: 8 [Mark 4: 27] John 3: 8 [Mark 4: 27] John 3: 11 [Luke 22: 67] John 3: 14- 15 [Mark 8: 31] 93 Cont’d: Inventory of Johannine-Synoptic Parallels of Jesus’ Teaching 88 It is not entirely clear whether John 3: 18 has to be interpreted as words of Jesus or as a comment of the author of the gospel (see below 3.1.1). Westcott [1881] Dodd [1963] Blinzler [1965] Dunn [1991] Theobald [2002] Nestle- Aland 27 John 3: 17 [Luke 19: 10; Mark 2: 17 pars.] John 3: 18 88 [Mark 16: 16] John 3: 18 [Mark 16: 16] John 3: 18 [Mark 16: 16] John 3: 29 [Mark 2: 19] John 3: 29 [Mark 2: 19] John 3: 35 [Matt 11: 27; Luke 10: 22] John 3: 35 [Matt 11: 27] John 4: 31- 34 John 4: 31- 34 John 4: 35ff. [Matt 9: 37- 38] John 4: 35- 38 John 4: 35 [Matt 9: 39; Luke 10: 2] John 4: 35- 38 [Matt 9: 37- 38 par.] John 4: 37 [Matt 9: 37] John 4: 44 [Matt 13: 57; Mark 6: 4; Luke 4: 24] John 4: 44 [Mark 6: 4; Luke 4: 24] John 4: 44 [Mark 6: 4 pars.] John 4: 44 [Mark 6: 4 pars.] John 5: 8 [Mark 2: 9] John 5: 8 [Mark 2: 11- 12 pars.] John 5: 8 [Matt 9: 6 pars.] John 5: 19- 20a John 5: 19- 20a [Matt 11: 27] John 5: 22 [Matt 7: 22- 23] 94 Cont’d: Inventory of Johannine-Synoptic Parallels of Jesus’ Teaching Westcott [1881] Dodd [1963] Blinzler [1965] Dunn [1991] Theobald [2002] Nestle- Aland 27 John 5: 23 [Luke 10: 16] John 5: 23 [Matt 10: 40] John 5: 23 [Luke 10: 16] John 5: 29 [Matt 25: 46] John 5: 29 [Matt 25: 46] John 5: 30 [Luke 22: 42] John 5: 30 [Luke 22: 42] John 5: 35 [Matt 11: 7- 11] John 5: 36 [Matt 9: 6 pars.; 11: 2- 6; 12: 28] John 5: 39 [Luke 18: 31; 24: 44] John 5: 40 [Matt 23: 37] John 5: 41 [Luke 11: 42] John 5: 43 [Matt 24: 5 pars.] John 5: 44 [Matt 23: 5- 7 pars.; 7: 18] John 5: 47 [Luke 16: 31] John 6: 20 John 6: 20 [Mark 6: 50 pars.] John 6: 20 [Mark 6: 50 pars.] 95 Cont’d: Inventory of Johannine-Synoptic Parallels of Jesus’ Teaching Westcott [1881] Dodd [1963] Blinzler [1965] Dunn [1991] Theobald [2002] Nestle- Aland 27 John 6: 26 [Mark 8: 11- 12] John 6: 33 [Matt 6: 11] John 6: 33 [Matt 6: 11] John 6: 35 [Matt 5: 6] John 6: 35 [Matt 5: 6] John 6: 37 [Matt 11: 28] John 6: 38 [Luke 22: 42] John 6: 38 [Luke 22: 42] John 6: 38 [Luke 22: 42] John 6: 39 [Matt 18: 14] John 6: 46 [Matt 11: 27] John 6: 51 John 6: 51 John 6: 51 [Mark 14: 24 pars.] John 6: 54 [Matt 26: 26-28] John 6: 61 [Matt 11: 6] John 6: 69 [Mark 8: 29] John 6: 69 [Mark 8: 29] John 6: 69 [Mark 8: 29] John 7: 8 [Mark 1: 15] John 7: 22 [Matt 12: 5] John 7: 29 [Matt 11: 27; Luke 10: 22] John 7: 29 [Matt 11: 27] John 7: 37 [Matt 11: 25] 96 Cont’d: Inventory of Johannine-Synoptic Parallels of Jesus’ Teaching 89 The words in the adduced parallel Matt 3: 8-9 do not belong to Jesus but to John the Baptist. Westcott [1881] Dodd [1963] Blinzler [1965] Dunn [1991] Theobald [2002] Nestle- Aland 27 John 8: 12 [Matt 5: 14] John 8: 17 [Matt 18: 16] John 8: 19 [Matt 11: 27] John 8: 31- 35 [Matt 3: 8-9 par.] 89 John 8: 31- 35 [Matt 3: 8-9 par.] John 8: 43 [Matt 12: 34] John 8: 45 [Luke 22: 67] John 8: 56 [Matt 13: 17 par.; Luke 17: 22] John 9: 2-5 John 9: 2-5 John 9: 3 [Luke 13: 2- 5] John 9: 38- 41 John 9: 38- 41 John 9: 39 [Matt 11: 25; 13: 13-15] John 10: 1-5 [Matt 18: 12-13] John 10: 1-5 [Matt 18: 12-13] John 10: 15 [Matt 11: 27; Luke 10: 22] John 10: 15 [Matt 11: 27; Luke 10: 22] John 10: 14- 15 [Matt 11: 27; Luke 10: 22] John 10: 15 [Matt 11: 27] John 10: 14 [Matt 11: 27 par.; 17: 25] 97 Cont’d: Inventory of Johannine-Synoptic Parallels of Jesus’ Teaching Westcott [1881] Dodd [1963] Blinzler [1965] Dunn [1991] Theobald [2002] Nestle- Aland 27 John 10: 35 [Matt 5: 17; Luke 16: 17] John 11: 9- 10 John 11: 9- 10 John 11: 25 [Matt 10: 39] John 12: 7 [Mark 14: 34 par.] John 12: 8 [Matt 26: 11] John 12: 8 [Mark 14: 6- 8 pars.] John 12: 7-8 [Mark 14: 6- 8 pars.] John 12: 24 [Matt 5: 13, Mark 3: 24 et al.] John 12: 24 John 12: 25 [Matt 10: 39; 16: 25; Luke 17: 33] John 12: 25 [Mark 8: 35 pars.] John 12: 25 [Mark 8: 35 pars.] John 12: 25 [Mark 8: 35 pars.] John 12: 25- 26 [Mark 8: 34- 35 pars.] John 12: 25 [Matt 16: 25 pars.] John 12: 26 [Matt 16: 24] John 12: 26 [Matt 16: 24] John 12: 26 [Matt 16: 24] John 12: 27 [Luke 22: 42] John 12: 27 [Luke 22: 42] John 12: 27 [Matt 26: 38 par.] John 12: 28a [Matt 6: 9 par.] John 12: 31 [Luke 10: 18] John 12: 31 [Luke 10: 18] John 12: 36 [Luke 16: 8] John 12: 44 [Luke 9: 48] John 12: 44f. [Mark 9: 37 pars.; Matt 10: 40] John 12: 44 [Matt 10: 40] 98 Cont’d: Inventory of Johannine-Synoptic Parallels of Jesus’ Teaching Westcott [1881] Dodd [1963] Blinzler [1965] Dunn [1991] Theobald [2002] Nestle- Aland 27 John 12: 47 [Luke 9: 56; in some manuscripts] John 12: 47 [Luke 9: 56; in some manuscripts] John 12: 48 [Luke 10: 16] John 13: 12- 14 [Luke 22: 27; Mark 10: 45 par.] John 13: 13 [Matt 23: 8, 10] John 13: 16 [Matt 10: 24-25, Luke 6: 40] John 13: 16 [Matt 10: 24-25] John 13: 16 [Matt 10: 24-25] John 13: 16 [Matt 10: 24] John 13: 16 [Matt 10: 24] John 13: 17 [Luke 11: 28; Matt 24: 46] John 13: 17 [Luke 11: 28; Matt 24: 46] John 13: 17 [Luke 11: 28, 37] John 13: 19 [Matt 24: 25] John 13: 20 [Matt 10: 40; Luke 16: 10] John 13: 20 [Matt 10: 40 par.] John 13: 20 [Matt 10: 40 par.] John 13: 20 [Matt 10: 40; Mark 9: 37 pars.] John 13: 20 [Matt 10: 40] John 13: 21 John 13: 21 [Mark 14: 18] John 13: 21 [Mark 14: 18] John 13: 21 [Matt 26: 21; Mark 14: 18; Luke 22: 22] John 13: 38 John 13: 38 [Mark 14: 30 pars.] John 13: 38 [Mark 14: 30 pars.] John 13: 36- 38 [Mark 14: 29-31 pars.] 99 Cont’d: Inventory of Johannine-Synoptic Parallels of Jesus’ Teaching Westcott [1881] Dodd [1963] Blinzler [1965] Dunn [1991] Theobald [2002] Nestle- Aland 27 John 14: 6 [Matt 11: 27] John 14: 9 [Mark 9: 19 pars.] John 14: 9 [Matt 17: 17 pars.] John 14: 13- 14 [Matt 7: 7 par.] John 14: 13- 14 [Mark 11: 24 par.] John 14: 13- 14 [Matt 7: 7 par.] John 14: 12- 14 [Matt 7: 7 par.; Mark 11: 24] John 14: 16 [Luke 24: 49] John 14: 18 [Matt 28: 20] John 14: 23 [Matt 28: 20] John 14: 26 [Matt 10: 19-20; Luke 12: 11- 12] John 14: 26 [Matt 10: 19] John 14: 28 [Mark 13: 32] John 14: 31 [Mark 14: 42 par.] John 14: 31 [Matt 26: 46 par.] John 15: 1 [Matt 15: 13] John 15: 2 [Matt 3: 8 par.] John 15: 6 [Matt 3: 10] 100 Cont’d: Inventory of Johannine-Synoptic Parallels of Jesus’ Teaching Westcott [1881] Dodd [1963] Blinzler [1965] Dunn [1991] Theobald [2002] Nestle- Aland 27 John 15: 7 [Mark 11: 24 par.] John 15: 7, 16 [cf. above on John 14: 12-14] John 15: 12 [Mark 12: 31] John 15: 13 [Mark 10: 45 par.] John 15: 14 [Matt 12: 49-50] John 15: 14 [Mark 3: 35 pars.] John 15: 14 [Luke 12: 4; Matt 12: 50] John 15: 18 [Mark 13: 13; Luke 6: 22] John 15: 18 [Mark 13: 13; Luke 6: 22] John 15: 18 [Matt 10: 22] John 15: 20- 21 [Matt 10: 22, 25] John 15: 20 [Luke 21: 12 pars.] John 15: 20 [Luke 21: 12 pars.] John 15: 20- 21 [Matt 10: 22, 25] John 15: 20 [Matt 10: 22] John 15: 21 [Mark 13: 13 pars.] John 15: 21 [Mark 13: 13 pars.] John 15: 21 [Matt 5: 11; 10: 22] John 15: 23 [Luke 10: 16] John 15: 23 [Luke 10: 16] John 16: 1 [Matt 11: 6] John 16: 2-3 [Matt 24: 10-11] John 16: 2 [Matt 24: 9] John 16: 2 [Mark 13: 12-13 pars.] John 16: 2 [Matt 24: 9] John 16: 2 [Matt 10: 21] John 16: 7 [Luke 24: 49] John 16: 20 [Luke 5: 35 pars.] 101 Cont’d: Inventory of Johannine-Synoptic Parallels of Jesus’ Teaching Westcott [1881] Dodd [1963] Blinzler [1965] Dunn [1991] Theobald [2002] Nestle- Aland 27 John 16: 21 [Mark 4: 26- 29; Luke 11: 21-22] John 16: 21 John 16: 21 [Luke 6: 21] John 16: 23- 24 [Matt 7: 7 par.] John 16: 23 [Mark 11: 24 par.] John 16: 23- 24 [Matt 7: 7 par.; 21: 22] John 16: 23- 24; 26-27 [cf. above on John 14: 12-14] John 16: 32 [Mark 14: 27 par.] John 16: 32 [Matt 26: 3] John 16: 33 [Matt 24: 9] John 16: 33 [Matt 24: 9] John 17: 2 [Matt 28: 18] John 17: 2 [Matt 28: 18] John 17: 2 [Matt 11: 27; Luke 10: 22] John 17: 2 [Matt 28: 18] John 17: 2 [Matt 28: 18] Joh 17: 11, 15 [Matt 6: 9, 13] Joh 17: 11, 15 [Matt 6: 9, 13] John 17: 15 [Matt 6: 13] John 17: 19 [Mark 14: 24] John 17: 25 [Matt 11: 27] John 17: 25 [Matt 11: 27] John 18: 11 [Matt 26: 42, 52] John 18: 11 [Mark 14: 36 pars.] John 18: 20 [Matt 26: 55] John 18: 20 [Mark 4: 21- 25] John 18: 37 [Mark 15: 2 pars.] John 18: 36- 37 [Matt 26: 53] John 20: 19 102 Cont’d: Inventory of Johannine-Synoptic Parallels of Jesus’ Teaching A summary of the results of this overview will put this data into perspective. 118 verses or verse clusters with parallels in synoptic speech material have been noted by the scholars reviewed. If we count each verse within each of the verse clusters mentioned, about 149 verses are covered, i.e., 35.7% of the 418 verses in the Johannine speech material. 36 of the 118 passages with synoptic parallels are noted by three or more scholars (i.e., 30.5%, or 8.6% of the Johannine speech material in total). 59 of the 118 perceived parallels are noted by two or more scholars (i.e., 14.1% of the Johannine speech material in total). 90 Furthermore, the scholars featured in this table provide synoptic parallels for each of the nine extensive discourse or dialogue sections in John’s Gospel. The Farewell discourse in John 13: 31- 16: 33 (also being the longest discourse section) contains 30 parallels, followed by the Divine Son discourse (John 5: 19-47) with 13 parallels, the Bread of Life discourse (John 6: 22-65) as well as the words about the glorification of the Son (John 12: 23-50), both having 9 parallels. The dialogue with the Samaritan woman (John 4: 1-42; containing two parallels) is the only extensive section with less than three synoptic correlations. 91 Another striking result revealed by the above table is the fact that NA 27 has by far the most parallels listed (79 compared to the 49 parallels of C. H. Dodd, who has the second most). A review of several propositions only mentioned by NA 27 (e.g., John 3: 11, 5: 36, 40) may hint at the reason for this evidence. It seems that the editors have more freely included in their margins synoptic sayings which exhibit a certain degree of similarity in content 90 Since the list of James Dunn is heavily dependent on the one by C. H. Dodd, agreements between those two scholars only have not been counted. 91 In addition to the discourses and dialogues mentioned, see also the discourse on the new birth (John 3: 1-21; 6 parallels), the discourse on the life-giving Spirit (John 7: 14- 44; three parallels), the discourse on the light of the world (John 8: 12-59; seven parallels), and the discourse on the good shepherd (John 10: 1-42; three parallels). Westcott [1881] Dodd [1963] Blinzler [1965] Dunn [1991] Theobald [2002] Nestle- Aland 27 John 20: 23 [Matt 16: 19] John 20: 23 [Matt 18: 18] John 20: 23 [Matt 18: 18.] John 20: 23 [Matt 18: 18] John 20: 23 [Matt 16: 19; 18: 18] John 20: 23 [Matt 18: 18] John 20: 29 [Matt 13: 16 par.] John 20: 29 [Matt 13: 16 par.] John 21: 22 John 21: 22- 23 [Mark 9: 1] 103 with the Johannine account without necessarily having any vocabulary in common. These findings demonstrate that while none of these various comparisons between the Synoptics and John would probably lay claim to completeness, they have certainly unearthed a significant number of Johannine-Synoptic parallels of varying degrees. This observation might cast at least some initial doubt upon several of the more bluntly stated convictions about the Johannine-Synoptic non-correlation or contrariety. The problem with these results is, however, that they are limited to individual sayings or propositions. In order to go beyond this state of research, it is necessary to examine in more detail the continuous discourses in the Fourth Gospel as to their relationship to the teaching of Jesus in its synoptic counterparts. The more comprehensive approach of the editors of NA 27 may serve as a distinguished starting point for any examination prepared to take seriously the Johannine- Synoptic similarities not only in wording but in content as well. It is now time to turn to the specific comparison between several Johannine discourses and the Synoptic Gospels that will form the core of this study. The main part of the study consists of three chapters corresponding to three types of discourses or dialogues present in the Fourth Gospel to examine to what extent they correlate both in wording and in content with Jesus’ teaching in the other canonical Gospels. Chapter 3 focuses on two of Jesus’ encounters with individuals. To begin with, we examine Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus in John 3: 1-21 (3.1), followed by a close look at his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4: 1-30 (3.2). Chapter 4 investigates parts of Jesus’ public teaching, comparing with the Synoptics both the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6: 22-59 (4.1) as well as the Light of the World Discourse in John 8: 12-59 (4.2). Finally, chapter 5 represents a detailed study of the first part of the Farewell Discourse in John 14: 1-31 (5.1) together with an excursus on Jesus’ post-resurrection words to his disciples in John 20: 11-29 (5.2). 92 92 In addition to the discourses examined in this study, see now also my essay “John 5,31-47 and the Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics,” Bib 92.3 (2011): 367-91, where I apply the methodology developed here to the second part of the Divine Son discourse in John 5. An overview of the results is included in the appendix. 104 Part Two The Teaching of Jesus: John and the Synoptics Chapter 3 The Johannine Dialogues with Individuals and Jesus’ Teaching in the Synoptics In this chapter we will now begin our examination of Johannine discourses as they relate to the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics. As a first step we are going to look at the only two extensive dialogues of Jesus with individuals in the Gospel of John. 1 Initially, we will examine Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus about the new birth in John 3: 1-21 (3.1) followed by a detailed survey of Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman about the water of life in John 4: 1-30 (3.2). Together, these two dialogues make up about 484 words, which amounts to 7.5 percent of the total words of Jesus (about 6,500), or 10.3 percent of the total words of the Fourth Gospel’s nine extensive discourses (about 4,700). 3.1 Jesus’ Dialogue with Nicodemus about the New Birth (John 3: 1-21) 3.1.1 Introduction Structure and Character of the Dialogue Jesus’ dialogue with the Jewish ruler Nicodemus is the first extended discourse in the Fourth Gospel. It contains 308 words spoken by Jesus. 2 The encounter with Nicodemus is closely linked to the concluding verses of the preceding chapter, where the evangelist mentioned that many people believed in Jesus because they had seen his miraculous signs. John 2: 23-25 thus serves as an introduction to Jesus’ dialogue with the “teacher of Israel” 3 as the reference to miracles is taken up by Nicodemus’ initial address 1 For an overview of the procedure of our comparison between these dialogues and Jesus’ teaching in Matthew, Mark, and Luke (including a key to read the tables employed), see above 2.3.2. 2 In this number, verses 13-21 are included (see discussion below). 3 George R. Beasley-Murray, John, WBC 36 (Nashville: Nelson, 1999), 47; Hartwig Thyen, Das Johannesevangelium, HNT 6 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 182-83. 107 to Jesus (John 3: 2): “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.” Together with Nicodemus’ failure to immediately grasp what Jesus had been saying (note his further question in John 3: 4), this statement evokes a dialogue in which Jesus is given the opportunity to teach this prominent member of Jewish society on the necessity of rebirth [Sequence 1: John 3: 1-8]. Nicodemus’ inability to fully understand Jesus’ teaching is reflected in a third question that provides the basis and leads into a longer discourse on the precondition of such a new birth [Sequence 2: John 3: 9-15]. It is here that the dialogue changes into a monologue. 4 While the exact location of the structural break is debated, a third part of the dialogue may be classified as a thematic expansion which is closely connected to the previous section [Sequence 3: John 3: 16-21]. With regard to the latter part of the dialogue, it is indeed difficult to decide where the actual words of Jesus end and the comments of the evangelist begin. 5 English translations like RSV, NAB, ESV, and NET conclude the direct speech with 3: 15, while others like NKJV, NIV, NASB, NRSV, HCSB, and NLT extend the quotation of Jesus’ words through 3: 21. Several scholars have even suggested that Jesus’ utterance ends with 3: 12. 6 The change of first and second person language to third person language in 3: 13 might suggest the attribution of the following verses to the narrator. Yet, Jesus frequently refers to himself in the third person so that these stylistic considerations do not rule out the possibility of 3: 13-21 being part of Jesus’ original speech. More importantly, the title o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou (3: 13- 14) is never used in explanatory comments or other narrative parts in the Gospels. 7 Further, it seems that 3: 13-15 are so closely linked to the theme of “heavenly things” introduced in 3: 12 that at least those two verses should with all likelihood be included into the inventory of dominical speech material. 8 Thus, it seems that the majority of Johannine commentators would regard the end of 3: 15 as the most likely point for ending Jesus’ speech quotation. Evidence for regarding 3: 16-21 as the evangelist’s exposition may be found in the introduction of “God” as the new subject in 3: 16-17, the tail-head transition between 3: 15 and 3: 16 (note the concurrent usage of pa/ j o` pisteu,wn evn auvtw/ | [ eivj auvto.n ] e; ch| zwh.n aivw,nion ) and the introductory 4 Herman N. Ridderbos, The Gospel According to John: A Theological Commentary, trans. John Vriend (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 133. 5 Mary Steele, “Where Does the Speech Quotation End in John 3: 1-21? ,” Notes 2.2 (1988): 51-58. 6 E.g., Beasley-Murray, John, 50; Schnackenburg, John, 1: 360-63. 7 J. H. Bernard, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint John, ICC (Edinburg: T&T Clark, 1928), 1: 112. 8 Andrew Lincoln, The Gospel According to John, BNTC (London: Continuum, 2005), 147; Steele, “Speech Quotation,” 52-53; also Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 94. 108 formula [ ou[twj ] ga.r , which is commonly used to introduce a comment (see 4: 8; 6: 64; 13: 11). 9 However, whether these arguments are strong enough to decisively settle the issue remains doubtful. Regarding the origin of 3: 16-21, there is, at least for our purposes, no need to finally rule on the matter. Even if these verses are regarded as explanatory remarks of the evangelist, 10 he apparently wants his readers to perceive them as a summary of Jesus’ teaching. In this case, it is still relevant to see whether the evangelist’s reflections have any parallels in the Synoptic Gospels. 11 We thus treat these verses as a continuance of Jesus’ discourse, without finally deciding the question about the exact line of demarcation between the words of Jesus and a summarizing comment of the author of the Fourth Gospel. The Authenticity of the Discourse in Johannine Research Despite some uncertainties about the actual scope of Jesus’ direct speech, several Johannine commentators have been confident that the conversation with Nicodemus should be regarded as an authentic episode of Jesus’ ministry. 12 However, it has become increasingly common within Johannine scholarship to deny the factuality of the Fourth Gospel’s account of this particular dialogue. Several inner-textual indicators (e.g., the switch from 9 Steele, “Speech Quotation,” 54. 10 E.g., Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 94; Carson, John, 185; Köstenberger, John, 113-14; Morris, John, 202; Ben Witherington, John’s Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 99. 11 Cf. Lincoln, John, 148, who ends the speech quotation at 3: 15, yet states: “In the final form of the Gospel there are no markers to indicate that the narrator is now commenting and so it is best to read vv. 16-21 as part of Jesus’ discourse (…).” Also Keener, John, 1: 559: “the passage may reflect the words of the Johannine Jesus through 3: 21 (…).” We do not agree with Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 94, who states that “we need not linger over these verses in a study of the historical Jesus, because John did not intend them as words of Jesus in the first place.” Without clear markers it is almost impossible to decide with certainty which verses the evangelist intended to be dominical. And the close thematical references to what has been said in the preceding verses should make us hesitant to entirely neglect them in an examination of Jesus’ teaching. Pace Martin Schmidl, Jesus und Nikodemus: Gespräch zur johanneischen Christologie: Joh 3 in schichtenspezifischer Sicht, BU 28 (Regensburg: Pustet, 1998), 121: “[es] bestehen erhebliche Schwierigkeiten, den Zusammenhang der VV 13-21 mit dem vorhergehenden Abschnitt zu erkennen.” 12 Theodor Zahn, Das Evangelium des Johannes [1921], 214: “Damit ist aber auch bewiesen, dass er [i.e., the author of the Fourth Gospel] bis zuletzt von einem wirklichen Gespräch Jesu mit einem Menschen von eigenartiger innerer Verfassung und äußerer Haltung berichtet hat. Gerade dieser letzte Teil des Gesprächs (…) kann am wenigsten als ein unabhängig von der Geschichte erdichteter, Jesu nur in den Mund gelegter Vortrag des Ev[angelisten] betrachtet werden.” See also Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 91-95; Carson, John, 185; somewhat ambiguously J. N. Suggit, “Nicodemus - The True Jew,” Neot 14 (1981): 94. 109 singular to plural in v. 11) as well as the supposedly homiletic tendency of the evangelist lead many scholars to the conclusion that the Nicodemus discourse should be historically located not within the lifetime of Jesus but within the realities of the early Johannine community. 13 The premises of what has been called “historicizing interpretations” are frequently considered as unacceptable. Several scholars critically assert that Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus has to be regarded as an entirely fictitious composition of the Fourth Gospel’s author. 14 More specifically, it is often argued that this conversation reflects tensions within earliest Christianity. Jürgen Becker is representative of this view. He argues that in John 3 it is not the historical Jesus talking, but the risen Christ as the authoritative teacher of a community in dispute with a different group represented by the literary figure of Nicodemus. 15 As Maurice Casey compares the teaching of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel with that of the Synoptics, he comments on John 3 as a prototype of Johannine theological discourses. Since there are “no genuinely similar discourses in the synoptics,” the historicity of this particular dialogue (and basically all others) has to be severely doubted. 16 Not only are there substantial differences in vocabulary but also significant differences in content. And even in those instances where the Fourth Evangelist includes central concepts of 13 E.g., Martyn, History and Theology, 119-23, who, within his own peculiar scheme of Johannine origins, argues that what we have here is Johannine theology expressed by Jesus. For two recent articles that stress the literary function of Nicodemus without making any explicit historical judgments (as far as I can see), cf. Gabi Renz, “Nicodemus: An Ambiguous Disciple? A Narrative Sensitive Investigation,” in Challenging Perspectives on the Gospel of John, ed. John Lierman, WUNT 2/ 219 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 255-83; and Raimo Hakola, “The Burden of Ambiguity: Nicodemus and the Social Identity of the Johannine Christians,” NTS 55 (2009): 438-55. 14 Jürgen Becker, “J 3, 1-21 als Reflex johanneischer Schuldiskussion,” in Das Wort und die Wörter, Festschrift für Gerhard Friedrich, ed. Horst Balz and Siegfried Schulz (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1973), 88, denotes this passage as a “fingierte historische Szene.” See already Alfred Loisy, Les Origines de Nouveau Testament (Paris: Minerva, 1936), 216: “Le cas de Nicodème (III, 1-4) est fictif, imaginé pour situer dans un cadre apparemment historique une instruction (…).” Now also Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 183: “Er [i.e., Nicodemus] dürfte ebenso fiktional sein wie die gesamte Szene (…).” 15 Jürgen Becker, “Schuldiskussion,” 88: “So redet also nicht der historische Jesus, sondern der Erhöhte als Lehrautorität einer Gemeinschaft für diese (…) gegenüber einer anderen Gruppe, die Nikodemus repräsentiert.” 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: Fortress, 1992 [first German edition 1987]), 183, argues in a similar direction: “Instead, in the evangelist’s composition he serves primarily as a mere conversation partner, who does not engage in dialogue but is simply present to utter certain key words and otherwise to listen to a monologue by the Johannine Christ.” [italics mine] Also Klaus Wengst, Kapitel 1-10, vol. 1 of Das Johannesevangelium, Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament 4/ 1 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2 2004), 128. 16 Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 81. 110 Jesus’ synoptic teaching (as is the case with the term “kingdom” in John 3: 3, 5), Casey finds them drastically transmuted. 17 Although this section is generally reckoned to contain a significant degree of creative writing on the part of the evangelist, several scholars assume that John may well have used traditional (and thus more likely historical) elements. 18 Andrew Lincoln has suggested that Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus was developed out of the synoptic account of the rich young ruler in Luke 18: 15-30. Not only does he mention the synoptic equivalent of Luke 18: 17 to John 3: 3, 5, but he also notes that Jesus’ answer to the ruler’s question about inheriting eternal life “is reworked in the Nicodemus episode in terms of the necessity of birth from above and of the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit” (see our own comparison below). 19 In this regard, Raymond Brown’s recognition of “synoptic parallels to many of the isolated statements attributed to Jesus in these verses [i.e., John 3: 1-21],” leads him to the conclusion that “a solid nucleus of traditional material has been elaborated in homiletic fashion into the present form of the discourse.” 20 As we approach the relationship between Jesus’ teaching in John 3: 1-21 and the Synoptics, a glance at our inventory of synoptic parallels (see above 2.4) reveals that six out of 18 verses with words of Jesus (namely 3: 3, 5, 8, 11, 17, 18) have been noted as having some sort of a synoptic counterpart. Four of those parallels occur in the NA 27 margin. The purpose of the following sections is to compare in detail the three consecutive sequences of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus with his teaching given in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. What has to be examined is whether there exists significant coherence between Johannine and synoptic teaching material either in wording or content. Following our methodological defaults outlined above, we intend to make visible different levels of closeness which should enable us 17 Ibid., 83. In contrast, cf. Lagrange, Saint Jean, 72, who observes the differences between John 3: 1-21 and the Synoptics, yet maintains that “nous aurons donc à poser le principe d’une distinction - qu’on ne peut toujours appliquer avec precision - entre le fond de la pensée et les expressions. Il serait contraire à toute critique de refuser au fondateur du christianisme la conscience de son principe fundamental, mais contraire aussi à la critique de lui attributer les termes memes d’un discourse qui n’a pas ici l’aspect araméen de ceux des synoptiques.” 18 E.g., Schmidl, Jesus und Nikodemus, 120, 123. 19 Lincoln, John, 148. Similarly Lindars, Gospel of John, 148-49; also Michèle Morgan, “Jean 3 et les Évangiles Synoptique,” in John and the Synoptics, ed. Adelbert Denaux, BETL (Leuven: University Press, 1992), 518-19. 20 Brown, John (i-xii), 136. Keener, John, 1: 534, similarly refers to “a basic historical nucleus,” while “it is impossible on purely historical grounds to determine the degree to which the dominant Johannine idiom has shaped that nucleus.” See also Lindars, Gospel of John, 146, who states that “the evangelist gives us the fruit of his own deep thinking on the meaning of Christ.” 111 to assess more precisely the extent of synoptic points of reference for this first discourse in the Fourth Gospel. The redundancy of predications in Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus causes us to expect that some of the synoptic counterparts adduced below will cohere with more than one Johannine proposition. 3.1.2 Sequence 1: John 3: 1-8 (The Necessity of the New Birth) [3: 1-2] Now a certain man, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, who was a member of the Jewish ruling council, came to Jesus at night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs that you do unless God is with him.” [3: 3] avpekri,qh VIhsou/ j kai. ei=pen auvtw/ | \ avmh.n avmh.n le,gw soi( eva.n mh, tij gennhqh/ | a; nwqen( ouv du,natai ivdei/ n th.n basilei,an tou/ qeou/ Å Jesus replied, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” [1/ 2] [1/ 2] [Matt 18: 3] avmh.n le,gw u`mi/ n( eva.n mh. strafh/ te kai. ge,nhsqe w`j ta. paidi,a( ouv mh. eivse,lqhte eivj th.n basilei,an tw/ n ouvranw/ nÅ Amen, I say to you, unless you turn around and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven! [Mark 10: 15 par. Luke 18: 17] avmh.n le,gw u`mi/ n( o]j a'n mh. de,xhtai th.n basilei,an tou/ qeou/ w`j paidi,on( ouv mh. eivse,lqh| eivj auvth,nÅ Amen, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it. [1/ 1] [Matt 7: 21] Ouv pa/ j o` le,gwn moi\ ku,rie ku,rie( eivseleu,setai eivj th.n basilei,an tw/ n ouvranw/ n( avllV o` poiw/ n to. qe,lhma tou/ patro,j mou tou/ evn toi/ j ouvranoi/ jÅ Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 112 [1/ 1] [Mark 1: 15] kai. le,gwn o[ti peplh,rwtai o` kairo.j kai. h; ggiken h` basilei,a tou/ qeou/ \ metanoei/ te kai. pisteu,ete evn tw/ | euvaggeli,w|Å The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the gospel! [3: 4] Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter his mother's womb and be born a second time, can he? ” [3: 5] avpekri,qh VIhsou/ j\ avmh.n avmh.n le,gw soi( eva.n mh, tij gennhqh/ | evx u[datoj kai. pneu,matoj( ouv du,natai eivselqei/ n eivj th.n basilei,an tou/ qeou/ Å Jesus answered, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. [1/ 2] [1/ 2] [Matt 18: 3] avmh.n le,gw u`mi/ n( eva.n mh. strafh/ te kai. ge,nhsqe w`j ta. paidi,a( ouv mh. eivse,lqhte eivj th.n basilei,an tw/ n ouvranw/ nÅ Amen, I say to you, unless you turn around and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven! [Mark 10: 15 par. Luke 18: 17] avmh.n le,gw u`mi/ n( o]j a'n mh. de,xhtai th.n basilei,an tou/ qeou/ w`j paidi,on( ouv mh. eivse,lqh| eivj auvth,nÅ Amen, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will never enter it. [3: 6] to. gegennhme,non evk th/ j sarko.j sa,rx evstin( kai. to. gegennhme,non evk tou/ pneu,matoj pneu/ ma, evstinÅ What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [Matt 26: 41 par. Mark 14: 38] to. me.n pneu/ ma pro,qumon h` de. sa.rx avsqenh,jÅ The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. [Matt 16: 17] maka,rioj ei=( Si,mwn Bariwna/ ( o[ti sa.rx kai. ai-ma ouvk avpeka,luye,n soi avllV o` path,r mou o` evn toi/ j ouvranoi/ jÅ You are blessed, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven! [3: 7] mh. qauma,sh|j o[ti ei=po,n soi\ dei/ u`ma/ j gennhqh/ nai a; nwqenÅ Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must all be born from above.’ [0/ 2] See above John 3: 3: [Matt 18: 3; Mark 10: 15 par. Luke 18: 17]. 113 Convinced by his miraculous signs, Nicodemus, as a spokesperson for a larger group of people, addresses Jesus as a “teacher who has come from God” (John 3: 2). Thus, initially, Jesus is regarded as simply someone who is divinely called and authorized. The informed reader (cf., e.g., John 1: 1-18) immediately recognizes the lack of perception about Jesus’ true identity, which is revealed through this conversation starter. It is not entirely clear where Nicodemus wanted to go with his introductory statement. Possibly, he intended to inquire more precisely who Jesus actually claims to be. 21 Thus, several interpreters have suggested that in John 3: 3 Jesus answers an implicit question about his real nature by a christological assertion in which he makes the point that he is the one truly “born from above.” 22 However, the context (3: 5, 7) clearly indicates that being “born from above” does not refer to Jesus himself but to those who have experienced a spiritual rebirth. It thus seems best to interpret Jesus’ initial response in John 3: 3 as a call to a totally different perspective. Nicodemus may catch glimpses of who Jesus is through “seeing” his miracles, yet in order to grasp the whole picture and to fully understand and thus enter into God’s reign he needs to be reborn from above. In John 3: 3 Jesus opens his response to Nicodemus with the authoritative avmh.n avmh.n le,gw soi , which is common in the Fourth Gospel. The single Amen occurs frequently as an introductory formula in the other three Gospels as well. Johannine commentators have noted that this formula often 21 Carson, John, 187; Köstenberger, John, 121. 22 Godfrey C. Nicholson, Death as Departure: The Johannine Descent-Ascent Schema, SBLDS 63 (Chico: Scholars Press, 1983), 81-82; now Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 187-89. [3: 8] to. pneu/ ma o[pou qe,lei pnei/ kai. th.n fwnh.n auvtou/ avkou,eij( avllV ouvk oi=daj po,qen e; rcetai kai. pou/ u`pa,gei\ ou[twj evsti.n pa/ j o` gegennhme,noj evk tou/ pneu,matojÅ The wind blows wherever it will, and you hear the sound it makes, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Mark 4: 27] kai. kaqeu,dh| kai. evgei,rhtai nu,kta kai. h`me,ran( kai. o` spo,roj blasta/ | kai. mhku,nhtai w`j ouvk oi=den auvto,jÅ He goes to sleep and gets up, night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. [Mark 10: 26-27 par. Luke 18: 27] oi` de. perissw/ j evxeplh,ssonto le,gontej pro.j e`autou,j\ kai. ti,j du,natai swqh/ naiÈ evmble,yaj auvtoi/ j o` VIhsou/ j le,gei\ para. avnqrw,poij avdu,naton( avllV ouv para. qew/ | \ pa,nta ga.r dunata. para. tw/ | qew/ |Å The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved? ” Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God. 114 induces a Johannine saying which has a synoptic version. 23 This is also the case here. “The kingdom of God” ( th.n basilei,an tou/ qeou/ ; in John only here and in 3: 5) is a frequent theme in the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics. Since “seeing the kingdom” is probably virtually synonymous with “entering [i.e., experiencing] the kingdom” (see the parallel in 3: 5), 24 there is close conceptual correspondence with Matt 18: 3 and Mark 10: 15 par. Luke 18: 17 [1/ 2-level of closeness]. 25 The Johannine “being born from above” closely parallels the synoptic emphasis on “becoming like a child” as a prerequisite of participating in the saving reign of God. Further, in using the same kingdom terminology, Matt 7: 21 shows some partial resemblance in content [1/ 1-level of closeness] as it comments on certain restrictions for entering the kingdom. Likewise, the motif of conversion in Mark 1: 15 is implicitly present in the Johannine theme of rebirth. 26 After Nicodemus’ misunderstanding of Jesus’ words in terms of a second physical birth, John 3: 5 has Jesus repeat what he had said earlier in slightly different terms. Thus, the synoptic parallelisms in Matt 18: 3 and Mark 10: 15 par. Luke 18: 17 still apply. As regards the precondition for entering the kingdom of God, the birth from above is now replaced by a birth of water and spirit. Most likely, these terms are used as functional equivalents that denote the concept of spiritual regeneration. 27 Note that if there is a secondary connotation in terms of water baptism, there might be some remote conceptual similarity with the secondary longer ending of Mark, where in Mark 16: 16 baptism is mentioned by Jesus as a precursor of being saved. 28 23 E.g., Lincoln, John, 122, 149. 24 Beasley-Murray, John, 48; Carson, John, 188; Morris, John, 193. 25 Both synoptic parallels have been observed by Lincoln, John, 148-50; as well as Christian Dietzfelbinger, Teilband 1: Johannes 1-12, vol. 1 of Das Evangelium nach Johannes, ZBK 4 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 2001), 82; Thomas Popp, Grammatik des Geistes: Literarische Kunst und Theologische Konzeption in Johannes 3 und 6, Arbeiten zur Bibel und ihrer Geschichte 3 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2001), 117; Siegfried Schulz, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, NTD 4 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 13 1975), 55 (only Mark 10: 15). Lindars, Gospel of John, 150, calls Matt 18: 3 “an extremely close parallel; ” cf. also Crossan, Sayings Parallels, 77; J. Ramsey Michaels, The Gospel of John, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 180n26; Benedikt Schwank, Evangelium nach Johannes (St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 1996), 105; Ulrich Wilckens, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, NTD 4 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998), 65-66. Even more parallels are listed by Schnelle, Antidocetic Christology, 182 (e.g., Mark 9: 1 par. Luke 9: 27; Matt 5: 20, 7: 21; 23: 14; Luke 18: 17, 25 et al.); cf. also von Wahlde, Gospel and Letters of John, 2: 118. 26 This parallel has also been observed by Morgan, “Jean 3,” 517. 27 Keener, John, 1: 547; Köstenberger, John, 124; Lincoln, John, 150; also Larry Paul Jones, The Symbol of Water in the Gospel of John, JSNTSup 145 (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1997), 74; pace Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 193. 28 Even though the longer ending of Mark (i.e., Mark 16: 9-20) is most likely secondary (cf. Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament [Stuttgart: 115 In John 3: 6, Jesus further stresses the necessity of spiritual rebirth by contrasting between the flesh ( sa,rx ) and the Spirit ( pneu/ ma ). A somewhat similar confrontation of the terms sa,rx and pneu/ ma is found on Jesus’ lips in the Synoptics as well (Matt 26: 41 par. Mark 14: 38; cf. also Matt 16: 17 [1/ 1- level of closeness]). After repeating what has already been said (for John 3: 7 see comments on 3: 3 above), Jesus goes on to elaborate on his statements about spiritual new birth with an analogy between the wind and each person who is born of the Spirit in John 3: 8. The main content of Jesus’ analogy is “that both wind and spiritual birth are mysterious in origin and movement - wind goes sovereignly where it pleases - yet though the wind’s origin is invisible, its effects can be observed; it is the same with the Spirit (…).” 29 Although there is no significant semantic overlap, in the parable of the growing seed in Mark 4: 27 Jesus stresses a somewhat similar point, namely that spiritual growth and transformation as it relates to the kingdom of God (cf. Mark 4: 26) is neither controllable nor comprehensible from a purely human perspective [0/ 1-level of closeness]. As with the work of the Spirit in John, in the Markan parable the forces that cause both growth and the ripening process are not traceable or accessible by the landowner although the results can already be observed. 30 The general contrast between a spiritual new birth and the incapability of human flesh has one further conceptual analogy in Mark 10: 26-27 par. Luke 18: 27 [0/ 1-level of closeness] where it is said that what is “impossible with humans” is certainly “possible with God.” United Bible Societies, 2 2001], 102-06), its early attestation makes it probable that we are nevertheless dealing with traditional material that could be identified as “synoptic” in the broadest sense of the term. For the dating of the longer ending of Mark around A.D. 120-150, see James A. Kelhoffer, Miracle and Mission: The Authentication of Missionaries and Their Message in the Longer Ending of Mark, WUNT 2/ 112 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 175. For a positive evaluation of the historical pedigree of these verses, cf., among others, Donald Guthrie, New Testament Introduction (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 4 1990), 93. Reference to (Christian) water baptism in John 3: 5 is assumed by Beasley-Murray, John, 49; Thomas L. Brodie, The Gospel According to John: A Literary and Theological Commentary (Oxford: University Press, 1993), 197; Brown, John (i-xii), 141-42; Schnackenburg, John, 1: 369-70; Udo Schnelle, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, THKNT 4 (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 3 2004), 70-71; D. Moody Smith, John, ANTC (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999), 95; Suggit, “Nicodemus,” 96, Theobald, Johannes, 251, et al. Cf. also, somewhat differently, Francis J. Moloney, The Gospel of John, SP 4 (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998), 99. 29 Köstenberger, John, 125. 30 Cf. Joachim Gnilka, Mk 1-8,26, vol. 1 of Das Evangelium nach Markus, EKK 2/ 1 (Zürich: Benziger, 1978), 184-85: “Die ursächlichen Kräfte für das Wachsen und Reifen entziehen sich der Einsicht und dem Zugriff des Landmannes. (…) Das bedeutet, daß (…) ihr rettendes Eindringen (i.e., that of the basilei,a ) schon jetzt in der Gegenwart auch erfahren werden kann, nur dem glaubenden Betrachter wahrnehmbar.” 116 In this first sequence of Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus we find significant similarities to Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics. Especially the core sayings in John 3: 3 and 3: 5 with their focus on the necessity of rebirth have close conceptual counterparts in the other three Gospels (cf. Matt 18: 3; Mark 10: 15 par. Luke 18: 17 et al.). Besides these close resemblances in terms of content [1/ 2-levels of closeness], this initial part of the dialogue likewise reveals at least some significant semantic parallels [1/ 1- and 1/ 2-levels of closeness]. 3.1.3 Sequence 2: John 3: 9-15 (The Prerequisite of the New Birth) 31 NA 27 places tuflw/ n in brackets, indicating the difficulty of deciding about its authenticity. It seems to be preferable to follow the shorter reading (see the text-critical note in the NET/ NA 27 Diglot Edition), yet cf. Metzger, Textual Commentary, 31-32. [3: 9] Nicodemus replied, “How can these things be? ” [3: 10] avpekri,qh VIhsou/ j kai. ei=pen auvtw/ |\ su. ei= o` dida,skaloj tou/ VIsrah.l kai. tau/ ta ouv ginw,skeijÈ Jesus answered, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you don't understand these things? [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 15: 14] 31 a; fete auvtou,j\ tufloi, eivsin o`dhgoi, Îtuflw/ nÐ\ tuflo.j de. tuflo.n eva.n o`dhgh/ |( avmfo,teroi eivj bo,qunon pesou/ ntaiÅ Leave them [i.e., the Pharisees]! They are blind guides. If someone who is blind leads another who is blind, both will fall into a pit. [Matt 22: 29] plana/ sqe mh. eivdo,tej ta.j grafa.j mhde. th.n du,namin tou/ qeou/ \ You are deceived, because you don't know the scriptures or the power of God. See also [Matt 11: 25]. [3: 11] avmh.n avmh.n le,gw soi o[ti o] oi; damen lalou/ men kai. o] e`wra,kamen marturou/ men( kai. th.n marturi,an h`mw/ n ouv lamba,neteÅ Amen, amen, I say to you, we speak about what we know and testify about what we have seen, but you people do not accept our testimony. [0/ 2] [Luke 22: 67-68] le,gontej\ eiv su. ei= o` cristo,j( eivpo.n h`mi/ nÅ ei=pen de. auvtoi/ j\ eva.n u`mi/ n ei; pw( ouv mh. pisteu,shte\ eva.n de. evrwth,sw( ouv mh. avpokriqh/ teÅ [The Jewish leadership] said, “If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe, and if I ask you, you will not answer.” 117 [0/ 2] [Matt 13: 14-15 pars.] kai. ble,pontej ble,yete kai. ouv mh. i; dhteÅ evpacu,nqh ga.r h` kardi,a tou/ laou/ tou,tou( (…) kai. tou.j ovfqalmou.j auvtw/ n evka,mmusan( mh,pote i; dwsin toi/ j ovfqalmoi/ j kai. toi/ j wvsi.n avkou,swsin kai. th/ | kardi,a| sunw/ sin kai. evpistre,ywsin (…) you will look closely yet will never comprehend. For the heart of this people has become dull; (…) and they have shut their eyes, so that they would not see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn, (…) [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 8: 10 pars.] avmh.n le,gw u`mi/ n( parV ouvdeni. tosau,thn pi,stin evn tw/ | VIsrah.l eu-ronÅ “Amen, I say to you, I have not found such faith in anyone in Israel! ” [Matt 11: 18-19 pars.] h=lqen ga.r VIwa,nnhj mh,te evsqi,wn mh,te pi,nwn( kai. le,gousin\ daimo,nion e; ceiÅ h=lqen o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou evsqi,wn kai. pi,nwn( kai. le,gousin\ ivdou. a; nqrwpoj fa,goj kai. oivnopo,thj( telwnw/ n fi,loj kai. a`martwlw/ nÅ kai. evdikaiw,qh h` sofi,a avpo. tw/ n e; rgwn auvth/ jÅ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon! ’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners! ’ But wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. [3: 12] eiv ta. evpi,geia ei=pon u`mi/ n kai. ouv pisteu, ete( pw/ j eva.n ei; pw u`mi/ n ta. evpoura,nia pisteu, seteÈ If I have told you people about earthly things and you don't believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? [1/ 2] [Luke 22: 67-68] le,gontej\ eiv su. ei= o` cristo,j( eivpo.n h`mi/ nÅ ei=pen de. auvtoi/ j\ eva.n u`mi/ n ei; pw( ouv mh. pisteu,shte\ eva.n de. evrwth,sw( ouv mh. avpokriqh/ teÅ [The Jewish leadership] said, “If you are the Christ, tell us.” But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe, and if I ask you, you will not answer.” 118 [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [Matt 17: 17 pars.] w= genea. a; pistoj kai. diestramme,nh( e[wj po,te meqV u`mw/ n e; somaiÈ e[wj po,te avne,xomai u`mw/ nÈ fe,rete, moi auvto.n wdeÅ You unbelieving and perverse generation! How much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I endure you? [Matt 21: 32 pars.] u`mei/ j de. ivdo,ntej ouvde. metemelh,qhte u[steron tou/ pisteu/ sai auvtw/ |Å Although you saw this, you did not later change your minds and believe him. [3: 13] kai. ouvdei.j avnabe,bhken eivj to.n ouvrano.n eiv mh. o` evk tou/ ouvranou/ kataba,j( o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pouÅ No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven- the Son of Man. [1/ 1] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] kai. ouvdei.j evpiginw,skei to.n ui`o. n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate,ra tij evpiginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j (…) No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son (…) [3: 14a] Kai. kaqw.j Mwu? sh/ j u[ywsen to.n o; fin evn th/ | evrh,mw|( Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, [0/ 0] [3: 14b] ou[twj u`ywqh/ nai dei/ to.n ui`o.n tou/ avnqrw,pou( so must the Son of Man be lifted up, [1/ 2] [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi (…) o[tan kaqi,sh| o` ui`o. j tou/ avnqrw,pou evpi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou (…) zwh.n aivw,nion [see 3: 15] klhronomh,seiÅ when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life. See the synoptic passion predictions in [Mark 8: 31; 9: 31; 10: 33] et al.; also [Matt 17: 22-23; 20: 18-19]. [3: 15] i[na pa/ j o` pisteu, wn evn auvtw/ | e; ch| zwh.n aivw,nion [see on 3: 14b] Å so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” [1/ 2] [1/ 1] [Luke 7: 50] h` pi,stij sou se,swke,n se\ Your faith has saved you. [Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28] (in connection with John 3: 14) kai. ga.r o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ouvk h=lqen diakonhqh/ nai avlla. diakonh/ sai kai. dou/ nai th.n yuch.n auvtou/ lu,tron avnti. pollw/ nÅ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. 119 Nicodemus’ lack of understanding becomes increasingly visible with his second question in John 3: 9: “How can these things be? ” In his response, starting in John 3: 10, Jesus addresses Nicodemus as a recognized and thus supposedly competent “teacher of Israel.” As such, he should have been able to grasp what Jesus had been saying. Jesus’ words express astonishment as well as reproof for Nicodemus’ inability to understand the spiritual matters they are discussing. 32 Although no direct parallel to such a reproof of a single member of the Pharisees may be found in the Synoptics, we have ample evidence that Jesus repeatedly criticized the ignorance of the nation’s leadership. In Matt 15: 14 he calls the Pharisees “blind guides,” highlighting their blindness in regard to his divine message. Similarly, in Matt 22: 29, Jesus accuses the Sadducees of not understanding the Scriptures. Thus, Jesus’ pronounced reproach of Nicodemus is in conceptual conformity with the synoptic picture of the way in which he viewed and addressed the spiritual perceptiveness of members of the Jewish leadership [0/ 1-level of closeness]. John 3: 11 is again introduced with the double Amen formula (see comments on 3: 3). As a representative of all those who are truly born from above (and thus using the first person plural), 33 Jesus presents himself as the ultimate witness to spiritual realities, who - in contrast to Nicodemus and the group that he represents - truly knows what he is talking about. He then goes on to assert that the root of the problem is not that this witness has not been communicated or that it has not been intellectually understood. Ultimately, the failure consists in a basic resistance towards the truth, an unwillingness to accept Jesus’ testimony. 34 The same reproof, yet in different idiom [0/ 2-level of closeness], is present in the Synoptic Gospels, where Jesus tells the Jewish leadership that his own direct testimony will not ignite their faith (Luke 22: 67-68). Similarly, in Matt 13: 14-15 pars., Jesus quotes from the book of Isaiah and complains about the same inward refusal to accept and appropriately react to the divine witness. Slightly more removed conceptually, Matt 8: 10 pars. still testifies to Jesus’ assessment of the spiritual shortcomings of his fellow Israelites [0/ 1-level of 32 Keener, John, 1: 559; cf. also Jerome H. Neyrey, The Gospel of John, The New Cambridge Bible Commentary (Cambridge: University Press, 2007), 76-78; more positive Popp, Grammatik des Geistes, 136-37. 33 Köstenberger, John, 126. For a detailed discussion about the employment of the plural here, see Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 197. It is certainly not necessary to assume with Lincoln, John, 152, that “Jesus (somewhat anachronistically) represents the perspective of the evangelist and his community” (similarly Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 98; Moloney, John, 94; cf. also Rainer Metzner, Die Prominenten im Neuen Testament: Ein prosopographischer Kommentar, SUNT 66 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008], 304-05). 34 Carson, John, 199; Lincoln, John, 152 et al. 120 closeness]. 35 Finally, if the first person plural language of this Johannine statement consciously includes John the Baptist 36 we find another parallel in Matt 11: 18-19 pars., where Jesus exposes the contradictory refusal of “this generation” to accept the testimony of himself and his forerunner [0/ 1-level of closeness]. Jesus continues on a similar note in John 3: 12. With an argument a minori ad maius he more specifically addresses the issue of unbelief: “If I have told you people about earthly things and you don't believe, how will you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? ” The most natural way to understand this contrast is to interpret the “earthly things” as referring to the preceding teaching about the necessity of a spiritual rebirth. If Nicodemus fails to believe these foundational truths, it is not to be expected that he can possibly grasp a more advanced teaching about the heavenly kingdom. 37 The only hint in the Synoptics to this contrast between earthly and heavenly things may be found in Matt 16: 2-3, where Jesus answers the Pharisees and Sadducees: “When evening comes you say, ‘It will be fair weather, because the sky is red,’ and in the morning, ‘It will be stormy today, because the sky is red and darkening.’ You know how to judge correctly the appearance of the sky, but you cannot evaluate the signs of the times.” This is no significant parallel, however, because in this case Jesus acknowledges their ability to interpret at least the more “earthly” implications of what they observe. More significant still is the fact that the concept of unbelief on the part of Jesus’ countrymen is clearly present in the Fourth Gospel’s synoptic counterparts. We may again note the conceptually close parallel in Luke 22: 67-68 (see on John 3: 11 above), now even with some semantic overlap as regards the emphasis on oral witness (expressed by the verb le,gw ) followed by a lack of unbelief (expressed by a negated form of piste,uw ) [1/ 2-level of closeness]. Additionally, similar ideas [1/ 1-level of closeness] are observable in Jesus’ general verdict about the state of unbelief among his contemporaries (Matt 17: 17 pars.), which does not pertain to his own testimony only but to that of John the Baptist as well (Matt 21: 32 pars., also Matt 11: 18-19 pars.). 35 Cf. the comments of W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Commentary on Matthew VIII - XVIII, vol. 2 of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991), 24-25; Ulrich Luz, Matthew 8-20, vol. 2 of Matthew: A Commentary, trans. James E. Crouch, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Augsburg: Fortress, 2001), 10. 36 So, e.g., Adolf Schlatter, Der Evangelist Johannes (Stuttgart: Calwer, 2 1948), 91-92. 37 Beasley-Murray, John, 49-50; Köstenberger, John, 126; Lincoln, John, 152; Ridderbos, John, 134; Schnackenburg, John, 1: 379. Again, for a comprehensive review of interpretations concerning the meaning of the “earthly and heavenly things,” see Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 198-202, who himself regards the “earthly things” as the eternal life of believers here on earth, while the “heavenly things” refer to the ultimate entrance into the kingdom of God. 121 The proper interpretation of John 3: 13 is notoriously difficult. Commentators, especially those who regard this verse as part of Jesus’ own teaching as opposed to reflections of the evangelist, have been puzzled by the reference to an ascent into heaven in the perfect tense ( avnabe,bhken ). Leaving different exegetical solutions aside, 38 we may - for our purposes - be content with Raymond Brown’s astute remark that John 3: 13 “means at least that Jesus is the only one who has ever been in heaven because he came down from heaven.” 39 Thus, Jesus is explaining that as the unique Son of Man ( o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ), 40 he is of heavenly origin and thus not only perfectly suited to reveal heavenly things (see 3: 12) but also - as the next verses will show - to provide the precondition for the spiritual rebirth about which Nicodemus was eager to inquire. The genitive construction o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou is the preferred self-identification of Jesus in the Synoptics (Matt 10: 23; 12: 8; Mark 9: 31; Luke 9: 26 et al.). The heavenly origin of Jesus is thematically present in the most “Johannine” of all synoptic statements where the unique relationship between the Son and the heavenly Father is emphasized (Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22: “no one knows the Father except [ eiv mh. ] the Son [ o` ui`o.j ] (…)” [1/ 1-level of closeness], cf. also the intimate address tou/ patro,j mou in Matt 10: 32-33; 26: 53 et al.). 41 38 For an extended discussion of different views, see ibid., 202-08; as well as Benjamin E. Reynolds, The Apocalyptic Son of Man in the Gospel of John, WUNT 2/ 49 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 107-16. 39 Brown, John (i-xii), 145. It is thus not at all mandatory to assume too hastingly that what we have here is an anachronistic statement of the post-Easter church feeling free to put on Jesus’ lips a statement that implies that the actually post-resurrection ascent into heaven had already taken place (so Lincoln, John, 153 et al.). Such an explanation seems rather unlikely in light of the fact that John clearly depicts Jesus’ resurrection and exaltation as a future event in the following verse. As an alternative interpretation note, e.g., Reynolds, Son of Man, 115, who understands avnabe,bhken as a gnomic perfect and thus translates John 3: 13 as “No one ascends except the Son of Man the one who descended.” Similarly Markus Sasse, Der Menschensohn im Evangelium nach Johannes, TANZ 35 (Tübingen: Francke, 2000), 137. 40 For more information on the significance of this Son of Man-saying in John 3: 13, see Delbert Burkett, The Son of the Man in the Gospel of John, JSNTSup 56 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991), 76-92; as well as the already mentioned works by Sasse, Menschensohn, 79-156; and now Reynolds, Son of Man, 104-17. 41 This parallel is explicitly mentioned by Adelbert Denaux, “The Q-Logion Mt 11: 27 / Lk 10: 22 and the Gospel of John,” in John and the Synoptics, ed. Adelbert Denaux, BETL 101 (Leuven: University Press, 1992), 185, who refers to other scholars who have observed it, e.g., K. Kopler, E. Norden, and A. Feuillet. The notion of Jesus’ heavenly origin, i.e., his preexistence, is taken up in the Bread of Life Discourse (cf. John 6: 33, 38; also 8: 21) and will be treated in more detail in chapter 4 (especially as regards synoptic parallels). It is sufficient here to note that Jesus’ preexistence seems to be at least implied in his synoptic teaching (see chapter 4 on John 6: 33, 38, 50-51 for more details) which undermines the force of Neyrey’s claim (John, 82) that the “meaning of the title ‘Son of Man’ here differs from that found in the synoptic Gospels, 122 In John 3: 14a, 14b, and John 3: 15 we finally hear the definite answer to Nicodemus’ question (3: 9).The prerequisite for participation in the kingdom of God (3: 3, 5), for experiencing spiritual new birth (3: 5-8), and for entering into eternal life (3: 15) is faith in the saving work of the heavenly Son of Man at the cross. 42 Jesus draws typologically on the passage of the serpent in the wilderness in Num 21: 8-9, 43 where God provided a way of salvation by instructing Moses to “lift up” a bronze serpent so that the rebellious Israelites could look at it and thereby avoid judgment. The main point of analogy which Jesus intends between this Old Testament incident and his own work is that just as the lives of Israelites were saved by looking at the bronze serpent so everybody will receive eternal life “as a result of ‘looking’ in faith at the Son of Man.” 44 The verb u`yo,w (“to be lifted up”) occurs also in John 8: 28 and 12: 32-34 and has double meaning as it combines the notion of being literally lifted up on the cross with the idea of exaltation which is effectuated through crucifixion. 45 As we compare this Johannine saying with the Synoptics we observe that none of them refers to Moses’ lifting up the serpent in the wilderness [0/ 0-level of closeness]. However, the experiences and actions of Moses and the Israelites are frequently used in an exemplary manner in the Synoptics as well (cf. Matt 8: 4 pars.; 19: 8 pars.; Mark 12: 26 et al.). Further, Jesus’ statement in John 3: 14b is closely related to the synoptic passion predictions in Mark 8: 31 (although in indirect speech), 9: 31, and 10: 33. 46 Moreover, the theme of a faith-based relationship with Christ himself as a precondition for eternal life is likewise expressed even with some semantic overlap [1/ 2-level of closeness] in the other three Gospels. While the expectation of Jesus’ exaltation is at least implicitly present in John, Matt 19: 28-29 pars. takes up this idea and more explicitly focuses on the glorification of the Son of Man ( o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ), replacing the notion of belief in him by the conceptually close motif of being his follower in order to inherit eternal life ( zwh.n aivw,nion ). In the longer ending of Mark the necessity of faith in order to be saved (Mark where it basically describes a figure who was rejected on earth by men but vindicated in heaven by God (Mark 8: 31; 9: 31; 10: 33; 14: 62).” 42 More exegetical details on this Son of Man-saying may again be found in Burkett, Son of the Man, 120-29; Sasse, Menschensohn, 157-74; Reynolds, Son of Man, 117-30. 43 For a detailed discussion of what might have evoked the usage of this Old Testament analogy, see Keener, John, 1: 563-66. 44 Köstenberger, John, 128. On this serpent-symbolism, cf. now also James H. Charlesworth, “The Symbology of the Serpent in the Gospel of John,” in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel, eds. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, Early Christianity and Its Literature 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 63-72, who carefully suggests that the historical Jesus did “perhaps” preach on the symbolic meaning of Num 21. 45 Beasley-Murray, John, 50-51; Carson, John, 201; Köstenberger, John, 128; Lincoln, John, 153; see now also the detailed discussion in Reynolds, Son of Man, 117-27. 46 Michaels, John, 198n91. 123 16: 16, as in John by use of the verb piste,uw ) is similarly emphasized (see on John 3: 5 above). Jesus’ answer to the sinful woman (Luke 7: 50: “Your faith has saved you”) contains exactly the same assertation. Additionally, the Son of Man-saying in Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 has some similarity in content [1/ 1-level of closeness] to the Johannine allusion to a crucified (and thus dying) savior by stating that the Son of Man ( o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ) came “to give his life as a ransom for many.” The language of this second sequence of Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus is generally Johannine - with the exception of several semantic echoes in the Synoptics [1/ 1- and 1/ 2-levels of closeness]. Regarding the content of this section, however, we observe that the essential motifs of the unwillingness to accept Jesus’ testimony (3: 11-12 par. Luke 22: 67-68 et al.) and the importance of faith in Jesus as a prerequisite of a spiritual new birth (3: 14-15 par. Matt 19: 28 pars. et al.) are closely related to synoptic sayings of Jesus [0/ 2- and 1/ 2-levels of closeness]. 3.1.4 Sequence 3: John 3: 16-21 (Jesus’ Discourse Continued) [3: 16a] ou[twj ga.r hvga,phsen o` qeo.j to.n ko,smon For this is the way God loved the world: [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Luke 6: 35] e; sesqe ui`oi. u`yi,stou( o[ti auvto.j crhsto,j evstin evpi. tou.j avcari,stouj kai. ponhrou,jÅ you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to ungrateful and evil people. [Matt 28: 19] poreuqe,ntej ou=n maqhteu,sate pa,nta ta. e; qnh( (…) Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, (…) [3: 16b] w[ste to.n ui`o.n to.n monogenh/ e; dwken( He gave his one and only Son, [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28] kai. ga.r o` ui`o. j tou/ avnqrw,pou ouvk h=lqen diakonhqh/ nai avlla. diakonh/ sai kai. dou/ nai th.n yuch.n auvtou/ lu,tron avnti. pollw/ nÅ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. [Matt 21: 37 pars.] u[steron de. avpe,steilen pro.j auvtou.j to.n ui`o.n auvtou/ (…) Finally he sent his son to them (…) 124 [3: 16c] i[na pa/ j o` pisteu, wn eivj auvto.n mh. avpo,lhtai avllV e; ch| zwh.n aivw,nionÅ so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. [1/ 2] [1/ 2] [0/ 1] [1/ 1] [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi (…) o[tan kaqi,sh| o` ui`o. j [see 3: 16b] tou/ avnqrw,pou evpi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou (…) zwh.n aivw,nion klhronomh,seiÅ (…) when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life. [Luke 7: 50] h` pi,stij sou se,swke,n se\ Your faith has saved you. [Luke 19: 10] (in reference to 3: 16b and c) h=lqen ga.r o` ui`o. j tou/ avnqrw,pou zhth/ sai kai. sw/ sai to. avpolwlo,jÅ For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. [Matt 18: 14] (in reference to the whole verse) ou[twj ouvk e; stin qe,lhma e; mprosqen tou/ patro.j u`mw/ n tou/ evn ouvranoi/ j i[na avpo,lhtai e]n tw/ n mikrw/ n tou,twnÅ In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that one of these little ones be lost. [3: 17] ouv ga.r avpe,steilen o` qeo.j to.n ui`o.n eivj to.n ko,smon i[na kri,nh| to.n ko,smon( avllV i[na swqh/ | o` ko,smoj diV auvtou/ Å For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through him. [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [1/ 2] Regarding the theme of “sending the Son” see also [Matt 15: 24; Luke 4: 43; 10: 16]. [Matt 10: 40 pars.] ~O deco,menoj u`ma/ j evme. de,cetai( kai. o` evme. deco,menoj de,cetai to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. [Matt 21: 37 pars.] u[steron de. avpe,steilen pro.j auvtou.j to.n ui`o.n auvtou/ le,gwn\ evntraph,sontai to.n ui`o,n mouÅ Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ Regarding the whole verse: [Luke 19: 10] h=lqen ga.r o` ui`o. j tou/ avnqrw,pou zhth/ sai kai. sw/ sai to. avpolwlo,jÅ For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost. 125 [0/ 1] [Mark 2: 17] kai. avkou,saj o` VIhsou/ j le,gei auvtoi/ j Îo[tiÐ ouv crei,an e; cousin oi` ivscu,ontej ivatrou/ avllV oi` kakw/ j e; contej\ ouvk h=lqon kale,sai dikai,ouj avlla. a`martwlou,j Those who are healthy don't need a physician, but those who are sick do. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. See also [Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28] [2/ 2, maybe in this place 1/ 2]. [3: 18a] o` pisteu, wn eivj auvto.n ouv kri,netai\ The one who believes in him is not condemned. [1/ 2] [Luke 7: 50] h` pi,stij sou se,swke,n se\ Your faith has saved you. [3: 18b] o` de. mh. pisteu, wn h; dh ke,kritai( o[ti mh. pepi,steuken eivj to. o; noma tou/ monogenou/ j ui`ou/ tou/ qeou/ Å The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. [0/ 1] [Luke 13: 3, 5] ouvci,( le,gw u`mi/ n( avllV eva.n mh. metanoh/ te pa,ntej w`sau,twj avpolei/ sqeÅ No, I tell you! But unless you repent, you will all perish as well! As parallels to the Johannine “Son”-language in John 3: 16-18 see [Matt 11: 17 par. Luke 10: 22; Mark 13: 32; and Matt 28: 19]. [3: 19a] au[th de, evstin h` kri,sij o[ti to. fw/ j evlh,luqen eivj to.n ko,smon Now the judgment is this: that the light has come into the world [1/ 1] [Matt 12: 41-42 par. Luke 11: 31-32] a; ndrej Nineui/ tai avnasth,sontai evn th/ | kri,sei meta. th/ j genea/ j tau,thj kai. katakrinou/ sin auvth,n( o[ti meteno,hsan eivj to. kh,rugma VIwna/ ( kai. ivdou. plei/ on VIwna/ w-deÅ basi,lissa no,tou evgerqh,setai evn th/ | kri,sei meta. th/ j genea/ j tau,thj kai. katakrinei/ auvth,n( o[ti h=lqen evk tw/ n pera,twn th/ j gh/ j avkou/ sai th.n sofi,an Solomw/ noj( kai. ivdou. plei/ on Solomw/ noj wdeÅ The people of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented when Jonah preached to them- and now, something greater than Jonah is here! The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon- and now, something greater than Solomon is here! 126 [0/ 1] [Matt 4: 17 pars.] metanoei/ te\ h; ggiken ga.r h` basilei,a tw/ n ouvranw/ nÅ Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near. [3: 19b-20] kai. hvga,phsan oi` a; nqrwpoi ma/ llon to. sko,toj h' to. fw/ j [see on 3: 21b] \ h=n ga.r auvtw/ n ponhra. ta. e; rgaÅ pa/ j ga.r o` fau/ la pra,sswn misei/ to. fw/ j kai. ouvk e; rcetai pro.j to. fw/ j( i[na mh. evlegcqh/ | ta. e; rga auvtou/ \ and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 23: 3, 28, 37] pa,nta ou=n o[sa eva.n ei; pwsin u`mi/ n poih,sate kai. threi/ te( kata. de. ta. e; rga auvtw/ n mh. poiei/ te\ le,gousin ga.r kai. ouv poiou/ sinÅ (…) ou[twj kai. u`mei/ j e; xwqen me.n fai,nesqe toi/ j avnqrw,poij di,kaioi( e; swqen de, evste mestoi. u`pokri,sewj kai. avnomi,ajÅ (...) posa,kij hvqe,lhsa evpisunagagei/ n ta. te,kna sou( (...) kai. ouvk hvqelh,sateÅ Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they teach. (…) In the same way, on the outside you look righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (…) How often I have longed to gather your children together (…) but you would have none of it! See also the narrative comment in [Matt 11: 20]: “Then Jesus began to criticize openly the cities in which he had done many of his miracles, because they did not repent.” [Mark 12: 6-9 pars.] e; ti e[na ei=cen ui`o.n avgaphto,n\ avpe,steilen auvto.n e; scaton pro.j auvtou.j le,gwn o[ti evntraph,sontai to.n ui`o,n mouÅ evkei/ noi de. oi` gewrgoi. pro.j e`autou.j ei=pan o[ti outo,j evstin o` klhrono,moj\ deu/ te avpoktei,nwmen auvto,n( kai. h`mw/ n e; stai h` klhronomi,aÅ kai. labo,ntej avpe,kteinan auvto.n kai. evxe,balon auvto.n e; xw tou/ avmpelw/ nojÅ ti, Îou=nÐ poih,sei o` ku,rioj tou/ avmpelw/ nojÈ evleu,setai kai. avpole,sei tou.j gewrgou.j kai. dw,sei to.n avmpelw/ na a; lloijÅ He had one left, his one dear son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let's kill him and the inheritance will be ours! ’ So they seized him, killed him, and threw his body out of the vineyard. What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. 127 This third sequence of the Johannine Nicodemus narrative (which is either a summary exposition of the evangelist or indeed part of Jesus’ answer to Nicodemus’ query; see above 3.1.1) starts in John 3: 16a with the universalistic statement that “God loved the world,” i.e., “the world in its alienation from and hostility to its creator’s purposes.” 47 It has been frequently asked whether this apparently singular statement about God’s love to the world is indeed consonant with the rest of the Jesus tradition. 48 While an explicit emphasis on the universal love of God is certainly not a prominent feature of the teaching of Jesus, not even in the Fourth Gospel, Luke 6: 35 [0/ 1-level of closeness] confirms that Jesus did indeed teach that divine kindness even applies to the evil inhabitants of his creation. 49 In addition, we again find in Matt 28: 19 a statement of the post-resurrection Jesus that clearly reveals the concern of the Godhead for the world [0/ 1-level of closeness: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations (…); ” cf. also Mark 16: 15 with explicit reference to to.n ko,smon ]. Other passages like Matt 5: 13-16 seem to 47 Lincoln, John, 154; similarly Carson, John, 205; Schnackenburg, John, 1: 398 et al. 48 Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 216, regards it as improbable that this motif has roots in the teaching of Jesus since it is lacking in earlier Jesus tradition. The question is also raised, yet answered differently, by Keener, John, 1: 569. 49 Cf., among others, Darrell L. Bock, Luke 1: 1-9: 50, vol. 1 of Luke, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), 603, who states regarding Luke 6: 35: “The reason (…) for the exhortation is God’s very character. He is also gracious to the immoral and ungrateful (…).” [3: 21a] o` de. poiw/ n th.n avlh,qeian e; rcetai pro.j to. fw/ j [see on 3: 21b] But the one who practices the truth comes to the light, [0/ 0] [3: 21b] i[na fanerwqh/ | auvtou/ ta. e; rga o[ti evn qew/ | evstin eivrgasme,naÅ so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God. [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 5: 16] ou[twj lamya,tw to. fw/ j [see 3: 19b-20, 21a] u`mw/ n e; mprosqen tw/ n avnqrw,pwn( o[pwj i; dwsin u`mw/ n ta. kala. e; rga kai. doxa,swsin to.n pate,ra u`mw/ n to.n evn toi/ j ouvranoi/ jÅ In the same way, let your light shine before people, so that they can see your good deeds and give honor to your Father in heaven. [Matt 7: 16 pars.] avpo. tw/ n karpw/ n auvtw/ n evpignw,sesqe auvtou,jÅ You will recognize them by their fruit. 128 suggest as well that a soteriologically universalistic outlook is indeed not absent in the synoptic teaching of Jesus. Most likely, in light of John 3: 14-15, the giving of God’s one-of-a-kind Son for the purpose of redemption in John 3: 16b and 3: 16c primarily refers to the sacrifice manifested in the crucifixion. This notion again bears some conceptual (and semantic) similarity to Jesus’ statement about giving his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 [1/ 1-level of closeness]). In addition, in the parable of the tenants, Jesus likewise refers not to the “giving” but to the “sending” of the Son which eventually leads to his death (Matt 21: 37 pars. [1/ 1-level of closeness]). The necessity of belief in order to have eternal life is - as was the case in the preceding verses - closely parallel to Matt 19: 28 pars. and Luke 7: 50 [1/ 2-levels of closeness; cf. also on John 3: 14-15 above]. Even though God is not explicitly mentioned as the initiator of the saving mission (as in John), Luke 19: 10 reminds us that “the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost; ” another synoptic statement that highlights the divine initiative on behalf of a lost world [0/ 1-level of closeness]. Further, the Johannine purpose statement of “people not perishing” is resembled by the synoptic parable of the lost sheep where Jesus likewise states in the Matthean version that God “is not willing that one of these little ones be lost” (Matt 18: 14 [also Luke 15: 4-7]; similarly using the verb avpo,llumi [1/ 1-level of closeness]). John 3: 17 opens with the motif of “God sending his Son.” Selfreferences of Jesus as the one being sent by God (expressed by the verb avposte,llw ) are common in the Synoptics as well (Matt 10: 40 pars. [1/ 1-level of closeness]; cf. also Matt 15: 24; Luke 4: 43, 10: 16 et al.). 50 The Johannine phrase avpe,steilen to.n ui`o.n is also used by Jesus in the parable of the tenants in Matt 21: 37 pars. as a more abstract conceptual indication of the divine mission [1/ 1-level of closeness]. The rest of 3: 17 describes the purpose of this mission as “not to condemn [ kri,nh| ] the world but to save [ swqh/ | ] the world through him.” This is again closely reminiscent [1/ 2-level of closeness] of Luke 19: 10, where Jesus explains that the ultimate goal of the Son of Man’s coming was “to seek and to save [ sw/ sai ] the lost,” in this context a reference primarily to Israel, but certainly not to the exclusion of the gentile world. In addition, no verbal, yet some conceptual parallelism is visible in the purpose statement of Mark 2: 17 [0/ 1-level of closeness]: “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” The contrast between salvation and condemnation is now further developed in John 3: 18. We find in John a clear distinction between the one who believes and is therefore not condemned (3: 18a) and the one who does not believe and thus remains in his state of condemnation (3: 18b). We note 50 For a more detailed treatment of the “sending motif” in the Synoptics, see Simon J. Gathercole, The Preexistent Son: Recovering the Christologies of Matthew, Mark, and Luke (Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2006), 177-89. 129 that again the probably secondary statement of Mark 16: 16 contains the same articulate comparison between faith that leads to salvation (expressed by a form of piste,uw ) and unbelief that ends with condemnation (expressed by a form of [ kata ] kri,nw ) and is thus an even closer parallel to both parts of this Johannine statement than in 3: 17. 51 Again, Jesus’ word of assurance spoken to the sinful woman in Luke 7: 50 (“Your faith [ h` pi,stij ] has saved you”) is also conceptually close to the positive emphasis of the consequences of belief in 3: 18a [1/ 2-level of closeness]. In contrast, the complementary negative statement in 3: 18b focusing on the fact that the world is in a state of condemnation already, has an at least implicit correspondence [0/ 1- level of closeness] in Luke 13: 3, 5, where Jesus states that “unless you repent, you will all perish as well.” This is indeed another way of saying that without turning to Jesus in faith, one remains condemned. 52 Now, it is worth noting with regard to the entirety of John 3: 16-18, that we find here one of the major clusters of “Son”-references in the Fourth Gospel. Such references to Jesus as the “Son” are not unique to John as is made clear by the synoptic parallels in Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22; Mark 13: 32; and Matt 28: 19. “Son”language is certainly more pronounced in the Fourth Gospel, but it is not entirely absent from its synoptic counterparts. 53 John 3: 19a and 19b-20 now contain the explanation of the roots of human unbelief that finally leads to judgment and condemnation. Although God did not send his Son with the purpose to condemn the world (3: 17), it is exactly the coming of Jesus into the world that provides the basis and thus provokes the process of divine judgment. 54 Similarly, Jesus’ judgment sayings in Matt 12: 41-42 par. Luke 11: 31-32 imply that divine condemnation is caused by a failure to come and to listen to God’s envoy “who is now here” and an unwillingness to turn from sinful behavior [1/ 1-level of closeness; cf. concurrent use of h` kri,sij ]. The synoptic invitation to “repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near” (Matt 4: 17 pars.) makes the same point: it is time to repent since the coming of Jesus has ushered in a salvationhistorical era which will ultimately lead to judgment [0/ 1-level of closeness]. 55 51 Cf. Michaels, John, 204n118. 52 Regarding both John 3: 17 and 18, Keener remarks that these verses are “consonant with early Christian soteriology in general” (John, 1: 570). As similar statements in the Synoptics he mentions Mark 2: 17; Luke 19: 10 et al. 53 Andreas J. Köstenberger and Scott R. Swain, Father, Son and Spirit: The Trinity and John’s Gospel, NSBT 24 (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2008), 87-88. 54 Lincoln, John, 155. 55 See Ulrich Luz, Matthew 1-7, vol. 1 of Matthew: A Commentary, trans. James E. Crouch, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Augsburg: Fortress, 2007), 160, who talks about “the hour of truth that is close at hand when God will reveal himself in his judgment.” 130 Jesus came into the world as light ( to. fw/ j ) and was immediately confronted with human darkness ( to. sko,toj ). Nowhere in the Synoptics does Jesus use the image of light to refer to himself. Yet, he is depicted as a light shining for those in darkness in Matt 4: 16 (cf. Luke 2: 32). In John, the metaphors of light and darkness have been introduced in the prologue (cf. 1: 4-9) and are now used to denote two opposing reactions to Jesus in spiritual and moral terms. Human rejection of the Son of Man, and thus the decision to remain in spiritual darkness instead of coming to the light of divine revelation, is said to be fundamentally grounded in moral corruptness: 56 “the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.” The ultimate point is that those who do evil instead of facing their sinful behavior refuse to expose themselves to God’s truth in order to avoid that their deeds may become evident: “For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed.” We do not find in the synoptic tradition a depiction of humanity’s negative response to Jesus and its moral underpinnings that comes close to the Fourth Gospel’s connotation and vivid imagery. While general judgment-language (by use of the term h` kri,sij ) is, of course, present in the other Gospels (Matt 5: 21-22; 12: 36; Luke 10: 14 et al.), there is, however, at least one passage in the Synoptics which suggests that in Jesus’ teaching a certain conceptual link between moral depravity and a refusal to listen to the divine messenger on the one hand and an ensuing judgment on the other also exists. In the parable of the tenants (Mark 12: 6-9 pars., already put forward regarding John 3: 17 [0/ 1-level of closeness]), the wicked farmers refuse to receive the vineyard owner’s son and finally kill him. They, to employ our Johannine metaphor, decide to remain in the darkness and to continue with their evil deeds, not willing to face their guilt and to have the truth revealed. As in John, this results in severe judgment. 57 Likewise, Jesus’ woes over the Pharisees in Matt 23 (supplemented by his lament over Jerusalem) seem to imply that their rejection of him is at least partly due to intrinsic unrighteousness which leads to evil deeds that are not in compliance with their pious teaching [1/ 1-level of closeness; cf. the concurrent use of ta. e; rga ]. In contrast to those who choose to remain in darkness, John 3: 21a and 21b tell us that there are others who “practice the truth” and are thus willing to “come to the light.” For them, there is no need to hide since the light may only reveal that their deeds have been accomplished in conformity with God’s will (and thus with him as the empowering source) all along. 58 As Andrew Lincoln put it: “(…) people’s response to Jesus is indicative of their 56 For a metaphorical usage of to. sko,toj in moral terms in the Synoptics, see besides Matt 4: 16 also Matt 6: 23; Luke 22: 53 et al. 57 Cf. Köstenberger, John, 131, who notes this text as a possible parallel for John 3: 19. 58 Carson, John, 208; Schnackenburg, John, 1: 407-08 et al. 131 relation to God.” 59 In the Synoptics, there is no verbal correspondence to the constituent phrase o` de. poiw/ n th.n avlh,qeian (only here and in 1John 1: 6). Neither do we find any close conceptual parallel to the first part of this concluding verse of the Nicodemus dialogue [0/ 0-level of closeness]. Yet, regarding the succeeding proposition, we may observe some similarity to Matt 5: 16 both in wording and in content [1/ 1-level of closeness]. The imperatival character of this saying (“Let your light shine before people so that they can see your good deeds and give honor to your Father in heaven”) and its somewhat different perspective may not conceal the inherent concept of good deeds which ought to be revealed since they are - to use Johannine vocabulary - “done in God” and thus bring praise to him. Finally, the synoptic verdict “you will recognize them by their fruit” (Matt 7: 16 pars.) may also bear some analogy to John 3: 21 [0/ 1-level of closeness]. The predication that the existence of (good) fruit leads one to identify a godly believer seems to be the inverted way of saying (as the Fourth Gospel does) that if someone comes to Jesus in faith it manifests this person’s deeds as good fruit growing out of a true relationship with God. The evidence regarding the relationship between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics from John 3: 16-21 once again exhibits some noteworthy correlations. Not only do we find some significant similarities in wording for all Johannine propositions [1/ 1- and 1/ 2-levels of closeness], but the observable points of reference regarding content reveal that the Johannine Jesus is not teaching anything fundamentally different from what we read in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The primary theme of Jesus as the one who came not to condemn but to give eternal life to those who believe (3: 16-18) has some especially close analogies with the Synoptics (cf. Matt 19: 28 pars.; Luke 7: 50; 19: 10 [1/ 2-levels of closeness]). And even the concluding reflections about people’s different responses to God’s invitation (3: 19-21) have at least some similarity to what Jesus teaches elsewhere (cf. Mark 12: 6-9 et al. [0/ 1- and 1/ 1-levels of closeness]). 3.1.5 Summary Having examined Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus, what can we say about its relationship with his synoptic teaching? Generally speaking, the language of the Johannine Jesus in John 3: 1-21 is different from the Synoptics. The 22 propositions of the discourse reveal no high degree of conformity when it comes to wording. There is also no close verbal agreement between what Jesus said to Nicodemus and his utterances in the other three Gospels. In other words, we find that no 2/ 2-kind of closeness is present in this first of the Johannine discourses. At the same time, however, we may 59 Lincoln, John, 156. 132 note that only three propositions are totally void of even some verbal agreement (3: 8, 10, 11). All other propositions show at least some conformity in wording as they contain individual (yet significant) words or phrases that are also present in the Synoptics. Thus, more than two thirds of the total of 22 propositions have some verbal similarity to Jesus’ synoptic teaching, i.e., either a 1/ 1- or a 1/ 2-kind of closeness. With respect to the content, our comparison yields even more interesting results. Ten propositions are in close conceptual parallelism with one or more synoptic sayings of Jesus. 60 In those instances we find a 0/ 2- or a 1/ 2-type of closeness. Thus, almost half of Jesus’ words in the Nicodemus dialogue are closely related in content to parts of his reported teaching in the Synoptics. In this regard, it is important to note that all key thematic elements of Jesus’ discourse in John 3 have a similar counterpart in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. The necessity of spiritual rebirth (John 3: 3, 5 par. Matt 18: 3 and Mark 10: 15), the importance of personal faith in Christ as a precondition for eternal life (John 3: 14-15 par. Matt 19: 28 pars.), and the emphasis on Jesus as savior for everyone who believes (John 3: 16-18 par. Luke 19: 10, Matt 19: 28 pars.) are noticeable parts of Jesus’ synoptic teaching. Further, ten propositions exhibit 0/ 1- or 1/ 1-levels of closeness, with the conceptual thrust of the Johannine proposition being, at least to some degree, similar to the Synoptics. 61 In other words, only two of the total of 22 propositions (3: 14a, 21a) in Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus lack a discernible correlation in content with Jesus’ words in the Synoptics. 60 John 3: 3, 5, 7, 11, 12, 14b, 15, 16c, 17, 18a. 61 John 3: 6, 8, 10, 13, 16a, 16b, 18b, 19a, 19b-20, 21b. 133 3.2 Jesus’ Dialogue with the Samaritan Woman about the Water of Life (John 4: 1-30) 3.2.1 Introduction Structure and Character of the Dialogue Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well contains the second of only two extended dialogues with individuals in the Gospel of John. This points towards the significance of this scene within the narrative as a whole. The dialogue includes 176 words spoken by Jesus. The whole narrative section in John 4: 1-42 stands in sharp contrast with the Nicodemus narrative in chapter 3. While a respected teacher of normative Judaism fails to understand the content of Jesus’ teaching, an immoral woman from a socially and religiously stigmatized group is able to gain some insight into Jesus’ true character and becomes a faithful witness. 62 Further backdrop for the interpretation of this striking encounter may be found in the Old Testament. The scene has to be understood “in light of the Old Testament stories about women’s encounters at wells, especially the stories of the betrothal scenes involving Isaac (Gen. 24: 10-61), Jacob (Gen. 29: 1-20; note especially John 4: 5), and Moses (Ex. 2: 15b-21).” 63 This is further amplified by the fact that Jesus is already depicted as the bridegroom in earlier chapters, both at the wedding in Cana (John 2: 7-10; where he, instead of the actual bridegroom, supplies the wine) and through John the Baptist’s witness (John 3: 29). 64 John 4: 1-42 falls into five different sections. 65 In the first six verses John provides the setting for the rest of the narrative by explaining how Jesus ended up at Jacob’s well in Samaria. John 4: 7-26 comprises the actual dialogue between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. The following verses, 4: 27-30, where the disciples come back and the woman leaves, are best described as a transition into a shorter dialogue of Jesus with the disciples 62 Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 119; also Keener, John, 1: 584; and Köstenberger, John, 112, who provides an instructive chart which intends to show that “the contrast between these two characters could hardly be more pronounced.” For a comparison between the dialogue of Jesus with the Samaritan woman and Nicodemus, see also Edeltraud Leidig, Jesu Gespräch mit der Samaritanerin und weitere Gespräche im Johannesevangelium, ThDiss 15 (Basel: Friedrich Reinhardt Kommissionsverlag, 1979), 203-05. 63 Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 118; also Lincoln, John, 170; now also Tina D. Nilsen, “The True and The False: The Structure of John 4: 16-26,” BN 128 (2006): 61-64. 64 Ibid. 65 Cf. Stefan Schapdick, Auf dem Weg in den Konflikt: Exegetische Studien zum theologischen Profil der Erzählung vom Aufenthalt Jesu in Samarien (Joh 4,1-42) im Kontext des Johannesevangeliums, BBB 126 (Berlin: Philo, 2000), 93; also Hendrikus Boers, Neither on this Mountain nor in Jerusalem: A Study of John 4, SBLMS 35 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988), 2-6. 134 in 4: 31-38. In 4: 39-42 Jesus finally meets the Samaritans of Sychar who end up confessing him as “Savior of the world” due to the woman’s testimony. As regards the conversation of Jesus with the Samaritan woman, we may divide the whole dialogue into three sequences. The initial encounter starts with Jesus’ socially inappropriate address of the woman (“Give me some water to drink.”), which indeed takes her by surprise. It evolves a dialogue in which Jesus is able to point to his true identity and his capacity to dispense the gift of “living water” [Sequence 1: John 4: 1-14]. The woman’s request to receive such water is followed by Jesus’ invitation to go and get her husband. This leads into a short dialogue about the woman’s marital history in which Jesus is able to reveal supernatural insight into her personal situation [Sequence 2: John 4: 15-18]. As the woman consequently acknowledges Jesus as a prophet, the dialogue develops into a reflection on proper worship which ends with Jesus disclosing his true identity as Messiah [Sequence 3: John 4: 19-30]. The Authenticity of the Discourse in Johannine Research The historical plausibility of this Johannine episode has, for a long time, been subject of scholarly dispute. As Raymond Brown remarked regarding this passage in John 4: “Either we are dealing with a master of fiction, or else the stories have a basis in fact.” 66 One of the most recent commentators of the Fourth Gospel, Andrew Lincoln, has opted for the former and severely questioned the historical validity of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman as a whole. He argues that this passage is due to the presence of Samaritan Christians within the Johannine community and that this (fictitious) story “encourages further outreach (…) [to the Samaritans] by reading back a Samaritan mission into the time of Jesus.” 67 One of the arguments used to deny the trustworthiness of John’s account is the fact that a mission to Samaritans during Jesus’ ministry is without parallel in the Synoptic Gospels. 68 Yet, we ought to initially consider that the overall setting of this passage is not at all implausible even in light of the tradition of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. We may observe that “the barriers Jesus crosses here - gender [Matt 26: 10-13; Luke 7: 37-50], ethnicity (including, in Luke, among Samaritans [Luke 10: 30-37]), and morality (eating with “sinners” [Matt 9: 10-13]) - are all consistent with the portrait of Jesus revealed in the Synoptics.” 69 However, Matt 10: 5-6, where Jesus explicitly excludes the towns of Samaria from his missionary mandate, could be perceived as a 66 Brown, John (i-xii), 176. 67 Lincoln, John, 182 [italics mine]; cf. also Ernst Haenchen, John 1-6, vol. 1 of A Commentary on the Gospel of John, trans. Robert W. Funk, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 226-30. 68 Ibid., 181; cf. also the remarks of Lindars, Gospel of John, 175-76. 69 Keener, John, 1: 587; also Köstenberger, John, 141. 135 synoptic contradiction to our Johannine account. At the same time, it needs to be noted, that John 4 does not refer to a missionary enterprise of Jesus and his disciples, but to a single event on their journey through Samaria. As such, it is not very far removed from other instances in the synoptic tradition where the particularism of Jesus’ early ministry is selectively broadened (cf. generally Matt 5: 13-14; also Matt 15: 21-28 par. Mark 7: 24-30; and those passages, where contact with Samaritans is implied as in Luke 9: 52; 17: 11, 16). The omission of this particular passage is not that significant as it may be due to the fact that the Synoptics are silent about this entire early stage of Jesus’ ministry pictured in John 2-4. 70 Most scholars today would probably be (in keeping with our own terminology) moderately skeptical about the historical value of this particular scene in the Fourth Gospel. While the basic historicity, i.e., the utilization of historical material, is not doubted, it is at the same time acknowledged that we are dealing with a skilful, and more or less creative, composition of the evangelist. Raymond Brown is representative of those who reckon with a basis in fact for John 4: 1-42 when he writes: “If, as we suspect, there is a substratum of traditional [and thus likely historical] material, the evangelist has taken it and with his masterful sense of drama and the various techniques of stage setting, has formed it into a superb theological scenario.” 71 German scholar Udo Schnelle similarly refers to an “artistically composed unit,” which was partly arranged by using older, i.e., traditional, material. 72 Within such a concept it is usually assumed that Jesus’ direct speech is the result of a redactional process (with the evangelist as one, but not necessarily the only, key figure) which uses traditional words of Jesus to elaborate on. 73 70 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 98-99; also Morris, John, 223n6. 71 Brown, John (i-xii), 176; cf. also Schnackenburg, John, 1: 420: “This skilful construction, however, is no reason for doubting the historicity of the narrative.” Cf. now also Susan Miller, “The Woman at the Well: John’s Portrayal of the Samaritan Mission,” in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel, eds. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, Early Christianity and Its Literature 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 73-81, who argues for the historical plausibility of Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, yet reckons with “later theological developments” in John’s portrayal. 72 Schnelle, Johannes, 96n126: “Ich sehe Joh. 4,1-42 als eine aus Einzelszenen (V. 1-3.4- 26.27-30.31-38.39-42) kunstvoll komponierte Einheit an, die unter Aufnahme z. T. älteren Materials vom Evangelisten gestaltet wurde.” Cf. also Lindars, Gospel of John, 176, 180. 73 E.g., Smith, John, 123: “Although his words are enigmatic, their puzzling, veiled character is partly the product of John’s style, and perhaps partly the result of the use of traditional words of Jesus in this discourse.” Regarding the literary development of John 4: 1-42, a great variety of results have been presented in several traditionor redaction-critical works. For an overview, see Teresa Okure, The Johannine Approach to Mission, WUNT 2/ 31 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1988), 58-75; and Andrea Link, »Was 136 Other Johannine scholars, however, have been even more positive about the historical reliability of this particular passage partly because of its seemingly accurate social, geographical, and religious details: “The story betrays a considerable knowledge of Samaritan beliefs, local colour, geographical factors, and Jew-Samaritan relationships that would seem to point us in the direction of an historical account.” 74 The skeptical argument that this dialogue apparently happened without anyone witnessing it, which should thus undermine our trust in the historicity of this narrative, has been repeatedly criticized as unconvincing. If such a remarkable dialogue happened, it is entirely plausible that Jesus and/ or the Samaritan woman told others about it. 75 It comes as no surprise that our preliminary inventory of synoptic parallels (see above 2.4) does not list any entries for Jesus’ dialogue with the Samaritan woman in John 4: 1-30. Neither the NA 27 margin nor any of the scholars mentioned are aware of synoptic counterparts to what Jesus is saying in these verses in the Fourth Gospel. A closer look at the evidence, however, suggests more positive results with regard to this second of two extensive conversations of Jesus with an individual in John’s Gospel. redest du mit ihr? « Eine Studie zur Exegese-, Redaktions- und Traditionsgeschichte von Joh 4,1-42, BU 24 (Regensburg: Pustet, 1992), 30-177. 74 Ben Witherington, Women in the Ministry of Jesus: A Study of Jesus’ Attitudes to Women and their Roles as Reflected in His Early Life, SNTSMS 51 (Cambridge: University Press, 1984), 58; also Brown, John (i-xii), 175; Keener, John, 1: 587; as well as Wai-Yee Ng, Water Symbolism in John: An Eschatological Interpretation, Studies in Biblical Literature 15 (New York: Peter Lang, 2001), 98-101, and now Johns Varghese, The Imagery of Love in the Gospel of John, AnBib 177 (Rome: Gregorian & Biblical Press, 2009), 141-42. 75 Morris, Studies, 146-51; also Witherington, Women, 58. 137 3.2.2 Sequence 1: John 4: 1-14 (Living Water) [4: 1-7a] Now when Jesus knew that the Pharisees had heard that he was winning and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself was not baptizing, but his disciples were), he left Judea and set out once more for Galilee. But he had to pass through Samaria. Now he came to a Samaritan town called Sychar, near the plot of land that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there, so Jesus, since he was tired from the journey, sat right down beside the well. It was about noon. A Samaritan woman came to draw water. [4: 7b] le,gei auvth/ | o` VIhsou/ j\ do,j moi pei/ n\ Jesus said to her, “Give me some water to drink.” [0/ 0] [4: 8-9] (For his disciples had gone off into the town to buy supplies.) So the Samaritan woman said to him, “How can you- a Jew- ask me, a Samaritan woman, for water to drink? ” (For Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans.) [Luke 9: 13 pars.] But he said to them, “You give them something to eat.” They replied, “We have no more than five loaves and two fish- unless we go and buy food for all these people.” [Luke 17: 16-18] He fell with his face to the ground at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. (Now he was a Samaritan.) Then Jesus said, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to turn back and give praise to God except this foreigner? ” 138 [4: 10] avpekri,qh VIhsou/ j kai. ei=pen auvth/ |\ eiv h; |deij th.n dwrea.n tou/ qeou/ kai. ti,j evstin o` le,gwn soi\ do,j moi pei/ n( su. a'n h; |thsaj auvto.n kai. e; dwken a; n soi u[dwr zw/ nÅ Jesus answered her, If you had known the gift of God and who it is who said to you, ‘Give me some water to drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water. [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [Matt 9: 6 pars.] i[na de. eivdh/ te o[ti evxousi,an e; cei o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou evpi. th/ j gh/ j avfie,nai a`marti,aj (…) But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins (…) [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] avmh.n le,gw u`mi/ n o[ti u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi (…) ( o[tan kaqi,sh| o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou evpi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou (…) zwh.n aivw,nion klhronomh,seiÅ Amen, I say to you: (…) when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me (…) will inherit eternal life. [Luke 11: 13 par. Matt 7: 11] (…) po,sw| ma/ llon o` path.r Îo`Ð evx ouvranou/ dw, sei pneu/ ma a[gion toi/ j aivtou/ sin auvto,nÅ (…) how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! [Matt 7: 7] Aivtei/ te kai. doqh,setai u`mi/ n( zhtei/ te kai. eu`rh,sete( krou,ete kai. avnoigh,setai u`mi/ n\ Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. Cf. the words of John the Baptist in [Matt 3: 11 pars.]. [4: 11-12] “Sir,” the woman said to him, “you have no bucket and the well is deep; where then do you get this living water? Surely you’re not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you? For he gave us this well and drank from it himself, along with his sons and his livestock.” Cf. [Matt 12: 41-42]. 139 [4: 13] avpekri,qh VIhsou/ j kai. ei=pen auvth/ |\ pa/ j o` pi,nwn evk tou/ u[datoj tou,tou diyh,sei pa,lin\ Jesus replied, Everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again. [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Luke 4: 4 par. Matt 4: 4] ge,graptai o[ti ouvk evpV a; rtw| mo,nw| zh,setai o` a; nqrwpojÅ It is written, ‘Man does not live by bread alone.’ [Luke 6: 25] ouvai. u`mi/ n( oi` evmpeplhsme,noi nu/ n( o[ti peina,seteÅ ouvai,( oi` gelw/ ntej nu/ n( o[ti penqh,sete kai. klau,seteÅ Woe to you who are well satisfied with food now, for you will be hungry. [4: 14] o]j dV a'n pi,h| evk tou/ u[datoj ouevgw. dw,sw auvtw/ |( ouv mh. diyh,sei eivj to.n aivw/ na( avlla. to. u[dwr o] dw,sw auvtw/ | genh,setai evn auvtw/ | phgh. u[datoj a`llome,nou eivj zwh.n aivw,nionÅ But whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again, but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up to eternal life.” [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 5: 6] maka,rioi oi` peinw/ ntej kai. diyw/ ntej th.n dikaiosu,nhn( o[ti auvtoi. cortasqh,sontaiÅ Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] avmh.n le,gw u`mi/ n o[ti u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi (…) ( o[tan kaqi,sh| o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou evpi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou (…) zwh.n aivw,nion klhronomh,seiÅ Amen, I say to you: (…) when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me (…) will inherit eternal life. [Matt 25: 46] kai. avpeleu,sontai ou-toi eivj ko,lasin aivw,nion( oi` de. di,kaioi eivj zwh.n aivw,nionÅ And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life. [Luke 12: 32] Mh. fobou/ ( to. mikro.n poi,mnion( o[ti euvdo,khsen o` path.r u`mw/ n dou/ nai u`mi/ n th.n basilei,anÅ Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father is well pleased to give you the kingdom. Having learned about the reason for Jesus and his disciples travelling through Samaria, we are now told that Jesus sat down at Jacob’s well close to Sychar because he was tired from the journey (John 4: 1-6). John 4: 7 informs us that he meets an unnamed Samaritan woman who comes to the well alone in order to draw water. Jesus’ initial request (“Give me some water to drink”) is without precedent in the Synoptics [0/ 0-level of closeness], although the verb pi,nw occurs 35 times on his lips in the three other Gospels. By taking the initiative and asking the Samaritan woman for a drink, 140 Jesus consciously broke the social and religious barriers of his time. The woman’s bad moral reputation will become more evident later in the story, yet that she was looked down upon is already hinted at by the fact that she was apparently not welcome to draw water with the other women of the town. 76 Besides that, as a male Jew, Jesus was not expected to converse with a woman in public, especially if she was Samaritan and thus considered as unclean. 77 As already noted above, in this regard, Jesus’ behavior is certainly in line with his synoptic portrait, where he is repeatedly depicted as not shying away from women (e.g., Matt 9: 22 pars.; 26: 6-13 pars.) and being a friend of sinners (e.g., Mark 2: 15-17; Luke 19: 5-7). 78 Now we are told that the initial reason for Jesus’ approach of the woman was the fact that the disciples had gone to the next town to buy supplies (cf. Luke 9: 13 pars.). The Samaritan woman is obviously puzzled by Jesus asking her for water to drink, which the evangelist explains for the uninformed reader, noting that “Jews use nothing in common with Samaritans” (John 4: 8-9; cf. Luke 17: 16-18). In John 4: 10, Jesus answers the woman by pointing out that she had not known “the gift of God” and who it is who spoke to her. The fact that Jesus’ true identity is not immediately understood is a common theme in the Synoptics as well. It is not entirely clear whether the phrase th.n dwrea.n tou/ qeou/ refers to Jesus himself, 79 to the Holy Spirit, 80 or to the gift of eternal life. 81 It may well be, however, that Jesus refers here to “the salvation of God in an inclusive sense.” 82 Jesus is the gift of God (cf. 3: 16), yet, at the same time, he is the one who gives the “living water,” i.e., the new life mediated by the Spirit, who again is given by Jesus to those who believe (cf. 7: 37-39). That Jesus is the giver of salvation is expressed in generally different terms [0/ 1-level of closeness] in Matt 9: 6 pars. (with the focus being on Jesus’ ability to forgive sins) or Matt 19: 28-29 pars. (with the focus being on the gift of eternal life). In John, Jesus states that he would have given the Samaritan woman “living water” ( u[dwr zw/ n ) if she had asked him. As the Johannine term “living water” seems to 76 Jerome H. Neyrey, “What’s Wrong With This Picture? John 4, Cultural Stereotypes of Women, and Public and Private Space,” BTB 24 (1994): 82; also Carson, John, 217; Köstenberger, John, 148; Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 120; pace Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 245. 77 Brodie, John, 214; Keener, John, 1: 598; Köstenberger, John, 149; Lincoln, John, 172; Theobald, Johannes, 310-11; Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 120. 78 Cf. Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 100; Smith, John, 112-13. 79 Lincoln, John, 173; Smith, John, 113; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 249; also J. Eugene Botha, Jesus and the Samaritan Woman: A Speech Act Reading of John 4: 1-42, NovTSup 65 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 123. 80 Gary M. Burge, John, NIVAC (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 144. 81 Carson, John, 218; Morris, John, 230. 82 Beasley-Murray, John, 60; similarly Schnackenburg, John, 1: 427-28; also Lindars, Gospel of John, 184. 141 include the role of the Holy Spirit, 83 we may point to a further conceptual parallel in Luke 11: 13 par. Matt 7: 11, where - in complementary fashion - another member of the Trinity (the Father, not Jesus) is denoted as the one who gives (as in John with a form of di,dwmi ) the Holy Spirit to those who ask him (as in John with a form of aivte,w ) [1/ 1-level of closeness]. The willingness to give (salvation) to those who ask is most generally stated in Matt 7: 7 [1/ 1-level of closeness]. The Samaritan woman misunderstands Jesus’ statement in John 4: 10 as referring to physical water. Certainly, Jesus cannot be greater than their ancestor Jacob (cf. Matt 12: 41-42), whereas she falsely assumes that the water which Jesus mentions refers to the kind that Jacob had drawn from the well (John 4: 11-12). Thus, in John 4: 13, Jesus further explains what he actually meant with his image of living water. First, Jesus takes up the woman’s constant reference to the water from Jacob’s well as he states that “everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again.” This is somewhat similar to two Lukan sayings [0/ 1-level of closeness], where the image of water is exchanged by the image of food, yet the same point is made: natural water, respectively natural food, is unable to still the spiritual needs of human beings. When Jesus says in Luke 4: 4 par. Matt 4: 4 that “Man does not live by bread alone” or predicts in Luke 6: 25 that “you will be hungry [again]” he clearly addresses the insufficiency of such natural provisions and, as in John, implicitly alludes to the necessity of spiritual nourishment. In contrast to those natural supplies, Jesus further maintains in John 4: 14 that the living water which he gives “is such that those who receive it are permanently satisfied.” 84 The same concept is at least implicitly there in the Beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied” (Matt 5: 6 [1/ 1-level of closeness]; note the use of diya,w ). 85 Similarly, in John, Jesus says that whoever is thirsty and drinks from the right well, as it were, will never be thirsty again. Jesus has been sent by God to satisfy the spiritual thirst of humanity by providing the metaphorical living water, which anticipates the outpouring of the Spirit, already promised in the Old Testament (Isa. 12: 3; 44: 3; 49: 10). Jesus sends the Spirit who gives eternal life. Although Matt 19: 28-29 pars. does not explicitly incorporate the Spirit in the mentioned act of salvation, it parallels our Johannine proposition insofar as it 83 Brown, John (i-xii), 178-80; Carson, John, 219; Köstenberger, John, 150; Lincoln, John, 174 et al. 84 Morris, John, 232. 85 This parallel has been noted by Köstenberger, John, 151; and Morris, John, 232; cf. Wilckens, Johannes, 83. In addition to those passages mentioned, Uwe-Karsten Plisch, The Gospel of Thomas: Original Text with Commentary (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2008), 233, observes a possible resemblance of John 4: 14 with Gosp. Thom. 108: “Jesus says, ‘Whoever will drink from my mouth will become like me. I myself will become he, and what is hidden will be revealed to him.’” 142 points to Jesus as the giver of “eternal life” ( zwh.n aivw,nion [1/ 1-level of closeness]). Another conceptual parallel is Matt 25: 46, where the idea that those which are indwelled by the Spirit, and thus “are [made] righteous will depart for eternal life” ( zwh.n aivw,nion [1/ 1-level of closeness]), resembles Jesus’ teaching in John 4: 14. Luke 12: 32 is a little further removed conceptually (with little overlap in wording), yet bears a similar inherent thrust as Jesus refers to “the Father who is pleased to give you the kingdom,” with kingdom being the synoptic equivalent to the Johannine terminology of “eternal life.” This first of three sequences of Jesus’ dialogue with the Samaritan woman does not reveal a high degree of similarity to the synoptic teaching of Jesus. Generally speaking, it features some similarity in content with some similarity in wording, while one proposition has no parallel at all (4: 7). We should not overlook, however, that apart from this one exception, all other Johannine statements show at least some resemblance to Jesus’ synoptic teaching, not least his self-identification as the true giver of salvation (4: 10, 14 par. Matt 9: 6 pars., 19: 28-29 pars. et al. [0/ 1- and 1/ 1- levels of closeness]). 3.2.3 Sequence 2: John 4: 15-18 (Dubious Morality and Supernatural Insight) [4: 15] The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water.” [4: 16] le,gei auvth/ |\ u[page fw,nhson to.n a; ndra sou kai. evlqe. evnqa,deÅ He said to her, “Go call your husband and come back here.” [0/ 0] [4: 17a] The woman replied, “I have no husband.” [4: 17b] le,gei auvth/ | o` VIhsou/ j\ kalw/ j ei=paj o[ti a; ndra ouvk e; cw\ Jesus said to her, “Right you are when you said, ‘I have no husband,’ [0/ 0] See [Matt 15: 7; Mark 7: 9; Luke 6: 26] for a similar use of kalw/ j with a verb of speech [2/ 1- level of closeness]. 143 [4: 18] pe,nte ga.r a; ndraj e; scej kai. nu/ n o]n e; ceij ouvk e; stin sou avnh,r\ tou/ to avlhqe.j ei; rhkajÅ for you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband. This you said truthfully! ” [0/ 0] Yet, see Jesus’ synoptic statements on marriage in [Matt 5: 27-32; 19: 4-9 par. Mark 10: 5-12]. For the theme of Jesus’ supernatural insight, see [Mark 11: 2-3; 14: 12-15 pars.]. The woman’s response in John 4: 15 reveals her interest in what Jesus has to offer, yet, as Nicodemus earlier in the Gospel, she continues to understand Jesus’ remarks as referring to a natural kind of water. The following change of subject in John 4: 16-18, prefaced by Jesus’ invitation to “call your husband and come back here,” probably has a twofold intention. On the one hand, Jesus wants to display his supernatural insight into the woman’s marital history and thus help her to come to grips with who he really is. On the other hand, he seems to consciously expose her questionable morality in order to show her “the true dimensions of her own need, the real nature of her self-confessed thirst.” 86 Both intentions are not totally absent from the Synoptics (cf. Matt 16: 13-17 regarding the true identity of Jesus, as well as Mark 10: 21 for another attempt to penetrate into the deeper layers and needs of a person’s heart). The reaction of the Samaritan woman, “I have no husband,” is formally true, as Jesus recognizes (note the synoptic-type phrase of kalw/ j plus a verb of speech as in Matt 15: 7; Mark 7: 9; Luke 6: 26 et al. [1/ 0-level of closeness]). 87 It does not, however, tell the whole truth and may thus be denoted as misleading. 88 The woman’s intention was either to signalize her availability (which is possible in light of this betrothal-like scene) 89 or to avoid further conversation about this shameful part of her personal history. 90 In any case, Jesus is quick to disclose with his special knowledge the whole truth of her marital history (“you have had five husbands, and the man you are living with now is not your husband”), which, although we are lacking details, moves her into a morally dubious light. 91 Although no direct parallel to this whole sequence may be found on Jesus’ lips in the other three Gospels (thus an overall 0/ 0-level of closeness), we 86 Carson, John, 220. Cf. Laurence Cantwell, “Immortal Longings in Sermone Humili: a Study of John 4.5-26,” SJT 36 (1983): 82. 87 Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 254. 88 Keener, John, 1: 605; followed by Köstenberger, John, 152 et al. 89 Keener, John, 1: 606; Lincoln, John, 174-75. 90 Carson, John, 221. 91 Brown, John (i-xii), 171; according to Schapdick, Konflikt, 173-83, the primary goal of Jesus’ statement is not to show the Samaritan woman her moral abjection plainly, but to reveal his own supernatural knowledge; similarly Schnackenburg, John, 1: 433, yet cf. Theobald, Johannes, 317. 144 ought to note the following: first, the fact that Jesus freely addresses the ethical issue of marriage with the implied connotations of divorce and infidelity is not surprising in light of his synoptic teaching where we find references to this subject area as well (cf. Matt 5: 27-32; 19: 4-9 par. Mark 10: 5-12). And second, by revealing the woman’s personal life circumstances, Jesus “demonstrates the same kind of insight reflected in synoptic accounts of his ‘supernatural knowledge’ (cf. esp. Mark 11: 2-3; 14: 12-15 pars.).” 92 3.2.4 Sequence 3: John 4: 19-30 (Worship in Spirit and in Truth and the Identity of Jesus) 92 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 100. [4: 19-20] The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, and you people say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” [4: 21] le,gei auvth/ | o` VIhsou/ j\ pi,steue, moi( gu,nai( o[ti e; rcetai w[ra o[te ou; te evn tw/ | o; rei tou,tw| ou; te evn ~Ierosolu,moij proskunh,sete tw/ | patri,Å Jesus said to her, Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. [0/ 1] [Mark 13: 2 pars.] ble,peij tau,taj ta.j mega,laj oivkodoma,jÈ ouv mh. avfeqh/ | w-de li,qoj evpi. li,qon o]j ouv mh. kataluqh/ |Å Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left on another. All will be torn down! For similar uses of the noun w[ra as it relates to the inauguration of the kingdom, see [Matt 24: 36, 44, 50; Mark 13: 32; Luke 12: 40] et al. [4: 22] u`mei/ j proskunei/ te o] ouvk oi; date\ h`mei/ j proskunou/ men o] oi; damen( o[ti h` swthri,a evk tw/ n VIoudai,wn evsti,nÅ You people worship what you do not know. We worship what we know, because salvation is from the Jews. [0/ 1] [Matt 5: 14] u`mei/ j evste to. fw/ j tou/ ko,smouÅ ouv du,natai po,lij krubh/ nai evpa,nw o; rouj keime,nh\ You are the light of the world. A city located on a hill cannot be hidden. 145 [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 8: 11-12] le,gw de. u`mi/ n o[ti polloi. avpo. avnatolw/ n kai. dusmw/ n h[xousin kai. avnakliqh,sontai meta. VAbraa.m kai. VIsaa.k kai. VIakw.b evn th/ | basilei,a| tw/ n ouvranw/ n( oi` de. ui`oi. th/ j basilei,aj evkblhqh,sontai eivj to. sko,toj to. evxw,teron (…) I tell you, many will come from the east and west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness (…) [Mark 7: 27] a; fej prw/ ton cortasqh/ nai ta. te,kna( ouv ga,r evstin kalo.n labei/ n to.n a; rton tw/ n te,knwn kai. toi/ j kunari,oij balei/ nÅ Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not right to take the children's bread and to throw it to the dogs. [4: 23] avlla. e; rcetai w[ra kai. nu/ n evstin( o[te oi` avlhqinoi. proskunhtai. proskunh,sousin tw/ | patri. evn pneu,mati kai. avlhqei,a| \ kai. ga.r o` path.r toiou,touj zhtei/ tou.j proskunou/ ntaj auvto,nÅ But a time is coming- and now is here- when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such people to be his worshipers. [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 11: 4-5] poreuqe,ntej avpaggei,late VIwa,nnh| a] avkou,ete kai. ble,pete\ tufloi. avnable,pousin kai. cwloi. peripatou/ sin( leproi. kaqari,zontai kai. kwfoi. avkou,ousin( kai. nekroi. evgei,rontai kai. ptwcoi. euvaggeli,zontai\ Go tell John what you hear and see: The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news proclaimed to them. [Mark 1: 15] peplh,rwtai o` kairo.j kai. h; ggiken h` basilei,a tou/ qeou/ . The time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is near. [0/ 1] [Matt 12: 6] le,gw de. u`mi/ n o[ti tou/ i`erou/ mei/ zo,n evstin wdeÅ I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. [0/ 1] [Mark 13: 2 pars.] ble,peij tau,taj ta.j mega,laj oivkodoma,jÈ ouv mh. avfeqh/ | w-de li,qoj evpi. li,qon o]j ouv mh. kataluqh/ |Å Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left on another. All will be torn down! 146 [0/ 1] [Matt 15: 6-9 par. Mark 7: 6-9] [This is the complementary contrast to “worship in truth” which “the Father seeks”.] kai. hvkurw,sate to.n lo,gon tou/ qeou/ dia. th.n para,dosin u`mw/ nÅ u`pokritai,( kalw/ j evprofh,teusen peri. u` mw/ n VHsai<aj le,gwn\ o` lao.j ou-toj toi/ j cei,lesi,n me tima/ |( h` de. kardi,a auvtw/ n po,rrw avpe,cei avpV evmou/ \ ma,thn de. se,bontai, me dida,skontej didaskali,aj evnta,lmata avnqrw,pwnÅ You have nullified the word of God on account of your tradition. Hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied correctly about you when he said, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and they worship me in vain, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ See also [Matt 23: 2-39]. [4: 24] pneu/ ma o` qeo,j( kai. tou.j proskunou/ ntaj auvto.n evn pneu,mati kai. avlhqei,a| dei/ proskunei/ n God is spirit, and the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth. [0/ 1] [0/ 1] For the theme of “worship in spirit and truth” see above on John 4: 23: [Matt 12: 6; Mark 13: 2 pars.; Matt 15: 6-9 par. Mark 7: 6-9] [Matt 6: 5-7] [again as contrast; also qualifies as parallel of 4: 23] Kai. o[tan proseu,chsqe( ouvk e; sesqe w`j oi` u`pokritai,( o[ti filou/ sin evn tai/ j sunagwgai/ j kai. evn tai/ j gwni,aij tw/ n plateiw/ n e`stw/ tej proseu,cesqai( o[pwj fanw/ sin toi/ j avnqrw,poij\ avmh.n le,gw u`mi/ n( avpe,cousin to.n misqo.n auvtw/ nÅ su. de. o[tan proseu,ch|( ei; selqe eivj to. tamei/ o,n sou kai. klei,saj th.n qu,ran sou pro,seuxai tw/ | patri, sou tw/ | evn tw/ | kruptw/ |\ kai. o` path,r sou o` ble,pwn evn tw/ | kruptw/ | avpodw,sei soiÅ Proseuco,menoi de. mh. battalogh,shte w[sper oi` evqnikoi,( dokou/ sin ga.r o[ti evn th/ | polulogi,a| auvtw/ n eivsakousqh,sontaiÅ Whenever you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray while standing in synagogues and on street corners so that people can see them. Truly I say to you, they have their reward. But whenever you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you. When you pray, do not babble repetitiously like the Gentiles, because they think that by their many words they will be heard. 147 [0/ 1] [Matt 16: 17] maka,rioj ei=( Si,mwn Bariwna/ ( o[ti sa.rx kai. aima ouvk avpeka,luye,n soi avllV o` path,r mou o` evn toi/ j ouvranoi/ jÅ You are blessed, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but my Father in heaven! [4: 25] The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (the one called Christ); “whenever he comes, he will tell us everything.” [4: 26] le,gei auvth/ | o` VIhsou/ j\ evgw, eivmi( o` lalw/ n soiÅ Jesus said to her, “I, the one speaking to you, am he.” [1/ 2] [Mark 14: 61-62 pars.] o` de. evsiw,pa kai. ouvk avpekri,nato ouvde,nÅ pa,lin o` avrciereu.j evphrw,ta auvto.n kai. le,gei auvtw/ |\ su. ei= o` cristo.j o` ui`o.j tou/ euvloghtou/ È o` de. VIhsou/ j ei=pen\ evgw, eivmi( kai. o; yesqe to.n ui`o.n tou/ avnqrw,pou evk dexiw/ n kaqh,menon th/ j duna,mewj kai. evrco,menon meta. tw/ n nefelw/ n tou/ ouvranou/ Å Again the high priest questioned him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? ” “I am,” said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” See also the indirect speech in [Matt 16: 20]: Then he instructed his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ. [4: 27-30] Now at that very moment his disciples came back. They were shocked because he was speaking with a woman. However, no one said, “What do you want? ” or “Why are you speaking with her? ” Then the woman left her water jar, went off into the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Surely he can't be the Messiah, can he? ” So they left the town and began coming to him. [Matt 19: 13-14] Then little children were brought to him for him to lay his hands on them and pray. But the disciples scolded those who brought them. But Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not try to stop them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” [Mark 2: 8 par. Luke 5: 22] Now immediately, when Jesus realized in his spirit that they were contemplating such thoughts, he said to them, “Why are you thinking such things in your hearts? ” [Luke 3: 15] While the people were filled with anticipation and they all wondered whether perhaps John could be the Christ. [See also Matt 12: 23.] 148 John 4: 21-24 is the longest continuous sequence of direct speech in the dialogue. Jesus’ supernatural knowledge has convinced the Samaritan woman that he is a prophet, which apparently encourages her to address one of the dividing issues in Samaritan-Jewish relations, namely, the proper place of worship (John 4: 19-20). In response, Jesus pronounces that “a time is coming” when the question about the primacy of either the Jerusalem temple or the sanctuary on Mount Gerizim will be obsolete. While the phrase e; rcetai w[ra is typically Johannine (John 4: 23; 5: 25, 28; 16: 2, 25, 32), the motif of the eschatological hour (expressed by the noun w[ra ) is similarly used in the Synoptics to denote, as here in John 4: 21, the “initiating [of] the new age of the kingdom of God” 93 (cf. Matt 24: 36, 44, 50; Mark 13: 32; Luke 12: 40 et al.). That - in the future - genuine worship will be no longer a matter of a particular locale is also assumed in the synoptic Olivet Discourse. There, Jesus announces the pending destruction of the Jerusalem temple (Mark 13: 2 pars. [0/ 1-level of closeness]), although he does not explicitly interrelate it with the topic of worship. Still, in John 4: 22, Jesus goes on to argue that the Samaritans actually have no true knowledge of the object of their worship, while he claims that the Jews (despite their existing deficiencies in worship) have at least a somewhat proper understanding of whom they adore: 94 “You people worship what you do not know. We worship what we know (…).” Such a conviction - on a conceptual level - is likewise incorporated in Jesus’ designation of his (Jewish) followers as a “light to the world” (Matt 5: 14 [0/ 1-level of closeness]), which seems to imply that while they are in the light (and thus “worship what they know”), they are called to teach (i.e., bring the light to) those who “do not know.” 95 This is also in line with Jesus’ further assertion that “salvation is from the Jews.” With this statement, Jesus upholds “Jewish salvation-historical preeminence,” 96 a similar concept certainly inherent in synoptic statements like Matt 8: 11-12, or Mark 7: 27 [0/ 1-level of closeness], although the main focus of these verses is not on the Jews as the source of 93 Beasley-Murray, John, 61; cf. also Keener, John, 1: 617; Lincoln, John, 177; Theobald, Johannes, 320. 94 Carson, John, 223; Keener, John, 1: 610-11, cf. also Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 258; Botha, Samaritan Woman, 146-47. 95 W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Introduction and Commentary on Matthew I-VII, vol. 1 of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988), 475; Donald A. Hagner, Matthew 1-13, WBC 33A (Dallas: Word, 1993), 100. 96 Köstenberger, John, 156, also Peter G. Kirchschläger, Nur ich bin die Wahrheit: Der Absolutheitsanspruch des johanneischen Christus und das Gespräch zwischen den Religionen, Herders Biblische Studien 63 (Freiburg: Herder, 2010), 124. 149 salvation (as in John) but on the Jews as the primary recipients of salvation; 97 yet these two perspectives seem difficult to separate. 98 Jesus then builds on his earlier statement about the obsolescence of present paradigms of worship as he announces in John 4: 23 that “a time is coming - and now is here - when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.” In contrast to 3: 21, Jesus now emphasizes that the eschatological age is not only future but already present. This is clearly reminiscent of the Synoptists’ “already-not yet”-framework regarding the kingdom. 99 That the coming age is “proleptically present in the person and ministry of Jesus” 100 is expressed in his answer to John the Baptist in Matt 11: 4-5 [0/ 1-level of closeness], where Jesus points to his miraculous deeds as signs of the messianic era. 101 Similarly, in Mark 1: 15 [0/ 1-level of closeness] the eschatological kingdom is said to be imminent and thus virtually inaugurated. 102 Jesus now asserts that the dawning of this new age in salvation history involves a new quality of worship, namely, “in spirit and truth.” Such worship is no longer dependent on external features like geographical locale or religious rituals but is characterized by personal knowledge of God’s truth revealed in Jesus and enabled by the inner work of the Holy Spirit. That this new kind of worship is now indeed possible is likewise pronounced through Jesus’ synoptic claim in Matt 12: 6 that in him “something greater than the temple is here” [0/ 1-level of closeness; cf. also Matt 26: 61, 27: 40]: people may now personally delight in “the presence of God in 97 Regarding Mark 7: 27, Gnilka, Markus, 1: 292, refers to a “heilsgeschichtlich notwendige Nachordnung der Heiden nach den Juden.” On this parallel see also Michaels, John, 251-52. 98 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 101, remarks that “Jesus’ positive attitude to his Jewish heritage here is also in keeping with the ‘ethnocentrism’ of texts like Matthew 10: 5-6 and 15: 24.” 99 Brown, John (i-xii), 172, states: “(…) we find in John the same eschatological tension that is apparent in the Synoptic references to the kingdom - it is future, and yet it is at hand.” [italics mine] Cf. also Benny Thettayil, In Spirit and Truth: An Exegetical Study of John 4: 19-26 and a Theological Investigation of the Replacement Theme in the Fourth Gospel, CBET 46 (Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 112: “The unusual presentation of time such as John 4: 23a reminds one of the double emphasis on the future consummation and present reality found in the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels.” Also Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 101. 100 Carson, John, 224. On the general theme of Jesus’ replacement of the temple, cf. Paul M. Hoskins, Jesus as the Fulfillment of the Temple in the Gospel of John, Paternoster Biblical Monographs (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2006), 135-45. 101 Craig Keener, A Commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999), 336; also Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2: 242-43; Luz, Matthew, 2: 134 (“present time of salvation”) et al. 102 As further references we may mention Jesus’ Beatitudes in Matt 5: 3, 10, regarding which George E. Ladd observed that “the gift of the kingdom (…) includes both present and future” (Theology of the New Testament, 71). 150 the person and work of Jesus.” 103 Again, Jesus’ prophecy of destruction in Mark 13: 2 pars. [0/ 1-level of closeness] clearly implies that the temple is no longer needed and will make way for refocused worship about which Jesus speaks more explicitly in John. Further, the notion that a mostly outward focused practice of worship is not satisfying in God’s eyes and thus needs to be replaced by a spiritual and internally pure kind of worship in conformity with God’s truth has been a constant feature of Jesus’ critique of Pharisaic religion in the Synoptic Gospels. In Matt 15: 6-9 par. Mark 7: 6-9 [0/ 1-level of closeness], for example, the Pharisees are said to “worship in vain” exactly because their worship is neither in accordance with the truth (“you have nullified the word of God”) nor conducted with a heart renewed by the Spirit (“their heart is far from me”). Texts like the seven woes against the Pharisees in Matt 23: 2-39 show that Jesus’ Johannine utterance is not at all idiosyncratic. John 4: 24 mainly reiterates the preceding verse with its emphasis on “worship in spirit and in truth,” while adding that “God is spirit.” In addition to the synoptic parallels already mentioned regarding John 4: 23 (Matt 12: 6; Mark 13: 2 pars.; Matt 15: 6-9 par. Mark 7: 6-9), we might also adduce Jesus’ words spoken in Matt 6: 5-7 [0/ 1-level of closeness], where a hypocritical, outward focused religiosity is contrasted with a true, inward focused spirituality. Since “God is spirit” he is able to “see in secret” and thus discern which religious approach is present. Further, it seems that the statement “God is spirit” is not primarily a reference to the Holy Spirit but a qualitative reference emphasizing the nature or essence of God as spiritual as opposed to the material realm. 104 If this is the case, we find a conceptually similar statement in Matt 16: 17 [0/ 1-level of closeness] where the “Father in Heaven” is contrasted with “flesh and blood” thus implicitly assuming his spiritual nature. The Samaritan woman connects Jesus’ statements about worship with the coming of the Messiah (John 4: 25): “her words (…) reflect the Samaritan expectation of a prophet like Moses as a messianic figure.” 105 In John 4: 26, Jesus responds with a self-revelation as he identifies himself as the anticipated Messiah: “I am he.” It is the first time in the Fourth Gospel that the evgw, eivmi -formula is used, which may also be found frequently in the Synoptics (Matt 14: 27 par. Mark 6: 50; Matt 24: 5 par. Luke 21: 8 et al.). Closely parallel to this Johannine self-identification is the synoptic triple tradition in Mark 14: 62 pars. [1/ 2-level of closeness; likewise employing the short 103 Hagner, Matthew 1-13, 330. 104 For this interpretation, see Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996), 270; followed by Köstenberger, John, 156; pace Lincoln, John, 177. Cf. also Thettayil, Spirit and Truth, 130. 105 Lincoln, John, 178. 151 identification evgw, eivmi ] with Jesus affirmatively answering the high priest’s question whether he was the Christ. Although the point that this explicitly Messianic statement occurs significantly later in the synoptic narrative than in the Fourth Gospel is well taken, it has to be maintained that the synoptic teaching of Jesus doubtless contained predications testifying to his understanding of himself as the Messiah (cf. the indirect speech in Matt 16: 20). 106 As Jesus’ disciples come back, the dialogue with the Samaritan woman ends. To see Jesus in conversation with a woman who was not even Jewish was shocking for Jesus’ followers. Their attitude resembles the one expressed toward children in Matt 19: 13-14. At that very moment the woman leaves in order to witness to her fellow townspeople. She initially refers to Jesus’ foreknowledge (“Come, see a man who has told me everything I ever did”; cf. Mark 2: 8) and then asks the question John wants all his readers to consider: “Surely he can’t be the Messiah, can he? ” (cf. Luke 3: 15). We find once again very little semantic overlap in this last sequence of Jesus’ discourse with the Samaritan woman. Yet, besides the only close conceptual parallel of the whole dialogue with reference to Jesus’ self-revelation (4: 26 par. Mark 14: 62 pars. [1/ 2-level of closeness]), the other inherent themes of this section show at least some resemblance to the content of Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics [0/ 1- and 1/ 1-levels of closeness]. 3.2.5 Summary We noted at the beginning of this chapter that Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman did not score well within earlier compilations of Johannine-Synoptic parallels. An assumed lack of synoptic resemblances has, of course, consequently evoked suspicion regarding the historical validity of this second discourse in the Fourth Gospel. Our detailed examination, however, has shown that Jesus’ words uttered in this dialogue at the Samaritan well are not that idiosyncratic after all. Our comparison of John 4: 1-30 with Jesus’ teaching in the other three Gospels has indeed demonstrated that four out of 12 direct speech proposi- 106 For a possible explanation for the early self-disclosure of Jesus in John when compared to the Synoptics, see Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 101-02. Cf. also Jörg Frey, “Der historische Jesus und der Christus der Evangelien,” in Der historische Jesus: Tendenzen und Perspektiven der gegenwärtigen Forschung, ed. Jens Schröter und Ralph Brucker, BZNW 114 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 306-07, who, on the one hand, considers John 4: 25-26 as a “späteres Stadium der Traditionsentwicklung,” yet is able to state regarding Mark 14: 61-62, “dass die durch Jesu Wirksamkeit ausgelöste Frage nach seiner Identität und Sendung von seinen Zeitgenossen nicht allein mit ‚prophetischen‘ (Mk 6,4), sondern auch mit ‚messianischen‘ Kategorien beantwortet werden konnte. Nach dem markinischen Bericht hat Jesus diese Bezeichnung auch nicht zurückgewiesen.” 152 tions (John 4: 7b, as well as 4: 16, 17b, 18) have no synoptic analogy and thus need to be classified as having a 0/ 0-level of closeness. This comes as no surprise, since all of these propositions refer to rather specific matters related to the uniqueness of this particular incident and the persons involved. If we take into account that Jesus’ words on marriage might serve as general parallels to John 4: 16-18 we are left with only one proposition without synoptic counterpart. Equally relevant is the fact that only three propositions (4: 10, 14, 26) contain individual words that are in conformity with synoptic phraseology. In these verses we do find at least some verbal reminiscences of Jesus’ synoptic teaching [1/ 1- and 1/ 2-levels of closeness]. Still, Keener is generally right when he says that “the story reads in Johannine idiom.” 107 With regard to the content of Jesus’ words in this dialogue, the common perception of a conceptual gap between John and the Synoptics needs to be modified. Initially, it has to be admitted that the messianic selfrevelation in John 4: 26 is the only close conceptual parallel to synoptic teaching (Mark 14: 62 pars. [1/ 2-level of closeness]) within the dialogue with the Samaritan woman. However, again, in light of the fact that none of the other three Gospels report this or any comparable episode, such a result is in accord with what had to be expected. What is regularly overlooked, however, is that all other propositions (with the exception of the four [respectively one] already mentioned) relate to the Synoptics, at least in terms of their conceptual thrust [0/ 1- or 1/ 1-levels of closeness]. 108 This is to say, that at least two thirds of what Jesus is saying to the Samaritan woman has a conceptual core that is in line with dominical utterances in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. While the metaphorical language used in the Fourth Gospel is certainly unique, the pivotal motifs of Jesus’ communication like the emphasis on his true identity as the giver of salvation (John 4: 10, 13-14, 26 par. Matt 9: 6 pars., 19: 28-29 pars.; Mark 14: 62 pars. et al.), the foundational role of Judaism in salvation history (John 4: 22 par. Matt 5: 14, 8: 11-12), and the inauguration of a new age in his person and ministry (John 4: 23 par. Matt 11: 4-5; 12: 6; Mark 13: 2 pars. et al.) all seem to permeate the Synoptic Gospels as well. 107 Keener, John, 1: 587. 108 John 4: 10, 13, 14, 21, 22, 23, 24. 153 Chapter 4 The Johannine Discourses Addressed to the Jewish Public and Jesus’ Teaching in the Synoptics A second, broader group of people to which Jesus turns in John’s Gospel are either designated as “the Jews,” “the Pharisees,” or “the crowd.” It is those discourses addressed to the Jewish public that we are concerned with in this chapter. 1 We are about to examine two out of the six discourses that would fall under this category. Again, the central question is how they relate to Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics. First, we will take a close look at the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6: 22-59 (4.1) followed by a detailed discussion of the Light of the World Discourse in John 8: 12-59 (4.2). The 911 words included in these two discourses comprise about 14 percent of all dominical words reported in the Fourth Gospel (about 6,500). They amount to 19.4 percent of all of Jesus’ words in the extended discourses and dialogues (about 4,700) and to more than a third of those speeches addressed to the Jewish public (37.3 percent of about 2,450). 4.1 The Bread of Life Discourse (John 6: 22-59) 4.1.1 Introduction Structure and Character of the Dialogue The Bread of Life Discourse contains 480 words of Jesus, which makes it the fourth longest cohesive speech in the Gospel of John. Regarding Jesus’ oratio recta, the discourse, quite naturally, may be divided into five consecutive sequences. As the scene unfolds the crowd’s questions “serve as prompts for the next stage in the development of Jesus’ discourse.” 2 First, 1 A detailed explanation of our method of comparison between these Johannine dialogues and Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics (including a legend to interpret the comparative tables given below) may be found above under 2.3.2. 2 Lincoln, John, 223. For a detailed discussion of the dialogue with the crowd, see also Dorothy A. Lee, The Symbolic Narratives of the Fourth Gospel: The Interplay of Form and 155 in view of the crowd that had followed him, Jesus points back to the feeding miracle reported in John 6: 1-14, rebuking those present for having only partially understood its significance [Sequence 1: John 6: 22-27]. Jesus’ exhortation to rather “work for food that remains” provokes the crowd to pose another question regarding the “deeds God requires.” Jesus answers by highlighting that what God is looking for is faith in him as the divine envoy [Sequence 2: John 6: 28-29]. Now the Jewish public asks for an authenticating sign to foster their belief. In answer to their request for a reenactment of Moses’ miracle of the manna, Jesus then emphasizes the fact that not Moses, but God, the Father, is the giver of the true bread from heaven and that Jesus himself is this bread that gives life [Sequence 3: John 6: 30-40]. 3 A further question arises as people start to doubt Jesus’ heavenly origin due to their knowledge of his human parents. This evokes a fourth sequence of the discourse in which Jesus elaborates on the themes already mentioned in the previous part, yet taking it one step further by explicitly denoting the bread as his own flesh [Sequence 4: John 6: 41-51]. This identification provokes another question among the attendant Jews which leads to a final sequence in which Jesus vividly stresses that eating his flesh and drinking his blood (i.e., substantially identifying with his death) will lead to eternal life [Sequence 5: John 6: 52-59]. The Authenticity of the Discourse in Johannine Research Within the frameworks of a myriad of source theories and compositional models (which we are unable to discuss here 4 ) several scholars have been Meaning, JSNTSup 95 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1994), 141-53. Cf. also the similar outline of the discourse by Popp, Grammatik des Geistes, 304-86;; or Johannes Beutler, “The Structure of John 6,” in Critical Readings of John 6, ed. R. Alan Culpepper, BIntS 22 (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 122-27 (both arguing for a six part structure dividing our third section into two). Mira Stare, Durch ihn Leben: Die Lebensthematik in Joh 6, NTAbh 48 (Münster: Aschendorff, 2004), 106-12, treats the whole passage of John 6: 25-71 as a unified dialogue with different conversation partners. 3 According to Schnelle, Antidocetic Christology, 195-96, the Bread of Life Discourse starts at John 6: 30 with the earlier verses being an entirely different tradition linked to the actual discourse passage by the evangelist. For the view that John 6: 22-59 is a cohesive unit, see Keener, John, 1: 675-91 (who has the discourse end at 6: 58); Köstenberger, John, 206-17; Rudolf Schnackenburg, Commentary on Chapters 5-12, vol. 2 of The Gospel According to St. John, trans. Cecily Hastings et al. (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 30-65; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 343-73 (with a break after 6: 40) et al. 4 Paul N. Anderson, The Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Its Unity and Disunity in the Light of John 6, WUNT 2/ 78 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), 48, states that “John 6 has recently been considered the showcase for diachronic theories.” For more information on influential compositional theories regarding John 6, see Robert Kysar, “The Source Analysis of the Fourth Gospel - A Growing Consensus? ,” NovT 15 (1973): 134- 52; as well as Peder Borgen, Bread from Heaven: An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Manna in the Gospel of John and the Writings of Philo, NovTSup 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1965) and now also the sections on the composition of this discourse in von Wahlde, Gospel 156 rather skeptical as regards the authenticity of Jesus’ words in John 6. Recently, Michael Theobald has laid down a model for the formation of the Johannine Bread of Life Discourse in which he reckons John 6: 35 (“I am the bread of life. The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.”) as a core saying on which the evangelist elaborated; however, in Theobald’s eyes, even this core saying has no historical pedigree since its Sitz im Leben does not lie within the ministry of Jesus but within the eucharistic worship of the Johannine community. 5 The classification of the discourse as a product of the Johannine community due to its supposedly peculiar Christology including eucharistic elements had already been supported by Maurice Casey. 6 The source of the central Christology of the Bread of Life Discourse, according to Casey, is not to be found with the historical Jesus but in the beliefs of a Johannine group within earliest Christianity. In his denial of the historical accuracy of Jesus’ words in John 6: 22-59, Casey has especially drawn upon the dissimilarity between Jesus’ teaching in John 6 and in the Synoptics. In light of the absence of major themes from the Synoptic Gospels, he comes to the conclusion that the Johannine discourse could not have been “delivered like that (…) [since] the omission of every one of them from the synoptics is simply incomprehensible.” 7 and Letters of John, 2: 295-301, 319-22. For a range of instructive essays regarding different issues pertaining to John 6, see R. Alan Culpepper, ed., Critical Readings of John 6, BIntS 22 (Leiden: Brill, 1997). 5 Theobald, Herrenworte, 245-46, 252-55. Paul N. Anderson, “The Sitz im Leben of the Johannine Bread of Life Discourse and Its Evolving Context,” in Critical Readings of John 6, 24-59, does not favor the eucharistic interpretation, yet similarly locates the Bread of Life Discourse within the life of the Johannine community as he sees four acute crises reflected in John 6, thus he calls this passage “literarily synchronic, but rhetorically diachronic.” 6 Casey, Jewish Prophet, 24-27. A eucharistic interpretation of John 6: 51-58 has convinced many that these verses were not an original part of the Bread of Life Discourse. Many scholars followed Rudolf Bultmann, who argued that these verses represent a theologically non-Johannine sacramentalism added by a later redactor, while Raymond Brown believed that these verses constitute genuine traditional material that had its origin in the narrative of Jesus’ institution of the Eucharist. For a discussion of the eucharistic character of John 6: 51-58, see Anderson, Christology, 110-36, as well as our treatment of these verses below. 7 Casey, Jewish Prophet, 26; also idem., Is John’s Gospel True? , 32-33. Such a skeptical view is also articulated by Gerd Lüdemann in his small book Der erfundene Jesus: Unechte Jesusworte im Neuen Testament (Springe: zu Klampen, 2008), 78-80. He sees a major discrepancy between the high Christology of John 6: 35 and the rest of the New Testament (esp. the Synoptics) and concludes: “Ist aber 6,35b [i.e., “I am the bread of life”] unecht, können auch die Ausführungen, mit denen »Jesus« dieses Wort im weiteren Verlauf der Rede entfaltet, nicht authentisch sein. Der historische Jesus hat weder dazu aufgefordert, an ihn als das aus dem Himmel herabgestiegene Brot zu glauben, noch dazu, sein mit Himmelsbrot identisches Fleisch zu essen, sondern dazu, Gott um das aus Getreide hergestellte Brot zu bitten (Mt 6,11/ Lk 11,3).” 157 Despite such negative assessments a moderate-skeptical verdict with regard to the historicity of Jesus’ discourse in John 6 is prevailing within Johannine scholarship. It is most frequently assumed that the Bread of Life Discourse is built on pillars of traditional, more or less historically reliable material, yet has its compositional roots in the creativity of the evangelist and possibly some later editorial activity. This view is classically stated by Raymond Brown, who argues that “the skeleton of the discourse (…) may well have been supplied by the tradition (…) [so that] the Discourse on the Bread of Life is not cavalierly to be evaluated simply as the creation of the evangelist, even though he has contributed much to its present form.” 8 Following the influential approach of Peder Borgen, 9 Brown, and others such as Rudolf Schnackenburg and Barnabas Lindars suggest that this discourse be regarded as a midrashic expansion of an Old Testament theme or even broader, earlier traditional elements. 10 With regard to Maurice Casey’s evaluation of Johannine-Synoptic relations in John 6, his entirely negative judgment has been met with opposition. It has been frequently observed that Jesus’ discourse in John 6 is closely tied to the narration of the feeding of the five thousand - one of the few passages that occur in all four Gospels. Thus, at least the context of the discourse under investigation has firm roots in the synoptic tradition (compare John 6: 1-15 with Matt 14: 13-21 par. Mark 6: 32-44 par. Luke 9: 10b- 17; John 6: 16-21 with Matt 14: 22-33 par. Mark 6: 45-52, and John 6: 22-25 with Matt 14: 34-36 par. Mark 6: 53-56). 11 This has led François Vouga to identify John 6 as “un terrain privilégié pour la comparison synoptique.” 12 Regarding the actual discourse section, Dwight Moody Smith points to Mark 8: 11- 21 and maintains that Jesus’ words about the bread of life are at least “remotely parallel” to the Synoptics. They are basically Johannine but with “a 8 Brown, John (i-xii), 275, also 263: “(…) the Bread of Life Discourse, as it now stands, reflects the organizing genius of the fourth evangelist (…), nevertheless it is composed of elements of traditional material.” 9 See footnote 4 for bibliographical data. 10 Brown, John (i-xii), 277-80; Schnackenburg, John, 2: 11; Lindars, Gospel of John, 249-53; cf. also Moloney, John, 207. Lincoln, John, 225, has likewise argued that this passage is structured around a midrashic exposition of John 6: 27 as its core saying, which he seems to consider as a traditional saying of the historical Jesus. 11 Cf. in this regard, Craig A. Evans, “Feeding the Five Thousand and the Eucharist,” in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel, eds. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, Early Christianity and Its Literature 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 131-38, here 138, who wonders “if the assocation of the feeding of the five thousand with Moses typology originated with Jesus himself.” 12 François Vouga, “Le quatrième évangile comme interprète de la tradition synoptique: Jean 6,” in John and the Synoptics, ed. Adelbert Denaux, BETL 101 (Leuven: University Press, 1992), 267. 158 few synoptic-like traces.” 13 In light of significant congruities between the Fourth Gospel and Mark 8: 14-21, German scholar Hartwig Thyen even talks about a Markan Bread of Life Discourse (“Brotrede”) which we find in a specifically Johannine metamorphosis in John 6. 14 No apparent parallel to the Johannine Bread of Life Discourse in the three other Gospels is actually listed in the Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum. 15 As we look more specifically at the correspondence between Jesus’ teaching in John 6: 22-59 and the Synoptics, we thus initially consider the preliminary inventory of synoptic parallels introduced above in 2.4. In this inventory, nine out of 26 verses containing words of Jesus (namely John 6: 26, 33, 35, 37, 38, 39, 46, 51, 54) are noted as having some kind of synoptic parallel. NA 27 lists four of them in its margin (John 6: 35, 38, 51, 54). Undertaking a more detailed comparison of the five sequences of Jesus’ Bread of Life Discourse with his teaching in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we again intend to assess how far-reaching the similarities actually are, both with regard to wording and content. As in John 3, the redundancy in parts of this discourse due to several conceptual repetitions (especially in the later sequences) results in the designation of synoptic counterparts as parallels for more than one Johannine proposition. We again follow our methodology as outlined above in chapter 2. 13 Smith, John, 144-45. Note that already Brown, John (i-xii), 238-39, has observed that Mark 8: 11-13 and 14-21 show similarity with the request for a sign in John 6: 25-34 and with the remarks on bread in John 6: 35-59 respectively; following Bertil E. Gärtner, John 6 and the Jewish Passover, CNT 17 (Lund: Gleerup, 1959), 6-13. 14 Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 332-33. Ian D. Mackay, John’s Relationship with Mark: An Analysis of John 6 in the Light of Mark 6-8, WUNT 2/ 182 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 207-56, finds in his literary-historical enquiry “echoes from at least three Markan discourses (4: 1-34; 7: 1-23; 8: 11-21)” in John 6: 25b-58;; cf. also Anderson, “The Sitz im Leben,” 8-11. 15 Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum: Locis parallelis evangeliorum apocryphorum et patrum adhibitis edidit Kurt Aland. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 15 2005), 140-41. 159 4.1.2 Sequence 1: John 6: 22-27 (The True Significance of the Feeding Miracle) [6: 22-25] The next day the crowd that remained on the other side of the lake realized that only one small boat had been there, and that Jesus had not boarded it with his disciples, but that his disciples had gone away alone. But some boats from Tiberias came to shore near the place where they had eaten the bread after the Lord had given thanks. So when the crowd realized that neither Jesus nor his disciples were there, they got into the boats and came to Capernaum looking for Jesus. When they found him on the other side of the lake, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you get here? ” Cf. the synoptic feeding miracle in [Matt 14: 13- 21 par. Mark 6: 32-44 par. Luke 9: 10-17]. [6: 26] VApekri,qh auvtoi/ j o` VIhsou/ j kai. ei=pen\ avmh.n avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n( zhtei/ te, me ouvc o[ti ei; dete shmei/ a( avllV o[ti ev fa,gete ev k tw/ n a; rtwn kai. ev corta,sqhteÅ Jesus replied, “Amen, amen, I say to you, you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate all the loaves and had your fill. [0/ 0] The introductory statement is closely paralleled in [Matt 6: 2, Mark 3: 28, Luke 4: 24] et al.: avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n . 16 Yet cf. [Mark 6: 52] and again the synoptic accounts of the feeding miracle in [Matt 14: 13-21 par. Mark 6: 32-44 par. Luke 9: 10-17]. That the crowds were indeed looking for Jesus is also stated in [Luke 4: 42]. 16 Plisch, Gospel of Thomas, 89 further observes a resemblance of this introductory statement to the Gosp. Thom. 24 (“Whoever has ears should hear! ”), but this similarity is not particularly close. 160 [6: 27a] ev rga,zesqe mh. th.n brw/ sin th.n avpollume, nhn Do not work for the food that disappears, [0/ 2] [Matt 6: 19] Mh. qhsauri,zete u`mi/ n qhsaurou.j evpi. th/ j gh/ j( o[pou sh.j kai. brw/ sij avfani,zei kai. o[pou kle,ptai dioru,ssousin kai. kle, ptousin\ Do not accumulate for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. [6: 27b] avlla. th.n brw/ sin th.n me, nousan eivj zwh.n aivw,nion [see on 6: 27c] but for the food that remains to eternal life [0/ 2] [0/ 2] [Matt 6: 20] qhsauri,zete de. u`mi/ n qhsaurou.j ev n ouvranw/ |( o[pou ou; te sh.j ou; te brw/ sij avfani,zei kai. o[pou kle, ptai ouv dioru,ssousin ouvde. kle,ptousin\ But accumulate for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. [Luke 12: 33] poih,sate e` autoi/ j balla,ntia mh. palaiou,mena( qhsauro.n avne, kleipton ev n toi/ j ouvranoi/ j( o[pou kle,pthj ouvk ev ggi,zei ouvde. sh.j diafqei,rei\ Provide yourselves purses that do not wear out- a treasure in heaven that never decreases, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. [6: 27c] h]n o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou u`mi/ n dw,sei\ - the food which the Son of Man will give to you. [1/ 2] [1/ 2] [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi (…) o[tan kaqi,sh| o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou evpi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou/ ( (…) kai. zwh.n aivw,nion [see 6: 27b] klhronomh,seiÅ Amen, I say to you (…) when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life. [Matt 16: 27] me, llei ga.r o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou e; rcesqai evn th/ | do,xh| tou/ patro.j [see John 6: 27d] auvtou/ meta. tw/ n avgge, lwn auvtou/ ( kai. to,te avpodw,sei e`ka,stw| kata. th.n pra/ xin auvtou/ Å For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. [6: 27d] tou/ ton ga.r o` path.r evsfra,gisen o` qeo,jÅ For God the Father has put his seal of approval on him [i.e., to.n ui`o.n tou/ avnqrw,pou ].” [1/ 1] [Matt 9: 6 pars.] i[na de. eivdh/ te o[ti ev xousi,an e; cei o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou [see 6: 27c] (…) But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority (…) 161 [1/ 1] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] Pa,nta moi paredo,qh u`po. tou/ patro,j mou (…) All things have been handed over to me by my Father. Jesus’ feeding of the multitude of people had probably taken place at the eastern shore of the Sea of Galilee (John 6: 1-15). After his mysterious escape, the crowd - who had been miraculously fed - together with some people who had arrived in boats from Tiberias searched for Jesus and went after him to Capernaum, on the north-western side of the lake. 17 When they found Jesus, they approached him with the curious question: “Rabbi, when did you get here? ” Rather then addressing the crowd’s enquiry, Jesus begins the following Bread of Life Discourse with a rebuke recorded in John 6: 26, “you ate all the loaves and had your fill,” an obvious reference to the earlier feeding of the five thousand. Thematically, Jesus expresses in these verses that the people did not understand the true significance of that miracle. Although no direct parallel to this statement may be found on Jesus’ lips in the Synoptics [0/ 0-level of closeness], aside from the apparent parallel of the synoptic feeding miracle, the statement in Mark 6: 52 (in the same context) that the disciples “did not understand about the loaves [ toi/ j a; rtoij ], but their hearts were hardened” possibly reflects a verdict actually returned by Jesus. Apparently, the crowd was enthusiastic about the fact that Jesus had filled their bellies in such a supernatural way, but they could not comprehend that Jesus’ miracle was revealing a deeper truth. Thus, in John 6: 27a and 6: 27b Jesus continues to rebuke them for “their purely materialistic notions of the kingdom” 18 and their obvious desire for physical rather than spiritual blessings. 19 This is in close conceptual conformity with Jesus’ emphasis in the Synoptics that true disciples should focus on things that are imperishable (Matt 6: 19-20; Luke 12: 33 [0/ 2-level of closeness]; cf. also Luke 9: 25, 12: 15). 20 That the genitive construction o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw, pou is the preferred self-identification of Jesus in the Synoptics has already been noted (see on John 3: 13 above). The notion that “the Son of Man” is the giver of eternal life in John 6: 27c can be found in Matt 19: 28-29 pars., as well as Matt 16: 27 - in generally different terms, yet with some verbal agreement 17 Beasley-Murray, John, 90: “This ‘crowd,’ of course, is not to be identified with the entire multitude that had been present at the feeding miracle; it was not an armada that crossed the Lake to find Jesus! ” 18 Carson, John, 284; Keener, John, 1: 676; Lincoln, John, 226; cf. also Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 345 et al. 19 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 122. 20 Cf. Dietzfelbinger, Johannes, 1: 154. 162 [1/ 2-level of closeness]. 21 The Johannine expression that “the Father [ o` path.r ] has put his seal of approval” on the Son of Man in John 6: 27d is a clear declaration of Jesus’ unique appointment (and authorization) by God. 22 Although the verb sfragi,zw is not used, the Synoptics contain the conceptually similar proposition that Jesus is equipped with God’s authority (Matt 9: 6 pars. [1/ 1-level of closeness]). The phrase “all things have been handed over to me by my Father [ tou/ patro, j mou ]” (Matt 11: 27 [1/ 1-level of closeness]) ultimately reveals the same concept: God transfers authority to his Son. While references to God as path,r are frequent in the Johannine discourses (10 times in the Bread of Life Discourse; cf. also John 4: 21, 23 above, as well as the discourses in John 8 and 14 below, further John 5 and 10), the synoptic testimony to Jesus’ use of the term is equally impressive. 23 The evidence of this first sequence shows significant correlations between Jesus’ words in John and the other three Gospels. The charge not to strive for perishable things as well as the focus on the authoritative Son of Man as the giver of salvation is part of Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics (cf. Matt 6: 19-20, 19: 28-29 pars. et al.). In John 6: 26-27 the words of the Johannine Jesus not only resemble those in the Synoptics in terms of content [0/ 2-, 1/ 2- and 1/ 1-levels of closeness], but also exhibit at least some significant semantic echoes [1/ 1- and 1/ 2-levels of closeness]. 21 In light of this conceptual agreement between John 6: 27 and Matt 16: 27; 19: 28-29 it seems impossible to follow Maurice Casey, The Solution to the ‘Son of man’ Problem, LNTS 343 (London: T&T Clark, 2007), 274, who observes “extreme differences” between the Johannine Son of man sayings and those in the Synoptic Gospels. On Matt 16: 27 as a parallel see also Michaels, John, 365n19. 22 Köstenberger, John, 207; Lincoln, John, 226-27; Moloney, John, 209 et al. On this Son of Man saying, cf. also Burkett, Son of the Man, 134-35; Reynolds, Son of Man, 147-52; Sasse, Menschensohn, 193-200. 23 Cf. the “Father”-language in John 6: 32, 37, 40, 44, 45, 46 (2x), 57 (2x). Paul W. Meyer, “‘The Father’: The Presentation of God in the Fourth Gospel,” in Exploring the Gospel of John. In Honor of D. Moody Smith, ed. R. Alan Culpepper and C. Clifton Black (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 267-68n20, has provided a list of synoptic references to God as “Father”: Matt 5: 16, 45;; 6: 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 15, 18, 26, 32;; 7: 11, 21;; 10: 20, 29, 32, 33; 11: 25-27; 12: 50; 13: 43; 15: 13; 16: 17; 18: 10, 14, 19, 35; 20: 23; 23: 9; 25: 34; 26: 29, 39, 42, 53; 28: 19; Mark 8: 38; 11: 25; 13: 32; 14: 36; Luke 2: 49; 6: 36; 10: 21-22; 11: 2, 13; 12: 30, 32; 22: 29; 23: 34(? ), 46; 24: 49. Interestingly enough, Meyer concludes that “the references [to God as Father] are surprisingly scarce in the pre-Johannine gospel traditions,” which would mean that such language “has its roots in post-Easter theological development and is part of the community’s confessional language” (ibid., 258). Köstenberger and Swain, Father, Son, and Spirit, 62n7, are right in pointing out that Meyer’s own extensive list does not warrant such a verdict. 163 4.1.3 Sequence 2: John 6: 28-29 (The Importance of Faith in the Divine Envoy) [6: 28] So then they said to him, “What must we do to accomplish the deeds God requires? ” [Matt 19: 16 pars.] Now someone came up to him and said, “Teacher, what good thing must I do to gain eternal life? ” [Luke 3: 10, 12] So the crowds were asking him, “What then should we do? ” (…) Tax collectors also came to be baptized, and they said to him, “Teacher, what should we do? ” [6: 29a] avpekri,qh Îo`Ð VIhsou/ j kai. ei=pen auvtoi/ j\ tou/ to, ev stin to. e; rgon tou/ qeou/ ( Jesus replied, “The work of God is this: [0/ 0] Yet, cf. [Matt 5: 16, 26: 10 pars.] et al. [6: 29b] i[na pisteu,hte eivj o]n avpe,steilen evkei/ nojÅ to believe in the one whom he has sent. [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [1/ 2] [1/ 2] [1/ 2] [Mark 1: 15] metanoei/ te kai. pisteu,ete evn tw/ | euvaggeli,w|Å Repent and believe the gospel! [Mark 5: 36] mh. fobou/ ( mo,non pi,steueÅ Do not be afraid, just believe. [Matt 18: 6 par. Mark 9: 42] }Oj dV a'n skandali,sh| e[ na tw/ n mikrw/ n tou,twn tw/ n pisteuo,ntwn eivj evme, ( (…) But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin (…) [Matt 10: 40 pars.] (…) o` ev me. deco,menoj de, cetai to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ (…) whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. [Luke 10: 16] (…) o` de. evme. avqetw/ n avqetei/ to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ (…) the one who rejects me rejects the one who sent me. 164 The crowd’s question “What must we do? ” is not uncommon (cf. Matt 19: 16 pars.; Luke 3: 10, 12). In John 6: 29a Jesus answers with a reference to “the work of God.” The phrase to. e; rgon tou/ qeou/ occurs only twice in the New Testament (cf. also Rom 14: 20), but not in the Synoptics. Here in John it refers to “the deed God requires.” The other three Gospels do not convey any direct conceptual parallel (thus we noted a 0/ 0-level of closeness). However, the concept of deeds ( ta. e; rga ) that are either pleasing to God or not is present in the Synoptic Gospels (Matt 5: 16; 26: 10 pars.; negatively Matt 23: 3, 5), albeit not in connection with John’s conception of faith. With his demand “to believe in the one whom he has sent” (John 6: 29b), Jesus clearly alludes to himself as the one sent by God. Again, Jesus’ selfconception as God’s envoy is a common motif within the three Synoptic Gospels as well (Matt 10: 40 pars.; 15: 24; Luke 4: 43; 10: 16 et al.; cf. also the parable of the wicked tenants in Matt 21: 37 pars.). 24 And although the object of the verb “to believe” in John is “the one sent” while the object of the verb “to receive” in Matt 10: 40 pars. is “the one who has sent,” it seems that the reference to God (i.e., “the one who has sent”) in John 6: 29a justifies the classification of this parallel as having a 1/ 2-level of closeness (taking it as revealing a close similarity in content). The verb piste,uw occurs several times on the lips of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, especially in order to describe the existing (or non-existing) expectation of Jesus’ authoritative power to act in miraculous ways (Mark 5: 36 [1/ 1-level of closeness]; Matt 8: 13; 9: 28 et al.). Moreover, the significance of believing in Jesus (Matt 18: 6 par. Mark 9: 42 [1/ 2-level of closeness]), or rather in the good news he represents (Mark 1: 15 [2/ 2-level of closeness]), is clearly expressed in the Synoptics. While the wording of this short second sequence of the Johannine Bread of Life Discourse shows some punctual similarity, the content of John 6: 29 is generally present within the Synoptic Gospels. Both the Johannine and the Synoptic Jesus regard themselves as God’s envoy and the importance to believe in Jesus as the one sent by God is expressed in the synoptic teaching tradition as well. 24 Gathercole, The Preexistent Son, 177-89. 165 4.1.4 Sequence 3: John 6: 30-40 (Jesus as the True Bread from Heaven) [6: 30-31] So they said to him, “Then what miraculous sign will you perform, so that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, just as it is written, ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” [Matt 12: 38] Then some of the experts in the law along with some Pharisees answered him, “Teacher, we want to see a sign from you.” [Matt 16: 1] Now when the Pharisees and Sadducees came to test Jesus, they asked him to show them a sign from heaven. [Luke 23: 8] When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him, because he had heard about him and was hoping to see him perform some miraculous sign. [Mark 15: 32] Let the Christ, the king of Israel, come down from the cross now, that we may see and believe. [6: 32a] ei=pen ou=n auvtoi/ j o` VIhsou/ j\ avmh.n avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n( ouv Mwu? sh/ j de,dwken u`mi/ n to.n a; rton evk tou/ ouvranou/ ( Then Jesus told them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven [0/ 0] On the introductory statement see above on 6: 26: [Matt 6: 2; Mark 3: 28; Luke 4: 24] et al. [6: 32b] avllV o` path,r mou di,dwsin u`mi/ n to.n a; rton evk tou/ ouvranou/ to.n avlhqino,n\ but my Father is giving you the true bread from heaven. [1/ 2] [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [Luke 12: 32] (...) o[ti euvdo,khsen o` path.r u`mw/ n dou/ nai u`mi/ n th.n basilei,anÅ (…) your Father is well pleased to give you the kingdom. [Matt 7: 11] (…) po,sw| ma/ llon o` path.r u`mw/ n o` ev n toi/ j ouvranoi/ j dw,sei avgaqa. toi/ j aivtou/ sin auvto,nÅ (…) how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! [Matt 6: 11] to.n a; rton h`mw/ n to.n ev piou,sion do.j h`mi/ n sh,meron\ Give us today our daily bread. 166 [6: 33a] o` ga.r a; rtoj tou/ qeou/ evstin o` katabai,nwn ev k tou/ ouvranou/ For the bread of God is the one who comes down from heaven [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Luke 12: 49] Pu/ r h=lqon balei/ n evpi. th.n gh/ n( kai. ti, qe, lw eiv h; dh avnh,fqhÅ I have come to bring fire on the earth- and how I wish it were already kindled! [Matt 5: 17] Mh. nomi,shte o[ti h=lqon katalu/ sai to.n no,mon h' tou.j profh,taj\ ouvk h=lqon katalu/ sai avlla. plhrw/ saiÅ Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them. Besides those two examples, see other “I have come”-sayings such as [Luke 12: 51 par. Matt 10: 34; Matt 10: 35; Mark 2: 17] et al. [6: 33b] kai. zwh.n didou.j tw/ | ko,smw|Å and gives life to the world.” [1/ 2] [Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28] kai. ga.r o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ouvk h=lqen diakonhqh/ nai avlla. diakonh/ sai kai. dou/ nai th.n yuch.n auvtou/ lu,tron avnti. pollw/ nÅ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served [cf. 6: 33a] but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. [6: 34] So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread all the time! ” [6: 35a] ei=pen auvtoi/ j o` VIhsou/ j\ ev gw, eiv mi o` a; rtoj th/ j zwh/ j\ Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. [0/ 1] [1/ 1] [Mark 6: 50 par. Matt 14: 27] qarsei/ te( ev gw, eiv mi\ Have courage! It is I. [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi (…) o[tan kaqi,sh| o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ev pi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou/ ( (…) kai. zwh. n aivw,nion klhronomh,seiÅ Amen, I say to you (…) when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life. Cf. also [Matt 10: 39]. Jesus talks about metaphorical bread in other instances; see [Luke 11: 5-8; Matt 13: 33 pars.]; possibly a 1/ 1-level of closeness. 167 [6: 35b] o` ev rco,menoj pro.j evme. ouv mh. peina,sh|( kai. o` pisteu,wn eivj evme. ouv mh. diyh,sei pw,poteÅ The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty. [0/ 2] [Matt 11: 28] Deu/ te pro,j me pa,ntej oi` kopiw/ ntej kai. pefortisme, noi( kavgw. avnapau,sw u`ma/ jÅ Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. [6: 36] VAllV ei=pon u`mi/ n o[ti kai. e` wra,kate, ÎmeÐ kai. ouv pisteu,eteÅ But I told you that you have seen me and still do not believe. [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 17: 17 pars.] w= genea. a; pistoj kai. diestramme,nh( You unbelieving and perverse generation! [Matt 21: 32 pars.] u`mei/ j de. ivdo,ntej ouvde. metemelh,qhte u[steron tou/ pisteu/ sai auvtw/ |Å Although you saw this, you did not later change your minds and believe him. [Matt 13: 14-15 pars.] kai. ble, pontej ble, yete kai. ouv mh. i; dhteÅ ev pacu,nqh ga.r h` kardi,a tou/ laou/ tou,tou( (…) kai. tou.j ovfqalmou.j auvtw/ n ev ka,mmusan( mh,pote i; dwsin toi/ j ovfqalmoi/ j kai. toi/ j wvsi.n avkou,swsin kai. th/ | kardi,a| sunw/ sin kai. evpistre,ywsin (…) (…) you will look closely yet will never comprehend. For this heart of this people has become dull; (…) and they have shut their eyes, so that they would not see with their eyes and hear with their ears and understand with their hearts and turn (…) Cf. also the concluding statement in the story about the rich man and the poor Lazarus in [Luke 16: 31]. [6: 37a] pa/ n o] di,dwsi,n moi o` path.r pro.j evme. h[xei( Everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me, [1/ 1] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] Pa,nta moi paredo,qh u`po. tou/ patro,j mou( (…) All things have been handed over to me by my Father. (…) [6: 37b] kai. to.n evrco,menon pro.j ev me. ouv mh. ev kba,lw e; xw . and the one who comes to me I will never send away. [1/ 1] [Matt 11: 28-29] Deu/ te pro,j me pa,ntej oi` kopiw/ ntej kai. pefortisme, noi( kavgw. avnapau,sw u`ma/ jÅ (...) kai. eu`rh,sete avna,pausin tai/ j yucai/ j u`mw/ n\ Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. (…) you will find rest for your souls. 168 [0/ 1] [Matt 12: 20] ka,lamon suntetrimme, non ouv katea,xei kai. li,non tufo,menon ouv sbe,sei( (…) He will not break a bruised reed or extinguish a smoldering wick (…) As a contrastive parallel of a possible 1/ 1-level of closeness (also using the verb evkba,llw ), cf. [Matt 8: 12]. [6: 38a] o[ti katabe,bhka avpo. tou/ ouvranou/ For I have come down from heaven [0/ 1] Similar to the phrase “I have come down from heaven” are the “I have come”-sayings in [Luke 12: 49; Matt 5: 17] et al.; see our comments on 6: 33. [6: 38b] ouvc i[na poiw/ to. qe, lhma to. ev mo.n avlla. to. qe,lhma tou/ pe, myanto,j meÅ not to do my own will but the will of the one who sent me. [1/ 2] [1/ 2] [Matt 26: 39, 42 pars.] plh.n ouvc w`j evgw. qe, lw avllV w`j su,Å (…) pa,ter mou( (…) genhqh,tw to. qe, lhma, souÅ Yet not what I will, but what you will. (…) My Father (…) your will must be done. [Mark 3: 35 pars.] o]j Îga.rÐ a'n poih,sh| to. qe, lhma tou/ qeou/ ( ou-toj avdelfo,j mou kai. avdelfh. kai. mh,thr evsti,nÅ For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. [1/ 2] [Matt 6: 10] genhqh,tw to. qe, lhma, sou( w`j evn ouvranw/ | kai. ev pi. gh/ j\ (…) may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Parallels to the designation of Jesus as “the one sent by God” are [Matt 10: 40 pars.; Luke 10: 16]; see our comments on 6: 29b. [6: 39a] tou/ to de, ev stin to. qe, lhma tou/ pe, myanto,j me( i[na pa/ n o] de, dwke,n moi mh. avpole,sw ev x auvtou/ ( Now this is the will of the one who sent me - that I should not lose one person of every one he has given me [1/ 2] [Matt 18: 14] ou[twj ouvk e; stin qe, lhma e; mprosqen tou/ patro.j u`mw/ n tou/ ev n ouvranoi/ j i[na avpo,lhtai e] n tw/ n mikrw/ n tou,twnÅ In the same way, your Father in heaven is not willing that one of these little ones be lost. Parallels to the designation of Jesus as “the one sent by God” are [Matt 10: 40 pars.; Luke 10: 16]; see our comments on 6: 29b. On the “will of God,” see also our comments on 6: 38b. 169 [1/ 1] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] Pa,nta moi paredo,qh u`po. tou/ patro,j mou( (…) All things have been handed over to me by my Father (…) [6: 39b] avlla. avnasth,sw auvto. Îev nÐ th/ | evsca,th| h`me, ra|Å but raise them all up at the last day. [1/ 2] [1/ 2] [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [Matt 10: 15] (…) avnekto,teron e; stai gh/ | Sodo,mwn kai. Gomo,rrwn ev n h`me,ra| kri,sewj h' th/ | po,lei evkei,nh|Å (…) it will be more bearable for the region of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. [Matt 24: 36] Peri. de. th/ j h`me, raj evkei,nhj kai. w[raj ouvdei.j oi= den( (…) But as for that day and hour no one knows it (…) [Mark 12: 25 pars.] o[tan ga.r ev k nekrw/ n avnastw/ sin ou; te gamou/ sin ou; te gami,zontai( avllV eivsi.n w`j a; ggeloi ev n toi/ j ouvranoi/ jÅ For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. [Luke 16: 31] eiv Mwu? se, wj kai. tw/ n profhtw/ n ouvk avkou,ousin( ouvdV eva,n tij evk nekrw/ n avnasth/ | peisqh,sontaiÅ If they do not respond to Moses and the prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead. [6: 40a] tou/ to ga,r ev stin to. qe, lhma tou/ patro,j mou [see on 6: 40b] For this is the will of my Father [1/ 2] For parallels as to the “will of God,” see [Matt 26: 39, 42 pars.; Matt 6: 10; Mark 3: 35 pars.] and our comments on 6: 38b. [6: 40b] i[na pa/ j o` qewrw/ n to.n ui`o. n kai. pisteu,wn eivj auvto.n e; ch| zwh.n aivw,nion( - for everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him to have eternal life, [1/ 2] [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi (…) o[tan kaqi,sh| o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ev pi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou/ ( (…) kai. zwh.n aivw,nion klhronomh,seiÅ Amen, I say to you (…) when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life. 170 [1/ 1] [1/ 2] [1/ 1] For further parallels on the significance of believing in Jesus, see [Matt 18: 6 par. Mark 9: 42; Mark 1: 15; Mark 5: 36; Luke 10: 16] et al., and above 6: 29. [Matt 7: 21] Ouv pa/ j o` le, gwn moi\ ku,rie ku,rie( eivseleu,setai eivj th.n basilei,an tw/ n ouvranw/ n( avllV o` poiw/ n to. qe, lhma tou/ patro,j mou [see 6: 40a] tou/ ev n toi/ j ouvranoi/ jÅ Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter into the kingdom of heaven - only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. [6: 40c] kai. avnasth,sw auvto.n ev gw. Îev nÐ th/ | evsca,th| h`me, ra|Å and I will raise him up at the last day.” [1/ 1] [1/ 2] See above on 6: 39b: [Mark 12: 25 pars.; Luke 16: 31; Matt 10: 15; Matt 24: 36] In response to Jesus’ statement in John 6: 29, his conversation partners now ask for an authenticating sign that may help them to believe (John 6: 30-31). Similar invitations for Jesus to show his power may be found in the Synoptics as well (Matt 12: 38, 16: 1; Mark 15: 32; Luke 23: 8). Quoting from Exodus 16: 4-15 or possibly Psalm 78: 24, they seem to be asking for a repetition of Moses’ manna miracle in the wilderness. 25 In John 6: 32 Jesus reacts to their request by providing his own interpretation of the scriptural content of these passages. 26 Here once again the synoptic-like introductory formula avmh.n avmh.n le,gw u`mi/ n is not overly significant. The phrase to. n a; rton evk tou/ ouvranou (“bread from heaven”) does not occur elsewhere in the New Testament and no further reference to Moses in connection with the giving of manna in the wilderness can be found anywhere in the Gospels [0/ 0-level of closeness]. Jesus argues that his interlocutors fail to understand that it is not Moses but God who is the giver of the true bread from heaven ( o` path,r mou di,dwsin u`mi/ n to. n a; rton evk tou/ ouvranou/ to. n avlhqino,n ), i.e., the true source 25 For the Old Testament roots of the people’s allusion, see Carson, John, 286; Köstenberger, John, 209; Lincoln, John, 227; Lee, Symbolic Narratives, 135 et al.; cf. also NA 27 margin. Borgen, Bread from Heaven, 28-98, has suggested that the Bread of Life Discourse (which, according to him, starts at 6: 31) is composed along the lines of a midrashic method by which Old Testament quotations are interpreted and homiletically unfolded. For a more detailed discussion of these questions as they relate to the preceding narratival account of Jesus’ feeding miracle, see Beasley-Murray, John, 91; Lincoln, John, 227 et al. For a more detailed discussion of allusions to the Exodus in John 6, see Susan Hylen, Allusion and Meaning in John 6, BZNW 137 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005), 119-56. 26 Keener, John, 1: 680; Lincoln, John, 228. 171 of salvation. 27 This is similarly expressed with some overlap in wording in Luke 12: 32, where the concept of salvation is defined as the “kingdom” [1/ 2-level of closeness]. The general notion of God the Father as the ultimate giver is documented in Matt 7: 11 par. Luke 11: 13 and is particularly implied in the related plea of the Lord’s Prayer in Matt 6: 11: “Give us today our daily bread [ to. n a; rton ]” [1/ 1-level of closeness]. 28 This same motif of God as the giver of bread is now taken up by the Fourth Gospel in a truly spiritual sense. The following designation of Jesus as the true “bread of God” and as “the one who comes down from heaven” in John 6: 33a is semantically unparalleled in the Synoptics. However, the heavenly origin of Jesus (cf. also 3: 13; 8: 23, 42 et al.) is at least implicitly present in those synoptic statements where the unique relationship between the Son and the heavenly Father is emphasized (cf. esp. Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 and the intimate address tou/ patro, j mou in Matt 10: 32-33; 26: 53 et al.). It should be further noted that Matthew, Mark, and Luke apparently share with John the notion of Jesus’ preexistence as seems presupposed in several synoptic “I have come”sayings (cf., e.g., Luke 12: 49; Matt 5: 17 [0/ 1-level of closeness] and Luke 12: 51 par. Matt 10: 34; Matt 10: 35; Mark 2: 17 et al.). 29 In John 6: 33b Jesus describes his mission (i.e., his “coming”) as “giving life to the world” ( zwh.n didou.j tw/ | ko,smw| ). This same mission is characterized in slightly different terms in the Synoptics, where Jesus states that he is giving “his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28; also with the verb di,dwmi [1/ 2- level of closeness]). In addition to this specific comparison, Craig Blomberg has noted that “the contrast implied between Moses and Jesus reminds the reader of the antitheses in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5: 21-48).” 30 In any case, the superiority of Jesus when compared with the Mosaic order (as implied here) can also be found in Matt 12: 7 par. Luke 6: 5 et al. The ensuing request of the Jewish public, “Sir, give us this bread all the time! ” (John 6: 34) is similar to that of the Samaritan woman in John 4: 15. Now in John 6: 35a Jesus answers with the first of seven “I am”-sayings in 27 Keener, John, 1: 680; Köstenberger, John, 209-10; Schnackenburg, John, 2: 42; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 352; cf. also Stare, Durch ihn leben, 148. 28 Cf. Lindars, Gospel of John, 258, who states concerning John 6: 32: “Although John does not reproduce the Lord’s Prayer as such, there can be no doubt that he was familiar with it (…). This, then, is the traditional material which lies behind this ‘truly, truly’ saying (…).” 29 This has now been very convincingly argued by Gathercole, The Preexistent Son, 148- 76 (see related literature there); pace Dunn, Christology in the Making, 30 et al. Regarding Synoptic-Johannine relations, Gathercole remarks (295): “To the extent that this study has found a number of references to preexistence in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, it should be concluded that the ditch often assumed between the Synoptic Gospels and the Fourth Gospel is not as ugly as many think.” 30 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 124. 172 the Fourth Gospel (8: 12; [9: 5]; 10: 7, 9; 10: 11, 14; 11: 25; 14: 6; 15: 1, 5), which do not have any direct parallel in the synoptic tradition. However, we do find evgw, eivmi -statements in the Synoptics of which many contain more or less clear allusions to the self-identification of Yahweh or his Messiah in the Old Testament (cf. Mark 6: 50 par. Matt 14: 27 [0/ 1-level of closeness], also Mark 13: 6; 14: 62 par. Luke 12: 70 et al.). 31 The designation of Jesus as the “bread of life” is semantically unique, yet again thematically paralleled by Jesus’ redemptive, zwh, -giving mission for the benefit of his followers in Matt 19: 28-29 [1/ 1-level of closeness]. It has also been noted that the Synoptic Jesus can also speak of metaphorical bread (Luke 11: 5-8; Matt 13: 33 pars., thus being possible 1/ 1-type relations). 32 In the following statement in John 6: 35b Jesus makes clear to the crowd that while the physical bread from heaven needed to be given again and again, he himself is the bread of life that will once for all and continually satisfy the deepest longings of those who will come to him: “The one who comes to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes in me will never be thirsty.” That Jesus is capable of satisfying the needs of his disciples is expressed at different places in the Synoptic Gospels, e.g., in Matt 11: 28 [0/ 2- level of closeness], 33 where Jesus invites the “weary and burdened” to come so that they may find “rest” in him. This combination of the verbs peina,w and diya,w (as in 6: 35) can be found several times in Matthew, but the conceptual connotations differ from John (Matt 25: 35, 37, 42, 44 [1/ 0-level of closeness]). John 6: 36 introduces Jesus’ charge of the crowd with unbelief, which is certainly not exclusively Johannine. The contrast between seeing Jesus’ authority as reflected in his signs, yet not believing (expressed by a negated form of pisteu,w / pi,stoj ) is pictured in the Synoptics as well. We may point to Matt 17: 17 pars. that have both some similarity in content and in wording [1/ 1-level of closeness]: “O unbelieving [ a; pistoj ] and perverse generation (…).” Initially, Matt 21: 32 pars. seems to be an even closer conceptual par- 31 Cf. Georg Geiger, “Die EGW EIMI-Worte bei Johannes und den Synoptikern: Eine Rückfrage nach dem historischen Jesus,” in John and the Synoptics, ed. Adelbert Denaux, BETL 101 (Leuven: University Press, 1992), 466-72, here 470: “Ein breiter Überlieferungsstrom in den synoptischen Evangelien zeigt: Die Ich-bin-Worte als Offenbarungsformel sind durchgehend belegt. Die Bilder, die in den johanneischen ego eimi-Worten verwendet werden, sind keineswegs unbekannt.” Maier, “Johannes und Matthäus,” 278, concludes in his general study of the relationship between Matthew and John: “Halten wir fest: Ohne die Besonderheit der johanneischen ‘Ich bin’-Worte aufzuheben, sind sie doch in den größeren Rahmen des ‘christologischen evgw, ’ einzuordnen, dem wir auch bei Matthäus und den Synoptikern überhaupt begegnen.” Regarding the role of this particular “I am”-saying in John 6, cf. David M. Ball, ‘I am’ in John’s Gospel: Literary Function, Background and Theological Implications, JSNTSup 124 (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1996), 67-79. 32 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 124. 33 This parallel has also been observed by Keener, John, 1: 681. 173 allel, yet here the unbelief is centered on John the Baptist (thus, only a 1/ 1- level of closeness). In more general terms, the motif of “seeing” (although not always expressed by a form of ora,w ) followed by a negative reaction is quite common in the first three Gospels (cf. especially Matt 13: 14-15 [0/ 1- level of closeness], also Matt 8: 43; [11: 9, 12: 38ff.]; Mark 5: 16-17; Luke 12: 54- 56). Additionally, the concluding verdict of the story of the rich man and the poor Lazarus in Luke 16: 31 exhibits a similar thought to what Jesus is pointing at in the Bread of Life Discourse. Jesus now contrasts the portrayal of widespread unbelief in somewhat predestinarian fashion 34 with the confident statement that “everyone whom the Father gives me will come to me.” The soteriological thought expressed here in John 6: 37a, namely, that the Father is giving individuals to Jesus is a repeated theme in the Fourth Gospel (6: 37, 39; 10: 29; 17: 2, 6; 18: 9) 35 and finds a conceptual parallel in Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 36 where the phrase “all things have been handed over to me” seems to not only include divine revelation but a soteriological emphasis as well (note also the overlap in wording: pa/ j , path.r , moi [1/ 1-level of closeness]). 37 The following verses in Matt 11: 28-29 (see above on 6: 35b) further constitute a conceptual parallel to the saying in John 6: 37b, “the one who comes to me [ pro,j me ], I will never send away.” The Matthean statement seems to go even beyond John as it maintains that Jesus will not only not send away but give rest for people’s souls. The verb used in this context, evkba,llw , usually describes an incident of exorcism (cf. Matt 7: 22; Mark 3: 22; Luke 9: 40 et al.). Here in John, Jesus uses this same verb to express that he will not allow anyone of those the Father has given him to be removed from fellowship with him. A somewhat similar notion, although expressed in different terms, can be found in Matt 12: 20, where the implicit content of the litotes 38 (a figure of speech by which something is affirmed by negating its contrary) in John 6: 37 is made explicit [0/ 1-level of closeness]: Jesus will certainly keep and preserve those who have been entrusted to him. In a contrastive (i.e., negative) sense, the concept of “being sent away” or “thrown out” is expressed in Matt 8: 12 (see also Matt 22: 13; 25: 30; Luke 13: 28), where some agreement in 34 See Brown, John (i-xii), 276; Carson, John, 290; Lincoln, John, 229; also Stare, Durch ihn leben, 158 et al.; yet cf. Lindars, Gospel of John, 260-61, 263. 35 Köstenberger, John, 211; also Brown, John (i-xii), 270. 36 For this parallel, see also Denaux, “The Q-Logion,” 179-80. 37 In light of the context (especially Matt 11: 28-29) it seems difficult to merely reduce the meaning of Matt 11: 27 to a reference of eschatological revelation; pace Luz, Matthew, 2: 166, who mentions the soteriological interpretation of Matt 11: 27 as the “main stream of the church’s interpretation;;” Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2: 279-80; and Hagner, Matthew 1-13, 320. But cf. Darrell L. Bock, Luke 9: 51-24: 53, vol. 2 of Luke, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996), 1012, who writes regarding the Lukan parallel in 10: 22: “Jesus describes his authority over salvation and revelation.” 38 On litotes as a figure of speech in John 6: 37, see especially Carson, John, 290. 174 wording is visible through the use of the verb evkba,llw [1/ 1-level of closeness]. 39 The calling of Matthew and Jesus’ ensuing fellowship with tax collectors and sinners in Matt 9: 9-11 (see also Luke 18: 13-14) may serve as a further synoptic illustration of the truth expressed in John. In John 6: 38-40 we find the reason why Jesus will perfectly preserve all those given him by the Father. “The entire purpose of the incarnation, of his coming “down from heaven” (John 6: 38a; see our comments on 6: 33), was not to do his own will, but the will of the Father who sent him.” 40 The confirmation of Jesus’ obedience to God’s will in John 6: 38b (expressed by the phrase poiw/ to. qe,lhma tou/ pe,myanto,j me ) is conceptually cognate to Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane (cf. the synoptic triple tradition in Matt 26: 39, 42 pars.). 41 Further close parallels to the content of the other Gospels are also found where the genitive constructions to. qe,lhma tou/ qeou/ respectively to. qe,lhma sou appear on Jesus’ lips, e.g., in Mark 3: 35 pars. and Matt 6: 10 [all 1/ 2-levels of closeness]. In the next verses, God’s will is then further specified. In John 6: 39a God’s will manifests itself as “not loosing anyone,” which has a clear parallel in Matt 18: 14 [1/ 2-level of closeness; note again the noun qe,lhma as well as the verb avpo,llumi in both instances]. 42 The emphasis that it is the Father who “gives” persons to Jesus is reminiscent of John 6: 37a and thus again similar to Matt 11: 27 [1/ 1-level of closeness]. 43 In John 6: 40 the Father’s final goal is that those who believe in his Son shall receive eternal life. Here once again a close conceptual analogy to the triple tradition of Matt 19: 28-29 pars. is found [1/ 2-level of closeness; note the phrase zwh.n aivw, nion in both statements], namely, where Jesus says that “you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life.” A slightly more abstracted comparison may be found in Jesus’ warning in Matt 7: 21 [1/ 1-level of closeness]. Here the similar concept of “not entering the kingdom of heaven apart from the will of God” is used, but the will of God is not as specific as in John (see comments and parallels on 6: 38b). The significance of believing in Jesus has already been mentioned in John 6: 29 (see comments and parallels there). Jesus’ final two statements in this sequence of the discourse both end with his promise to “raise them/ him up at the last day” (John 6: 39b and 6: 40c). The phrase “at the last day” ( evn th/ | evsca,th| h`me,ra| ) has no parallel in the other three Gospels and is only found four times in the Bread of Life Discourse in John (6: 39, 40, 44, 54; 7: 37; 11: 24; 12: 48). The synoptic references to the “day of judgment” (Matt 10: 15 et al.) or “that day and hour” (Matt 39 For this contrastive parallel, see also Beasley-Murray, John, 92; Theobald, Johannes, 467. 40 Carson, John, 290 [italics his]; also Lindars, Gospel of John, 261. For the idea of Jesus’ preexistence in the Synoptics, see again Gathercole, The Preexistent Son, 148-76. 41 Michaels, John, 378. 42 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2: 777, point to the following verse, John 6: 40, as a possible parallel to Matt 18: 14. 43 See again Denaux, “The Q-Logion,” 179-80. 175 24: 36 et al.), however, point to the exact same event, thus a 1/ 2-level of closeness for the second part of this Johannine proposition. Further, the eschatological perspective of a bodily resurrection is not alien to the Synoptic Gospels (see Mark 12: 25 pars. and Luke 16: 31, where the verb avni,sthmi is used as well [1/ 1-level of closeness]). It goes without saying, that Jesus’ predictions of his own future resurrection may count as partial resemblances as well (Mark 8: 31, 9: 9; Luke 18: 53, 24: 7, 46 et al.). Apart from some specific semantic overlap, the general language of this third sequence of Jesus’ discourse in John 6 is uniquely Johannine. The designation of Jesus as “the one who comes down from heaven” as well as key phrases like “bread from heaven” or the famous “I am”-statement in 6: 35a, which gives the whole discourse its name, do not occur in the Synoptics. However, the content of this section shows extensive and significant similarities to what we find in the other three Gospels. While only one propositions (6: 32a) has no cognate passage in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, all essential themes of this third sequence manifest close (or at least some) conceptual similarity to the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics. The primary motifs such as the Father as the ultimate source of salvation (6: 32b, 37a), Jesus as coming down from heaven to give eternal life (i.e., salvation, rest) to those who come to him and believe (6: 33[a]b, 35b, [37b], [38a], 40b), Jesus, as the Son, doing the will of the Father (38b, 39a, 40a), and a future resurrection (6: 39b,40c) resemble closely the synoptic sayings (i.e., mostly in terms of 1/ 2- or 0/ 2-levels of closeness). And even a secondary concept like that of unbelief (6: 36) has 1/ 1- or 0/ 1-level counterparts. In light of the evidence of this sequence we may thus affirm that in John 6: 32-40 the Johannine Jesus does not teach anything significantly different in content from the Jesus of the Synoptics. 4.1.5 Sequence 4: John 6: 41-51 (Jesus as the True Bread from Heaven Continued) [6: 41-42] Then the Jews who were hostile to Jesus began complaining about him because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven,” and they said, “Isn't this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How can he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’? ” [Matt 13: 55 pars.] Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother named Mary? 176 [6: 43] avpekri,qh VIhsou/ j kai. ei=pen auvtoi/ j\ mh. goggu,zete metV avllh,lwnÅ Jesus replied, “Stop grumbling among your-selves. [0/ 0] Cf. below our comments on the concept of “complaining.” [6: 44a] ouvdei.j du,natai ev lqei/ n pro,j me ev a.n mh. o` path.r o` pe, myaj me e` lku,sh| auvto,n( No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him [0/ 1] [1/ 1] [Mark 10: 26-27] oi` de. perissw/ j evxeplh,ssonto le,gontej pro.j e` autou, j\ kai. ti,j du,natai swqh/ naiÈ ev mble, yaj auvtoi/ j o` VIhsou/ j le, gei\ para. avnqrw,poij avdu,naton( avllV ouv para. qew/ |\ pa,nta ga.r dunata. para. tw/ | qew/ |Å The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, “Who then can be saved? ” Jesus looked at them and said, With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God. [Luke 12: 32] Mh. fobou/ ( to. mikro.n poi, mnion( o[ti euvdo,khsen o` path.r u`mw/ n dou/ nai u`mi/ n th.n basilei,anÅ Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. [6: 44b] kavgw. avnasth,sw auvto.n ev n th/ | ev sca,th| h`me, ra|Å and I will raise him up at the last day. [1/ 1] [1/ 2] See above on 6: 39b, 40c: [Mark 12: 25 pars.; Luke 16: 31; Matt 10: 15; Matt 24: 36] [ 6: 45a] e; stin gegramme, non evn toi/ j profh,taij\ It is written in the prophets: [2/ 2] [Luke 20: 17] et al. ti, ou=n ev stin to. gegramme, non tou/ to\ Then what is the meaning of that which is written: [6: 45b] kai. e; sontai pa,ntej didaktoi. qeou/ \ ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ [0/ 0] That Jesus regarded Old Testament prophecy as fulfilled in himself is expressed in [Luke 4: 21; 24: 44] et al. 177 [6: 45c] pa/ j o` avkou,saj para. tou/ patro.j kai. maqw.n e; rcetai pro.j evme, Å Everyone who hears and learns from the Father comes to me. [1/ 1] [Matt 11: 28-29] Deu/ te pro,j me pa,ntej oi` kopiw/ ntej kai. pefortisme, noi( kavgw. avnapau,sw u`ma/ jÅ a; rate to.n zugo,n mou ev fV u`ma/ j kai. ma,qete avpV ev mou/ ( o[ti prau<j eivmi kai. tapeino.j th/ | kardi,a|( kai. eu`rh,sete avna,pausin tai/ j yucai/ j u`mw/ n\ Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Cf. also [Luke 6: 47-48]. The general unresponsiveness of Jesus’ hearers that is implied here, is more clearly expressed in [Matt 13: 13-15; Mark 8: 18; Luke 7: 9; 9: 41] et al. Cf. also the possible contact with [Matt 17: 5 pars.] and our explanation below. [6: 46] ouvc o[ti to.n pate, ra e`w,rake, n tij eiv mh. o` w'n para. tou/ qeou/ ( ou-toj e`w,raken to.n pate, raÅ Not that anyone has seen the Father except the one who is from God- he has seen the Father. [1/ 2] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] kai. ouvdei.j evpiginw,skei to.n ui`o.n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate, ra tij evpiginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son [6: 47] avmh.n avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n( o` pisteu,wn e; cei zwh.n aivw,nionÅ Amen, amen, I say to you, the one who believes has eternal life. [1/ 2] On the introductory statement, see above 6: 26: [Matt 6: 2; Mark 3: 28; Luke 4: 24] et al. [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante, j moi (…) kai. zwh.n aivw,nion klhronomh,seiÅ you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life. [6: 48] VEgw, eiv mi o` a; rtoj th/ j zwh/ jÅ I am the bread of life. [1/ 1] [Mark 6: 50 par. Matt 14: 27] qarsei/ te( ev gw, eiv mi\ Have courage! It is I. [0/ 1] [Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28] kai. ga.r o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ouvk h=lqen diakonhqh/ nai avlla. diakonh/ sai kai. dou/ nai th.n yuch.n auvtou/ lu,tron avnti. pollw/ nÅ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. 178 Jesus talks about metaphorical bread in other instances; cf. [Luke 11: 5-8; Matt 13: 33 pars.]; possibly 2/ 2-levels of closeness. [6: 49] oi` pate, rej u`mw/ n e; fagon ev n th/ | ev rh,mw| to. ma,nna kai. avpe, qanon\ Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. [0/ 0] Yet, cf. the frequent references of Jesus to oi` pate, rej u`mw/ n , e.g., in [Matt 23: 30, 32; Luke 11: 47]; possibly 2/ 2-levels of closeness. [6: 50a, 51a] ou-to,j evstin o` a; rtoj o` evk tou/ ouvranou/ katabai,nwn( (…) evgw, eivmi o` a; rtoj o` zw/ n o` evk tou/ ouvranou/ kataba,j\ This is the bread that has come down from heaven, (…) I am the living bread that came down from heaven. [0/ 1] See above on 6: 33, 35: [Matt 5: 17; Luke 12: 49; Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28] [6: 50b, 51b] i[na tij evx auvtou/ fa,gh| kai. mh. avpoqa,nh|Å (…) eva,n tij fa,gh| ev k tou,tou tou/ a; rtou zh,sei eivj to.n aivw/ na( so that a person may eat from it and not die. (…) If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. [1/ 2] [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi (…) kai. zwh.n aivw,nion klhronomh,seiÅ you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life. [Luke 20: 36] ouvde. ga.r avpoqanei/ n e; ti du,nantai( ivsa,ggeloi ga,r eivsin kai. ui`oi, eivsin qeou/ th/ j avnasta,sewj ui`oi. o; ntejÅ In fact, they can no longer die, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, since they are sons of the resurrection. [Matt 26: 26-28 par. Mark 14: 22-24] la,bete fa,gete( tou/ to, ev stin to. sw/ ma, mouÅ (…) pi,ete ev x auvtou/ pa,ntej( tou/ to ga,r ev stin to. ai-ma, mou th/ j diaqh,khj to. peri. pollw/ n evkcunno,menon eivj a; fesin a`martiw/ nÅ Take, eat; this is my body. (…) Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant that is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 179 Having heard that Jesus called himself the “bread from heaven,” the people begin to raise objections not least due to their knowledge about his human origin (John 6: 41-42; cf. also Matt 13: 55 pars.). Jesus tells them to stop grumbling. Neither the verb goggu,zw (“to grumble, to complain”) nor any of its synonyms can be found on Jesus’ lips in the Synoptics [0/ 0-level of closeness]. The concept of “complaining” on part of the crowd, however, is frequently observable in the other three Gospels (Matt 20: 11, Luke 5: 30, 15: 2, 19: 7 et al.), which makes Jesus’ utterances in John 6: 43 not unlikely. John 6: 44a is a further development of what Jesus says earlier in the discourse. The aforementioned theme regarding the importance of divine initiative in the act of salvation features prominently in the Fourth Gospel. The verb e[lkw (“to draw”) is only used in John among the Gospels (12: 32; 18: 10; 21: 6, 11; cf. Acts 16: 19; 21: 30; Jas 2: 6). John 6: 44 is the “negative counterpart” to 6: 37. 44 In the latter verse it is said that all who the Father gives to the Son will come to him. Here the focus lies on the fact that no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws him. Although the interpretation of these apparently predestinarian statements is debated, 45 it seems fair to say that the emphasis on the “drawing” action of the Father is more clearly pronounced in John’s Gospel than in the Synoptics. Yet, the concept of God acting sovereignly in the process of salvation is at least implicitly taught in passages like Mark 10: 26-27 or Luke 12: 32 [0/ 1- and 1/ 1-levels of closeness; cf. again Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22], where the possibility of “saving people” (respectively “giving them the kingdom”) rests with God. 46 For parallels to John 6: 44b, see our comments above on John 6: 39c, 40c. 44 Carson, John, 293. 45 Cf. the discussion in Donald A. Carson, Divine Sovereignity and Human Responsibility: Biblical Perspectives in Tension, Marshalls Theological Library (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1981), 184-86; contrast Schnackenburg, John, 2: 50. Cf. also Keener, John, 1: 685; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 361-62. 46 Cf., e.g., Wilfried Eckey, Das Markusevangelium: Orientierung am Weg Jesu. Ein Kommentar (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 2 2008), 336, commenting on Mark 10: 27: “Das Heil der Menschen (…) ist einzig und allein Gottes Sache.” Again, Plisch, Gospel of Thomas, [6: 51c] kai. o` a; rtoj de. o]n evgw. dw,sw h` sa,rx mou, ev stin u`pe. r th/ j tou/ ko,smou zwh/ jÅ The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. [1/ 2] [1/ 1] [Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28] kai. ga.r o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ouvk h=lqen diakonhqh/ nai avlla. diakonh/ sai kai. dou/ nai th.n yuch.n auvtou/ lu,tron avnti. pollw/ nÅ For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. [Luke 22: 19] tou/ to, ev stin to. sw/ ma, mou to. u`pe. r u`mw/ n dido,menon\ This is my body which is given for you. 180 The explicit reference to Scripture in John 6: 45a (“it is written”) is in close verbal agreement with Luke 20: 17 et al. This, however, was certainly a standard phrase for religious teachers in first century Palestine, and thus the 2/ 2-level of closeness carries no significant weight for our purposes. In John 6: 45b Jesus claims that the prophetic word from Isaiah 54: 13 (“They will all be taught by God”) is realized in his own ministry. 47 Although there is no direct conceptual parallel [0/ 0-level of closeness], the notion that Jesus regarded Old Testament prophecy as fulfilled in himself and in his ministry is expressed, among others, in Luke 4: 21 and 24: 44. Finally, John 6: 45c points to the fact that everyone who is truly willing to listen to and learn from the Father will eventually come to the Son. 48 Implied here is a criticism of the Jewish hearers whose unresponsiveness regarding Jesus shows their unwillingness to be truly taught by God. Although no close analogy may be found in the Synoptics, Matt 11: 28-29 is at least remotely parallel [1/ 1-level of closeness] since it features the motif of “coming to Jesus,” while the invitation to “learn from me” ( ma,qete avpV evmou/ ) seems to be equivalent - in John’s framework - to “learning from the Father” ( maqw. n [ avpo. patro. j ]; cf. Luke 6: 47-48). In this respect, another possible contact (though not on the lips of Jesus and thus not directly relevant for our study) may be found in the triple tradition of Matt 17: 5 pars., where the Father himself challenges people to listen to (and to learn from) his Son. Thus, whoever listens to this charge of the Father will come to Jesus and will learn from him. The general unresponsiveness of Jesus’ hearers that is implicitly displayed in John 6: 45, is more clearly highlighted in all three Synoptics (Matt 13: 13-15; 22: 33; Mark 8: 18; Luke 7: 9; 9: 41 et al.). The teaching of the unique relationship between the Father and the Son given in John 6: 46 has a close parallel in Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 [1/ 2-level of closeness]. 49 For the designation of the Son as “the one who is from God,” see our comments on 6: 29 and 6: 33. The following verses take up several themes that have been introduced earlier in the Bread of Life Discourse. The statement that “the one who believes has eternal life” in John 6: 47 with its close conceptual analogy in Matt 19: 28-29 pars. [ zwh.n aivw, nion ; 1/ 2-level of closeness] is reminiscent of 6: 40. For the repeated reference to Jesus as the bread of life in John 6: 48, see our comments on 6: 35 above. Regarding John 6: 49 it has been noted earlier that no reference to the giving of “the manna in the desert” can be found anywhere in the other three Gospels [0/ 0-level of closeness]. But it is remarkable that Jesus’ reference 246, points to a possible conceptual parallel in Gosp. Thom. 114, where Jesus states that he will take the initiative in order for Mary to enter the kingdom. 47 Köstenberger, John, 214; cf. also Keener, John, 1: 685-86. 48 Köstenberger, John, 214; also Brown, John (i-xii), 277. 49 Cf. Schwank, Johannes, 220. 181 to “your ancestors” is frequently paralleled by a similar retrospect in the Synoptics (e.g., Matt 23: 30, 32; Luke 11: 47), which possibly calls for a 1/ 1- level of closeness. In the last two verses of this sequence no entirely new concepts are found. The focus is again on the contrast between eating manna in the wilderness, which ultimately did not prevent people from dying, and Jesus as the true, eschatological, life-giving bread himself. First, the motif of Jesus as “the bread of life coming down from heaven” is reiterated in John 6: 50a, 51a. For this, see our comments on 6: 33 and 6: 35 above. As mentioned earlier, the notion of Jesus as the giver of never-ending life for those who enter into relationship with him (John 6: 50b, 51b) has a close parallel in Matt 19: 28-29 pars. [ zwh.n aivw, nion ; 1/ 2-level of closeness], while the idea of “not dying” is also referred to in Luke 20: 36 (with a form of the verb avpoqnh,skw [1/ 1-level of closeness]). That Jesus came into this world to lay down his life for the sake of humanity (John 6: 51c) is expressed in somewhat different terms in Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 [1/ 2-level of closeness; see above on 6: 33b]. Both John 6: 50b, 51b, and 51c further introduce a slightly new thought, namely, the clear identification of the bread of heaven with Jesus’ own flesh, which needs to be eaten. This reminds one of Jesus’ invitation at the Last Supper (Matt 26: 26 par. Mark 14: 22-24): “Take, eat [ fa,gete ]; this is my body.” 50 Since there is some similarity on a conceptual level (with a reiteration of the verb evsqi,w ) we have classified this as a 1/ 1-type of closeness. That Jesus’ body will be given “for the life of the world” (as mentioned in John 6: 51c) is paralleled in the Lukan account of the Last Supper, where in Luke 22: 19 Jesus explicitly refers to his body as being “given for you [ u`pe.r u`mw/ n dido,menon ].” These last thoughts of our sequence are then further developed in the last part of the discourse (see our more detailed discussion there). The results of our comparison of this fourth sequence of the Bread of Life Discourse with the Synoptic Gospels are similar to those we gained from the preceding sections, which is not least due to several - typically Johannine - repetitions. The overall language of the Johannine Jesus is without parallel, except for some individual words or phrases that may be found in the Synoptics as well (e.g., the “It is written”-formula in 6: 45a [2/ 2-level of closeness]). In terms of content, however, an extensive correspondence with the synoptic teaching tradition may be observed. Again, only three propositions (6: 43, 45b, 49) have no correlation to Matthew, Mark, or Luke [0/ 0-level of closeness]. On the other hand, the significant thematic elements such as the unique relationship between Father and Son (6: 46), and the belief in and identification with Jesus as the key to eternal life (6: 47, 50b, 51b, 51c) are closely similar in content to what we find in the Synoptics [1/ 2-levels of closeness]. In addition to that, several propositions of a 1/ 1- or 0/ 1-type occur through- 50 Cf. Michaels, John, 395. 182 out this section (6: 44ab, 45c, 48, 50a, 51a). Thus, in terms of content, the claim that serious differences between John 6: 43-51 and the Synoptic Gospels exist seems unsustainable. 4.1.6 Sequence 5: John 6: 52-59 (Identification with Jesus as the Key to Eternal Life) [6: 52] Then the Jews began to argue among themselves, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? ” [6: 53] ei=pen ou=n auvtoi/ j o` VIhsou/ j\ avmh.n avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n( eva.n mh. fa,ghte th.n sa,rka tou/ ui`ou/ tou/ avnqrw,pou kai. pi,hte auvtou/ to. ai-ma( ouvk e; cete zwh.n evn e` autoi/ jÅ Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. [1/ 1] [1/ 1] On the introductory statement as such, see above 6: 26: [Matt 6: 2; Mark 3: 28; Luke 4: 24] et al. [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] avmh.n le,gw u`mi/ n o[ti u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi (…) o[tan kaqi,sh| o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou evpi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou/ ( (…) zwh.n aivw,nion [see 6: 54a] klhronomh,seiÅ Amen, I say to you (…) when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life. [Matt 26: 26-28 par. Mark 14: 22-24 par. Luke 22: 19-20] la,bete fa,gete( tou/ to, ev stin to. sw/ ma, mouÅ pi, ete ev x auvtou/ pa,ntej( tou/ to ga,r ev stin to. ai-ma, mou th/ j diaqh,khj to. peri. pollw/ n ev kcunno,menon eivj a; fesin a`martiw/ nÅ Take, eat; this is my body (…) Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant that is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. [6: 54a] o` trw,gwn mou th.n sa,rka kai. pi,nwn mou to. ai-ma e; cei zwh.n aivw,nion( The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, [1/ 1] See above on 6: 53: [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.; Matt 26: 26-28 pars.] 183 [6: 54b] kavgw. avnasth,sw auvto.n th/ | ev sca,th| h`me, ra|Å and I will raise him up on the last day. [1/ 1] [1/ 2] See above on 6: 39b, 40c: [Mark 12: 25 pars.; Luke 16: 31; Matt 10: 15; Matt 24: 36] [6: 55] h` ga.r sa,rx mou avlhqh,j ev stin brw/ sij( kai. to. ai-ma, mou avlhqh,j evstin po,sijÅ For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. [1/ 1] See above on 6: 53: [Matt 26: 26-28 pars.] [6: 56a] o` trw,gwn mou th.n sa,rka kai. pi,nwn mou to. ai-ma The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood [1/ 1] See above on 6: 53: [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.; Matt 26: 26-28 pars.] [6: 56b] ev n evmoi. me, nei resides in me, [0/ 0] [6: 56c] kavgw. ev n auvtw/ |Å and I in him. [0/ 1] [Matt 28: 20] kai. ivdou. ev gw. meqV u`mw/ n eivmi pa,saj ta.j h`me, raj e[ wj th/ j suntelei,aj tou/ aivw/ nojÅ And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. [6: 57a] kaqw.j avpe, steile,n me o` zw/ n path.r Just as the living Father sent me [1/ 2] [1/ 2] [Matt 10: 40 pars.] (…) o` ev me. deco,menoj de, cetai to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ (…) whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. [Luke 10: 16] (…) o` de. evme. avqetw/ n avqetei/ to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ (…) the one who rejects me rejects the one who sent me. [6: 57b] kavgw. zw/ dia. to.n pate,ra( and I live because of the Father, [0/ 0] One could, however, argue for a 1/ 1- relationship with Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 (see below on 6: 58a), if one understands this phrase here as implying the “heavenly origin of Jesus.” 184 This section of the discourse has been frequently understood by commentators as clearly eucharistic in nature, 51 which in turn would suggest that at 51 Brown, John (i-xii), 284-91; Loader, Christology, 97; Moloney, John, 223; Neyrey, John, 127-28; Popp, Grammatik des Geistes, 364; Schnackenburg, John, 2: 60-65; Schnelle, Antidocetic Christology, 194-208; Smith, John, 158; Theobald, Herrenworte, 245, 255; idem., Johannes, 454-55, 475-86, now also von Wahlde, Gospel and Letters of John, 2: 316-24, and Franz Zeilinger, Die sieben Zeichenhandlungen Jesu im Johannesevangelium (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2011), 74-75, as well as a whole list of scholars mentioned by Maarten J.J. Menken, “John 6: 51c-58: Eucharist or Christology? ,” Bib 74 (1993): 1-2. Cf. also Joachim Jeremias, The Eucharistic Words of Jesus, trans. Norman Perrin (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1966), 107-08. Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 368, talks about the [6: 57c] kai. o` trw,gwn me kavkei/ noj zh,sei diV evme, Å so the one who consumes me will live because of me. [1/ 1] See above on 6: 53: [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.; Matt 26: 26-28 pars.] [6: 58a] ou-to,j evstin o` a; rtoj o` ev x ouvranou/ kataba,j( This is the bread that came down from heaven; [0/ 1] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] kai. ouvdei.j ev piginw,skei to.n ui`o.n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate, ra tij ev piginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j kai. w-| eva.n bou,lhtai o` ui`o.j avpokalu,yaiÅ No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. [theme of “heavenly origin of Jesus” implied: see above our comments on 6: 33 and 35] [6: 58b] ouv kaqw.j e; fagon oi` pate, rej kai. avpe, qanon\ it is not like the bread your ancestors ate, but then later died. [0/ 0] Yet, as with 6: 49, see the frequent references of Jesus to oi` pate, rej u`mw/ n [Matt 23: 30, 32; Luke 11: 47]; possibly 1/ 1- levels of closeness. [6: 58c] o` trw,gwn tou/ ton to.n a; rton zh,sei eivj to.n aivw/ naÅ The one who eats this bread will live forever.” [1/ 1] See above on 6: 53: [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.; Matt 26: 26-28 pars.] [6: 59] Jesus said these things while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. [Mark 1: 21] Then they went to Capernaum. When the Sabbath came, Jesus went into the synagogue and began to teach. 185 least this last sequence can not derive from the historical Jesus. 52 Maurice Casey, for example, has based his negative judgment about the historical authenticity of the whole Bread of Life Discourse mainly on his eucharistic interpretation of John 6: 53-58. He argues that these verses do “not have a feasible Sitz im Leben in the life of Jesus” - although, as he explicitly notes, “in this case, it is not that the material is absent from the synoptics [! ].” 53 For Casey, the problems with this section are twofold. First, a eucharistic discourse before the institution of the Eucharist is clearly anachronistic, since Jesus’ contemporaries would not have understood the significance of his teaching. And secondly, the apparent sacramentalism that highlights the partaking of the sacraments as essential for gaining eternal life can only have originated in the already more institutionalized environment of the Johannine community. 54 Against this, others have argued that nowhere does our evangelist destroy the verisimilitude of his narrative by such a clumsy anachronism, so that this passage should not be understood as a direct reference to the Lord’s Supper. 55 This is also suggested by John’s use of the word flesh ( sa,rx ) instead of body ( sw/ ma ), which is used in any other New Testament passage where the Eucharist is in view. 56 A decisive point against Casey’s second argument is the observation that 6: 53, 54, and 56 provide close conceptual parallels to 6: 39-40, where eternal life and resurrection from the dead are promised to those who believe. It is unlikely that John “is now contradicting himself and replacing faith with partaking of the sacraments.” 57 Thus, it seems best to interpret the concluding verses of the Bread of Life Discourse as a metaphorical way of expressing the “internalization of the bread which Jesus is,” a spiritual coming into union with “sole reign” (“Alleinherrschaft”) of the eucharistic interpretation, but this is certainly an overstatement (see below). 52 Scholars like Rudolf Bultmann or Raymond Brown (see also footnote 54 below) have argued that this last sequence was added rather late in the redactional process of the Fourth Gospel. However, at least the literary integrity of the whole discourse including John 6: 51[53]-58 seems to be confirmed by a growing majority of scholars such as Borgen, Bread from Heaven, 35;; James D. G. Dunn, “John VI - A Eucharistic Discourse? ,” NTS 17 (1970/ 71): 328-30; Ruckstuhl, Literarische Einheit, 220-71; Menken, “Eucharist or Christology,” 5-9; and many of the most recent commentators. 53 Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 45, cf. the whole section 42-51. Cf. now by the same author The ‘Son of Man’ Problem, 295-97, where he again maintains, wrongly in our mind, that his arguments for an eucharistic interpretation of the whole (! ) discourse “should be regarded as decisive.” 54 Cf. also Brown, John (i-xii), 287, who states that “it seems impossible that the words of 51-58 which refer exclusively to the Eucharist could have been understood by the crowd or even by the disciples. (…) [John 6: 51-58] was added to 35-50 at a fairly late stage in the editing of the Fourth Gospel, probably in the final redaction.” 55 E.g., Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 367-68. 56 Ridderbos, John, 235-37; Keener, John, 1: 690; Köstenberger, John, 215. 57 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 127. 186 the incarnate Christ through faith in him. 58 In this regard, the sacrificial death of Jesus is already in view (cf. 6: 51) which suggests that a (secondary) eucharistic application on the part of the Fourth Gospel’s readership may by all means be deliberate and yet does not contradict the passage’s primary intention. 59 We assume in this section that John 6: 53-58 does not refer directly to the Eucharist. Yet, it still has to be maintained that there is a conceptual parallel between the Bread of Life Discourse and the words of institution in the synoptic triple tradition (Matt 26: 26-28 par. Mark 14: 22-24 par. Luke 22: 19- 20). 60 The common motif of “eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood” is developed somewhat differently in John 6 and the synoptic texts mentioned. While the words of institution point to the symbolic act of the Lord’s Supper as such, the Bread of Life Discourse exposes the true meaning of it, parabolically setting out “what it means to receive Jesus Christ by faith.” 61 For the purposes of this present examination it needs to be noted that if there were more exegetical clues arguing for a sacramental understanding of this passage, this would only alter the assumed level of closeness for the affected verses in John 6: 53, 54a, 56a, 57b, 58c from a 1/ 1-level (with some similarity in content) to a 1/ 2-level of closeness (with close similarity in content). As a whole, the fifth sequence of the discourse grows out of a final misunderstanding of the Jewish hearers. Jesus’ statement in John 6: 51 results in a serious argument about what his comparison between the gift of 58 Anderson, Christology, 208, also 133;; as well as idem., “The Sitz im Leben,” 5-7; Reynolds, Son of Man, 156: “Both eating the Son of Man’s flesh and believing result in eternal life, which suggests that eating the Son of Man’s flesh and drinking his blood is a metaphor for belief.” In answering the “eucharistic camp” Dunn, “John VI,” 333, says it like this: “Those who distinguish the bread of the earlier verses from the flesh and bread of vv. 51c-58, by equating the former with divine revelation and the latter exclusively with the eucharistic elements, are wrong. (…) why should the ‘eating’ be interpreted literally when the ‘bread’ is not? ” Cf. also, yet each with different emphases, Carson, John, 295-99; Keener, John, 1: 690-91; Köstenberger, John, 216-17; Lincoln, John, 231; Stare, Durch ihn leben, 199; and very strongly Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 365-73. Menken, “Eucharist or Christology,” 1-26, also sees a primarily christological interpretation and again presents a rather long list of scholars who would support this position (4). 59 Most of the scholars mentioned in the preceding footnote would be willing to at least allow for eucharistic overtones in this section. Cf. Jane S. Webster, Ingesting Jesus: Eating and Drinking in the Gospel of John, SBLABib 6 (Atlanta: SBL, 2003), 78-84, 88-89. 60 This parallel is mentioned by John Dominic Crossan, Sayings Parallels: A Workbook for the Jesus Tradition, Foundations and Facets (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 204; Lincoln, John, 232;; also Culpepper, “The Origin of the ‘Amen, Amen’ Sayings,” 257, 260;; and, of course, by those scholars arguing for an eucharistic understanding of this passage (see footnote 51 above). 61 Carson, John, 297; cf. also Keener, John, 1: 691. 187 heavenly bread and eating his flesh could mean: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat? ” This gives Jesus the opportunity to further elaborate on a theme that has already been introduced in John 6: 40 (cf. also 6: 47). Therefore, we can once more restrict ourselves to point out that John 6: 53, 54a, 56a, 57b, 58c are all conceptually paralleled by Jesus’ words recorded in the triple tradition of Matt 19: 28-29 pars. [1/ 1-level of closeness]. Although the Johannine statements are on a more abstracted metaphorical level, the thrust of these sayings is similar to the Synoptics: whoever follows Jesus and identifies with him by faith will receive eternal life. The goal of the Son of Man’s ( tou/ ui`ou/ tou/ avnqrw, pou ) salvific action is described in identical terms as receiving “eternal life” ( zwh.n aivw,nion ) in all four Gospels, 62 but the similar means of obtaining this life are expressed in different terms even within the Gospel of John itself. John 6: 40, 47 contain the motif of “believing in the Son,” the metaphorical language of 6: 53-58 points toward the concept of “identifying with Jesus in his death” (already indicated in 6: 51), while in the Synoptics the way to inherit eternal life is described as “following him.” Note that the Johannine usage of the verb me,nw to designate a constant relationship with Jesus (John 6: 56b; cf. 15: 4ff.) is semantically unparalleled as the concept of believers “residing” in Jesus is not repeated in the Synoptics [0/ 0-level of closeness]. However, the assurance of Jesus’ ongoing presence with those identifiying with him (John 6: 56c; cf. 14: 20c) has at least some similarity in content with the promise of Matt 28: 20: “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The eschatological perspective of a future resurrection (John 6: 54b; “I will raise him up [ avni,sthmi ] at the last day [ h`me,ra| ]”) with its synoptic resemblances has already been covered [1/ 1- and 1/ 2-levels of closeness; cf. our comments on 6: 39b]. Other minor themes that show up again in this last part of the discourse have also already been dealt with above. In John 6: 57a (cf. 5: 26), Jesus as the “one sent by the Father” ( avpe,steile,n me o` path.r ) closely represents a motif that frequently occurs in the Synoptics [1/ 2-level of closeness; Matt 16: 10 pars.; Luke 10: 16; see our comments on 6: 29]. The designation “living father” ( o` zw/ n path.r ) has no direct semantic parallel in the Synoptic Gospels, however, the phrase “living God” ( o` qeo, j tou/ zw/ ntoj ) does occur in Matt 16: 16 and 26: 63, yet not on the lips of Jesus. The additional statement “I live because of the Father” in John 6: 57b has no direct correlation [0/ 0- level of closeness]. However, together with the repetition of the “bread that came down from heaven”-motif in 6: 58a, it could be taken as capturing the thought of Jesus’ heavenly origin. As synoptic parallels, albeit somewhat remote [1/ 2-level of closeness], we should again note passages like Matt 62 This seems to be another incident where Casey’s judgment about the major discrepancies between Johannine and synoptic Son of man-sayings can hardly be sustained (The ‘Son of Man’ Problem, 274-75). On this Son of man-saying, see again Burkett, The Son of the Man, 135-38; Reynolds, Son of Man, 152-59; Sasse, Menschensohn, 223-26. 188 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22, where the unique relationship between Jesus and the Father is stressed (cf. 6: 33 and our comments on this verse). Finally, as in 6: 49, the theme of “eating manna and dying” in 6: 58b has no correlation with the Synoptics [0/ 0-level of closeness], but notice again Jesus’ references to his hearers’ ancestors ( oi` pate,rej u`mw/ n ) in Matt 23: 30, 32; Luke 11: 47 et al. The relationship between Jesus’ words in John 6: 53-58 and in the Synoptics may be generally summarized as featuring some similarity in content with some similarity in wording. As with the preceding sections we find in this last sequence very few propositions with no parallel in the other three Gospels (6: 56b and possibly 6: 57b, 58b). Additionally, there are less close similarities in content [0/ 2- or 1/ 2-levels of closeness] in this fifth sequence compared to what we have found in earlier sections. However, not only are there significant punctual similarities in terms of wording, but a careful examination of the evidence demonstrates that even the last sequence of the Johannine Bread of Life Discourse (in which several earlier themes are again taken up) does indeed, for the most part, conceptually resemble the teaching of Jesus in the other three Gospels. The amount of 1/ 1-levels of closeness shows that the main themes and concepts in John 6: 53-58 have at least some similarity in content with the Synoptics. Therefore, our results for this final sequence do not strengthen the claims of those who see a sharp contrast between the Bread of Life Discourse and the Synoptic Gospels. 4.1.7 Summary The Bread of Life Discourse is often used as a prominent example for a strong separation between the teaching of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel and its synoptic counterparts. The claim that the picture of Jesus’ teaching we get in John 6 is incompatible with the portrayal in the Synoptics has frequently led to a negative scholarly judgment about the authenticity of Jesus’ words in this part of John’s Gospel. Our close comparison between the Bread of Life Discourse and the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, however, has shown that there does not seem to be a stable base for such a verdict. When it comes to semantic correlation, we observe that the Jesus of John 6 does not stand in close proximity to the Synoptic Jesus. There is very little close verbal agreement between what Jesus said to the crowd in John 6 and his teaching in the other three Gospels. Only one out of 49 propositions reveals a high degree of verbal similarity and thus a 2/ 2-kind of closeness (6: 45a). At the other end of the spectrum, we find 18 propositions that totally lack any kind of meaningful verbal resemblance to the Synop- 189 tics. 63 There is, thus, a certain degree of semantic non-correlation between the Fourth Gospel’s discourse and Jesus’ teaching elsewhere. However, the majority of Johannine propositions in the Bread of Life Discourse convey at least some significant overlap in wording and thus either a 1/ 1- , 1/ 2-, or 2/ 2-kind of closeness. 64 Regarding the content of Jesus’ speech in John 6 we learn that only very few propositions have no conceptual parallel in the Synoptic Gospels, i.e., a 0/ 0-level of closeness. 65 However, none of these propositions could be classified as contradicting Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics or as adding significant theological ideas to what Jesus has said elsewhere. Over and above that, the Johannine Bread of Life Discourse contains an impressive number of propositions that are conceptually related to the Synoptics. Although for some propositions closer analogies [0/ 2-, 1/ 2-, or 2/ 2-types of closeness] 66 could be found than for others [0/ 1-, or 1/ 1-levels of closeness], 67 the general picture is one of significant similarities in terms of content between John 6: 22-59 and Matthew, Mark, and Luke. More than two thirds of what Jesus has uttered in the Bread of Life Discourse has a parallel in the Synoptic Gospels (a total of 40 propositions), with almost half of the propositions having close conceptual connections. Far from being fundamentally unrelated to the non-Johannine teaching of the historical Jesus, the main themes of this discourse such as the authoritative Son of Man as the giver of salvation (6: 27b, 27c, 40 par. Matt 16: 27; 19: 28-29 pars. et al.), Jesus as God’s envoy and the importance to believe in and identify with the one God has sent (6: 29b, 33, 35b, 37b, 40, 47, 50-51, 53-56, 58 par. Matt 19: 28-29 pars.; Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 et al.), the Father as the ultimate source of salvation (6: 32b, 37a, 44a, 45c par. Mark 10: 26-27; Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22; Luke 12: 32 et al.), Jesus as doing the will of the Father (6: 38 par. Matt 26: 39, 42 pars. et al.), and the unique relationship between Father and Son (6: 46 par. Matt 11: 27) are all present in the Synoptic Gospels. Even the notion of Jesus’ preexistence (especially 6: 33a, 38a, 50a/ 51a), often regarded as a purely Johannine feature, has its point of contact in the “I have come”-sayings of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 63 John 6: 26, 27a, 27b, 29a, 32a, 33a, 35b, 38a, 43, 45b, 49, 50a/ 51a, 56b, 56c, 57b, 58a, 58b. 64 John 6: 27c, 27d, 29b, 32b, 33b, 35a, 36, 37a, 37b, 38b, 39a, 39b, 40a, 40b, 40c, 44a, 44b, 45a, 45c, 46, 47, 48, 50b/ 51b, 51c, 53, 54a, 54b, 55, 56a, 57a, 57c, 58c. 65 John 6: 26, 29a, 32a, 43, 45b, 49, 56b, 57b, 58b. 66 John 6: 27a, 27b, 27c, 29b, 32b, 33b, 35b, 38b, 39a, 39b, 40a, 40b, 40c, 45a, 46, 47, 50b/ 51b, 51c, 54b, 57a. 67 John 6: 27d, 33a, 35a, 36, 37a, 37b, 38a, 44a, 44b, 45c, 48, 50a/ 51a, 53, 54a, 55, 56a, 56c, 57c, 58a, 58c. 190 4.2 The Light of the World Discourse (John 8: 12-59) 4.2.1 Introduction Structure and Character of the Dialogue The sixth extended discourse in the Gospel of John comprises 431 words of Jesus. Its narrative setting is similar to the one in John 7: 14-39. After the text-critically secondary pericope of the woman caught in adultery (7: 53- 8: 11), 68 the Gospel continues to unfold Jesus’ disputation with the Jewish public which takes place at the time of (or now possibly shortly after) the Feast of Tabernacles in the surroundings of the Jerusalem temple. Therefore, not without good reason, Craig Keener has classified the whole section of John 7: 1-8: 59 as “the temple discourse.” 69 While in his first teaching cycle of this Temple Discourse in the preceding chapter Jesus was talking to a broader public, his main debating partners here in chapter 8 seem to be the Pharisees, although a somewhat larger group of Jews is apparently present as well (cf. 8: 31, 48 et al.). The discussion is ignited by Jesus’ claim that he is “the light of the world.” (Thus, the name “The Light of the World Discourse,” which is relatively common, yet somewhat misleading since the light-motif does not permeate Jesus’ speech as much as, for example, the bread-motif does in John 6.) Jesus’ initial statement provokes the Pharisees’ question about the validity of his testimony. Jesus answers by pointing to the double authentication of his claims both by himself and by his Father [Sequence 1: John 8: 12-20]. The discourse continues as Jesus addresses the question of who he really is by highlighting his identity as the one sent from above. We are next told, as a corollary, that many begin to believe in him [Sequence 2: John 8: 21-30]. It is those Judean believers that Jesus challenges to find the source of true freedom in him. The immediate response of his conversation partners reveals their ongoing misapprehension of Jesus’ true identity while at the same time priding themselves on their Abrahamic descent [Sequence 3: John 8: 31-38]. Consequently, Jesus knocks the bottom out of the Jews’ constant appeal to their ancestry by denying their claim to be true children of Abraham but rather calling them children of the devil, a conclusion drawn from their lack of acceptance of his teaching [Sequence 4: John 8: 39-47]. Finally, although his interlocutors reject his superiority over Abraham, Jesus, in the last sequence of the discourse, climactically asserts his divine identity not least by claiming that he 68 Cf. Metzger, Textual Commentary, 187-89; as well as, e.g., Bart D. Ehrman, “Jesus and the Adulteress,” NTS 34 (1988): 24-44;; and Daniel B. Wallace, “Reconsidering ‘The Story of the Woman Taken in Adultery Reconsidered’,” NTS 39 (1993): 290-96. 69 Keener, John, 1: 703-74; Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 164-95, similarly refers to the “temple discourses.” 191 existed already before the honored Father of the Jews [Sequence 5: John 8: 48-59]. 70 The Authenticity of the Discourse in Johannine Research This part of the Johannine temple discourse has been subject to historical discussions to a much lesser extent than those sections of Jesus’ teaching treated thus far. While several commentators, without explicit discussion, apparently work on the assumption that here is an authentic rendering of a dominical discourse, this is certainly not the majority view within Johannine scholarship. Today there has evolved a common view among scholars that assumes, for the most part without much further reflection, that John 8: 12-59 does not contain the pronouncement of the historical Jesus but rather an echo of social and theological tensions in which the early Christian community of the evangelist developed its faith and identity. Maurice Casey has argued most strongly that Jesus’ attendance at the Jewish festivals is certainly inauthentic due to the omission of those festival visits in the Synoptic Gospels. 71 Likewise absent from the Synoptics, according to Casey, is Jesus’ preexistence, which is most dramatically presented in John 8. Within the dominant approach of the history of the Johannine community, this would indicate that the Sitz im Leben of these christological notions lies in the conflict with the Jewish synagogue. 72 Slightly more reserved, Rudolf Schnackenburg remarks that the present discourse should be considered as a reflection of the outer and inner situation of the church. 73 This is to say that the theological interest of the Fourth Gospel’s author superimposes itself over any existing concern for the historical validity of the reported teaching. This call for a “two level reading,” namely, that this part of the Gospel is actually not about the concerns of the historical Jesus but about the Johannine group’s contemporary conflict with the Jewish community, is further accentuated by assumed differences between John and the Synoptic Gospels. Dwight Moody Smith is representative here in that he affirms that Jesus’ dispute with the Jewish public in John 8 “does not represent the kinds of polemic or issues that exist between Jesus and his opponents in the Synoptics (…) [which was] closer to the historical situation of Jesus himself.” Therefore, since he is 70 For a similar outline, see (with minor differences) Schnackenburg, John, 2: 188; also Lincoln, John, 260-63. 71 Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 27. 72 Ibid., 39, 41. Cf. again also Lüdemann, Der erfundene Jesus, 80, who especially denies the authenticity of John 8: 12. 73 Schnackenburg, John, 2: 187: “As previously in Chapter 7, the scene is made relevant to the external and internal situation of the community.” Cf. also von Wahlde, Gospel and Letters of John, 2: 383-89, 402-06, 417-20 with his detailed compositional explanation of John 8 as containing several layers of later Gospel editions. 192 unable to imagine that the evangelist has created this conversation “out of thin air,” he situates the discourse within the confrontation of Christconfessors from the Johannine community and their opponents in the realm of the synagogue. 74 Andrew Lincoln has somewhat similarly assumed that the different designations of Jesus’ interlocutors (8: 13 “the Pharisees;;” 8: 22 “the Jewish leaders;;” 8: 31, 48, 52, 57 “the Judeans”) “may well mean that controversies from various stages in the community’s history have been brought together in this chapter.” 75 Half a century earlier, C. H. Dodd concluded “that in John viii, as in Galatians, we are in contact with the ‘Judaistic’ controversy in the early Church.” 76 Yet, at the same time, he confidently maintained that we do find in John 8 echoes of earlier tradition represented in the Synoptic Gospels. Our inventory of synoptic parallels displayed above in 2.4 again indicates that very few similarities have been observed between our Johannine discourse and the other three Gospels. A total of 10 out of 38 verses containing Jesus’ direct speech are listed as having some synoptic counterpart (namely 8: 12, 17, 19, 31-32, 34-35, 43, 45, 56). Six of these parallels are noted in the NA 27 margin only. As practiced in the preceeding sections of this study, we are now going to examine in more detail the actual extent of coherence in wording and content between what has been called the Light of the World or Temple Discourse in John 8 and the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics. 74 Smith, John, 180. Among those who regard John 8 as a rather newly created work of the evangelist is Lindars, Gospel of John, 313. According to Lindars, John 8 is closely related to John 5 which shows “that John has composed the whole chapter on the basis of that discourse [i.e., John 5: 19-47], in order to take its themes further.” 75 Lincoln, John, 264. Also Brown, John (i-xii), 343, 349, who repeatedly states that this part of John’s Gospel must have had a complicated compositional history. 76 C. H. Dodd, “Behind a Johannine Dialogue,” in More New Testament Studies (Manchester: University Press, 1968), 52 [originally published in French in 1957]. 193 4.2.2 Sequence 1: John 8: 12-20 (The Double Testimony about Jesus as the Light of the World) [8: 12a] Pa,lin ou=n auvtoi/ j ev la,lhsen o` VIhsou/ j le,gwn\ ev gw, eivmi to. fw/ j tou/ ko,smou\ Then Jesus spoke out again, “I am the light of the world. [1/ 1] [Matt 5: 14] u`mei/ j evste to. fw/ j tou/ ko,smouÅ You are the light of the world. [8: 12b] o` avkolouqw/ n evmoi ouv mh. peripath,sh| evn th/ | skoti,a|( The one who follows me will never walk in darkness, [1/ 2] [1/ 1] [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi (…) zwh.n aivw,nion klhronomh,sei . you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life. [Matt 8: 12] oi` de. ui`oi. th/ j basilei,aj ev kblhqh,sontai eivj to. sko,toj to. ev xw,teron\ evkei/ e; stai o` klauqmo.j kai. o` brugmo.j tw/ n ovdo,ntwnÅ The sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. [8: 12c] avllV e[ xei to. fw/ j th/ j zwh/ jÅ but will have the light of life.” [1/ 1] [Luke 11: 33-36] Ouvdei.j lu,cnon a[yaj eivj kru,pthn ti,qhsin Îouvde. u`po. to.n mo,dionÐ avllV evpi. th.n lucni,an( i[na oi` eivsporeuo,menoi to. fw/ j ble,pwsinÅ ~O lu,cnoj tou/ sw,mato,j evstin o` ovfqalmo,j souÅ o[tan o` ovfqalmo,j sou a`plou/ j h=| ( kai. o[lon to. sw/ ma, sou fwteino,n ev stin\ evpa.n de. ponhro.j h=| ( kai. to. sw/ ma, sou skoteino,n [see 8: 12b] Å sko,pei ou=n mh. to. fw/ j to. ev n soi. sko,toj evsti,nÅ eiv ou=n to. sw/ ma, sou o[lon fwteino,n( mh. e; con me, roj ti skoteino,n( e; stai fwteino.n o[lon w`j o[tan o` lu,cnoj th/ | avstraph/ | fwti,zh| seÅ No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a hidden place or under a basket, but on a lampstand, so that those who come in can see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is diseased, your body is full of darkness. Therefore see to it that the light in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, with no part in the dark, it will be as full of light as when the light of a lamp shines on you. 194 [1/ 2] [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi [see 8: 12b] (…) zwh.n aivw,nion klhronomh,sei . you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life. [8: 13] So the Pharisees objected, “You testify about yourself; your testimony is not true! ” [8: 14a] avpekri,qh VIhsou/ j kai. ei=pen auvtoi/ j\ ka'n ev gw. marturw/ peri. ev mautou/ ( avlhqh,j ev stin h` marturi,a mou( Jesus answered, “Even if I testify about myself, my testimony is true, [0/ 1] [Matt 24: 35 par. Mark 13: 31] o` ouvrano.j kai. h` gh/ pareleu,setai( oi` de. lo,goi mou ouv mh. pare,lqwsinÅ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. [8: 14b] o[ti oi=da po,qen h=lqon because I know where I came from [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] Pa,nta moi paredo,qh u`po. tou/ patro,j mou( kai. ouvdei.j evpiginw,skei to.n ui`o.n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate, ra tij ev piginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j kai. w-| eva.n bou,lhtai o` ui`o.j avpokalu,yaiÅ No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. [Matt 10: 40 pars.] (…) o` ev me. deco,menoj de,cetai to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ (…) whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. [8: 14c] kai. pou/ u`pa,gw\ and where I am going. [1/ 2] [0/ 2] [Matt 26: 24 pars.] o` me. n ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou u`pa,gei kaqw.j ge, graptai peri. auvtou/ ( (…) The Son of Man will go as it is written about him, (…) [Mark 14: 62 pars.] (…) kai. o; yesqe to.n ui`o.n tou/ avnqrw,pou ev k dexiw/ n kaqh,menon th/ j duna,mewj kai. ev rco,menon meta. tw/ n nefelw/ n tou/ ouvranou/ Å (…) you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven. 195 [8: 14d] u`mei/ j de. ouvk oi; date po,qen e; rcomai h' pou/ u`pa,gwÅ But you people do not know where I came from or where I am going. [0/ 0] Yet, cf. [Luke 9: 18-20]: Once when Jesus was praying by himself, and his disciples were nearby, he asked them, “Who do the crowds say that I am? ” They answered, “John the Baptist;; others say Elijah; and still others that one of the prophets of long ago has risen.” Then he said to them, “But who do you say that I am? ” Peter answered, “The Christ of God.” For further evidence of the difficulty of the Jews to comprehend Jesus’ identity and origin, cf. [Matt 21: 10; Luke 5: 21; 22: 67, 70-71]. [8: 15a] u`mei/ j kata. th.n sa,rka kri,nete( You people judge by outward appearances; [0/ 1] See the people’s evaluation of Jesus’ origin in [Matt 13: 55-56 par. Mark 6: 3]: “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother named Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Jospeh, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? ” [Matt 23: 25-28 par. Luke 11: 37-39, 44] Ouvai. u`mi/ n( grammatei/ j kai. Farisai/ oi u`pokritai,( o[ti kaqari,zete to. e; xwqen tou/ pothri,ou kai. th/ j paroyi,doj( e; swqen de. ge, mousin ev x a`rpagh/ j kai. avkrasi,ajÅ Farisai/ e tufle, ( kaqa,rison prw/ ton to. ev nto.j tou/ pothri,ou( i[na ge, nhtai kai. to. ev kto.j auvtou/ kaqaro, nÅ Ouvai. u`mi/ n( grammatei/ j kai. Farisai/ oi u`pokritai,( o[ti paromoia,zete ta,foij kekoniame, noij( oi[ tinej e; xwqen me. n fai,nontai w`rai/ oi( e; swqen de. ge, mousin ovste,wn nekrw/ n kai. pa,shj avkaqarsi,ajÅ ou[twj kai. u`mei/ j e; xwqen me. n fai,nesqe toi/ j avnqrw,poij di,kaioi( e; swqen de, ev ste mestoi. u`pokri,sewj kai. avnomi,ajÅ Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside may become clean too! Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of the bones of the dead and of everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you look righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. 196 [8: 15b] ev gw. ouv kri,nw ouvde, naÅ I do not judge anyone. [0/ 0] Yet, cf. [Mark 2: 16; Luke 7: 39; 15: 2] where Jesus is charged by the Pharisees for not being judgmental enough. [8: 16a] kai. ev a.n kri,nw de. ev gw,( h` kri,sij h` ev mh. avlhqinh, ev stin( But if I judge, my evaluation is accurate, [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Luke 18: 7-8] o` de. qeo.j ouv mh. poih,sh| th.n ev kdi,khsin tw/ n ev klektw/ n auvtou/ tw/ n bow,ntwn auvtw/ | h`me, raj kai. nukto,j( kai. makroqumei/ ev pV auvtoi/ jÈ le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti poih,sei th.n evkdi,khsin auvtw/ n evn ta,ceiÅ plh.n o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ev lqw.n a=ra eu`rh,sei th.n pi,stin evpi. th/ j gh/ jÈ Won't God give justice to his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he delay long to help them? I tell you, he will give them justice speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth? [Matt 25: 31-32] {Otan de. e; lqh| o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ev n th/ | do,xh| auvtou/ kai. pa,ntej oi` a; ggeloi metV auvtou/ ( to,te kaqi,sei ev pi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou/ \ kai. sunacqh,sontai e; mprosqen auvtou/ pa,nta ta. e; qnh( kai. avfori,sei auvtou.j avpV avllh,lwn( w[sper o` poimh.n avfori,zei ta. pro,bata avpo. tw/ n evri,fwn( When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be assembled before him, and he will separate people one from another like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. See also [Matt 13: 41-42; Luke 12: 8, 46]. [8: 16b] o[ti mo,noj ouvk eivmi,( avllV ev gw. kai. o` pe, myaj me path,rÅ because I am not alone [when I judge], but I and the Father who sent me do so together. [1/ 2] [0/ 1] [Matt 16: 27] me, llei ga.r o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou e; rcesqai evn th/ | do,xh| tou/ patro.j auvtou/ meta. tw/ n avgge, lwn auvtou/ ( kai. to,te avpodw,sei e` ka,stw| kata. th.n pra/ xin auvtou/ Å For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. [Matt 22: 44] ei=pen ku,rioj tw/ | kuri,w| mou\ ka,qou ev k dexiw/ n mou( e[ wj a'n qw/ tou.j ev cqrou,j sou u`poka,tw tw/ n podw/ n souÈ The Lord said to my lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet”? 197 [0/ 1] [Mark 14: 62 pars.] o` de. VIhsou/ j ei=pen\ ev gw, eivmi( kai. o; yesqe to.n ui`o.n tou/ avnqrw,pou ev k dexiw/ n kaqh,menon th/ j duna,mewj kai. ev rco,menon meta. tw/ n nefelw/ n tou/ ouvranou/ Å “I am,” said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” For the theme of the Father sending the Son, see [Matt 10: 40; Luke 10: 16]. [8: 17] kai. ev n tw/ | no,mw| de. tw/ | u`mete, rw| ge, graptai o[ti du,o avnqrw,pwn h` marturi,a avlhqh,j evstinÅ It is written in your law that the testimony of two men is true. [1/ 2] [Matt 18: 16] ev a.n de. mh. avkou, sh|( para,labe meta. sou/ e; ti e[ na h' du,o( i[na ev pi. sto,matoj du,o martu, rwn h' triw/ n staqh/ | pa/ n r`h/ ma\ But if he does not listen, take one or two others with you, so that at the testimony of two or three witnesses every matter may be established. [8: 18a] ev gw, eivmi o` marturw/ n peri. ev mautou/ I testify about myself [0/ 1] [Matt 11: 4-5 par. Luke 7: 22] poreuqe,ntej avpaggei,late VIwa,nnh| a] avkou,ete kai. ble, pete\ tufloi. avnable,pousin kai. cwloi. peripatou/ sin( leproi. kaqari,zontai kai. kwfoi. avkou,ousin( kai. nekroi. ev gei,rontai kai. ptwcoi. euvaggeli,zontai\ Go tell John what you hear and see: The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news proclaimed to them. [8: 18b] kai. marturei/ peri. ev mou/ o` pe, myaj me path,rÅ and the Father who sent me testifies about me.” [0/ 1] [Luke 11: 19-20 pars.] eiv de. ev gw. ev n Beelzebou. l ev kba,llw ta. daimo,nia( oi` ui`oi. u`mw/ n evn ti,ni evkba,llousinÈ dia. tou/ to auvtoi. u`mw/ n kritai. e; sontaiÅ eiv de. ev n daktu,lw| qeou/ Îevgw.Ð ev kba,llw ta. daimo,nia( a; ra e; fqasen ev fV u`ma/ j h` basilei,a tou/ qeou/ Å Now if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you. For the theme of the Father sending the Son cf. [Matt 10: 40; Luke 10: 16]. 198 John 8: 12a resumes Jesus’ dispute with the Pharisees with the second evgw, eivmi -predication in the Fourth Gospel: “I am the light of the world.” 77 We note again that these particular sayings have no direct parallel in the synoptic tradition; yet, the other three Gospels contain similar statements with probable roots in the self-identification of Yahweh or his Messiah in the Old Testament (see our comments on 6: 35 above). The full significance of this saying can be best appreciated on the backdrop of Old Testament allusions to light (Ps 27: 1; Ps 44: 3; Isa 42: 6; 49: 6 et al.) and in connection with the lighting of lamps during the Feast of Tabernacles that anticipated future salvation. 78 This particular image of “light” is well-known in the Synoptics, where in Matt 5: 14 Jesus exhorts his followers to be the “light of the 77 Plisch, Gospel of Thomas, 182, has again pointed to another parallel to John 8: 12 in Gosp. Thom. 77, where Jesus says: “I am the light that is above all.” 78 Beasley-Murray, John, 127-28; Brown, John (i-xii), 344; Carson, John, 337-38; Keener, John, 1: 739-40; Lincoln, John, 264-65; Lindars, Gospel of John, 315 (all with reference to m. Sukk. 5.[1]2-4); also Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 174-75. [8: 19a] Then they began asking him, - “Who - is - your - f ather? ” [8: 19b] avpekri,qh VIhsou/ j\ ou; te ev me. oi; date ou; te to.n pate, ra mou\ eiv ev me. h; | deite( kai. to.n pate, ra mou a'n h; | deiteÅ Jesus answered, “You do not know either me or my Father. If you knew me you would know my Father too.” [1/ 1] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] (…) ouvdei.j ev piginw,skei to.n ui`o.n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate, ra tij evpiginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j kai. w-| eva.n bou,lhtai o` ui`o.j avpokalu,yaiÅ No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. See also above 8: 14b. [8: 20] (Jesus spoke these words near the offering box while he was teaching in the temple courts. No one seized him because his time had not yet come.) [Mark 12: 41] Then he sat down opposite the offering box, and watched the crowd putting coins into it. Many rich people were throwing in large amounts. [Mark 14: 41 par. Matt 26: 45] He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough of that! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners.” [See Mark 14: 35; Luke 22: 53 et al.] 199 world” [ to. fw/ j tou/ ko,smou ; 1/ 1-level of closeness]. 79 Blomberg rightly notes that “it is a small step from that declaration to Jesus’ claim here to be the source of that light.” 80 In the following proposition, John 8: 12b, Jesus argues that “the one who follows me will never walk in darkness.” In close analogy Matt 19: 28-29 reads: “you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life” [1/ 2-level of closeness; common usage of avkolouqe,w ; cf. also below on 8: 12d]. The Johannine statement also implies that those who do not follow Jesus will be removed “to a place very far from the light of God’s gracious presence” 81 as similarly indicated by the reference to the “outer darkness” in Matt 8: 12 [1/ 1-level of closeness]. John 8: 12c takes up the “light”-metaphor and complements the previous statement by saying that the “light of life” awaits those who indeed belong to Jesus. In Luke 11: 33-36, such “light”metaphor seems to be used for Jesus himself and the revelation he brings in word and deed. With some conceptual similarity to our Johannine statement, Jesus seems to be saying that a proper response to him as the openly shining light removes (ethical and spiritual) darkness and makes possible a life in the light of God’s salvation [1/ 1-level of closeness]. 82 Although the exact meaning of the genitive construction “light of life” ( to. fw/ j th/ j zwh/ j ) here in 8: 12c is ambiguous, 83 the whole statement is not: the one who follows (i.e., believes in) Jesus receives life with divine quality. As with John 8: 12b, this soteriological promise has a close analogy in Matt 19: 28 pars., where those who follow Jesus are likewise promised to “inherit eternal life” [1/ 2-level of closeness; some overlap in wording through the usage of the noun zwh, ]. In response to Jesus’ claim, the Pharisees object that he is not following the standards of Jewish legal procedure: 84 “You testify about yourself, your testimony is not true! ” (John 8: 13). Yet, just this had been conceded by Jesus already in 5: 31, where he said: “If I testify about myself, my testimony is not 79 This parallel is hinted at in the Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum and listed in the NA 27 margin. It has also been noted by Crossan, Sayings Parallels, 26, 132, 177; Lindars, Gospel of John, 314; Theobald, Johannes, 568; cf. also Schwank, Johannes, 256. 80 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 141. Pace Edwin E. Abbott, Johannine Vocabulary: A Comparison of the Words of the Fourth Gospel with those of the Three (London: Black, 1905), 267n1, whose statement concerning the relationship between John 8: 12 and Matt 5: 14 is unconvincing: “That a body of men should believe themselves to be a collection of ‘lights’ reflecting the Light of the World, differs radically from the doctrine that the same men should believe themselves to be ‘the Light of the World’: and Jn appears to be protesting against the latter belief.” [italics mine] 81 David L. Turner, Matthew, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 233. 82 Bock, Luke, 2: 1103; Wilfried Eckey, Lukas 11,1-24,53, vol. 2 of Das Lukasevangelium unter Berücksichtigung seiner Parallelen (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 2004), 542-44; John Nolland, Luke 9: 21-18: 34, vol.2 of Luke, WBC 35B (Nashville: Nelson, 1993), 659. This parallel has been noted by Brown, John (i-xii), 344. 83 Cf. different possibilities mentioned in Morris, John, 389n10. 84 Keener, John, 1: 740; Köstenberger, John, 254 et al. 200 true.” 85 Now in John 8: 14a, however, Jesus maintains that “his own testimony is true in any case.” 86 The marturw/ / marturi,a -word group does not occur frequently in the Synoptics, once on the lips of Jesus (Matt 23: 31). Yet, that Jesus’ words are generally true and thus of ongoing validity is expressed in Matt 24: 35 par. Mark 13: 31 as well: “my words will never pass away” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. In John 8: 14b and 14c Jesus then continues to relate the trustworthiness of his testimony to the fact that he knows where he came from and where he is going. This raises the issue of Jesus’ origin and future destination. Jesus belongs to the Father and his divine origin is at least implicitly present in Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 as well as in Matt 10: 40 pars. [0/ 1-level of closeness]. That Jesus knows his future destination is obvious from Matt 26: 24 pars. [1/ 2-level of closeness; common usage of the verb u`pa,gw ] and Mark 14: 62 pars. [0/ 2-level of closeness]. Without apparent synoptic parallel is Jesus’ rebuke of his conversation partners in John 8: 14b [0/ 0-level of closeness]: “But you people do not know where I came from or where I am going.” We should, however, point to the question Jesus asked the disciples in Luke 9: 18: “Who do the crowds say that I am? ” This question together with the disciples’ answer in the following verse seems to imply that the Jews in general had difficulty grasping Jesus’ true identity and origin (Matt 21: 10; Luke 5: 21; 22: 67, 70-71), which in turn makes Jesus’ statement in John entirely comprehensible. In John 8: 15a Jesus rebukes his opponents for judging only according to the flesh, i.e., by human criteria. This charge has no direct synoptic parallel but is certainly reflected in the other evangelists’ rendering of the people’s evaluation of Jesus’ origin in Matt 13: 55-56 par. Mark 6: 3: “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother named Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Jospeh, Simon and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us? ” Furthermore, the reproach for focusing too much on “outward appearances” is conceptually present in Jesus’ woes against the Pharisees in Matt 23: 25-28 par. Luke 11: 37-39, 44 [0/ 1-level of closeness]. It is the Pharisees’ emphasis on the outside instead of the inside that leads to their subsequent rendering of judgment according to the wrong (superficial) standards. When Jesus continues to say “I do not judge anyone,” the context does not allow us to interpret this statement as meaning that he does not judge at all (cf. 8: 16). What Jesus seems to be saying is that he does not judge according to the same outward criteria as his Pharisaic opponents. No similar predication can be found in Matt, Mark, or Luke; yet, we may note that there are several statements within the synoptic tradition where Jesus is criticized by the Pharisees for not being judgmental enough (Mark 2: 16; Luke 7: 39; 15: 2). 87 85 Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 423. 86 Keener, John, 1: 740. 87 Bernard, St. John, 1: 295. 201 Now, in John 8: 16a, Jesus confirms the difference between his own assessments and those of his opponents. Jesus’ judgment is right, his “evaluation is accurate” (cf. earlier 5: 30). On an admittedly farther removed level of abstraction [0/ 1-level of closeness], Luke 18: 7-8 refers to a similar notion by pointing (in an eschatological context) to the general attribute of God’s justice and his righteous vindication of the chosen ones. Since such justice is explicitly related to the coming of the Son of Man, this seems to be at least a remote parallel to the first part of this Johannine statement where in both instances Jesus portrays himself as an agent of righteous judgment. The fundamental role of Jesus as judge is also clearly implied in the passage about the gathering of the sheep and the goats in Matt 25: 31-32 [0/ 1- level of closeness]. 88 That Jesus judges not only accurately but “together with the Father” is expressed in John 8: 16b. This is closely related conceptually to Matt 16: 27 [1/ 2-level of closeness], where Jesus states that “the Son of Man will come (…) in the glory of his Father [ o` path,r ] and then he will reward each person according to what he has done.” Moreover, Jesus’ quotation of Ps 110: 1 in Matt 22: 44 carries similar connotations as does Jesus’ declaration before the Sanhedrin in Mark 14: 62 pars.: “(…) and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power (…).” Especially this latter statement has some conceptual parallelism to Jesus’ remark here in John 8 by portraying the Son of Man as not acting alone but sitting at the right hand of “the Power,” a circumlocution for God, the Father. In other words, this synoptic judgment scene also implies the collaborative work of both the glorified Jesus and the Father and thus qualifies as a parallel in content [0/ 1-level of closeness] to our Johannine statement. 89 The following reference by Jesus to “your law” does not contain the notion of separation from the Torah of the Jews. Rather, Jesus is arguing a minori ad maius, namely, if even according to their own law the testimony of two witnesses is sufficient to settle a case, how much more important is the combined witness of the Father and his divine Son. 90 John 8: 17 is closely parallel in content with some overlap in wording [1/ 2-level of closeness] to Matt 18: 16 where likewise reference is made to this forensic procedure found in Deut 19: 15. 91 John 8: 18a and 8: 18b further explicate the double testimony about Jesus by himself and by the Father. That Jesus testifies to himself is certainly the idea behind his answer to John the Baptist in Matt 11: 4-5 par. Luke 7: 22 as Jesus points out that his own deeds ought to convince one of his divine identity [0/ 1-level of closeness]. While the Synoptic 88 Cf. the mentioning of this parallel by Reynolds, Son of Man, 174. 89 For close conceptual similarities to the Johannine motif of Jesus being sent by the Father, see once more Matt 10: 40 pars. and Luke 10: 16 (cf. our comments on John 6: 29b, 39ab, 57a) . For synoptic parallels to the Johannine “Father”-language (here and in John 8: 18, 19, 27, 28, 38, 41, 42, 44, 49, 54), see footnote 23 above. 90 Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 424. 91 This parallel is also mentioned in the NA 27 margin; cf. also Michaels, John, 482. 202 Gospels do not directly refer to God, the Father, as testifying about the Son, this same idea seems to be at least implicit in Luke 11: 17-20 pars. [0/ 1-level of closeness]: as Jesus refutes the allegation that he drives out demons by Beelzebul, he assumes that his works are identifiable as ones done in divine power and thus as indirect testimony of God about the validity of his own claims. The immediate question of the Pharisees “Who is your father? ” (8: 19a) reveals that they really have no clue about Jesus’ true identity. They urge Jesus to present the second witness he is pointing to. 92 In his answer in John 8: 19b Jesus refers one more time to the unity of the Father and the Son, saying: “You do not know either me or my Father. If you knew me you would know my Father too.” Some conceptual resemblance is again observable in the “Johannine saying” of Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 [0/ 1-level of closeness], where knowledge of the Father is closely tied to knowledge of the Son. 93 Finally, the concluding statement of this first sequence (John 8: 20) informs the reader that although Jesus was teaching openly “in the temple courts” in proximity of the “offering box” (cf. Mark 12: 41) he could circumvent arrest “because his time had not yet come;;” the divinely appointed moment still awaited its advent (cf. Matt 26: 45 par. Mark 14: 41; Mark 14: 35; Luke 22: 53 et al.). This first sequence of the Light of the World Discourse contains several close conceptual parallels to Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics. Four key motifs of John’s account closely resemble synoptic sayings of Jesus in terms of content and often with some semantic overlap: the causal connection of following Jesus in order to gain life (8: 12 par. Matt 19: 28-29 pars. [1/ 2-level of closeness]), Jesus’ knowledge about where he is going (8: 14c par. Matt 26: 24 pars.; Mark 14: 62 pars. [1/ 2-, and 0/ 2-levels of closeness respectively]), the common judgment of the Father and the Son (8: 16b par. Matt 16: 27 [1/ 2-level of closeness]), and the validity of a testimony established by two (or more) witnesses (8: 17 par. Matt 18: 16 [1/ 2-level of closeness]). In addition, most of the other inherent themes in this section, e.g., the image of light, the trustworthiness of the Son’s testimony, and the accurateness of Jesus’ judgment show at least some resemblance to the content (and at times even to the wording) of Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics [0/ 1- and 1/ 1-levels of closeness]. Only two propositions have no discernible parallel in the other three Gospels (8: 14d, 15b). 92 Ridderbos, John, 297. 93 Köstenberger, John, 257, points to this parallel that is also noted in the NA 27 margin. 203 4.2.3 Sequence 2: John 8: 21-30 (Jesus as the One from Above) [8: 21a] Ei=pen ou=n pa,lin auvtoi/ j\ ev gw. u`pa,gw kai. zhth,sete, me( Then Jesus said to them again, “I am going away, and you will look for me [1/ 2] [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 26: 24 pars.] o` me. n ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou u`pa,gei kaqw.j ge, graptai peri. auvtou/ ( (…) The Son of Man will go as it is written about him, (…) [Matt 9: 15 pars.] mh. du,nantai oi` ui`oi. tou/ numfw/ noj penqei/ n ev fV o[son metV auvtw/ n ev stin o` numfi,ojÈ ev leu,sontai de. h`me, rai o[tan avparqh/ | avpV auvtw/ n o` numfi,oj( kai. to,te nhsteu,sousinÅ The wedding guests cannot mourn while the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days are coming when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast. [Matt 23: 39 par. Luke 13: 35] le, gw ga.r u`mi/ n( ouv mh, me i; dhte avpV a; rti e[ wj a'n ei; phte\ euvloghme, noj o` ev rco,menoj ev n ovno,mati kuri,ouÅ For I tell you, you will not see me from now until you say, 'Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! ' Cf. also [Matt 24: 23-24]. [8: 21b] kai. evn th/ | a`marti,a| u`mw/ n avpoqanei/ sqe\ but will die in your sin. [0/ 1] [Matt 23: 28, 33] ou[twj kai. u`mei/ j e; xwqen me. n fai,nesqe toi/ j avnqrw,poij di,kaioi( e; swqen de, ev ste mestoi. u`pokri,sewj kai. avnomi,ajÅ (…) o; feij( gennh,mata ev cidnw/ n( pw/ j fu,ghte avpo. th/ j kri,sewj th/ j gee,nnhjÈ In the same way, on the outside you look righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness. (…) You snakes, you offspring of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? [8: 21c] o[pou ev gw. u`pa,gw u`mei/ j ouv du,nasqe ev lqei/ nÅ Where I am going you cannot come.” [0/ 1] [Luke 10: 16] (…) o` de. ev me. avqetw/ n avqetei/ to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ (…) the one who rejects me rejects the one who sent me. 204 [1/ 1] [Matt 5: 20] Le,gw ga.r u`mi/ n o[ti ev a.n mh. perisseu,sh| u`mw/ n h` dikaiosu,nh plei/ on tw/ n grammate, wn kai. Farisai,wn( ouv mh. eivse,lqhte eivj th.n basilei,an tw/ n ouvranw/ nÅ For I tell you, unless your righteousness goes beyond that of the experts in the law and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. See also [Matt 22: 11-14; 25: 11-13]. [8: 22] So the Jewish leaders began to say, “Perhaps he is going to kill himself, because he says, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’” [8: 23a] kai. e; legen auvtoi/ j\ u`mei/ j ev k tw/ n ka,tw evste,( (…) u`mei/ j ev k tou,tou tou/ ko,smou evste,( (…) He replied, “You people are from below; (…) You people are from this world; (…) [0/ 1] [Matt 23: 15] Ouvai. u`mi/ n( grammatei/ j kai. Farisai/ oi u`pokritai,( o[ti peria,gete th.n qa,lassan kai. th.n xhra.n poih/ sai e[ na prosh,luton( kai. o[tan ge, nhtai poiei/ te auvto.n ui`o.n gee,nnhj diplo,teron u`mw/ nÅ Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You cross land and sea to make one convert, and when you get one, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves! [8: 23b] ev gw. evk tw/ n a; nw eivmi,\ (…) ev gw. ouvk eivmi. ev k tou/ ko,smou tou,touÅ (…) I am from above. (…) I am not from this world. [0/ 1] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] (…) kai. ouvdei.j evpiginw,skei to.n ui`o.n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate, ra tij ev piginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j kai. w-| eva.n bou,lhtai o` ui`o.j avpokalu,yaiÅ No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. For the theme of Jesus’ heavenly origin, see again the Synoptic “I have come”-sayings such as [Luke 12: 51 par. Matt 10: 34; Matt 5: 17, 10: 35; Mark 2: 17] et al. 205 [8: 24] ei=pon ou=n u`mi/ n o[ti avpoqanei/ sqe evn tai/ j a`marti,aij u`mw/ n\ ev a.n ga.r mh. pisteu,shte o[ti ev gw, eivmi( avpoqanei/ sqe evn tai/ j a`marti,aij u`mw/ nÅ Thus I told you that you will die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins.” [0/ 1] [0/ 2] [0/ 1] See above on 8: 21b: [Matt 23: 28, 33] [Luke 13: 3, 5] ouvci,( le, gw u`mi/ n( avllV ev a.n mh. metanoh/ te pa,ntej o`moi, wj avpolei/ sqeÅ (…) ouvci,( le, gw u`mi/ n( avllV ev a.n mh. metanoh/ te pa,ntej w`sau,twj avpolei/ sqeÅ No, I tell you! But unless you repent, you will all perish as well! Reciprocal teaching: [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi ev n th/ | paliggenesi,a|( o[tan kaqi,sh| o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ev pi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou/ (…) zwh.n aivw,nion klhronomh,seiÅ Amen, I tell you (…) when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life. [1/ 2] [Mark 14: 61-62 pars.] [ pa,lin o` avrciereu.j evphrw,ta auvto.n kai. le, gei auvtw/ | \ su. ei= o` cristo.j o` ui`o.j tou/ euvloghtou/ È ] o` de. VIhsou/ j ei=pen\ ev gw, eivmi( kai. o; yesqe to.n ui`o.n tou/ avnqrw,pou ev k dexiw/ n kaqh,menon th/ j duna,mewj kai. ev rco,menon meta. tw/ n nefelw/ n tou/ ouvranou/ Å [Again the high priest questioned him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? ”] “I am,” said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” [8: 25a] So they said to him, “Who are you? ” [8: 25b] ei=pen auvtoi/ j o` VIhsou/ j\ th.n avrch.n o[ ti kai. lalw/ u`mi/ nÈ Jesus replied, “What I have told you from the beginning. [0/ 0] 206 [8: 26a] polla. e; cw peri. u`mw/ n lalei/ n kai. kri,nein( I have many things to say and to judge about you, [0/ 2] [0/ 1] See above on 8: 16a and 16b: [Matt 16: 27; Matt 25: 31-32; Mark 14: 62 pars.] The “many things” Jesus has to judge are more explicitly laid out in [Matt 23 pars.], as well as [Matt 6: 1-18] et al. [8: 26b] avllV o` pe, myaj me avlhqh,j ev stin( but the one who sent me is truthful, [0/ 1] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] Pa,nta moi paredo,qh u`po. tou/ patro,j mou( (…) All things have been handed over to me by my Father. For the theme of the Father sending the Son see [Matt 10: 40; Luke 10: 16]. [8: 26c] kavgw. a] h; kousa parV auvtou/ tau/ ta lalw/ eivj to.n ko,smonÅ and the things I have heard from him I speak to the world.” [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Luke 4: 18] pneu/ ma kuri,ou ev pV ev me. ouei[neken e; crise,n me euvaggeli,sasqai ptwcoi/ j( avpe, stalke,n me( khru,xai aivcmalw,toij a; fesin kai. tufloi/ j avna,bleyin( avpostei/ lai teqrausme, nouj evn avfe,sei( (…) The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, (…) [Luke 4: 43] o` de. ei=pen pro.j auvtou.j o[ti kai. tai/ j e`te,raij po,lesin euvaggeli,sasqai, me dei/ th.n basilei,an tou/ qeou/ ( o[ti ev pi. tou/ to avpesta,lhnÅ But Jesus said to them, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns too, for that is what I was sent to do.” [8: 27] (They did not understand that he was telling them about his Father.) [8: 28a] ei=pen ou=n Îauvtoi/ jÐ o` VIhsou/ j\ o[tan u`yw,shte to.n ui`o. n tou/ avnqrw,pou( Then Jesus said, “When you lift up the Son of Man, [1/ 2] [Mark 9: 31] o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou paradi,dotai eivj cei/ raj avnqrw,pwn( kai. avpoktenou/ sin auvto,n( kai. avpoktanqei.j meta. trei/ j h`me, raj avnasth,setaiÅ The Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise. 207 [1/ 1] [See the other synoptic passion predictions in Mark 8: 31 (indirect speech); 10: 33; also Matt 17: 22-23, 20: 18-19.] [Matt 19: 28 pars.] (…) o[tan kaqi,sh| o` ui`o. j tou/ avnqrw,pou evpi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou/ (…) (…) when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne (…) [8: 28b] to,te gnw,sesqe o[ti ev gw, eivmi( then you will know that I am he, [1/ 2] [Mark 14: 61-62 pars.] [ pa,lin o` avrciereu.j evphrw,ta auvto.n kai. le, gei auvtw/ | \ su. ei= o` cristo.j o` ui`o.j tou/ euvloghtou/ È ] o` de. VIhsou/ j ei=pen\ ev gw, eivmi( kai. o; yesqe to.n ui`o.n tou/ avnqrw,pou [see 8: 28a] ev k dexiw/ n kaqh,menon th/ j duna,mewj kai. ev rco,menon meta. tw/ n nefelw/ n tou/ ouvranou/ Å [Again the high priest questioned him, “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? ”] “I am,” said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” [8: 28c] kai. avpV ev mautou/ poiw/ ouvde, n( avlla. kaqw.j ev di,daxe,n me o` path.r tau/ ta lalw/ Å and I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak just what the Father taught me. [0/ 1] [0/ 2] For parallels to the concept of Jesus’ unity and harmony with the Father, see above on 8: 26c and below on 8: 29: [Luke 4: 18; Luke 4: 43; Matt 26: 39, 42 pars.; Matt 6: 10; Mark 3: 35 pars.] [8: 29a] kai. o` pe, myaj me metV ev mou/ ev stin\ ouvk avfh/ ke,n me mo,non( And the one who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, [0/ 1] For the theme of the Father sending the Son, see [Matt 10: 40; Luke 10: 16]. [Matt 26: 53] h' dokei/ j o[ti ouv du,namai parakale,sai to.n pate, ra mou( kai. parasth,sei moi a; rti plei,w dw,deka legiw/ naj avgge, lwnÈ Or do you think that I cannot call on my Father, and that he would send me more than twelve legions of angels right now? 208 [8: 29b] o[ti evgw. ta. avresta. auvtw/ | poiw/ pa,ntoteÅ because I always do those things that please him.” [0/ 2] [Matt 26: 39, 42 pars.] pa,ter mou( eiv dunato,n ev stin( parelqa,tw avpV ev mou/ to. poth,rion tou/ to\ plh.n ouvc w`j ev gw. qe, lw avllV w`j su,Å (…) pa,ter mou( (…) genhqh,tw to. qe, lhma, souÅ My Father, if possible, let this cup pass from me! Yet not what I will, but what you will. (…) My Father (…) your will must be done. [0/ 2] [0/ 2] [Mark 3: 35 pars.] o]j Îga.rÐ a'n poih,sh| to. qe, lhma tou/ qeou/ ( ou-toj avdelfo,j mou kai. avdelfh. kai. mh,thr evsti,nÅ For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. [Matt 6: 10] (…) evlqe, tw h` basilei,a sou\ genhqh,tw to. qe, lhma, sou( w`j evn ouvranw/ | kai. ev pi. gh/ j\ (…) may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. [8: 30] While he was saying these things, many people believed in him. Already in 8: 14 Jesus had spoken about his future destination. At the beginning of this second sequence of the discourse in John 8: 21a this theme is taken up as Jesus announces that he is “going away,” which refers to his death by which he returns to the Father, his place of origin. 94 In addition to several synoptic statements referring to Jesus’ death we find an especially close parallel even with some verbal resemblance in the triple tradition of Matt 26: 24 pars. [1/ 2-level of closeness; cf. concurrent use of u`pa,gw ], where Jesus heralds that “the Son of Man will go [away].” In addition, Matt 9: 15 pars. reveals a slightly more removed conceptual analogy to Jesus’ disappearance from the earthly scene with its reference to the bridegroom which “will be taken away” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. In John Jesus goes on to say 94 Martinus C. de Boer, “Jesus’ Departure to the Father in John: Death or Resurrection? ,” in Theology and Christology in the Fourth Gospel: Essays by the Members of the SNTS Johannine Writings Seminar, ed. Gilbert Van Belle, Jan G. van der Watt, and Petrus Maritz, BETL 184 (Leuven: University Press, 2005), 1-19, has argued (against most commentators) that u`pa,gw does not refer primarily to Jesus’ death but to his resurrection/ ascension. However, since even de Boer acknowledges that Jesus’ death is a presupposition of his resurrection and ascension, and since in the Fourth Gospel death, resurrection and ascension seem to be almost seen as one unified event, it still is most plausible to regard his death as the most immediate referent of Jesus’ “going away.” 209 that “you will look for me,” which probably means that after his death his opponents will continue to look for the Messiah with the implication that they will not find him since the only existing Messiah has not found their favor and is now gone (cf. John 16: 16). 95 This seems to bear some conceptual resemblance to Jesus’ declaration in Matt 23: 39 par. Luke 13: 35 [0/ 1- level of closeness; cf. also Matt 24: 23-24] according to which he may not be seen until he returns for judgment at the Parousia: 96 “For I tell you, you will not see me from now until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! ’” Jesus further confronts his conversation partners in John 8: 21b with the statement: “you will die in your sin.” It is possible that Jesus refers generically to the sinful state of a person and the adjacent consequences of death and condemnation. 97 In this case, a similar verdict has been uttered in Matt 23: 28, 33 [0/ 1-level of closeness; cf. Matt 7: 23] where the inner sinfulness of the Pharisees is addressed, followed by the somewhat rhetorical question: “How will you escape being condemned to hell? ” Yet, in light of the discourse’s context it might be more likely that the reference to sin in the singular has in view not so much individual transgressions but the “decisive sin of unbelief.” 98 Jesus’ opponents reject him and thus, according to John 8: 21c, “they cannot come where he is going” since rejecting him means rejecting the Father to whom he returns (cf. 8: 14b, 14c, 19b). This is likewise and more clearly expressed in Luke 10: 16 [0/ 1-level of closeness]. 99 When Jesus tells his audience in the Sermon on the Mount in Matt 5: 20 that “you will never enter the kingdom of heaven,” the underlying assumption is similar to what we have here in John [1/ 1-level of closeness]: access to the realm of God (to which Jesus returns) will be denied due to the re- 95 Carson, John, 341. 96 That Matt 23: 39 par. Luke 13: 35 should be considered as a judgment-saying (thus fitting the Johannine context) has been convincingly argued by Joachim Gnilka, Kommentar zu Kap. 14,1-28,20 und Einleitungsfragen, vol. 2 of Das Matthäusevangelium, HTKNT 1/ 2 (Freiburg: Herder, 2 1992), 285; Ulrich Luz, Matthew 21-28, vol. 3 of Matthew: A Commentary, trans. James E. Crouch, Hermeneia (Augsburg: Fortress, 2005), 162-64; cf. also Bock, Luke, 2: 1250; Francois Bovon, Lk 9,51-14: 35, vol. 2 of Das Evangelium nach Lukas, EKK 3/ 2 (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1996), 460. Even if we assume with Dale C. Allison, “Matt. 23.39 = Lk 13.35b as a Conditional Prophecy,” JSNT 18 (1983): 75-84, that this statement is a conditional prophecy, thus containing hope for Israel’s future, the motif of “not seeing Jesus” would still resemble our Johannine saying. 97 Cf. Köstenberger, John, 258n32. 98 Lincoln, John, 267; also Beasley-Murray, John, 130; Brown, John (i-xii), 350; Carson, John, 341; Schnackenburg, John, 2: 197; as well as Ridderbos, John, 299. 99 Note also Brown, John (i-xii), 350, who comments on this Johannine saying pointing to another parallel in Mark 3: 29: “The Synoptics have the same thought phrased in another way. In Mark iii 29 we hear that whoever blasphemes against the holy Spirit (by attributing the work of the kingdom of God to Satan) is guilty of an eternal sin. The blasphemous refusal of the kingdom of God in the Synoptic tradition is the equivalent of the refusal to see who Jesus is in the Johannine tradition.” 210 fusal to embrace the true character of Jesus, be it a lack of acceptance of his divine origin (as in John) or a disregard of him as the ultimate fulfillment of the law (as in Matthew). Jesus also mentions the concept of exclusion from the place of divine presence in the parable of the wedding feast (Matt 22: 11- 14) and in the parable of the wise and foolish virgins (Matt 25: 11-13). Jesus’ Jewish interlocutors respond with another peculiar misunderstanding (John 8: 22). They wonder whether his statement “Where I am going you cannot come” might be a concealed announcement of suicide. This lack of understanding provides further evidence that Jesus and his opponents are of “two different worlds.” Thus, in John 8: 23a and 8: 23b, Jesus spotlights this antagonism. He is from “above,” i.e., of heavenly origin, but his opponents are from “below” and thus belong to the earthly sphere. 100 That the concept of Jesus’ heavenly origin is implicitly present in Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 [0/ 1-level of closeness] as well as in several synoptic “I have come”-statements (Luke 12: 51 par. Matt 10: 34; Matt 5: 17; 10: 35; Mark 2: 17) has been repeatedly noted (cf. also Matt 3: 17; 17: 5 pars.). Although the Johannine “below” does not directly refer to the underworld, in light of John 12: 31;; 16: 11 “being from the world” seems to carry the connotation of “belonging to the ruler of this world.” 101 This is not too far from the somewhat stronger statement in Matt 23: 15 [0/ 1-level of closeness] with its designation of the experts of the law and the Pharisees as “children of hell” (cf. also our comments on 8: 44a and the reference to the “evil generation” in Matt 12: 45 par. Luke 11: 29). In John 8: 24 Jesus then takes up a charge that he had already made in 8: 21b (cf. the parallel of Matt 23: 28, 33 [0/ 1-level of closeness] mentioned there): “unless you believe (…) you will die in your sins.” (The plural “sins” as opposed to the singular used earlier may simply indicate that the foundational sin of unbelief manifests itself in various sinful actions. 102 ) Several synoptic statements resemble this Johannine proposition to various degrees. Closest in content are Luke 13: 3, 5 [0/ 2-level of closeness, but note the parallel eva.n mh. ] which insist that without repentance over sins (and thus supposedly without faith) a person’s life faces condemnation (cf. also Mark 16: 16). Matt 19: 28 pars. replaces the Johannine verbalism “to believe,” yet expresses the same thought in reciprocal manner: whoever “follows” Jesus will inherit life and thus avoids the doom mentioned in the Johannine version of Jesus’ teaching [0/ 1-level of closeness]. It is the way Jesus conveys the object of faith that immediately provokes his puzzled opponents to ask “Who are you? ” (8: 25a). What is required, Jesus affirms, is to believe that “I am he” ( evgw, eivmi ). The background for Jesus’ words is most likely provided 100 Carson, John, 342; Köstenberger, John, 268; Lincoln, John, 268; Lindars, Gospel of John, 320; Ridderbos, John, 300; Schnackenburg, John, 2: 198-99. 101 Beasley-Murray, John, 130; cf. also Carson, John, 342. 102 Lincoln, John, 268. 211 by Isa 43: 10, 103 where Israel and Yahweh testify together to the fact that Yahweh alone is God (cf. also the surrounding verses): “You are my witnesses,” says the LORD, “my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may consider and believe in me, and understand that I am he [LXX: o[ti evgw, eivmi ].” Thus, as Jesus applies this phrase to his own person, he is actually “calling the representatives of Israel in his day to believe that their one God and their Saviour from sin and death is to be identified with himself.” 104 There is debate whether Mark 14: 62 pars. should be interpreted as containing a similar claim to deity. Jesus answers the high priest’s question “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? ” with evgw, eivmi , the same two words we read in John. Even if we assume that this utterance during Jesus’ trial should only be interpreted as an affirmative response and (in this case) not as a reference to the divine name, 105 one can hardly deny the suitability of this synoptic statement as a parallel to our Johannine saying. Jesus might not have identified himself directly with the God of the Old Testament, but the affirmation that he is the Son of God and the declaration of his role as the reigning Son of Man in the remainder of the statement (“you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven”) suppose a divine status that comes close to what is expressed in John [1/ 2-level of closeness; cf. also our discussion on 8: 28 and 8: 58 below]. 106 In reply to the question that his conversation partners ask about his identity, Jesus seems to indicate in John 8: 25b that he has told them who he was from the beginning of his public ministry. 107 The Synoptics lack any such statement [0/ 0-level of closeness], yet passages like Luke 5: 20-21 suggest that Jesus did indeed make exorbitant claims about his identity early in his career that did not escape his hearers. 108 103 Ball, I am, 189; Beasley-Murray, John, 130; Carson, John, 343-44; Keener, John, 1: 744; Lincoln, John, 268; Schnackenburg, John, 2: 200; also Burkett, Son of Man, 152; but cf. Loader, Christology, 52, 79. 104 Lincoln, John, 268. For the interpretation of ev gw, eivmi as a reference to the name of God, see also Reynolds, Son of Man, 166-67; Catrin H. Williams, I am He: The Interpretation of ‘Anî hû’ in Jewish and Early Christian Literature, WUNT 2/ 113 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 266-75; and the literature mentioned there. 105 So Craig A. Evans, Mark 8: 27-16: 20, WBC 34B (Nashville: Nelson, 2001), 450; William L. Lane, The Gospel of Mark, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974), 536; Rudolf Pesch, Kommentar zu Kap. 8,27-16,20, vol. 2 of Das Markusevangelium, HTKNT 2/ 2 (Freiburg: Herder, 3 1984), 437. But cf. Eckey, Markusevangelium, 475: “Die Identifikationsformel ist zugleich Offenbarungswort (6,50; 13,6; vgl. Ex 3,14).” 106 Cf. the literature cited regarding John 8: 58 in footnote 166 below. 107 Brown, John (i-xii), 347-48; Carson, John, 344; Keener, John, 1: 745; cf. also the discussion of several possibilities of interpretation of this notoriously difficult verse in Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 428. 108 Cf. as a parallel to John 8: 25 (as well as the whole passage of 8: 30-51) also Gosp. Thom. 43: “His disciples said to him, ‘Who are you to say this to us? ’ [Jesus said to them,] ‘Do you do not realize from what I say to you who I am? But you have become 212 The content of the next verse harks back to themes already mentioned earlier. According to John 8: 26a, Jesus is judge (cf. Matt 16: 27; Matt 25: 31- 32; 109 Mark 14: 62 pars.; cf. our comments on 8: 16a and 16b above) and in this role he has “many things to say” about his opponents. Although Jesus’ antagonists apparently comprised more than just a group of Pharisees, it seems that what he is only hinting at here is more explicitly spelled out in passages like Matt 23 pars. with its elaborate critique of Pharisaic religious practice (cf. also Matt 6: 1-18 et al.). In John 8: 26b (when seen in connection with the proposition to follow) Jesus further reminds his hearers that he is the “fully authorized representative of the one true judge.” 110 In Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22, Jesus somewhat similarly claims that “all things have been handed over to me by my Father” [0/ 1-level of closeness], which also hints at his given authority. Closely tied to this is the recurrent theme of Jesus being “sent” by the one who assigns this authority to him - a theme, as we have already observed, that is present in all four canonical Gospels (Matt 10: 40 pars.; Luke 10: 16). Finally, John 8: 26c spells out that as God’s envoy Jesus communicates what he hears his heavenly Father saying. Indeed, he is obligated to proclaim his Father’s message, since he had been sent for this purpose, a notion that is also present in Luke 4: 18 (“the Spirit of the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news”) and Luke 4: 43 (“I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom”) [0/ 1-level of closeness]. By now, Jesus’ hearers should know “that he was telling them about his Father” (John 8: 27; cf., e.g., 8: 14, 16, 19), but the evangelist informs his readers about the ongoing inability of the Jews to grasp the significance of what Jesus is saying. This prompts Jesus to affirm that there will be a time when the fundamental unity of himself and God, the Father, will be fully revealed. Then, there will be no doubt, says Jesus in John 8: 28c that “I do nothing on my own initiative, but I speak just what the Father taught me.” That Jesus does not follow his own agenda is a repeated theme in the Fourth Gospel and is clearly present in his teaching in the Synoptics as well (cf. our comments on 8: 26c and 8: 29 for more detailed information). Here in John 8: 28a, the pivotal time that Jesus points to is “when you lift up the Son of Man.” Clearly, the crucifixion is in view, and yet, on the background of Isa. 52: 13 (“Look, my servant will succeed! He will be elevated, lifted high, and greatly exalted;;” LXX u`ywqh,setai kai. doxasqh,setai ) it seems best to interpret the verb u`yo,w (cf. 3: 14) as having a double force and thus as referring to the literal lifting up of Jesus at the cross by which means he also is exalted to the right like the Jews: They love the tree, (but) they hate its fruit. Or they love the fruit, (but) they hate the tree.” (Plisch, The Gospel of Thomas, 115-16.) 109 This parallel is also mentioned by Reynolds, Son of Man, 174. 110 Lincoln, John, 268. 213 hand of the Father. 111 Thus, this second of the three Johannine sayings of the lifting up of the Son of Man is not only parallel to the synoptic passion predictions (Mark 9: 31; 10: 33 et al. [1/ 2-level of closeness]) 112 but also to the triple tradition’s reference to the exaltation of the ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou (Matt 19: 28 pars. [1/ 1-level of closeness]). Especially unique to this particular Johannine word of Jesus is the link between “the total act of Christ’s death and resurrection to glory” 113 and the subsequent realization of who Jesus actually is (“you will know”). Commentators are divided as to whether this anticipated knowledge should be interpreted in the realm of salvation or judgment. 114 In either case, such a connection between the lifting up and the revelation of Jesus’ divine identity is not explicitly drawn in the Synoptics. The claim to deity, however, expressed by the absolute use of evgw, eivmi in John 8: 28b is no idiosyncrasy of the Johannine Jesus and might well feature in the synoptic saying of Mark 14: 62 pars. as well [1/ 2-level of closeness; cf. the discussion of this passage in our comments on 8: 24 above and 8: 58 below and the literature cited there]. 115 Finally, in John 8: 29a and 8: 29b, this sequence ends with a further description of the close relationship between Jesus and the one who sent him. Jesus maintains that the Father “has not left me alone.” The exact same conviction, namely, that his Father is continually at his side, is implicit in Jesus’ question at Gethsemane: “Or do you think that I cannot call on my Father, and that he would send me more than twelve legions of angels right now? ” [0/ 2-level of closeness]. The reason for the Father not leaving the Son alone is that the Son always does “those things that please him.” Very similar in content are those synoptic statements that highlight the absolute dedication of Jesus to the will of the Father (Matt 26: 39, 42 pars., Matt 6: 10; Mark 3: 35 pars. [0/ 2- level of closeness]). At this point in John’s narrative, it comes with surprise that many of those who had previously misunderstood Jesus’ teaching now respond with faith (John 8: 30; also 2: 23, 7: 31, 10: 42, 11: 45). Yet, time would tell that 111 Beasley-Murray, John, 131; Brown, John (i-xii), 348; Lincoln, John, 269; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 431; cf. also Keener, John, 1: 745; Kirchschläger, Wahrheit, 144; Reynolds, Son of Man, 171-73 et al. 112 Cf. Beasley-Murray, John, 131, who states that the synoptic predictions of the Passion are “closely related to the Johannine lifting up sayings;;” also Brown, John (i-xii), 351; and Reynolds, Son of Man, 172n44. 113 Beasley-Murray, John, 131. 114 The former is strongly argued by Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 431-33; the latter by Brown, John (i-xii), 351; and Ernst Haenchen, John 7-21, vol. 2 of A Commentary on the Gospel of John, transl. Robert W. Funk, Hermeneia: A Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), 28; cf. also Reynolds, Son of Man, 168- 69. Beasley-Murray, John, 132, sees a possibility for both; so also Carson, John, 345; Schnackenburg, John, 2: 202-03. 115 Reference to Mark 14: 62 pars. as a parallel both to John 8: 24 and 8: 28 is made by Reynolds, Son of Man, 174. 214 the roots of this faith were not deep enough to continually adhere to the words of Jesus. The results of our comparison of John 8: 21-30 with the Synoptic Gospels reveals an extensive correspondence in terms of content. While the language of this second sequence is again mostly Johannine (with the exception of some individual words or phrases), most propositions correlate in content with Jesus’ teaching in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. The Johannine Jesus emphasizes that as God’s envoy, as the one sent from above, he accomplishes the will of the Father. Therefore, the eternal destiny of his hearers depends on their belief in him. He will leave the earthly scene by crucifixion but is in truth the judging Son of Man. All of these concepts have 0/ 2- or 1/ 2-level counterparts in the Synoptics, substantiated by a significant number of 0/ 1- or 1/ 1-level parallels. Again, we find only one proposition that lacks any noteworthy similarity with synoptic teaching. 4.2.4 Sequence 3: John 8: 31-38 (The Descendants of Abraham and the True Source of Freedom) [8: 31] e; legen ou=n o` VIhsou/ j pro.j tou.j pepisteuko,taj auvtw/ | VIoudai,ouj\ ev a.n u`mei/ j mei,nhte ev n tw/ | lo,gw| tw/ | ev mw/ |( avlhqw/ j maqhtai, mou, evste Then Jesus said to those Judeans who had believed him, “If you continue to follow my teaching, you are really my disciples [0/ 2] [0/ 2] [Matt 24: 13] o` de. u`pomei,naj eivj te,loj ou-toj swqh,setaiÅ But the person who endures to the end will be saved. [Luke 8: 8, 15 pars.] kai. e[ teron e; pesen eivj th.n gh/ n th.n avgaqh.n kai. fue. n ev poi, hsen karpo.n e` katontaplasi,onaÅ (…) to. de. ev n th/ | kalh/ | gh/ | ( ou-toi, eivsin oi[ tinej ev n kardi,a| kalh/ | kai. avgaqh/ | avkou,santej to.n lo,gon kate,cousin kai. karpoforou/ sin evn u`pomonh/ | Å But other seed fell on good soil and grew, and it produced a hundred times as much grain. (…) But as for the seed that landed on good soil, these are the ones who, after hearing the word, cling to it with an honest and good heart, and bear fruit with steadfast endurance. Cf. also the reciprocal statement in [Luke 14: 27]. [8: 32] kai. gnw,sesqe th.n avlh,qeian( kai. h` avlh,qeia ev leuqerw,sei u`ma/ jÅ and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” [0/ 2] [Matt 11: 29] a; rate to.n zugo,n mou ev fV u`ma/ j kai. ma,qete avpV ev mou/ ( o[ti prau<j eivmi kai. tapeino.j th/ | kardi,a|( kai. eu`rh,sete avna,pausin tai/ j yucai/ j u`mw/ n\ Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 215 [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Luke 4: 18] pneu/ ma kuri,ou ev pV ev me. ouei[neken e; crise,n me euvaggeli,sasqai ptwcoi/ j( avpe, stalke,n me( khru,xai aivcmalw,toij a; fesin kai. tufloi/ j avna,bleyin( avpostei/ lai teqrausme, nouj evn avfe,sei( (…) The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, (…) [Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48] Pa/ j ou=n o[stij avkou, ei mou tou.j lo,gouj tou,touj kai. poiei/ auvtou,j( o`moiwqh,setai avndri. froni,mw|( o[stij wv|kodo,mhsen auvtou/ th.n oiv ki,an ev pi. th.n pe, tran\ kai. kate,bh h` broch. kai. h=lqon oi` potamoi. kai. e; pneusan oi` a; nemoi kai. prose, pesan th/ | oiv ki,a| ev kei,nh|( kai. ouvk e; pesen( teqemeli,wto ga.r ev pi. th.n pe, tranÅ Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, but it did not collapse because it had been founded on rock. [8: 33] “We are descendants of Abraham,” they replied, “and have never been anyone's slaves! How can you say, ‘You will become free’? ” [Matt 3: 9 par. Luke 3: 8] (…) and don’t think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones! [8: 34] avpekri,qh auvtoi/ j o` VIhsou/ j\ avmh.n avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti pa/ j o` poiw/ n th.n a`marti,an dou/ lo,j evstin th/ j a`marti,ajÅ Jesus answered them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, everyone who practices sin is a slave of sin. On the introductory statement, see [Matt 6: 2; Mark 3: 28; Luke 4: 24] et al. 216 [0/ 1] [Matt 12: 33-35] "H poih,sate to. de,ndron kalo.n kai. to.n karpo.n auvtou/ kalo,n( h' poih,sate to. de, ndron sapro.n kai. to.n karpo.n auvtou/ sapro,n\ ev k ga.r tou/ karpou/ to. de,ndron ginw,sketaiÅ gennh,mata evcidnw/ n( pw/ j du,nasqe avgaqa. lalei/ n ponhroi. o; ntejÈ evk ga.r tou/ perisseu,matoj th/ j kardi,aj to. sto,ma lalei/ Å o` avgaqo.j a; nqrwpoj evk tou/ avgaqou/ qhsaurou/ ev kba,llei avgaqa,( kai. o` ponhro.j a; nqrwpoj evk tou/ ponhrou/ qhsaurou/ evkba,llei ponhra,Å Make a tree good and its fruit will be good, or make a tree bad and its fruit will be bad, for a tree is known by its fruit. Offspring of vipers! How are you able to say anything good, since you are evil? For the mouth speaks from what fills the heart. The good person brings good things out of his good treasury, and the evil person brings evil things out of his evil treasury. Cf. also [Matt 7: 17-18], as well as [Matt 13: 15]. For a synoptic example of enslavement, see [Luke 13: 16] and its reference to a “daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years.” [see below on John 8: 36] [8: 35a] o` de. dou/ loj ouv me, nei evn th/ | oiv ki,a| eivj to.n aivw/ na( The slave does not remain in the house forever, [0/ 1] [Matt 8: 11-12] le, gw de. u`mi/ n o[ti polloi. avpo. avnatolw/ n kai. dusmw/ n h[xousin kai. avnakliqh,sontai meta. VAbraa.m kai. VIsaa.k kai. VIakw.b ev n th/ | basilei,a| tw/ n ouvranw/ n( oi` de. ui`oi. th/ j basilei,aj evkblhqh,sontai eivj to. sko,toj to. ev xw,teron\ ev kei/ e; stai o` klauqmo.j kai. o` brugmo.j tw/ n ovdo,ntwnÅ I tell you, many will come from the east and west to share the banquet with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. [1/ 1] Cf. several synoptic parables where a slave “who does not remain in the house forever” is mentioned: [Matt 18: 23-35; 24: 45-51; 25: 14-30; o` dou/ loj ]; also Luke 16: 1-8. Cf. also the parable of the two sons in [Luke 15: 11-32; o` ui`o.j ] for a synoptic passage that corresponds well in terms of the general content of the whole Johannine saying in John 8: 35. 217 [8: 35b] o` ui`o.j me,nei eivj to.n aivw/ naÅ but the son remains forever. [0/ 1] [1/ 1] [Luke 15: 31] o` de. ei=pen auvtw/ |\ te,knon( su. pa,ntote metV ev mou/ ei=( kai. pa,nta ta. ev ma. sa, evstin\ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and everything that belongs to me is yours. [Matt 17: 26] e; fh auvtw/ | o` VIhsou/ j\ a; ra ge ev leu,qeroi, eivsin oi` ui` oi, Å Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are free.” [8: 36] ev a.n ou=n o` ui`o.j u`ma/ j ev leuqerw,sh|( o; ntwj ev leu,qeroi e; sesqeÅ So if the son sets you free, you will be really free. [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Luke 13: 16] tau,thn de. qugate, ra VAbraa.m ou=san( h]n e; dhsen o` satana/ j ivdou. de,ka kai. ovktw. e; th( ouvk e; dei luqh/ nai avpo. tou/ desmou/ tou,tou th/ | h`me, ra| tou/ sabba,touÈ Then shouldn't this woman, a daughter of Abraham [see above 8: 33] whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be released from this imprisonment on the Sabbath day? " [Matt 11: 29] a; rate to.n zugo,n mou ev fV u`ma/ j kai. ma,qete avpV ev mou/ ( o[ti prau<j eivmi kai. tapeino.j th/ | kardi,a|( kai. eu`rh,sete avna,pausin tai/ j yucai/ j u`mw/ n\ Take my yoke on you and learn from me, because I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Cf. several synoptic sayings in which Jesus declares himself to be the source of freedom through the forgiveness of sins: [Matt 9: 2, 6 pars.; Matt 26: 28; Luke 7: 47-48; 24: 47] [8: 37a] Oi=da o[ti spe, rma VAbraa,m ev ste\ I know that you are Abraham's descendants. [1/ 2] [1/ 1] [Luke 19: 9; also 13: 16] ei=pen de. pro.j auvto.n o` VIhsou/ j o[ti sh,meron swthri,a tw/ | oi; kw| tou,tw| ev ge, neto( kaqo,ti kai. auvto.j ui` o.j VAbraa,m evstin\ Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this household, because he too is a son of Abraham! ” [Matt 8: 11-12] le, gw de. u`mi/ n o[ti polloi. avpo. avnatolw/ n kai. dusmw/ n h[xousin kai. avnakliqh,sontai meta. VAbraa.m kai. VIsaa.k kai. VIakw.b ev n th/ | basilei,a| tw/ n ouvranw/ n( oi` de. ui`oi. th/ j basilei,aj evkblhqh,sontai eivj to. sko,toj to. ev xw,teron\ ev kei/ e; stai o` klauqmo.j kai. o` brugmo.j tw/ n ovdo,ntwnÅ I tell you, many will come from the east and west to share the banquet with Abra- 218 ham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the kingdom will be thrown out into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. [8: 37b] avlla. zhtei/ te, me avpoktei/ nai( But you want to kill me, [1/ 2] [Mark 9: 31 pars.] o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou paradi,dotai eivj cei/ raj avnqrw,pwn( kai. avpoktenou/ sin auvto,n( kai. avpoktanqei.j meta. trei/ j h`me, raj avnasth,setaiÅ The Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise. See also [Matt 21: 38-39]. [8: 37c] o[ti o` lo,goj o` ev mo.j ouv cwrei/ evn u`mi/ nÅ because my teaching makes no progress among you. [1/ 1] [Matt 19: 11] o` de. ei= pen auvtoi/ j\ ouv pa,ntej cwrou/ sin to.n lo,gon Îtou/ tonÐ avllV oi-j de, dotaiÅ He said to them, “Not everyone can accept this statement, except those to whom it has been given.” See also [Luke 9: 26]. [1/ 1] [Luke 8: 12 pars.] oi` de. para. th.n o`do,n eivsin oi` avkou,santej( ei=ta e; rcetai o` dia,boloj kai. ai; rei to.n lo,gon avpo. th/ j kardi,aj auvtw/ n( i[na mh. pisteu,santej swqw/ sinÅ Those along the path are the ones who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. [8: 38a] a] ev gw. e` w,raka para. tw/ | patri. lalw/ \ I am telling you the things I have seen while with the Father; [1/ 1] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] Pa,nta moi paredo,qh u`po. tou/ patro,j mou( kai. ouvdei.j evpiginw,skei to.n ui`o.n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate,ra tij evpiginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j kai. w-| eva.n bou,lhtai o` ui`o.j avpokalu,yaiÅ All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. [8: 38b] kai. u`mei/ j ou=n a] hvkou, sate para. tou/ patro.j poiei/ teÅ as for you, practice the things you have heard from the Father! ” [0/ 1] [Matt 6: 10] ev lqe, tw h` basilei,a sou\ genhqh,tw to. qe, lhma, sou( w`j evn ouvranw/ | kai. evpi. gh/ j\ may your kingdom come, may your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 219 [0/ 1] [Mark 3: 35] o]j Îga.rÐ a'n poih,sh| to. qe, lhma tou/ qeou/ ( ou-toj avdelfo,j mou kai. avdelfh. kai. mh,thr evsti,nÅ For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. Both parallels assume that “God, the Father” is the object of John 8: 38b. If Abraham is in view, cf. John 8: 39b. In the opening statement of this sequence Jesus addresses “those Judeans who had believed in him.” Despite several interpretations to the contrary, 116 the most natural view still seems to identify Jesus’ audience here with those believers mentioned at the end of the preceding section in John 8: 30. As this discourse develops, their faith is now exposed as inconsistent and inadequate, something that occurs elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel (6: 60 et al.). 117 The ultimate sign of true discipleship, according to John 8: 31, is a continuing adherence to Jesus’ teaching. The use of the verb me,nw is typically Johannine (cf. 15: 4-16 et al.), yet the requirement of persisting faith is part of the synoptic teaching tradition as well. According to Matt 24: 13, in order to be a true disciple and thus to be saved, a professing believer needs “to endure” in light of possible persecution and false prophets. As in John, this is to say that a disciple ought to “continue to follow” Jesus’ words and to continue to believe in the one true teacher [0/ 2-level of closeness; cf. also Luke 14: 27]. Another rather close conceptual parallel is provided by the synoptic parable of the sower in Luke 8: 8, 15 pars. with its perception of only temporary discipleship. This is contrasted with persons who show a continuing allegiance to the divine word they received. Using different language, faithful believers exhibit the same kind of perseverance that Jesus demands from his Jewish audience here in John 8 (“cling to it […] and bear fruit with steadfast endurance” [0/ 2-level of closeness]). 118 In John 8: 32, Jesus goes on to tell his hearers: “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Ongoing absorption of the truth that Jesus not only teaches but embodies will be the source of liberation. Though Matt 11: 29 says it differently, it shows the same general thrust [0/ 2-level of 116 E.g., Brown, John (i-xii), 354-55; and Lindars, Gospel of John, 323-24, who regard the words “who have believed in him” as a gloss that has been wrongly inserted at the beginning of a speech addressed to a crowd which is indeed hostile to Jesus. For an instructive overview of interpretations regarding this statement, see Beasley-Murray, John, 132-33; or Carson, John, 346-47. 117 Ibid., 347-48; Haenchen, John, 2: 28; Keener, John, 1: 747; Köstenberger, John, 261; Lincoln, John, 270; Smith, John, 185. 118 The parable of the sower as a parallel to John 8: 31 has been observed by Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 145; and Köstenberger, John, 261. 220 closeness]: the benefit of “learning” the truth from Jesus is not expressed in “freedom”-language, but quite similarly as a “rest for your soul.” Thus, it is fair to say that both in Matthew and in John Jesus teaches that genuine acceptance of the truth he himself reveals has a positive impact on one’s spiritual condition. The liberating and life-giving potential of Jesus’ teaching is likewise expressed in Luke 4: 18 and Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48 [0/ 1-levels of closeness]. The attendant Jews immediately deny that there is anything wrong with their current spiritual state (John 8: 33). Jesus’ insistence that it is his truth that sets people free seems to imply some sort of slavery on their part - a thought that they completely reject. They claim that as descendants of Abraham they “have never been anyone’s slaves” and thus there is no need for liberation. This particular presumption looms in the backdrop of Matt 3: 9 par. Luke 3: 8 as well, where John the Baptist reacts strongly against the Jewish leadership’s claim of having Abraham as their father. 119 He rather warns those over-confident people that “God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones.” Thus, both the Synoptics as well as the Fourth Gospel witness to a prideful Jewish claim to be descendants of Abraham. Jesus begins his answer with the emphatic introductory formula “Amen, amen, I say to you” (cf. John 3: 3, 5, 11; 6: 26, 32, 47, 53 and our comments there). He makes plain that the anticipatory freedom of 8: 32 indeed corresponds to a certain kind of slavery: “everyone who produces sin is a slave of sin.” Carson rightly notes: “Not only does the practice of sin prove that one is a slave to sin, but the practice of sin actively enslaves.” 120 What Jesus says here in John 8: 34 at least echoes his argument in Matt 12: 33-35 [0/ 1- level of closeness; cf. also Matt 7: 17-18; 13: 15]. If a person has an evil treasury (i.e., is intrinsically enslaved to sin), he will perform evil actions (i.e., practice sin). The same correspondence is visible in the other two analogies Jesus uses in Matthew’s Gospel. Just as a heart that is slavishly bound to evil inevitably forces the speech-organs to utter evil words, so can a tree deeply rooted in evil soil only produce evil fruit. In both instances, the Johannine principle of slavery to sin playing out in sinful action is pictured by the Synoptic Jesus in more concrete terms. Furthermore, Jesus’ charge here in John, that those in his audience are slaves of sin is similar to the Synoptic Jesus claiming that the people of Israel are indeed enslaved to Satan, a facet of Jesus’ teaching clearly brought into focus by N. T. 119 This Synoptic analogy is also perceived by Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 146; Brown, John (i-xii), 1: 362;; Dodd, “Behind a Johannine Dialogue,” 52;; Köstenberger, John, 262n55; Keener, John, 1: 748; Lindars, Gospel of John, 324-25; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 437 et al. 120 Carson, John, 350. 221 Wright. 121 In Luke 13: 16 Jesus refers to one “daughter of Abraham” who has been in bondage to Satan, which not only bluntly denies the Jewish claim of never having been anyone’s slave but is also a more personified description of the spiritual imprisonment to evil that Jesus observes among his listeners. So far, Jesus has implicitly assumed that while the Jews considered themselves as sons of the house of Abraham, they are in reality enslaved to sin. Now, in John 8: 35a and 8: 35b he contrasts the sons and the slaves by saying that “the slave does not remain in the house forever, but the son remains forever.” Quite similarly in Matt 8: 11-12, Jesus refers to those who see themselves as “the sons of the kingdom” and yet apparently do not actually belong to it. 122 Thus, they are treated as the slaves mentioned in John who do not remain; they are thrown out of the kingdom of which they falsely assumed to be a part [0/ 1-level of closeness]. It was C. H. Dodd who regarded this Johannine saying as a condensed parable that has counterparts among the synoptic parables. Several of those parables mention a doulo,j who “does not remain in the house forever”: the unforgiving slave who is to be sold for the repayment of debt (Matt 18: 23-35), the misbehaving evil slave (Matt 24: 45- 51), the worthless slave (Matt 25: 14-30) et al. [1/ 1-level of closeness]. 123 The closest example to the substance of the idea that “the son remains [in the house] forever” is the Lukan parable of the two sons where in Luke 15: 31 Jesus has the father say “Son, you are always with me, and everything that belongs to me is yours” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. This seems to reveal the natural rights and privileges of the son hinted at in our Johannine statement. The same may be said about Jesus’ words in Matt 17: 26 where Jesus says in the context of the question about the temple tax that “the sons [ oi` ui`oi, ] are free” [1/ 1-level of closeness]. On which Dodd comments: “The ‘moral’ seems to be that Jesus and his disciples, being sons of the heavenly king (…), possess in principle the freedom of the temple which is His oi=ko,j (…). [Matt 17: 26] suggest[s] that if we apply the figure of the son who has his inalienable place in the oivki,a to the relation established between men 121 Cf. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 446-67, esp. 460, and the synoptic passages mentioned there. It was Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 145, who has initially pointed to the correspondence between Wright’s exposition of the Synoptic Jesus to what we have here in John 8. 122 Cf. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2: 28; Carson, Matthew, 202; Joachim Gnilka, Kommentar zu Kap. 1,1-13,58, vol. 1 of Das Matthäusevangelium, HTKNT 1/ 1 (Freiburg: Herder, 1993), 304; also Keener, Matthew, 269, who explicitly states: “‘Sons of the kingdom’ (…) refers to Jewish people - those who expected salvation based on their descent from Abraham (…).” 123 Dodd, Historical Tradition, 382. 222 and their God, we shall move within the range of ideas associated with Synoptic parables.” 124 In John 8: 36, after having spoken about the freedom of sons in general, Jesus now refers to himself as the one unique Son of God who has both the power and the authority to set free those who are enslaved to sin: “So if the son sets you free, you will be really free.” We already pointed out above that this Johannine notion of liberation from slavery is paralleled in the Synoptics by Jesus’ claim to free people from the bondage to Satan (see on 8: 34 above). This is exemplified in Luke 13: 10-17 and culminates with Jesus’ rhetorical question: “Then shouldn’t this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be released from this imprisonment? ” [0/ 1- level of closeness]. The point Jesus is making in this Johannine discourse is mirrored in the life of this woman: a descendant of Abraham is in desperate need of liberation from the forces of evil and is set free through the intervention of the Son of God. Jesus’ pretension as the deliverer from slavery thus has a substantial parallel in his synoptic words and a powerful affirmation in the deeds accompanying them. A second passage in the Synoptics that has some conceptual similarity to Jesus’ acknowledgement to set people free is Matt 11: 29, a verse to which we already referred in our discussion of 8: 32. “To be really free” is equivalent to “finding rest for one’s soul” - and both are accessible in the person of Jesus. Most importantly, Jesus’ Johannine declaration to be the ultimate source of freedom is frequently expressed in the Synoptic Gospels in the more explicit terms of having the power to forgive sins and thus to break sin’s enslaving force (Matt 9: 2, 6 pars.: “Your sins are forgiven! ”; also Matt 26: 28; Luke 7: 47-48; 24: 47 [0/ 1-levels of closeness]). Jesus goes on to acknowledge in John 8: 37a that his hearers are, from a physical standpoint, “Abraham’s descendants.” He has made the same concession regarding Zacchaeus (“son of Abraham”) in Luke 19: 9 and the demon-possessed woman (“daughter of Abraham”) in Luke 13: 16 [with explicit reference to the paternity of VAbraa,m ; 1/ 2-level of closeness]. What still implicitly resonates, however, in light of the remainder of this verse (and the context of the discourse) is that while Jesus concedes to his audience their physical descent from Abraham, he makes it clear that this does not equal spiritual ancestry, something far more important. Such a notion, namely that mere physical descent is not enough to really belong to Abraham’s spiritual family is emphatically taken up in Matt 8: 11-12 [1/ 1-level of closeness; cf. 8: 35 above], where the “sons of the kingdom” (who should apparently belong to it by natural birth) are not allowed to take part in the eternal festivities with their forefathers (again including VAbraa,m ), obviously due to a lack of faith (Matt 8: 10). That Jesus, despite his affirmation of the 124 Ibid., 381-82. Cf. also Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2: 745 (also 748), who compare Matt 17: 26 to John 8: 33, 36. 223 Jews’ descent from Abraham, does not regard his listeners as true heirs of the Abrahamic lineage is underscored in John 8: 37b by his charge that they “want to kill him” (which indeed anticipates 8: 59 at the end of the discourse). Such open disclosure of his opponents’ inner intentions can be found with the Synoptic Jesus as well. All other three Gospels (Mark 9: 31 pars.; cf. Matt 16: 21 par. Mark 8: 31; Matt 21: 38-39 pars. et al.) report Jesus’ identical prediction that “they will kill him” [using the verb avpoktei,nw ; 1/ 2- level of closeness]. The reason for such a hostile reaction is clearly expressed in John 8: 37c. Jesus maintains that “my teaching [ o` lo,goj ] does not make progress [ ouv cwrei/ ] among you,” which is another way of saying that there is a lack of perception of and faithfulness to his words. In the Synoptics Jesus uses very similar words in Matt 19: 11, where he refers to his teaching about divorce and then says that “not everyone can accept this statement” ( ouv pa,ntej cwrou/ sin to.n lo,gon ). This parallel is addressed to the disciples, yet reveals that Jesus was aware of the possibility that not everybody would be willing and able to receive and follow his instruction [1/ 1-level of closeness; cf. also Luke 9: 26]. 125 The same negative process is illustrated in the parable of the sower in Luke 8: 12 pars. where though people hear the word, it is prevented from taking root and creating a firm belief [1/ 1-level of closeness; cf. 8: 31 above which reflects the positive results also mentioned in the same parable in Luke 8: 8, 15 pars.]. As the one sent by God, Jesus is teaching “the things I have seen while with the Father.” Thus, in John 8: 38a, he takes up in slightly different terms a motif already present in 8: 26 (“the things I have heard from him [i.e., the Father] I speak to the world”). While this portrayal of Jesus as revealer of the Father is semantically unparalleled in the Synoptics, it is again the Johannine sounding statement of Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 that shows at least some conceptual similarity [1/ 1-level of closeness]. Whereas in Matthew Jesus “knows the Father,” in John he is “with the Father.” Both formulations signify that through his relationship with the Father Jesus is uniquely qualified to tell people “the things I have seen” and “to reveal” the character of the one he knows so intimately. The remainder of the verse in John 8: 38b is rather ambiguous and thus difficult to interpret. Several manuscripts read the possessive pronouns “my” (38a) and “your” (38b) to qualify the two occurrences of the noun “father.” However, the textual evidence strongly supposes that the insertion of those possessive pronouns is a “scribal refinement” that takes this second line of the verse as a reference to the devil, the father of the Jews, as opposed to God, the Father. 126 If we thus regard these textual variants as secondary clarifications while, at the same time, taking seriously the progression of the discourse (according to which the “your father the devil”- 125 Luz, Matthew, 2: 500. 126 Metzger, Textual Commentary, 192. 224 theme is “in the air,” yet delayed until 8: 41) it seems more plausible not to interpret John 8: 38b as an indicative statement (like the one in 8: 41) but as an imperative command. 127 Then, we are left with two possible referents for the object of the sentence: either Jesus challenges them to do what they have heard from Abraham, whom they invoke as their father, 128 or Jesus calls them to obedience to God himself. 129 While the context does indeed allow for either one of those two identifications, the language seems deliberately veiled. 130 If Abraham is primarily in view, we have the same statement in more explicit form in 8: 39b (see comments there). If we are dealing with a demand to obey the heavenly Father, reference should be made to Matt 6: 10 and Mark 3: 35 [1/ 1-level of closeness]. There, the focus is likewise on the importance of doing the will of God, albeit in a somewhat more indirect way. As we review the evidence of this third sequence of the discourse in John 8, we again encounter significant correlations between Jesus’ Johannine teaching and the other three Gospels. Although semantic correspondence is limited to several isolated words or phrases, on a conceptual level the results reveal no significant dissimilarity between John and the Synoptics. Jesus’ words about the requirement of persisting in faith (8: 31), the importance to learn the truth from him (8: 32), Abrahamic descent (8: 37a; cf. 8: 33), and the eagerness of his opponents to kill him (8: 37b) all feature synoptic parallels of a 0/ 2- or 1/ 2-level kind. Other themes like the human enslavement to sin (8: 34, 35a), the perspective of liberation from this slavery through the Son (8: 35a, 36), as well as Jesus’ close relationship with the Father (8: 38a, 38b) find at least some conceptual echo in Matthew, Mark, or Luke [0/ 1- or 1/ 1-levels of closeness]. 127 Ibid. Cf. also the NET Bible translation used in this study, which is based on an independent text-critical decision as exposed in the New English Translation/ Novum Testamentum Graece: New Testament (Diglot Edition) (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004), 841. Among the scholars who read John 8: 38b as an indicative statement referring to “your father, the devil” are Beasley-Murray, John, 126; Schnackenburg, John, 2: 210-11 (both still regarding the possessive pronouns as secondary); and Carson, John, 351 (assessing the evidence for the omission of the pronouns as not compelling). 128 So, e.g., Lincoln, John, 271. 129 So, e.g., Brown, John (i-xii), 356; Metzger, Textual Commentary, 192. 130 Beasley-Murray, John, 134; also Haenchen, John 7-21, 28. 225 4.2.5 Sequence 4: John 8: 39-47 (The Descendants of Abraham as Children of the Devil) [8: 39a] They answered him, “Abraham is our father! ” [Matt 3: 9 par. Luke 3: 8] [John the Baptist: ] (…) and don’t think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that God can raise up children for Abraham from these stones! [8: 39b] le, gei auvtoi/ j o` VIhsou/ j\ eiv te,kna tou/ VAbraa,m ev ste( ta. e; rga tou/ VAbraa.m ev poiei/ te\ Jesus replied, “If you are Abraham's children, you would be doing the deeds of Abraham. [1/ 1] [Matt 5: 16] ou[twj lamya,tw to. fw/ j u`mw/ n e; mprosqen tw/ n avnqrw,pwn( o[pwj i; dwsin u`mw/ n ta. kala. e; rga kai. doxa,swsin to.n pate, ra u`mw/ n to.n ev n toi/ j ouvranoi/ jÅ In the same way, let your light shine before people, so that they can see your good deeds and give honor to your Father in heaven. [1/ 1] [Matt 23: 3] pa,nta ou=n o[sa eva.n ei; pwsin u`mi/ n poih,sate kai. threi/ te( kata. de. ta. e; rga auvtw/ n mh. poiei/ te\ le, gousin ga.r kai. ouv poiou/ sinÅ Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they teach. Cf. also [Matt 3: 8-9], where John the Baptist addresses the Jews by saying: “Therefore produce fruit that proves your repentance, and don’t think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’” [8: 40a] nu/ n de. zhtei/ te, me avpoktei/ nai But now you are trying to kill me, [8: 40b] a; nqrwpon o]j th.n avlh,qeian u`mi/ n lela,lhka h]n h; kousa para. tou/ qeou/ \ a man who has told you the truth I heard from God. [1/ 2] [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Mark 9: 31 pars.] o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou paradi,dotai eivj cei/ raj avnqrw,pwn( kai. avpoktenou/ sin auvto,n( kai. avpoktanqei.j meta. trei/ j h`me, raj avnasth,setaiÅ The Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise. See above on 8: 26b: [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] [Luke 4: 43] o` de. ei=pen pro.j auvtou.j o[ti kai. tai/ j e`te,raij po,lesin euvaggeli,sasqai, me dei/ th.n basilei,an tou/ qeou/ ( o[ti ev pi. tou/ to avpesta,lhnÅ But Jesus said to them, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to 226 the other towns too, for that is what I was sent to do.” See also [Matt 22: 16 pars.], where the Pharisees maintain - in an attempt to trap Jesus - that he teaches “the way of God in accordance with the truth.” [8: 40c] tou/ to VAbraa.m ouvk ev poi, hsenÅ Abraham did not do this! [0/ 0] Yet, cf. again [Matt 3: 8-9]. [8: 41a] u`mei/ j poiei/ te ta. e; rga tou/ patro.j u`mw/ nÅ You people are doing the deeds of your father.” [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 23: 3, 15, 31] pa,nta ou=n o[sa eva.n ei; pwsin u`mi/ n poih,sate kai. threi/ te( kata. de. ta. e; rga auvtw/ n mh. poiei/ te\ le, gousin ga.r kai. ouv poiou/ sinÅ (…) Ouvai. u`mi/ n( grammatei/ j kai. Farisai/ oi u`pokritai,( o[ti peria,gete th.n qa,lassan kai. th.n xhra.n poih/ sai e[ na prosh,luton( kai. o[tan ge, nhtai poiei/ te auvto.n ui`o.n gee,nnhj diplo,teron u`mw/ nÅ (…) w[ste marturei/ te e` autoi/ j o[ti ui`oi, ev ste tw/ n foneusa,ntwn tou.j profh,tajÅ Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they teach. (…)Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You cross land and sea to make one convert, and when you get one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves! (…) By saying this you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. [Matt 13: 38] o` de. avgro,j ev stin o` ko,smoj( to. de. kalo.n spe, rma ou-toi, eivsin oi` ui`oi. th/ j basilei,aj\ ta. de. ziza,nia, eivsin oi` ui`oi. tou/ ponhrou/ ( (…) The field is the world and the good seed are the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one, (…) [Luke 16: 8] kai. ev ph,| nesen o` ku,rioj to.n oiv kono,mon th/ j avdiki,aj o[ti froni,mwj ev poi, hsen\ o[ti oi` ui` oi. tou/ aivw/ noj tou,tou fronimw,teroi u`pe. r tou.j ui`ou.j tou/ fwto.j eivj th.n genea.n th.n e`autw/ n eivsinÅ The master commended the dishonest manager because he acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their contemporaries than the people of light. 227 [8: 41b] Then they said to Jesus, “We were not born as a result of immorality! We have only one Father, God himself.” Cf. the objections in John 8: 33 and 8: 39a. [8: 42a] ei=pen auvtoi/ j o` VIhsou/ j\ eiv o` qeo.j path.r u`mw/ n h=n hvgapa/ te a'n evme, ( Jesus replied, “If God were your Father, you would love me, [1/ 1] [Luke 6: 35 par. Matt 5: 44-45] plh.n avgapa/ te tou.j evcqrou.j u`mw/ n kai. avgaqopoiei/ te kai. dani,zete mhde. n avpelpi,zontej\ kai. e; stai o` misqo.j u`mw/ n polu,j( kai. e; sesqe ui`oi. u`yi,stou( o[ti auvto.j crhsto,j ev stin ev pi. tou.j avcari,stouj kai. ponhrou,jÅ But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to ungrateful and evil people. See also the analogous elements in [Matt 5: 16; 10: 32-33; 12: 50 pars.]. [8: 42b] ev gw. ga.r ev k tou/ qeou/ ev xh/ lqon kai. h[kw\ for I have come from God and am now here. [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 5: 17] Mh. nomi,shte o[ti h=lqon katalu/ sai to.n no,mon h' tou.j profh,taj\ ouvk h=lqon katalu/ sai avlla. plhrw/ saiÅ Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish these things but to fulfill them. [Luke 12: 51 par. Matt 10: 34] dokei/ te o[ti eivrh,nhn paregeno,mhn dou/ nai ev n th/ | gh/ | È ouvci,( le, gw u`mi/ n( avllV h' diamerismo,nÅ Do you think I have come to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! See also [Matt 10: 35; Mark 2: 17; also Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] et al. [8: 42c] ouvde. ga.r avpV ev mautou/ ev lh,luqa( avllV ev kei/ no,j me avpe,steilenÅ I have not come on my own initiative, but he sent me. [1/ 2] [Matt 10: 40 pars.] (…) o` evme. deco,menoj de,cetai to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ (…) whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. See also [Matt 21: 37 par. Mark 9: 37] For parallels on the concept of Jesus’ unity and harmony with the will of the Father, see above our comments on 8: 26c, 8: 28c and 8: 29. 228 131 On the text-critical issue in this verse, see our remark in chapter 3 footnote 31. [8: 43] dia. ti, th.n lalia.n th.n ev mh.n ouv ginw,sketeÈ o[ti ouv du,nasqe avkou,ein to.n lo,gon to.n evmo,nÅ Why don't you understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear my teaching. [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 19: 11] o` de. ei=pen auvtoi/ j\ ouv pa,ntej cwrou/ sin to.n lo,gon Îtou/ tonÐ avllV oi-j de,dotaiÅ He said to them, “Not everyone can accept this statement, except those to whom it has been given.” [Luke 8: 12-13 pars.] oi` de. para. th.n o`do,n eivsin oi` avkou, santej( ei=ta e; rcetai o` dia,boloj kai. ai; rei to.n lo,gon avpo. th/ j kardi,aj auvtw/ n( i[na mh. pisteu,santej swqw/ sinÅ oi` de. ev pi. th/ j pe,traj oi] o[tan avkou, swsin meta. cara/ j de, contai to.n lo,gon( kai. ou-toi r`i, zan ouvk e; cousin( oi] pro.j kairo.n pisteu,ousin kai. ev n kairw/ | peirasmou/ avfi,stantaiÅ Those along the path are the ones who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. Those on the rock are the ones who receive the word with joy when they hear it, but they have no root. They believe for a while, but in the time of testing they fall away. [Matt 15: 14] 131 a; fete auvtou,j\ tufloi, eivsin o`dhgoi, Îtuflw/ nÐ\ tuflo.j de. tuflo.n ev a.n o`dhgh/ | ( avmfo,teroi eivj bo,qunon pesou/ ntaiÅ Leave them! They are blind guides. If someone who is blind leads another who is blind, both will fall into a pit. [8: 44a] u`mei/ j ev k tou/ patro.j tou/ diabo,lou evste. You people are from your father the devil, [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 13: 38-39a] o` de. avgro,j ev stin o` ko,smoj( to. de. kalo.n spe, rma ou-toi, eivsin oi` ui`oi. th/ j basilei,aj\ ta. de. ziza,nia, eivsin oi` ui`oi. tou/ ponhrou/ o` de. ev cqro.j o` spei,raj auvta, evstin o` dia,boloj (…) The field is the world and the good seed are the people of the kingdom. The weeds are the people of the evil one and the enemy who sows them is the devil. [Luke 16: 8] kai. ev ph,| nesen o` ku,rioj to.n oiv kono,mon th/ j avdiki,aj o[ti froni,mwj ev poi, hsen\ o[ti oi` ui` oi. tou/ aivw/ noj tou,tou fronimw,teroi u`pe. r tou.j ui`ou.j tou/ fwto.j eivj th.n genea.n th.n e`autw/ n eivsinÅ The master commended the dishonest manager because he acted shrewdly. For the people of this world are more shrewd 229 in dealing with their contemporaries than the people of light. [8: 44b] kai. ta.j ev piqumi,aj tou/ patro.j u`mw/ n qe, lete poiei/ nÅ and you want to do what your father desires. [1/ 1] [Matt 23: 3, 15] pa,nta ou=n o[sa eva.n ei; pwsin u`mi/ n poih,sate kai. threi/ te( kata. de. ta. e; rga auvtw/ n mh. poiei/ te\ le, gousin ga.r kai. ouv poiou/ sinÅ (…) - Ouvai. u`mi/ n( grammatei/ j kai. Farisai/ oi u`pokritai,( o[ti peria,gete th.n qa,lassan kai. th.n xhra.n poih/ sai e[ na prosh,luton( kai. o[tan ge, nhtai poiei/ te auvto.n ui` o.n gee,nnhj diplo,teron u`mw/ nÅ Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they teach. (…) Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! You cross land and sea to make one convert, and when you get one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves! [8: 44c] ev kei/ noj avnqrwpokto,noj h=n avpV avrch/ j kai. ev n th/ | avlhqei, a| ouvk e; sthken( o[ti ouvk e; stin avlh,qeia ev n auvtw/ |Å o[tan lalh/ | to. yeu/ doj( evk tw/ n ivdi,wn lalei/ ( o[ti yeu,sthj ev sti.n kai. o` path.r auvtou/ Å He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not uphold the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, because he is a liar and the father of lies. [0/ 1] [Luke 8: 12 pars.] oi` de. para. th.n o`do,n eivsin oi` avkou,santej( ei=ta e; rcetai o` dia,boloj kai. ai; rei to.n lo,gon avpo. th/ j kardi,aj auvtw/ n( i[na mh. pisteu,santej swqw/ sinÅ Those along the path are the ones who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. Cf. [Matt 23: 13, 25-28, 31]. [8: 45] ev gw. de. o[ti th.n avlh,qeian le, gw( ouv pisteu,ete, moiÅ But because I am telling you the truth, you do not believe me. [1/ 1] [1/ 2] [Luke 8: 12 pars.] oi` de. para. th.n o`do,n eivsin oi` avkou,santej( ei=ta e; rcetai o` dia,boloj kai. ai; rei to.n lo,gon avpo. th/ j kardi,aj auvtw/ n( i[na mh. pisteu,santej swqw/ sinÅ Those along the path are the ones who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. [Luke 22: 67] le, gontej\ eiv su. ei= o` cristo,j( eivpo.n h`mi/ nÅ ei=pen de. auvtoi/ j\ eva.n u`mi/ n ei; pw( ouv mh. pisteu,shte\ (…) and said, “If you are the Christ, tell us.” 230 Whatever the exact reference of the veiled statement in John 8: 38, Jesus’ interlocutors continue to claim that Abraham is their true Father (John 8: 39a; cf. also 8: 33 and again the synoptic parallel in Matt 3: 9 par. Luke 3: 8). Yet, in John 8: 39b Jesus insists that this assertion is negated by their behavior. Their true spiritual descent should be authenticated by “doing the deeds of Abraham.” This might either generally refer to the Jewish veneration of Abraham as a model of righteousness or more specifically to Abraham’s hospitality in receiving divine messengers (Gen 18: 3-8), which contrasts starkly with the Jews’ wish to kill Jesus (8: 37b, 40a). 132 The synoptic teaching of Jesus does not include any kind of specific allusion to an imitation of 132 Keener, John, 1: 758 (with rather extensive references to Jewish sources regarding the “righteous deeds of Abraham”); cf. also Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 146; Lincoln, John, 271. But he said to them, “If I tell you, you will not believe, (…) [8: 46a] ti,j evx u`mw/ n ev le, gcei me peri. a`marti,ajÈ Who among you can prove me guilty of any sin? [8: 46b] eiv avlh,qeian le, gw( dia. ti, u`mei/ j ouv pisteu,ete, moiÈ If I am telling you the truth, why don’t you believe me? [0/ 0] [1/ 1] [1/ 2] Yet, see [Mark 3: 35 pars.]: “For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother,” or [Matt 26: 39]: “Yet not what I will, but what you will” as possible parallels. See also the synoptic references to Jesus’ innocence in [Matt 27: 4, 19; Luke 23: 4, 14, 47]. See above on 8: 45: [Luke 8: 12 pars.; Luke 22: 67] [8: 47] o` w'n ev k tou/ qeou/ ta. r`h, mata tou/ qeou/ avkou, ei\ dia. tou/ to u`mei/ j ouvk avkou, ete( o[ti ev k tou/ qeou/ ouvk ev ste,Å The one who belongs to God listens [and responds] to God's words. You don't listen [and respond], because you don't belong to God.” [1/ 1] [Luke 8: 12 pars.] oi` de. para. th.n o`do,n eivsin oi` avkou, santej( ei=ta e; rcetai o` dia,boloj kai. ai; rei to.n lo,gon avpo. th/ j kardi,aj auvtw/ n( i[na mh. pisteu,santej swqw/ sinÅ Those along the path are the ones who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved. Cf. also Matt 13: 38-39a. 231 the deeds of Abraham. But the pattern of thought according to which one’s spiritual status should be mirrored by the production of commensurate deeds is inherent in Matt 5: 16 (“let your light shine before people, so that they can see your good deeds [ ta. e; rga ]”) and even more clearly in Matt 23: 3 (cf. on 8: 41a, 44b), where Jesus criticizes the scribes and Pharisees since their teaching and practice do not match up [1/ 1-levels of closeness]: “Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it. But do not do what they do [ poie,w ta. e; rga ], for they do not practice what they teach.” To this may be added the statement of Jesus’ precursor, John the Baptist in Matt 3: 8-9, who maintains that the Jewish claim, “we have Abraham as our father” necessarily needs to be proven by the production of (moral and ethical) “fruit.” Now Jesus more explicitly indicates that his listeners differ from Abraham in that they are trying to kill him (John 8: 40a), although he acts and speaks as a divine messenger (John 8: 40b). As in John 8: 37b, Jesus’ reference to the Jewish plot against him is closely paralleled by the triple tradition’s prediction that “they will kill him” (Mark 9: 31 pars.; cf. Matt 16: 21 par. Mark 8: 31; Matt 21: 38-39 pars. et al.; using the verb avpoktei,nw [1/ 2-level of closeness]). The self-identification of Jesus as “a man who has told you the truth I heard from God” once again repeats the theme of his unique role in revealing divine truth (cf. 8: 26). The Synoptics contain a conceptually similar notion. In Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22, which we again recall as the most “Johannine” of all synoptic sayings, Jesus insists that he is the only one who truly “knows the Father” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. He has unmatched access to the fullness of divine wisdom and is thus exceptionally equipped “to reveal” God’s truth. Moreover, in Luke 4: 43 Jesus tells us that he “must proclaim the good news” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. What is stated as a simple description of his ministry in John is more specifically expressed as the purpose of his mission in Luke: Jesus “was sent” to be a messenger of what he has heard while being with God, a message which is “truth” (John) and “good news” (Luke) at the same time. Finally, the charge that the behavior of his listeners is diametrically opposed to Abraham’s is summarized by Jesus’ statement that “Abraham did not do this! ” (John 8: 40c). With no similar proposition in the Synoptics [0/ 0-level of closeness], we may only point to Matt 3: 8-9 again (cf. 8: 39b), where we find in the statement of John the Baptist at least reminiscences of deeds done in accordance with father Abraham. In John 8: 41a Jesus now furthers the argument that his antagonists wrongly invoke Abraham as their father. Their growing objection against Jesus shows that their father must indeed be someone else: “You people are doing the deeds of your father” “continues the innuendo without yet making explicit the equation: Jesus’ opponents’ father = the devil.” 133 This finds some semantic as well as conceptual resemblance in Matt 23 [1/ 1-level of 133 Köstenberger, John, 265. 232 closeness; cf. Luke 11: 48], where in his woes against the Pharisees Jesus rebukes them for not practicing the righteous deeds ( poie,w ta. e; rga ) that they teach. Rather, Jesus argues in this synoptic passage that the behavior of the religious teachers cannot conceal the fact that each one has to be considered as “a son of hell.” The reference to the impersonal “hell” as their place of belonging assumes the paternity of the devil and thus reveals, in principle, an identification of Jesus’ opponents that is only implicitly stated in our Johannine proposition but will be more explicitly expressed later in the discourse (cf. 8: 44). Both in John and in the Synoptics, Jesus could blatantly pronounce that members of the Jewish public have their familial roots in an anti-godly sphere and ancestry. Note that beyond that the Synoptic Jesus resembles the Johannine perspective in making reference to “the people of the evil one” (Matt 13: 38) or “the people of this world” (Luke 16: 8 [0/ 1-levels of closeness]; cf. also Matt 12: 45 par. Luke 11: 29). It comes as no surprise that the Jews protest against Jesus’ denial of their Abrahamic ancestry (John 8: 41b). They had apparently grasped that by now Jesus was talking about spiritual descent, thus sparking their claim that they “were not born as a result of immorality,” but that they “have only one Father, God himself.” With this, they seem to say that they are no children of fornication in the metaphorical sense of being unfaithful idolaters but they insist to be faithful worshipers of the one true God. 134 Such claim is immediately rejected in John 8: 42a: “If God were your Father,” says Jesus, “you would love me.” On a different level, yet similar in actual content, Jesus pronounces in Luke 6: 35 par. Matt 5: 44-45 [1/ 1-level of closeness] that love even towards one’s enemies (as in John expressed by the verb avgapa,w ) is a core characteristic of those that are considered “sons of the Most High.” In John 8: 42b and 8: 42c Jesus continues to argue that the Jews ought to love him, since he is not even their enemy, but the one “come from God” and “sent” by him. Although in the Synoptics Jesus does not explicitly point out that he has come “from God,” we have several “I have come”-statements [0/ 1-, or 1/ 1-levels of closeness; only sometimes concurrent use of e; rcomai ] that highlight the fact of Jesus’ preexistence and his authoritative coming into the world as God’s envoy (cf. Matt 5: 17;; Luke 12: 51 par. Matt 10: 34; Mark 2: 17 et al.). 135 Together with sayings of the triple tradition like Matt 10: 40 pars. [1/ 2-level of closeness; cf. also Matt 21: 37 par. Mark 9: 37] with 134 Cf. Beasley-Murray, John, 135; Lincoln, John, 272; Lindars, Gospel of John, 328; Schnackenburg, John, 2: 211-12; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 440 et al. That this is a polemic against Jesus in light of the “rumors about his own birth” (so as a possibility Brown, John (i-xii), 357; Carson, John, 352; Köstenberger, John, 265; Smith, John, 186 et al.) is probably not the most likely interpretation since at this point the Jews seem to be more concerned to defend their own spiritual stance than to attack Jesus’ dubious human parentage. 135 For a more detailed treatment of these synoptic “I have come”-statements, see again Gathercole, The Preexistent Son, 148-89. 233 their clear identification of Jesus as “the one sent by God,” this creates a clear picture of divine origin that is in close correspondence with Jesus’ self-reference here in John. In John 8: 43 Jesus answers his own rhetorical question as to the reason why the Jews do not understand his message: “It is because you cannot hear my teaching,” i.e., comprehend and accept it with faith. 136 As with John 8: 37c above, we may cite Matt 19: 11 as a possible synoptic parallel, where, after a discussion with the Pharisees on the issue of divorce, Jesus teaches his disciples that “not everyone can accept this statement” [1/ 1-level of closeness; concurrent use of the noun o` lo,goj ]. This confirms that even in the Synoptic Gospels Jesus is aware that not everybody is able to truly receive what he has to say. Some conceptual similarity is also visible in Jesus’ parabolic teaching on the sower in Luke 8: 12-13 pars. [1/ 1-level of closeness]. The seed is sown, the word ( o` lo,goj ) is heard ( avkou,ein ), yet, as in our Johannine discourse, it is not “effective hearing” and does not lead to a response of lasting faith and personal acceptance of the divine message. Further, if we assume that Jesus’ antagonists still included a group of Pharisees (cf. 8: 13), it is not overly surprising that the Synoptics contain a similar accusation of spiritual ignorance. Although the charge against the Pharisees of being “blind guides” in Matt 15: 14 represents a different point of comparison (one of “not seeing” as opposed to “not hearing” in John), the underlying conceptual core of the proposition is alike: Jesus rebukes their lack of perception and refusal to follow his teaching [0/ 1-level of closeness]. 137 John 8: 44a and 8: 44b now finally addresses the ultimate reason for the rejection of Jesus. The inability to hear and respond to Jesus’ message appropriately is caused by the crowds’ intimate relationship not with God, but with the devil: “You people are from your father the devil, and you want to do what your father desires.” For the first time in the discourse Jesus explicitly names the “father” of his antagonists. Yet, his accusation is ethical rather than ontological;; having the devil as one’s father is tantamount to following his ethical agenda. 138 Jesus’ reference to his opponent’s paternity is not 136 Beasley-Murray, John, 135 et al. 137 In addition, the NA 27 margin mentions Matt 12: 34 as a synoptic parallel. 138 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 147; following Stephen Motyer, Your Father the Devil? A New Approach to John and the ‘Jews,’ Paternoster Biblical and Theological Monographs (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997), 185-99. Lincoln, John, 273, rightly notes: “The dualism of this Gospel’s rhetoric in which ‘the Jews’ are associated with this world, below, the flesh or the devil, (…) should not be read as an ontological dualism, referring to a person’s essential nature or the origin of his or her being. Instead, this dualism is an epistemological and ethical one (cf. 1.10-12; 3.19-20).” Similarly, Hendrik Hoet, “‘Abraham is our Father’ (John 8: 39): The Gospel of John and Jewish- Christian Dialogue,” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel, ed. R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, Jewish and Christian Heritage Series 1 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 2001), 197-98. Cf. also Carson, John, 353; Keener, John, 1: 762; and the similar emphasis in Brown, John (i-xii), 364; and Schnackenburg, John, 2: 213-14. 234 uniquely Johannine (cf. also 8: 41a) but shows some correspondence in content to his statement in the explanation of the parable of the weeds in Matt 13: 38-39a, namely, that “the weeds are the people of the evil one” sown by “the enemy, who (…) is the devil” [1/ 1-level of closeness; both John and the Synoptics use the word dia,boloj ; cf. also Luke 16: 8]. Another similar kind of drastic identification may also be found in the (now repeatedly mentioned) woes over the teachers of Israel in Matt 23: 3, 15. Here, Jesus calls the hypocritical Pharisee a “son of hell,” who accordingly does not practice ( poie,w ) the truth he teaches but rather acts (as we ought to imply and as is more explicitly expressed in John) in conformity with the desires of his devilish ancestry [1/ 1-level of closeness]. 139 In John 8: 44c typically Johannine terms are used to expose the desires of the devil by characterizing him as “a murderer,” as one who “does not uphold the truth,” and who by nature is “the father of lies.” This corresponds with the desire of the crowd to kill Jesus (cf. 8: 37, 40) and their obvious abandonment of the truth Jesus reveals (cf. 8: 37, 43). The Synoptics do not contain such a compressed description of the devil. The two characteristic traits of him being a “life-taker” (cf. Mark 9: 22 par. Matt 17: 15) and an adversary of truth, however, are addressed in different terms in the parable of the sower. In Luke 8: 12 pars. the devil is said to “take away the word (…) so that they may not believe and be saved” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. The removal of the divine word of truth that was sown into the hearts of people robs them of the prospect of eternal life in the kingdom. As John 8: 44b accused the Jewish hearers of sharing in the evil desires of the devil, we may also note as parallels Jesus’ mentioning of the Pharisees’ work of hindering people from entering the kingdom (Matt 23: 13), their being descendants of murderers (Matt 23: 31), and their opposition to truthfulness (Matt 23: 25-28). This part of the parable of the sower also parallels the rest of this Johannine sequence in John 8: 45, 8: 46b and 8: 47 [1/ 1-level of closeness] This distinction between an ontological and ethical dualism has been frequently overlooked or explicitly denied by those scholars who regard John 8: 44 as the most anti- Jewish statement in the New Testament; e.g., Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 223-27; also Peter J. Tomson, ‘If this be from Heaven …’: Jesus and the New Testament Authors in their Relationship to Judaism, The Biblical Seminar 76 (Sheffield: Academic Press, 2001), 401, who states that “the Gospel [in John 8: 44] leads up to this by diabolizing the Jews. Put provocatively, John 8 is the classical starting point for Christian hatred for the Jews.” [italics his] More literature to this effect is listed in Kierspel, The Jews, 8n24; cf. also the discussion in Theobald, Johannes, 607-10. The anti-Jewish stance of John 8: 44 is further denied by Urban C. von Wahlde, “‘You are of Your Father the Devil’ in its Context: Stereotyped Apocalyptic Polemic in John 8: 38-47,” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel, ed. R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, Jewish and Christian Heritage Series 1 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 2001), 418-44. 139 Both parallels of John 8: 44a are mentioned by Brown, John (i-xii), 364, who comments accordingly: “If the statement that John reports to this effect seems harsh, similar statements were attributed to Jesus in the Synoptic tradition.” 235 where Jesus once again zeroes in on the Jews’ failure to believe in the truth he is teaching. Craig Blomberg rightly notes that it is on such occasions that the Synoptic Jesus attributes such behavior to the devil’s temptations. 140 The Johannine Jesus makes unmistakably clear that the reason why his interlocutors do not “believe” (8: 45, 46b) or “listen” (i.e., respond; 8: 47) to his message is “because” he is “telling the truth.” Since they “don’t belong to God” (8: 47) but have a different spiritual paternity, their negative response to Jesus is wholly natural. 141 The essence of such an assessment is again resembled in Jesus’ parabolic teaching in the Synoptics (such as Luke 8: 12 pars.) where the devil has the ability to influence some who have been told the word of truth (“the ones who have heard”) and to prevent a positive response of faith. Closely similar in content with even some significant semantic overlap ( le,gw , piste,uw ) is Jesus’ answer to the chief priests and experts in the law in Luke 22: 67 about him being the Christ [1/ 2-level of closeness]: “If I tell you, you will not believe (…).” 142 Jesus rhetorical question “Who among you can prove me guilty of any sin? ” in John 8: 46a lacks a clear synoptic counterpart and has thus been classified with a 0/ 0-level of closeness. Yet, we may observe that Jesus has already argued the content of this question in more positive terms in 8: 29: “I always do those things that please him [i.e., God, the Father].” This inclines us to adduce statements where Jesus affirms that he does the will of the Father (like Mark 3: 35 pars.; Matt 26: 39 et al.) as at least possible parallels, even though he is not presented in the Synoptics as explicitly affirming that this is necessarily always the case. In addition, the innocence of Jesus is repeatedly mentioned in the Synoptics, e.g., in Matt 27: 4, 19; Luke 23: 4, 14, 47. This fourth sequence of the discourse contains two propositions (8: 40c, 8: 46a) that do not correlate with the other three Gospels; none of the two, however, stands in contradiction to synoptic content. Again, the overall language of the Johannine Jesus is without parallel except for some significant semantic markers that may be observed in the Synoptics as well. On the other hand, three thematic elements of this part of the discourse are closely related to the Synoptic Gospels (1/ 2-level of closeness), namely the intention to kill Jesus (8: 40a), the fact that Jesus had been sent by the Father (8: 42c), and the lack of belief among Jesus’ audience (8: 45, cf. also 8: 43). The remaining propositions do not exhibit such close conceptual similarity. Yet, concepts like Jesus telling the truth he heard from God (8: 40b; 8: 45; 8: 46b), and the accusation of the Jewish hearers of not belonging to God but being children of the devil (8: 41a; 8: 42; 8: 44a-c; 8: 47) both feature 1/ 1- or 0/ 1-types of closeness. Thus, it is fair to say that the essential content of this sequence is not 140 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 147-48. 141 Köstenberger, John, 267; Morris, John, 412; Ridderbos, John, 316. 142 Cf. also the NA 27 margin for this parallel. 236 idiosyncratic to John but correlates significantly with the synoptic portrait of Jesus. 4.2.6 Sequence 5: John 8: 48-59 (The Descendants of Abraham and the Superiority of Jesus) [8: 48] The Judeans replied, “Aren’t we correct in saying that you are a Samaritan and are possessed by a demon? ” [Mark 3: 22 pars.] The experts in the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and, “By the ruler of demons he casts out demons.” [8: 49a] avpekri,qh VIhsou/ j\ ev gw. daimo,nion ouvk e; cw( Jesus answered, “I am not possessed by a demon, [1/ 2] [Matt 12: 25-28] pa/ sa basilei,a merisqei/ sa kaqV e` auth/ j ev rhmou/ tai kai. pa/ sa po,lij h' oiv ki,a merisqei/ sa kaqV e` auth/ j ouv staqh,setaiÅ kai. eiv o` satana/ j to.n satana/ n evkba,llei( evfV e` auto.n evmeri,sqh\ pw/ j ou=n staqh,setai h` basilei,a auvtou/ È kai. eiv ev gw. ev n Beelzebou. l ev kba,llw ta. daimo,nia( oi` ui`oi. u`mw/ n ev n ti,ni ev kba,llousinÈ (…) eiv de. ev n pneu,mati qeou/ ev gw. ev kba,llw ta. daimo,nia( a; ra e; fqasen evfV u`ma/ j h` basilei,a tou/ qeou/ Å Every kingdom divided against itself is destroyed, and no town or house divided against itself will stand. So if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? (…) But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you. [8: 49b] avlla. timw/ to.n pate,ra mou( but I honor my Father- [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 26: 39, 42] plh.n ouvc w`j evgw. qe, lw avllV w`j su,Å (…) pa,ter mou( eiv ouv du,natai tou/ to parelqei/ n ev a.n mh. auvto. pi,w( genhqh,tw to. qe,lhma, souÅ Yet not what I will, but what you will. (…) My Father, if this cup cannot be taken away unless I drink it, your will must be done. [Matt 11: 25] ev xomologou/ mai, soi( pa,ter( ku,rie tou/ ouvranou/ kai. th/ j gh/ j( o[ti e; kruyaj tau/ ta avpo. sofw/ n kai. sunetw/ n kai. avpeka,luyaj auvta. nhpi,oij\ I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intelligent, and revealed them to little children. 237 [8: 49c] kai. u`mei/ j avtima,zete, meÅ and yet you dishonor me. [0/ 1] [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 12: 30] o` mh. w'n metV ev mou/ katV ev mou/ ev stin( kai. o` mh. suna,gwn metV ev mou/ skorpi,zeiÅ Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. [Matt 13: 57] kai. ev skandali,zonto ev n auvtw/ |Å o` de. VIhsou/ j ei=pen auvtoi/ j\ ouvk e; stin profh,thj a; timoj eiv mh. ev n th/ | patri,di kai. evn th/ | oivki,a| auvtou/ Å And so they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his hometown and in his own house.” [Luke 7: 34] ev lh,luqen o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ev sqi,wn kai. pi,nwn( kai. le, gete\ ivdou. a; nqrwpoj fa,goj kai. oiv nopo,thj( fi,loj telwnw/ n kai. a`martwlw/ nÅ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners! ’ [8: 50a] ev gw. de. ouv zhtw/ th.n do,xan mou\ I am not trying to get praise for myself. [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 10: 40 pars.] (…) o` ev me. deco,menoj de, cetai to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ (…) whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. [Luke 10: 16] (…) o` de. ev me. avqetw/ n avqetei/ to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ (…) the one who rejects me rejects the one who sent me. [8: 50b] e; stin o` zhtw/ n kai. kri,nwnÅ There is one who demands it, and he also judges. [0/ 1] [Mark 12: 9] ti, Îou=nÐ poih,sei o` ku,rioj tou/ avmpelw/ nojÈ ev leu,setai kai. avpole, sei tou.j gewrgou.j kai. dw,sei to.n avmpelw/ na a; lloijÅ What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy those tenants and give the vineyard to others. For more references to the divine judgment, see [Matt 23: 33; Mark 12: 40; Luke 10: 14]. 238 [8: 51] avmh.n avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n( eva,n tij to.n evmo.n lo,gon thrh,sh|( qa,naton ouv mh. qewrh,sh| eivj to.n aivw/ naÅ Amen, amen, I say to you, if anyone obeys my teaching, he will never see death.” [1/ 2] [Mark 9: 1 pars.] avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti eivsi,n tinej w-de tw/ n e` sthko,twn oi[tinej ouv mh. geu,swntai qana,tou e[ wj a'n i; dwsin th.n basilei,an tou/ qeou/ ev lhluqui/ an evn duna,meiÅ Amen, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not experience death before they see the kingdom of God come with power. [1/ 2] [1/ 2] [1/ 1] [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi (…) zwh.n aivw,nion klhronomh,seiÅ you who have followed me (…) will inherit eternal life. [Luke 11: 28] menou/ n maka,rioi oi` avkou,ontej to.n lo,gon tou/ qeou/ kai. fula,ssontejÅ Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it! [Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48] Pa/ j ou=n o[stij avkou,ei mou tou.j lo,gouj tou,touj kai. poiei/ auvtou,j( o`moiwqh,setai avndri. froni,mw|( o[stij wv|kodo,mhsen auvtou/ th.n oiv ki,an ev pi. th.n pe, tran\ kai. kate,bh h` broch. kai. h=lqon oi` potamoi. kai. e; pneusan oi` a; nemoi kai. prose, pesan th/ | oivki,a| evkei,nh|( kai. ouvk e; pesen( teqemeli,wto ga.r ev pi. th.n pe, tranÅ Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, but it did not collapse because it had been founded on rock. [8: 52-53] Then the Judeans responded, “Now we know you're possessed by a demon! Both Abraham and the prophets died, and yet you say, ‘If anyone obeys my teaching, he will never experience death.’ You aren't greater than our father Abraham who died, are you? And the prophets died too! Who do you claim to be? ” [Mark 3: 22 pars.] The experts in the law who came down from Jerusalem said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” and, “By the ruler of demons he casts out demons.” [Matt 12: 39-42 par. Luke 11: 29-32] But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For just as Jonah was in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights, so the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights. The people of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this genera- 239 tion and condemn it, because they repented when Jonah preached to them- and now, something greater than Jonah is here! The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon- and now, something greater than Solomon is here! ” [8: 54a] avpekri,qh VIhsou/ j\ ev a.n ev gw. doxa,sw evmauto,n( h` do,xa mou ouvde, n ev stin\ Jesus replied, “If I glorify myself, my glory is worthless. [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 10: 40 pars.] (…) o` ev me. deco,menoj de, cetai to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ (…) whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. [Luke 10: 16] (…) o` de. ev me. avqetw/ n avqetei/ to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ (…) the one who rejects me rejects the one who sent me. [applies to 8: 54b, 55a as well] [8: 54b] e; stin o` path,r mou o` doxa,zwn me( The one who glorifies me is my Father, [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [Mark 8: 38 par. Luke 9: 26] o]j ga.r ev a.n ev paiscunqh/ | me kai. tou.j ev mou.j lo,gouj ev n th/ | genea/ | tau,th| th/ | moicali,di kai. a`martwlw/ |( kai. o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ev paiscunqh,setai auvto,n( o[tan e; lqh| ev n th/ | do,xh| tou/ patro.j auvtou/ meta. tw/ n avgge, lwn tw/ n a`gi,wnÅ For if anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. [Matt 19: 28] avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi evn th/ | paliggenesi,a|( o[tan kaqi,sh| o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou evpi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou/ ( (…) I tell you the truth: In the age when all things are renewed, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, (…) [note in the parallel Luke 22: 29 the addition kaqw.j die,qeto, moi o` path,r mou ] [8: 54c-55a] o]n u`mei/ j le, gete o[ti qeo.j h`mw/ n ev stin( kai. ouvk ev gnw,kate auvto,n( about whom you people say, ‘He is our God.’ Yet you do not know him, [1/ 1] [Matt 7: 21] Ouv pa/ j o` le, gwn moi\ ku,rie ku,rie( eivseleu,setai eivj th.n basilei,an tw/ n ouvranw/ n( avllV o` poiw/ n to. qe,lhma tou/ patro,j mou tou/ evn toi/ j ouvranoi/ jÅ Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven- only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven. 240 See also [Matt 8: 11-12 par. Luke 13: 28]. [8: 55b] ev gw. de. oi= da auvto,nÅ ka'n ei; pw o[ti ouvk oi= da auvto,n( e; somai o[moioj u`mi/ n yeu,sthj\ avlla. oi= da auvto.n kai. to.n lo,gon auvtou/ thrw/ Å (…) but I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him, and I obey his teaching. [0/ 2] [0/ 2] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] ouvdei.j evpiginw,skei to.n ui`o.n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate, ra tij ev piginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j kai. w-| eva.n bou,lhtai o` ui`o.j avpokalu,yaiÅ No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. [Mark 3: 35 pars.] o]j Îga.rÐ a'n poih,sh| to. qe,lhma tou/ qeou/ ( ou-toj avdelfo,j mou kai. avdelfh. kai. mh,thr evsti,nÅ For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. [See also Matt 26: 42 pars.] [8: 56] VAbraa.m o` path.r u`mw/ n hvgallia,sato i[na i; dh| th.n h`me, ran th.n ev mh,n( kai. ei=den kai. evca,rhÅ Your father Abraham was overjoyed to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.” [1/ 1] [Matt 13: 17 par. Luke 10: 24] avmh.n ga.r le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti polloi. profh/ tai kai. di,kaioi ev pequ, mhsan iv dei/ n a] ble,pete kai. ouvk ei=dan( kai. avkou/ sai a] avkou, ete kai. ouvk h; kousanÅ Amen, I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it. [8: 57] Then the Judeans replied, “You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham? ” [8: 58] ei=pen auvtoi/ j VIhsou/ j\ avmh.n avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n( pri.n VAbraa.m gene, sqai ev gw. eiv mi,Å Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I tell you the truth, before Abraham came into existence, I am! ” [1/ 2] [Mark 14: 62 pars.] o` de. VIhsou/ j ei=pen\ ev gw, eivmi( kai. o; yesqe to.n ui` o.n tou/ avnqrw,pou evk dexiw/ n kaqh,menon th/ j duna,mewj kai. ev rco,menon meta. tw/ n nefelw/ n tou/ ouvranou/ Å “I am,” said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” [8: 59] Then they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out from the temple area. [Luke 4: 29-30] They got up, forced him out of the town, and brought him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they could throw him down the cliff. But he passed through the crowd and went on his way. 241 At the beginning of this fifth sequence of the Light of the World Discourse in John 8: 48 the Jews counter the charge that they do not belong to God and have the devil as their father with the strong indictment (though phrased as a question) that Jesus is “a Samaritan and (…) possessed by a demon” (cf. 7: 20, 10: 20). The allegations are thereby completely reversed: it is now Jesus who is accused of being a Samaritan and thus not belonging to the covenant community; he is himself charged with being an instrument of the devil. Andrew Lincoln rightly notes that from the author’s point of view “these accusations are seen as confirming Jesus’ hearers’ alienation from God and, because they are lies (cf. v. 55), their relationship to the liar and the father of lies.” 143 The accusation that Jesus is a Samaritan occurs only here in the Fourth Gospel. The charge of being possessed by a demon, however, features prominently in the synoptic triple tradition as well (Mark 3: 22 pars.), where Jesus’ own ministries of exorcism are attributed to demonic influence. By stating in John 8: 49a, “I am not possessed by a demon,” Jesus flatly denies his opponents’ claim. In the Synoptics, in a somewhat more elaborate answer to the already mentioned charge of being the agent of Beelzebul (cf. above 8: 18) Jesus makes the same point in Matt 12: 25-28 [1/ 2-level of closeness; concurrent usage of the noun to, daimo,nion ]: since demons would hardly cast out demons, and since even the works of Jewish exorcists were considered as divinely enabled, it should be obvious that Jesus, whose miracles were of undeniably superior quality, acts by the power of the Spirit of God; he is definitely not possessed by satanic forces. 144 In contrast, Jesus’ affirmation in John 8: 49b “I honor my Father” should be taken to mean that his obedience to the Father is “evidence of his freedom from demonic influence.” 145 Though the presentation of Jesus as always doing and saying what comes from and pleases the Father is a significant Johannine theme (cf. 6: 38; 8: 28-29), this same objective of obedience is not uncommon in the Synoptics, e.g., in Matt 26: 42, where Jesus states (regarding his Father [ o` path,r ]) that “your will must be done” [1/ 1-level of closeness]. Indeed not very far removed from Jesus’ claim to honor the Father is his utterance of praise towards him in Matt 11: 25 [0/ 1-level of closeness]. In John 8: 49c, Jesus goes on to say that while he honors the Father, his interlocutors clearly “dishonor” him by their stern accusations and their constant refusal to accept his teaching. This charge shows at least some similarity to 143 Lincoln, John, 274. 144 Donald J. Verseput, The Rejection of the Humble Messianic King: A Study of the Composition of Matthew 11-12 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1986), 223-35. The synoptic parallels of the Beelzebul controversy here and in the preceding verse have been recognized by Brown, John (i-xii), 366; Carson, John, 355; Dietzfelbinger, Johannes, 1: 266; Köstenberger, John, 269; Lincoln, John, 274; Smith, John, 187 et al. 145 Köstenberger, John, 269. 242 the verbal reaction of Jesus in the Matthean and Lukan version of the Beelzebul parallel adduced in this sequence. In Matt 12: 30 par. Luke 11: 23, the Pharisaic interpretation of the spiritual source of his ministry leads Jesus to threaten: “whoever is not with me is against me.” By ascribing the Son’s works to the power of the devil, they have clearly positioned themselves as his enemies, a development that similarly manifests itself in what is called “dishonoring behavior” by the Johannine Jesus [0/ 1-level of closeness]. In this regard one may also cite two additional references to the dishonor that people have exhibited against Jesus in Matt 13: 57 [1/ 1-level of closeness; common use of the tim -root] and Luke 7: 34 [0/ 1-level of closeness]. The implied logic here in John is that since Jesus honors the Father and is therefore concerned to do the will of the one who sent him, the imputations of the Jewish public not only dishonor Jesus but ultimately amount to a rejection of God himself. This is all the more true as Jesus clearly states in John 8: 50a that “I am not trying to get praise for myself.” A similar notion is behind the Synoptic Jesus’ emphatic expression that he is not advancing his own agenda [0/ 1-level of closeness]: “Whoever receives me receives the one who sent me” (Matt 10: 40 pars.) and “the one who rejects me rejects the one who sent me” (Luke 10: 16). Both John and the Synoptics concur in representing Jesus as the divine envoy who seeks the glory and reception of his Father and not his own praise. In fact, as Jesus goes on to say in our Johannine discourse, it is the one who sent him, God himself, who is concerned about Jesus’ glory and even “demands it.” And ultimately “he also judges” those who withhold the appropriate reverence for his authoritative emissary and reject the truth of his teaching. Such a picture of vindication by the ultimate judge is present in the synoptic parable of the tenants in Mark 12: 9 pars. as well [0/ 1-level of closeness; cf. other references to the divine judgment in Matt 23: 33; Mark 12: 40; Luke 10: 40]. Similar to John, in this parable God, as the owner of the vineyard, judges (and then indeed destroys) the wicked tenants for rejecting, mistreating, and killing (cf. 8: 37, 40) the beloved Son he had sent to them. As the positive counterpart to his warning about judgment, Jesus offers in John 8: 51 a promise: “Amen, amen, I say to you, if anyone obeys my teaching, he will never see death” (cf. 6: 40, 47). 146 This double Amen saying has been considered as the Johannine version of the synoptic saying found in Mark 9: 1 pars.: 147 “Amen, I say to you that there are some standing here who will not experience death before they see the kingdom of God come with power.” Whatever 146 Plisch, Gospel of Thomas, 39-40, observes a similarity to Gosp. Thom. 1, although there the focus is on “interpreting” the word and not on “preserving” it as in John: “And he said: ‘Whoever finds the meaning of these words will not taste death.’” Cf. also Crossan, Sayings Parallels, 109. 147 Lincoln, John, 275; Lindars, Gospel of John, 332; Theobald, Johannes, 613, 616; also Culpepper, “The Origin of the ‘Amen, Amen’ Sayings,” 257-58; pace Beasley-Murray, John, 137. 243 the exact relationship between those two texts and despite the fact that obedience to Jesus’ teaching is not mentioned as a prerequisite in this particular synoptic passage, the promise of escaping death is closely parallel to our Johannine statement [1/ 2-level of closeness; cf. concurrent usage of avmh.n le,gw u`mi/ n and o` qa,natoj ). 148 Further, Jesus’ statement in Matt 19: 28-29 pars. that “you who have followed me (…) will have eternal life” [1/ 2-level of closeness; cf. concurrent usage of aivw, n and aivw, nioj respectively] closely resembles and thus confirms the Johannine idea that keeping the word of Jesus will lead to the absence of death, i.e., everlasting life. A less specific yet equally significant parallel regarding the outcome of the required obedience is Jesus’ concluding statement at the end of the Beelzebul controversy in Luke 11: 28 [1/ 2-level of closeness]: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word ( to. n lo,gon ) of God and obey it! ” In parabolic terms (and thus on a more removed level of conceptual abstraction [1/ 1-level of closeness]), the same idea of the positive consequences of obedience is expressed in Jesus’ story about the two builders in Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48. Here he likens “everyone who hears these words ( tou.j lo,gouj ) of mine and does them” to a “wise man who built his house on rock,” thus preventing its potential destruction. Rather than dispelling the doubts of the Jews about his divine origin and mission, Jesus’ answer only strengthens their strong suspicion that he is directed by demonic influence (John 8: 52-53; cf. again 7: 20; 10: 20). The rhetorical question of 8: 48 has become a firm conviction: “Now we know that you’re possessed by a demon! ” Such accusations of the Jewish leadership are not unknown to the Synoptic Gospels as has already been noted (cf. Mark 3: 22 pars.). For Jesus to announce that anyone who obeys his words will never taste death is considered by his audience as utterly absurd. After all, “Abraham and the prophets died,” so how can Jesus make such kind of promise? It would mean that he is indeed greater than both Abraham and the Old Testament prophets, an arrogant claim which Jesus’ hearers could only ascribe to demonic possession (“You aren’t greater than our father Abraham who died, are you? And the prophets died too! ”). The Synoptic Gospels reveal that at times Jesus explicitly presented himself as someone greater than key figures in Jewish history such as Jonah or Solomon (Matt 12: 39-42 par. Luke 11: 29-32). 149 Such allegations either made implicitly or explicitly, could have easily been stumbling blocks for Jesus’ Jewish hearers (cf. also the similar question posed by the Samaritan woman in John 4: 12: “Surely you're not greater than our ancestor Jacob, are you? ”). 148 This parallel has also been observed by Carson, John, 355. 149 This connection between the Synoptic Gospels and John has been noted by Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 148; Keener, John, 1: 766; Köstenberger, John, 271; and Smith, John, 188. 244 Jesus does not directly answer the Jews’ final question, “Who do you claim to be? ” Rather, he addresses its underlying accusation that his ministry “is self-appointed and his claims are self-exalting.” 150 In John 8: 54a Jesus reiterates in different words the theme of 8: 50a, namely, that he is not driven by the ambition of glorifying himself: “If I glorify myself, my glory is worthless.” Although the verb doxa,zw is typically Johannine and is only used twice on the lips of the Synoptic Jesus, the inherent concept of this proposition can be found in the Synoptics in the two often quoted statements of Matt 10: 40 pars. and Luke 10: 16 [0/ 1-level of closeness]. Here Jesus insinuates that the ultimate crux of the matter is the response to the one who sent him, which at least implies that “glorifying himself” (to use our Johannine terms) is not the primary task on his agenda, since he is not on a selfappointed mission. In John 8: 54b Jesus insists rather that it is the Father “who glorifies me,” which might have a double entendre of establishing Jesus’ identity and authority 151 as well as vindicating him through the coming events of the cross, resurrection, and return to the Father. 152 This same substance is also expressed in the references to the Parousia in Mark 8: 38 par. Luke 9: 26 and the glorification in Matt 19: 28 (par. Luke 22: 29) [1/ 1- levels of closeness; both John and the Synoptics make reference to o` path,r and the do,xa -word group]. In these texts Jesus announces that he is coming “in the glory of his Father” respectively sitting “on his glorious throne,” a statement that points to the ultimate establishment of his authority, vindication and exaltation. Jesus then goes on to argue in John 8: 54c-55a that the Jewish claims about the Father (“‘He is our God’”) are fundamentally wrong, since they cannot conceal the fact that they do not actually know him. This recapitulates what Jesus asserted earlier in the discourse (cf. 8: 19, 39-47), namely, that their failure to respond to his teaching indeed reveals a lack of knowledge of God. Therefore, claiming to belong to God is something different from actually knowing him, an idea inherent in Jesus’ statement regarding himself in the Sermon on the Mount in Matt 7: 21where he maintains that “not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’” i.e., not everyone who claims to belong to me, “will enter into the kingdom of heaven”, i.e., will live with me eternally as a result of his true knowledge and acceptance of me [1/ 1-level of closeness]. 153 The message of John 8: 55 is clear: “I do know him and I obey his teaching.” Contrary to his opponents, Jesus truly knows the Father. “For him to deny such knowledge of God would make him the liar his opponents become 150 Köstenberger, John, 271; cf. also Lincoln, John, 275. 151 Ibid. 152 Carson, John, 356. 153 Matt 7: 21 is mentioned as an echo of synoptic tradition represented in John 8 by Dodd, “Behind a Johannine Dialogue,” 52. 245 when they claim they do know him.” 154 “No one knows the Father except the Son” (Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22) is the conceptually close synoptic counterpart to this claim of knowledge by the Johannine Jesus [0/ 2-level of closeness]. The theme of Jesus’ obedience to God (cf. 8: 29) is clearly resembled in Mark 3: 35 pars. [0/ 2-level of closeness; cf. Matt 26: 42 pars.]. Doing the will of the Father ranked high on the agenda of both the Johannine and the Synoptic Jesus. It is hard to know exactly the background to which Jesus alludes when he says in John 8: 56, “Your Father Abraham was overjoyed to see my day, and he saw it and was glad.” To which incident in the life of Abraham did Jesus refer? 155 Though the exact allusion is uncertain, what Jesus is getting at is the “sharpest contrast (…) not to say gulf” between Abraham and his supposed descendants. 156 While they reject the person of Jesus and his witness, their forefather Abraham rejoiced to see Jesus’ day. “Day” may either refer to the incarnation, 157 or (more likely) to the entire ministry of Jesus in a broader sense. 158 The Synoptics provide no direct parallel to Abraham’s joyful vision. Yet, the thought of Old Testament luminaries longing with great expectation for Jesus, the Messiah, to come can be found in Matt 13: 17 par. Luke 10: 24 (“many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see”) [1/ 1-level of closeness; concurrent use of the verb o`ra,w ]. 159 With the rhetoric of their response, “You are not yet fifty years old! Have you seen Abraham? ” the Jews counter a claim that Jesus had not actually made (John 8: 57). He had not argued that he saw Abraham’s day. Rather, vice versa, Jesus had insisted that Abraham had joyfully seen his day. 160 154 Carson, John, 356. 155 For an overview of possibilities, see especially Keener, John, 1: 767-68; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 450-52; also Carson, John, 356-57. 156 Beasley-Murray, John, 138. 157 Köstenberger, John, 272; Morris, John, 419. 158 Beasley-Murray, John, 138; Brodie, John, 335; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 451, who states: “Darum dürfte h` h`me, ra h` ev mh, hier das Ganze der ‚Sendung‛ Jesu bezeichnen von der Inkarnation des lo,goj an bis hin zur Verherrlichung des erhöhten Menschensohns und seiner durch den Parakleten vermittelten bleibenden Gegenwart.” 159 Brown, John (i-xii), 367. This parallel has also been observed by Keener, John, 1: 767; Lindars, Gospel of John, 334; Schnackenburg, John, 2: 222; Theobald, Johannes, 617. The difference between John 8: 56 and the synoptic passages cited is that in John Abraham is said to have seen Jesus’ day, which may refer to a vision of things to come from a distance (cf. Heb 11: 13: “These all died in faith without receiving the things promised, but they saw them in the distance and welcomed them”). In the Synoptics the emphasis is on the present perception of the messianic age which was not disclosed “in fullness” to earlier generations. Michaels, John, 532, understands John 8: 56 as a reference to Isaac’s birth or the child’s deliverance in Gen 22 - events which he interprets as “signs of the resurrection.” He thus concludes, even though the audience is probably different, that “this exchange stands as the Gospel of John’s nearest equivalent to the synoptic debate over future resurrection (see Mk 12: 18-27 and par.).” 160 Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 452; also Ridderbos, John, 322. 246 Nevertheless, Jesus’ antagonists, trapped in another misunderstanding, make the point that Jesus could have hardly coexisted with their forefather Abraham since he has not even reached the mature age of fifty. 161 Jesus answers, in John 8: 58, with another challenging double Amen saying 162 that would ignite the full hostility of his Jewish hearers and thus end the discourse: “Amen, amen, I tell you the truth, before Abraham came into existence, I am! ” 163 Scholars commonly recognized that the absolute use of evgw. eivmi, does not allow for an interpretation of this saying as merely referring to Jesus’ existence prior to Abraham. 164 Rather, it should be read as the culmination of several strong christological statements made in this discourse (cf. 8: 24, 28). “The immediate outraged response of the crowd - they prepare to stone him (8: 59) - indicates the enormity of what the expression connotes in the narrative: it is either (as the crowd judges) blasphemy or truly expresses an astonishing claim.” 165 Alluding back to the self-identification of God in the Old Testament (cf. Ex 3: 14; Isa 43: 10, 25 et al.), Jesus constitutes his claim of superiority over Abraham with a clear declaration of his deity. 166 Even if the evgw. eivmi, in Mark 14: 62 does not function as an explicit divine predication (yet, cf. Mark 6: 50; 13: 6) and has to be regarded simply as an affirmative response to the high priest’s question (“Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? ”), 167 it still represents a close conceptual parallel to this concluding statement of the Johannine discourse in the temple. Both words in John 8: 58 and Mark 14: 62 ultimately provoke the charge of blasphemy, 168 and Jesus’ self-claim in Mark to possess highest authority (as one sitting at the right hand of God) and to emerge as the future judge (coming with the clouds of heaven) “imply at least some divine or quasi- 161 Beasley-Murray, John, 139. 162 On the introductory Amen-formula, cf. John 3: 3, 5, 11; 6: 26, 32, 47, 53; 8: 34, 51 and our comments there. 163 Cf. another parallel in the Gosp. Thom. 19, where Jesus says: “Blessed is he who was before he came into being.” (Plisch, Gospel of Thomas, 77.) 164 Pace Loader, Christology, 52, 79. 165 Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 370. 166 Brown, John (i-xii), 367: “No clearer implication of divinity is found in the Gospel tradition (…).” Keener, John, 1: 770: “(…) the absolute form [of ev gw. eivmi ] is a claim to deity.” Also Carson, John, 358; Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ, 371-72; Köstenberger, John, 273; Lincoln, John, 276; Smith, John, 189; Thyen Johannesevangelium, 453; but cf. Beasley-Murray, John, 139-40; Lindars, Gospel of John, 336. This argues against Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 149, who assumes, drawing on the work of Motyer, that John 8: 58 does not constitute a claim to be God, but simply a claim to be a divine agent. 167 E.g., Williams, I am He, 253.. 168 For more details on the blasphemy of Jesus in this Markan passage, see Darrell L. Bock, Blasphemy and Exaltation in Judaism and the Final Examination of Jesus: A Philological-Historical Study of the Key Jewish Themes Impacting Mark 14: 61-64, WUNT 2/ 106 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 184-237. 247 divine status for the Son of Man.” 169 Other sayings such as Matt 10: 40; 11: 27, Mark 13: 31; Luke 10: 16 et al. confirm that high christological statements are by no means limited to the Johannine Jesus but are reflected in other strands of the synoptic teaching tradition as well. 170 The final response of Jesus’ audience in the temple to such lofty claims about himself was the attempt to stone him (John 8: 59). This unsuccessful aggressive action taken by the crowd resembles the narrative scene in Luke 4: 29-30 where Jesus escapes the effort to get rid of him by throwing him down a cliff. In this final sequence of the Light of the World Discourse we do not find any direct speech proposition that is totally void of synoptic parallels. The degree of semantic overlap is again manageable; most of the propositions show at least some punctual similarity in wording to what Jesus teaches in the Synoptics. With regard to the conceptual content, key motifs like the denial of demon possession (8: 49a), the importance of obeying Jesus’ teaching (8: 51), Jesus’ knowledge of and obedience to the Father (8: 55b), and his extraordinary claim to be the evgw. eivmi (8: 58) all have close parallels [of a 0/ 2- or 1/ 2-kind] in the other three Gospels. The remaining themes, including Jesus’ concern for honoring the Father (8: 49b, 50a, 54a) and the joyful anticipation of Abraham (8: 56) feature 0/ 1- or 1/ 1-levels of closeness and thus have at least some similarity in content with the teaching of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. 169 Ben Witherington, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 385. Cf. M. Eugene Boring, “Markan Christology: God-Language for Jesus? ,” NTS 45 (1999): 469, who states: “The High Priest’s (…) charge that Jesus’ univocal ev gw. eivmi is blasphemy (cf. 2.7), indicate that some sort of encroachment on the divine prerogative has been made, without making Jesus’ presumed claim to ‘divinity’ more explicit.” Pace E.P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (London: SCM, 1985), 55. Jewish sources reveal that Abraham (together with other luminaries of the past) was expected to sit as a witness to the final judgment (T Abr 10-13; Bock, Blasphemy, 234). Therefore, Mark 14: 62 with its emphasis on Jesus seated in heaven as judge might also imply his superiority over Abraham and other Jewish heroes and provide another tangential point between this verse and John 8: 58. 170 Keener, John, 1: 772. Regarding the Gospel of Mark, Boring makes the general statement that “(…) Mark should be located among those NT authors with a ‘high’ Christology who affirm the ‘deity’ of Christ” (“Markan Christology,” 470);; cf. also his intriguing remark in regard of Mark 9: 37 (“Whoever welcomes me does not welcome me but the one who sent me”): “If this statement were in the Fourth Gospel, which does use explicit God-language of Jesus, exegetes would have no difficulty in seeing it as an element in the Johannine ‘high Christology’” (ibid., 468). 248 4.2.7 Summary The Sitz im Leben of the Light of the World Discourse in John 8 has been frequently located within the history of the Johannine community, and more exactly within their supposed conflict with the Jewish synagogue. Accordingly, the speech material in this part of the Fourth Gospel is denied to the historical Jesus and ascribed to the reflections of the evangelist and his contested community. Again, assumed differences between Jesus’ focus as portrayed in John and in the Synoptics have served as an argumentative base for such negative verdicts about the historical authenticity of his words in this second teaching cycle of the Johannine Temple Discourses. The present examination has shown, however, that a significant or even insurmountable gap between this Johannine discourse and the teaching of Jesus in the other three Gospels lacks sufficient support. With regard to the verbal agreement between Jesus’ teaching in John 8 and the Synoptics the results of our detailed comparison show that the amount of semantic similarities is limited. 30 out of a total of 68 Johannine propositions do not feature any kind of verbal resemblance to the Synoptics and thus a 0/ 0-, 0/ 1-, or 0/ 2-level of closeness. 171 This is to say that a significant part of our Johannine discourse does not correlate at all semantically with what we find on the lips of Jesus in the Synoptics. On the other hand, more than half of the Johannine propositions (a total of 38) reveal at least some meaningful verbal similarity with either a 1/ 1-, or 1/ 2-kind of closeness. 172 Focusing on the content of Jesus’ speech in John 8 when compared to the Synoptics a different picture emerges. Initially, we come across five propositions with no conceptual parallel in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, i.e. propositions with a 0/ 0-type of closeness. 173 Yet, as was the case with John’s Bread of Life Discourse, these sayings neither contradict Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics nor do they significantly enlarge its theological content. Besides these few conceptual non-correlations we are confronted with a rather large number of Johannine propositions that show a more or less close relationship in terms of content with Jesus teaching in the Synoptic Gospels. More than 90 percent of Jesus’ words, i.e. 63 out of 68 propositions, have a conceptual parallel in the Synoptic Gospels; about one third have closer conceptual analogies [0/ 2-, or 1/ 2-levels of closeness], 174 the remaining two thirds show at least some similarity in content [0/ 1-, or 171 John 8: 14a, 14b, 14d, 15a, 15b, 16a, 18a, 18b, 21b, 23a, 23b, 25b, 26a, 26b, 28c, 29a, 29b, 31, 32, 34, 36, 38b, 39b, 40b, 40c, 44c, 46a, 50a, 54a, 55b. 172 John 8: 12a, 12b, 12c, 14c, 16b, 17, 19b, 21a, 21c, 24, 28a, 28b, 35a, 35b, 37a, 37b, 37c, 38a, 39b, 40a, 41a, 42a, 42b, 43, 44a, 44b, 45, 46b, 47, 49a, 49b, 49c, 51, 54c-55a, 56, 58. 173 John 8: 14d, 15b, 25b, 40c, 46a. 174 John 8: 12b, 12c, 14c, 16b, 17, 21a, 24, 26a, 28a, 28b, 29b, 31, 32, 37a, 37b, 40a, 42c, 45, 49a, 51, 55b, 58. 249 1/ 1-levels of closeness]. 175 Rather than huge differences we find that the main motifs which permeate Jesus’ Johannine discourse have indeed conceptual counterparts in the Synoptic Gospels: e.g., the invitation to follow Jesus and to accept the truth learned from him in order to inherit eternal life (8: 12, 24, 31, 32, 51 par. Matt 19: 28-29 pars.; Matt 11: 29; Luke 8: 8, 15 et al.), the identity of Jesus as the one sent by the Father whom he truly knows and obeys (8: 14a-c, 16a-b, 18b, 23b, 28a-c, 29a-b, 38a, 40b, 42b, 55b par. Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22; Matt 26: 39, 42 pars. et al.), and his extraordinary claim linked to the self-predication as evgw. eivmi, (8: 24, 58 par. Mark 14: 62 pars.). The number of synoptic parallels that demonstrate the eagerness of Jesus’ opponents to kill him (8: 37b, 40a par. Mark 9: 31 pars.), Jesus’ charge against his audience due to their lack of belief (8: 45, 46b, 49c par. Luke 8: 12 pars.; Luke 22: 67; Matt 13: 57), the designation of the crowd as “children of the devil” (8: 44a par. Matt 13: 38-39; Matt 23: 3, 15) and the general discussion about Abrahamic descent (8: 37a par. Matt 8: 11-12 et al.) are further evidence against the argument that the kind of polemic found in John 8 did not exist between Jesus and his opponents in the Synoptics (cf. above 4.2.1). 175 John 8: 12a, 14a, 14b, 15a, 16a, 18a, 18b, 19b, 21b, 21c, 23a, 23b, 26b, 28c, 29a, 34, 35a, 35b, 36, 37c, 38a, 38b, 39b, 40b, 41a, 42a, 42b, 43, 44a, 44b, 44c, 46b, 47, 49b, 49c, 50a, 50b, 54a, 54b, 54c-55a, 56. 250 Chapter 5 The Johannine Discourses Addressed to the Disciples and Jesus’ Teaching in the Synoptics More than half of Jesus’ direct speech in the Fourth Gospel is addressed to his disciples. The vast majority of these words are contained in what has been called the Farewell Discourse. In the main part of this chapter we shall consider the first part of the Farewell Discourse in John 14: 1-31 as it relates to Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptic Gospels (5.1). 1 This first part of the discourse involves about 520 words, which make up about one third of the whole farewell speech and about 16 percent of all of Jesus’ words in the extended discourse sections. Also included in this chapter is an examination of the words spoken to the disciples by the risen Jesus in John 20: 11-29 (5.2). Although these 103 words do not belong to a larger discourse in the narrow sense of the term, this survey should nevertheless help us to get a more comprehensive picture of dominical utterances in the Fourth Gospel with possible parallels in the Synoptics. 5.1 The Farewell Discourse - Unit 1 (John 14: 1-31) 5.1.1 Introduction Structure and Character of the Discourse The so-called Farewell Discourse of the Fourth Gospel in John 13: 31-16: 33 forms a large speech unit in which Jesus addresses his disciples when “his time had come to depart from this world to the Father” (John 13: 1). 2 Although the evangelist does not elaborate on it, the setting of this final in- 1 A detailed explanation of our method of comparison between these Johannine dialogues and Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics (including a legend to interpret the comparative tables given below) may be found in chapter 2.3.2 above. 2 We narrow the term “Farewell Discourse” to refer to the actual speech material only, excluding the farewell meal and footwashing in 13: 1-30 and the so-called high priestly prayer in 17: 1-26, two passages that belong to the wider setting of the “farewell account.” 251 struction from the soon to be crucified Jesus is the Last Supper. 3 The whole discourse contains 1,650 words, about half of Jesus’ words in extended discourses found in John. Generically speaking, this discourse should be classified as a farewell speech or testament, 4 a literary form present in both biblical 5 as well as non-biblical Jewish and Greco-Roman texts. 6 Ernst Käsemann has pointedly remarked, however, that Jesus’ Farewell Discourse transcends all categories: “A testament in the mouth of the Prince of Life is (…) most unusual and we can hardly suppose that the Evangelist failed to reflect on this paradox.” 7 On a literary level, the footwashing pericope in John 13: 1-30 may be regarded as a narrative preamble to Jesus’ farewell speech. 8 While the majority of commentators read the remaining part of the chapter (13: 31-38) as the introductory part of the actual Farewell Discourse, 9 some have argued that this latter part of John 13 is more closely associated with the preceding narrative than with the speech material of John 14: 1-16: 33. This is the case not least because John 13: 1-38 is held together by Jesus’ fourfold use of double Amen sayings while both the betrayal of Judas as well as the denial of Peter are not further alluded to in the discourse proper. 10 Whatever the exact function of the closing verses of chapter 13, it is widely recognized that John 14: 1 marks the beginning of Jesus’ instruction to all the disciples and thus truly opens the first part of the extended Farewell Discourse that 3 Keener, John, 2: 896; also Smith, John, 262 et al. 4 Cf. especially the discussion in Martin Winter, Das Vermächtnis Jesu und die Abschiedsworte der Väter: Gattungsgeschichtliche Untersuchung der Vermächtnisrede im Blick auf Joh. 13-17, FRLANT 161 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994); also Fernando F. Segovia, The Farewell of the Word: The Johannine Call to Abide (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991), 5-20; as well as Beasley-Murray, John, 222-23; Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 597-601; Keener, John, 2: 896-98; Lincoln, John, 384; Rudolf Schnackenburg, Commentary on Chapters 13-21, vol. 3 of The Gospel According to St. John, trans. David Smith and G. A. Kon (New York: Crossroad, 1982), 57-58; Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 245-46 et al. 5 E.g., Gen 47: 29-49: 33; Deut 31-33; Acts 20: 18-35; as well as Mark 13 pars.; Luke 22: 14- 38. 6 Keener, John, 2: 897, mentions (among others) Jub. 36: 1-11; 4Q542; Tob 4: 3-21; 14: 3-11; 1 Macc 2: 49-69; Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs; Tg. Neof. 1; as well as Plato Phaed.; Xenophon Cyr. 8.7.6-28; Babrius 47. 7 Ernst Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in the Light of Chapter 17, NTL (London: SCM, 1968), 4-5 (cited by Ridderbos, John, 481). For this reason, Carson, John, 480, states that “this so-called ‘farewell discourse’ is close to being fundamentally misnamed.” 8 So, e.g., Köstenberger, John, 419; similarly Keener, John, 2: 899. 9 Cf. Beasley-Murray, John, 244-48; Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 604; Carson, John, 476; Keener, John, 2: 930; Köstenberger, John, 419; Lincoln, John, 386; Lindars, Gospel of John, 460-61; Ridderbos, John, 473; Schnelle, Johannes, 246-48 et al. 10 E.g., Moloney, John, 371. Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 583, similarly observes a section break after 13: 38. 252 is clearly delimited by Jesus’ exclamation in 14: 31: “Get up, let us go from here.” 11 In modern scholarship it is common to disconnect John 14 from Jesus’ direct speech in the following two chapters, since John 15 and 16 are regarded either as amplifications of the original Farewell Discourse or as further independent sources woven together by the evangelist or a later redactor. 12 Despite these diverse theories of composition and redaction (or, as it sometimes seems, because of the confusing juxtaposition of irreconcilable approaches) there exists a minority of scholars willing to retain the basic unity of the whole discourse from John 14: 1 [13: 31] until 16: 33. 13 11 Beasley-Murray, John, 248-64; Johannes Beutler, Habt keine Angst: Die erste johanneische Abschiedsrede (Joh 14), SBS 116 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1984), 9-19; Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 617-57; Keener, John, 2: 930-87; Lincoln, John, 389-400; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 57-88 et al. 12 Within the complex realm of redaction-critical hypotheses it is not always easy to determine whether a particular scholar reckons with amplified versions of the original discourse or with the addition of independent material. Beutler, Habt keine Angst, 9; Barrett, John, 454-55; the relecture model of Andreas Dettwiler, Die Gegenwart des Erhöhten: Eine exegetische Studie zu den johanneischen Abschiedsreden (Joh 13,31-16,33) unter besonderer Berücksichtigung ihres Relecture-Charakters, FRLANT 169 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995); and probably Schnackenburg, John, 3: 89-91, would be closer to the former, while scholars like Beasley-Murray, John, 224; Jürgen Becker, “Die Abschiedsreden im Johannesevangelium,” ZNW 61 (1970): 215-46; Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 584-87; Christian Dietzfelbinger, Der Abschied des Kommenden: Eine Auslegung der johanneischen Abschiedsreden, WUNT 95 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997); and Segovia, Farewell, would be classified as holding the latter view. Schnelle, Johannes, 261-63, talks about “discourses” in the plural (“Abschiedsreden”), yet seems to argue for the literary coherence of these discourses as a whole. Klaus Scholtissek, “Abschied und neue Gegenwart: Exegetische und theologische Reflexionen zur johanneischen Abschiedsrede 13,31-17,26,” ETL 75 (1999): 348, refers to John 13: 31-14: 31 as the original Farewell Discourse (“ursprüngliche Abschiedsrede”), yet argues that (in the framework of a synchronic interpretation) all speech passages in John 13-17 form only one multi-layered discourse (“eine einzige vielschichtige Abschiedsrede”). Cf. here also von Wahlde, Gospel and Letters of John, 2: 614-743, who (within his compositional approach) unfolds a rather complex editorial history of what he, naturally, calls “the Farewell discourses.” For an extensive review of the “movement from discourse to discourses” with detailed descriptions of different redactional approaches, see now L. Scott Kellum, The Unity of the Farewell Discourse: The Literary Integrity of John 13: 31-16: 33, JSNTSup 256 (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 10-78 (esp. 52-78). For a further treatment of some of these redactional models as they relate to the question of the authenticity of Jesus’ direct speech, see below our section “The Authenticity of the Discourse in Johannine Research.” 13 E.g., Kellum, Unity; also Keener, John, 2: 895, who both note a growing trend to observe the unity and coherence of the extended discourse as a whole. Now even Segovia affirms (despite his vehement insistence on disparate sources) that at least on a literary level the Farewell Discourse can be understood “as a self-contained artistic whole that is highly unified and carefully developed from beginning to end” (Segovia, Farewell, 288); cf. also Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 582. 253 Again, the constraints of our study prevent us from delving into any kind of detailed discussion about source-critical arrangements to settle the issue, nor do we have to. Regardless of whether one reckons with multiple discourses or a single literary unit, there can be no doubt that John 14: 1-31 forms a self-contained section. 14 And it is only this section that concerns us here. Further, we agree with Craig Keener that “in the context of the finished Gospel” (i.e., on a literary level) it is necessary to deal with one unified discourse, which still warrants the traditional terminology of one extended “Farewell Discourse.” 15 Thus, as we limit our present investigation to John 14: 1-31, we will refer to this passage as “the first unit” of the larger discourse rather than to “one of several” Farewell Discourses or “the original” Farewell Discourse. As noted above, John 14: 1-31 contains 580 words, more than any other cohesive discourse section in the preceding chapters of the Fourth Gospel. With regard to the internal structure of this part of the Farewell Discourse there is disagreement among Johannine scholars. 16 The transitions are vague and whatever subdivision one prefers, the particular parts are rather closely knit together. 17 Yet, a review of several proposals suggests that a three part structure seems to be most suitable to outline the flow of the passage. 18 In a first sequence, Jesus comforts his disciples in light of his pending departure and summons them to believe in him as the personal revelation of and the way to the Father [Sequence 1: John 14: 1-14]. The break after 14: 14 is almost universally recognized for both reasons of form and content. While the verb piste,uw is used six times exclusively in John 14: 1-14, the eight occurrences of the verb avgapa,w are confined to John 14: 15- 24. 19 Thus, in this second sequence, Jesus emphasizes the desirable love relationship of his disciples with himself and the Father while also redirecting the focus away from his necessary departure to the promises of his coming and the presence of the Spirit-Paraclete [Sequence 2: John 14: 15- 14 E.g., Beutler, Habt keine Angst, 9: “(…) zum einen bildet dies Kapitel offenbar eine in sich abgerundete literarische Einheit mit klar erkennbarem Beginn und Schluß (…).” 15 Keener, John, 2: 895. 16 Cf. Segovia, Farewell, 64-65. 17 Ridderbos, John, 487. 18 The internal structure of John 14: 1-31 favored here is also employed among others by Beutler, Habt keine Angst, 13-15; Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 623; Donald A. Carson, The Farewell Discourse and Final Prayer of Jesus: An Exposition of John 14-17 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1980), 17-87; Moloney, John, 391-92; Schnelle Johannes, 250-61. Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 199-209 and Köstenberger, John, 434-47, take John 14: 15-31 as a single unit (also Carson in his commentary John, 498-510). Regarding John 14 only Segovia, Farewell, 81, distinguishes four parts: John 14: 1-3; 14: 4-14; 14: 15- 27; and 14: 28-31. 19 Moloney, John, 391-92; also Beutler, Habt keine Angst, 14. 254 24]. 20 The exact ending of this second section is again debated, 21 but it seems best to regard 14: 25 (“I have spoken these things”) as the opening line of a final sequence where Jesus reiterates several of the earlier themes including the promise of the Spirit-Paraclete, his own departure and subsequent coming as well as his invitation to not let their hearts be distressed. These statements thus form a summary and conclusion of this first unit of the Johannine Farewell Discourse [Sequence 3: John 14: 25-31]. 22 The Authenticity of the Discourse in Johannine Research Maurice Casey has been repeatedly mentioned as a fervent advocate of the inauthenticity of Johannine speech material. 23 The Fourth Gospel’s Farewell Discourse is no exception. In keeping with the basic question of our present study he concludes regarding Jesus’ words in John 14-16 that “this material cannot be historically authentic, for it is so inconsistent with synoptic material, yet it contains elements which the Synoptic Gospels could hardly have resisted if Jesus had produced them.” 24 Especially the Paraclete passages raise Casey’s suspicion, since the coming of the Paraclete can hardly be fitted into the portrait of Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics. Thus, he considers these passages as inventions placed on the lips of Jesus in order to legitimize the Johannine community’s practice according to which “words of Jesus can be supplied by people who claim inspiration by the Holy Spirit, rather than by written records from Israel c. 30 CE .” 25 Based on such an understanding of Jesus’ Paraclete-sayings, Casey is confident to find exactly 20 Less convincing is the suggestion by Becker, “Abschiedsreden,” 223 and Schnackenburg, John, 3: 58, who add 14: 15-17 to the section about the departure of Jesus (rightly criticized by Beutler, Habt keine Angst, 14). 21 Keener, John, 2: 895, 947 and Wayne Brouwer, The Literary Development of John 13-17: A Chiastic Reading, SBLDS 182 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000), 135, see a break between 14: 26 and 14: 27. 22 Cf. James McCaffrey, The House with Many Rooms: The Temple Theme of Jn. 14,2-3, AnBib 114 (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Instituto Biblico, 1988), 157-58, who characterized John 14: 25-31 as the epilogue to what he regards as the first Farewell Discourse. 23 See above 1.2.1. 24 Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 153. For a negative assessment of the authenticity of John 14: 4-7, see Lüdemann, Der erfundene Jesus, 84-85. 25 Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 152. Cf. also Winter, Vermächtnis Jesu, 322, who states in the summary of his genre-critical study: “Dabei hat sich gezeigt, daß der Evangelist und seine Schüler an die alttestamentlich-frühjüdische Tradition anknüpfen, indem sie Jesus beim Übergang von seiner öffentlichen Wirksamkeit zu der Passions- und Ostergeschichte mehrere Vermächtnisreden an seine Jünger in den Mund legen. (…) Bei der Frage nach der historischen Aussageabsicht stellten wir dann fest, daß Joh ähnlich wie die meisten der alttestamentlich-frühjüdischen Vermächtnisreden eine Krisensituation voraussetzt und die Verfasser der joh. Schule insbesondere durch ihre Vermächtnisreden den Versuch unternehmen, ihren verunsicherten Adressaten durch Trostzuspruch und Mahnung eine Hilfe zur Meisterung der aktuellen Krise an die Hand zu geben.” 255 this kind of historically inauthentic speech material in the discourses of the Fourth Gospel in general, namely, theological inventions created by spiritually inspired members of the Johannine community. At roughly the same time, Christina Hoegen-Rohls, in her study of the Johannine Abschiedsreden, has most clearly affirmed the post-Easter character of much of the Farewell Discourse and, similarly to Casey, argued that the promises of the Spirit- Paraclete included therein should be taken as the hermeneutical key to the Fourth Gospel as a whole. The Paraclete-sayings of the Farewell Discourse reflect the post-Easter standpoint of John’s Gospel (“Der nachösterliche Johannes”) that is assumed to result in a historically distorted picture of the teaching of the pre-Easter Jesus. Within such a hermeneutical framework, the Johannine Farewell Discourse functions as the cornerstone of a view that reckons with the creative potential of early Christianity to form a fundamentally unreliable picture of Jesus and his teaching. 26 Slightly earlier, Andreas Dettwiler has proposed a relecture model in order to explain the formation of John 14-16. In this study he interprets different parts of the extended Farewell Discourse as later re-readings of earlier sections. Pertaining to historical questions, Dettwiler argues that these discourses ought to be read as a realization (“Vergegenwärtigung”) of the historical Jesus for the post-Easter community. Such realization might not necessarily exclude a historical origin (“Ursprungssituation”) but presupposes a rather skeptical view of Johannine authenticity as Dettwiler poignantly refers to what he considers a plurality of Farewell Discourses as literary fiction. 27 In dealing 26 Christina Hoegen-Rohls, Der nachösterliche Johannes: Die Abschiedsreden als hermeneutischer Schlüssel zum vierten Evangelium, WUNT 2/ 84 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), e.g., 1-6, 308-12, here 309: “Der nachösterlich gewonnene Standpunkt, von dem aus das Johannesevangelium sein Christuszeugnis formuliert, verdankt sich also einem im Wirken des Geistes gründenden Verstehensprozeß, der seinerseits schöpferisches Deutungspotential freisetzt.” Several years earlier, Segovia, Farewell, 320, employed a similar line of reasoning when he argued that different units of discourse respond to different situations within the life of the early church, while the Farewell Discourse itself “provides an important ideological and theological justification for such a series of responses, especially with regard to the figure of the successor, the Spirit- Paraclete.” Cf. also again more generally Frey, “Das Vierte Evangelium,” 105-09; Schnelle, “Theologie als kreative Sinnbildung,” 135-36. 27 Dettwiler, Die Gegenwart des Erhöhten, 27-29 (“fiktionale Redeweise”). Cf. also Jörg Frey, Die eschatologische Verkündigung in den johanneischen Texten, vol. 3 of Die johanneische Eschatologie, WUNT 117 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 104-09 [hereafter Eschatologie III], who refers to the Farewell Discourse as “pre-Easter fiction” (“fiktive vorösterliche Redekomposition”). Takashi Onuki, Gemeinde und Welt im Johannesevangelium: Ein Beitrag zur Frage nach der theologischen und pragmatischen Funktion des johanneischen »Dualismus«, WMANT 56 ( Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1984), 193-96, has likewise argued, in his discussion of Günther Bornkamm’s hermeneutical perspective, that the content of the Farewell Discourse, on the one hand, is historical in the sense that it is based on the historical event of the cross. Yet, while bearing on these historical defaults, the Johannine speech composition transcends this base and needs to be under- 256 with the tradition history of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel Michael Theobald has identified in John 14 at least three Herrenworte as traditional core sayings around which this first part of the Farewell Discourse is composed. Of these three logia, John 14: 2-3 and John 14: 6 are regarded as having their origin in the oral transmission of the Johannine church, while at least for John 14: 2-3 synoptic reminiscences cannot be dismissed. 28 The third unit, namely John 14: 13-14, is one of the very few constituent parts of the Johannine discourses that Theobald apparently accepts as having the historical pedigree as an utterance of Jesus, perhaps due to the strong synoptic parallels to this Johannine aphorism. 29 Other scholars have come to a slightly more optimistic verdict with regard to the historical trustworthiness of the Farewell Discourse. Often it is within the context of multiple redaction models that historical question are addressed. 30 This results in the frequent assumption that the extended Farewell Discourse reflects different stages of composition in which more traditional teaching material has been creatively appropriated in light of current developments within the Johannine community. The five stage compositional theory of Raymond Brown has again proven to be rather influential as he suggests that the Farewell Discourse contains two independent collections (13: 31-14: 31 and 15: 1-16: 33 [with three subdivisions]) compiled and woven together at different stages of the Fourth Gospels’ formation. Similarities to the Synoptics may be found in both divisions of the final discourse, so that Brown maintains that each of these two collections “has its share of early traditional sayings of Jesus and each has its stood as a “erinnernde Vergegenwärtigung” of the Spirit-empowered post-Easter church. In this sense he can say that statements of the Farewell Discourse are placed on the lips of a departing Jesus (100). Similar terms are used by Johanna Rahner, “Vergegenwärtigende Erinnerung: Die Abschiedsreden, der Geist-Paraklet und die Retrospektive des Johannesevangeliums,” ZNW 91 (2000): 74 (“erzählerische Fiktion”). Cf. now also Bas van Os, “John’s Last Supper and the Resurrection Dialogues,” in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel, eds. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, Early Christianity and Its Literature 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 279, who states that “it is not improbable that a significant part of the discourse material in John 13-17 originally belonged to a postresurrection setting.” 28 Theobald, Herrenworte, 506-21 (on John 14: 2-3), 305-22 (on John 14: 6). As synoptic reminiscences to John 14: 2-3 Theobald mentions Mark 8: 38 pars.; Matt 16: 28; Mark 13: 26f. and Luke 17: 34-35 (514-15). 29 Ibid., 153-73 (especially 156-67), also 197: “Beachtlich ist, dass die überlieferungskritische Rückfrage immerhin bei einigen Logien ihre Herkunft vom historischen Jesus plausibel machen konnte. So dürften hinter (…) 14,13f. authentische Worte Jesu stehen, (…).” [italics his] As synoptic parallels to John 14: 13-14 Theobald mentions Matt 7: 7-8 par. Luke 11: 9-10 and Mark 11: 24. 30 Cf. Keener, John, 2: 894: “The vision of form and source criticism naturally gave way to redaction criticism, however, so that one could acknowledge historical tradition in the discourse(s) yet prove more interested in how it (they) fit the community John is addressing.” 257 later developments.” 31 Barnabas Lindars has followed Brown in assuming two alternative versions of a farewell speech and wants historical questions to be treated like the other Johannine discourses, namely as homiletic compositions of the evangelist that are based on traditional elements from the teaching of Jesus. 32 John Painter reckons with three successive versions of the Farewell Discourse (13: 31-14: 31; 15: 1-16: 4a; 16: 4b-33) each reflecting a particular situation of crisis in the history of the Johannine Christians “to which the evangelist responded with a reformulation of the teaching about the Paraclete/ Spirit of Truth.” 33 Such creative reinterpretation is again understood by Painter as being justified through the promise of the Paraclete “perhaps against those who would not go beyond the terms used in the context of the ministry of Jesus.” 34 Yet, especially regarding what he considers to be the first version of the Farewell Discourses (i.e., John 13: 31- 14: 31), Painter maintains that “it is rooted in the historical tradition about Jesus.” 35 When asking more specifically about the bearing of Johannine- Synoptic relations on historical judgments regarding the Farewell Discourse, again reference needs to be made to the magisterial work of C. H. Dodd. Having compared the individual parts of the Farewell Discourse with the Synoptics (and in keeping with his general moderate-skeptical view on historical matters), he maintains that quite a few Johannine sayings should be regarded as echoes of earlier tradition represented in the other three Gospels. According to Dodd, however, much of the content that we find in John 14-16 “is alien to the synoptic outlook, and it is so much of a piece with Johannine theology that it may with probability be assigned to the evangelist, whatever nucleus of older tradition, no longer recognizable, may lie within it.” 36 Despite some punctual overlap in what Dodd calls “the first part of the discourses” (John 13: 31-14: 31), it is especially there that any direct relation between the Fourth Gospel and its synoptic counterparts is difficult to determine. 37 Only in the promise of the help of the Holy Spirit does Dodd see any contact of the Johannine picture of the “inte- 31 Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 594. See also ibid., 585: “The parts of the Last Discourse were probably formed in the same manner as other Johannine discourses (…): traditional sayings of Jesus directed to his disciples, which had been preserved in various contexts, were woven into connected speech on a particular theme; then the units of speech were woven into larger compositions.” 32 Lindars, Gospel of John, 465-69. 33 John Painter, “The Farewell Discourses and the History of Johannine Christianity,” NTS 27 (1981): 531. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., 533. 36 Dodd, Historical Tradition, 408. 37 Ibid., 413. 258 rior life of the Church” with the synoptic predictions. 38 Recently, Andrew Lincoln has emphasized that in the latter part of the Synoptic Gospels Jesus provides teaching similar to the Farewell Discourse; an observation made, of course, by other commentators before him. 39 Yet, Lincoln explicitly combines this observation with an historical estimation of the Johannine speech material. He argues that both the apocalyptic discourse in Mark 13: 1-37 pars. (with its focus on the coming Son of Man) as well as Jesus’ words at the Last Supper in Mark 14: 17-31 (with its focus on the Son of Man going away) together with his teaching on faith and prayer in Mark 11: 22-24 par. Matt 21: 21-22 provide some background especially for the first unit of the Johannine Farewell Discourse. John creatively brings together such traditional material that is also reflected in the Synoptics and reinterprets it in his own peculiar manner. Again, in Lincoln’s eyes, wherever the Johannine message goes beyond what can be rooted in historical tradition it is “endorsed as authoritative by the risen Christ through the Spirit.” 40 Thus, we find side by side in the Farewell Discourse sayings that are made plausible as reliable renderings of the historical Jesus not least by similar material in the Synoptics as well as sayings that are only “appropriate to the postresurrection situation of the exalted Christ and the readers.” 41 Despite such recognition of selected passages in the Synoptics that bear at least some resemblance to what we find in John 14, only 10 out of 28 verses containing Jesus’ direct speech are noted as having a synoptic parallel in our preliminary inventory presented in chapter 2 (14: 6, 9, 13-14, 16, 18, 23, 26, 28, 31). NA 27 lists five of them (14: 6, 9, 16, 26, 31). Using our methodology established in the previous chapters it is now our goal to analyze in more detail the actual amount of coherence that exists between this first unit of the Farewell Discourse and Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics. Special mention will be made of those synoptic parallels that are located within the final stages of Jesus’ ministry, especially in the context of his final meal with his disciples. As one characteristic feature of Johannine 38 Ibid., 408. 39 Lincoln, John, 384-86. Smith, John, 262: “In a very general sense, however, their content [i.e., that of the Farewell Discourses] corresponds to the synoptic apocalypse (Matt 24: 1-44; Mark 13: 1-37; Luke 21: 5-33.” Smith also states: “Within the New Testament, Luke comes closest to constructing such a farewell of Jesus (22: 14-38) (…).” (Ibid., 265.) Udo Schnelle, “Die Abschiedsreden im Johannesevangelium,“ ZNW 80 (1989): 78 comments: “Bereits in Lk 22,14 - 38 läßt sich die Absicht erkennen, das kurze Beisammensein Jesu mit seinen Jüngern beim Abendmahl (Mk 14,17 - 25) zu einer Abschiedsrede auszuweiten. Johannes nimmt diese Tendenz auf und baut die Abschiedssituation zu einem zentralen Komplex des gesamten Evangeliums aus.” Cf. also Beasley-Murray, John, 222; Keener, John, 2: 894; note the short list of synoptic parallels in Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 595. 40 Lincoln, John, 386. See our summary of the views of Casey, Hoegen-Rohls, as well as footnotes 26 and 27 above. 41 Lincoln, John, 386. 259 style we are again confronted with a certain amount of redundancy which means that several synoptic passages are mentioned as parallels more than once. 5.1.2 Sequence 1: John 14: 1-14 (Jesus Comforts His Disciples) [14: 1a] Mh. tarasse,sqw u`mw/ n h` kardi,a\ pisteu,ete eivj to.n qeo.n kai. eiv j evme. pisteu,eteÅ “Do not let your hearts be distressed. [0/ 2] [1/ 2] [Matt 10: 31] mh. ou= n fobei/ sqe\ So don't be afraid;; (…) [Luke 24: 38] kai. ei=pen auvtoi/ j\ ti, tetaragme, noi ev ste. kai. dia. ti, dialogismoi. avnabai,nousin evn th/ | kardi,a| u`mw/ nÈ Then he said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See also [Matt 10: 26; Luke 5: 10; 8: 50] et al. [14: 1b] pisteu,ete eivj to.n qeo.n kai. eivj evme. pisteu,eteÅ You believe in God; believe also in me. [1/ 1] [1/ 2] [Mark 5: 36 par. Luke 8: 50] mh. fobou/ ( mo,non pi,steueÅ “Do not be afraid;; just believe.” [Matt 18: 6 par. Mark 9: 42] }Oj dV a'n skandali,sh| e[ na tw/ n mikrw/ n tou,twn tw/ n pisteuo,ntwn eivj ev me,( (…) But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin (…) [1/ 1] [Mark 1: 15] metanoei/ te kai. pisteu,ete evn tw/ | euvaggeli,w|Å Repent and believe the gospel! [14: 2a, 2c, 3b] ev n th/ | oiv ki,a| tou/ patro,j mou monai. pollai, eivsin\ (…) e` toima,sai to,pon u`mi/ nÈ (…) kai. e` toima,sw to,pon u`mi/ n There are many dwelling places in my Father’s house. (…) to make ready a place for you. (…) and make ready a place for you, (…). [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [Matt 20: 23 par. Mark 10: 40] to. me. n poth,rio, n mou pi,esqe( to. de. kaqi,sai evk dexiw/ n mou kai. ev x euvwnu,mwn ouvk e; stin evmo.n Îtou/ toÐ dou/ nai( avllV oij h`toi,mastai u`po. tou/ patro,j mouÅ “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right and at my left is not mine to give. Rather, it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” [Matt 25: 34] to,te ev rei/ o` basileu.j toi/ j evk dexiw/ n auvtou/ \ deu/ te oi` euvloghme, noi tou/ patro,j mou( klhronomh,sate th.n h`toimasme,nhn u`mi/ n basilei,an avpo. katabolh/ j ko,smouÅ 260 [0/ 1] Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. [Mark 14: 25 pars.] avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti ouvke, ti ouv mh. pi,w ev k tou/ genh,matoj th/ j avmpe, lou e[ wj th/ j h`me,raj evkei,nhj o[tan auvto. pi,nw kaino.n evn th/ | basilei,a| tou/ qeou/ Å Amen, I say to you, I will no longer drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God. Cf. also [Luke 15: 20-24]. [14: 2b, 3a] eiv de. mh,( ei=pon a'n u`mi/ n o[ti poreu,omai (…) kai. ev a.n poreuqw/ (…) Otherwise, I would have told you, because I am going away (…) And if I go (…) [0/ 2] [Mark 14: 21 pars.] o[ti o` me. n ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou u`pa,gei kaqw.j ge, graptai peri. auvtou/ ( (…) For the Son of Man will go as it is written about him, (…) [14: 3c] pa,lin e; rcomai (…) I will come again (…) [1/ 1] [Matt 16: 27 pars.] me, llei ga.r o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou e; rcesqai ev n th/ | do,xh| tou/ patro.j auvtou/ meta. tw/ n avgge, lwn auvtou/ ( kai. to,te avpodw,sei e`ka,stw| kata. th.n pra/ xin auvtou/ For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. [14: 3d] kai. paralh,myomai u`ma/ j pro.j evmauto,n( and take you to be with me, [1/ 1] [Luke 17: 34-35 par. Matt 24: 40-41] le, gw u`mi/ n( tau,th| th/ | nukti. e; sontai du,o ev pi. kli,nhj mia/ j( o` ei-j paralhmfqh,setai kai. o` e[ teroj avfeqh,setai\ e; sontai du,o avlh,qousai evpi. to. auvto,( h` mi,a paralhmfqh,setai( h` de. e` te,ra avfeqh,setaiÅ I tell you, in that night there will be two people in one bed; one will be taken and the other left. There will be two women grinding grain together; one will be taken and the other left. [0/ 1] [Matt 16: 27 pars.] me, llei ga.r o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou e; rcesqai evn th/ | do,xh| tou/ patro.j auvtou/ meta. tw/ n avgge, lwn auvtou/ ( kai. to,te avpodw,sei e`ka,stw| kata. th.n pra/ xin auvtou/ For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will 261 reward each person according to what he has done. [14: 3e] i[na o[pou eivmi. evgw. kai. u`mei/ j h=teÅ so that where I am you may be too. [0/ 2] [0/ 2] [Matt 28: 20] kai. ivdou. ev gw. meqV u`mw/ n eivmi pa,saj ta.j h`me, raj e[ wj th/ j suntelei,aj tou/ aivw/ nojÅ And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. [Matt 18: 20] ouga,r eivsin du,o h' trei/ j sunhgme, noi eivj to. ev mo.n o; noma( evkei/ eivmi ev n me, sw| auvtw/ nÅ For where two or three are assembled in my name, I am there among them. [14: 4] kai. o[pou Îev gw.Ð u`pa,gw oi; date th.n o`do,nÅ And you know the way where I am going.” [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [Mark 14: 21 pars.] o[ti o` me. n ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou u`pa,gei kaqw.j ge, graptai peri. auvtou/ ( (…) For the Son of Man will go as it is written about him, (…) [Matt 20: 18-19 pars.] ivdou. avnabai,nomen eivj ~Ieroso,luma( kai. o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou paradoqh,setai toi/ j avrciereu/ sin kai. grammateu/ sin( kai. katakrinou/ sin auvto.n qana,tw kai. paradw,sousin auvto.n toi/ j e; qnesin eivj to. ev mpai/ xai kai. mastigw/ sai kai. staurw/ sai( kai. th/ | tri,th| h`me, ra| ev gerqh,setaiÅ Look, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be handed over to the chief priests and the experts in the law. They will condemn him to death, and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged severely and crucified. Yet on the third day, he will be raised. See also [Mark 9: 31 pars.; also Matt 16: 21] et al. [14: 5] Thomas said, “Lord, we don't know where you are going. How can we know the way? ” [14: 6a] le, gei auvtw/ | Îo`Ð VIhsou/ j\ ev gw, eivmi h` o`do.j kai. h` avlh,qeia kai. h` zwh,\ Jesus replied, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. [1/ 1] [Matt 7: 13-14 par. Luke 13: 23-27] Eivse,lqate dia. th/ j stenh/ j pu,lhj\ o[ti platei/ a h` pu,lh kai. euvru,cwroj h` o`do.j h` avpa,gousa eivj th.n avpw,leian kai. polloi, eivsin oi` eivserco,menoi diV auvth/ j\ ti, stenh. h` pu,lh kai. teqlimme,nh h` o`do.j h` avpa,gousa eivj th.n zwh.n kai. ovli,goi eivsi.n oi` eu`ri,skontej auvth,nÅ Enter through the narrow gate, because the 262 gate is wide and the way is spacious that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. But the gate is narrow and the way is difficult that leads to life, and there are few who find it. [1/ 1] [Matt 10: 32-33 par. Luke 12: 8-9] Pa/ j ou=n o[stij o`mologh,sei ev n ev moi. e; mprosqen tw/ n avnqrw,pwn( o`mologh,sw kavgw. ev n auvtw/ | e; mprosqen tou/ patro,j [see 14: 6b] mou tou/ evn Îtoi/ jÐ ouvranoi/ j\ o[stij dV a'n avrnh,shtai, me e; mprosqen tw/ n avnqrw,pwn( avrnh,somai kavgw. auvto.n e; mprosqen tou/ patro,j mou tou/ ev n Îtoi/ jÐ ouvranoi/ jÅ Whoever, then, acknowledges me before people, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever denies me before people, I will deny him also before my Father in heaven. [14: 6b] ouvdei.j e; rcetai pro.j to.n pate,ra eiv mh. diV evmou/ Å No one comes to the Father except through me. [1/ 2] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] Pa,nta moi paredo,qh u`po. tou/ patro,j mou( kai. ouvdei.j evpiginw,skei to.n ui`o.n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate,ra tij evpiginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j kai. w-| eva.n bou,lhtai o` ui`o.j avpokalu,yaiÅ All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. [14: 7] eiv ev gnw,kate, me( kai. to.n pate, ra mou gnw,sesqeÅ kai. avpV a; rti ginw,skete auvto.n kai. e`wra,kate auvto,nÅ If you have known me, you will know my Father too. And from now on you do know him and have seen him.” [1/ 2] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] Pa,nta moi paredo,qh u`po. tou/ patro,j mou( kai. ouvdei.j evpiginw,skei to.n ui`o.n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate, ra tij evpiginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j kai. w-| eva.n bou,lhtai o` ui`o.j avpokalu,yaiÅ All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. [0/ 1] [Luke 10: 23-24 par. Matt 13: 16-17] maka,rioi oi` ovfqalmoi. oi` ble, pontej a] ble, peteÅ le, gw ga.r u`mi/ n o[ti polloi. profh/ tai kai. basilei/ j hvqe,lhsan ivdei/ n a] u`mei/ j ble, pete kai. ouvk ei=dan( kai. avkou/ sai a] avkou,ete kai. ouvk h; kousanÅ “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see! For I tell you that many prophets and kings longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” 263 [14: 8] Philip said, “Lord, show us the Father, and we will be content.” [14: 9a] le, gei auvtw/ | o` VIhsou/ j\ tosou,tw| cro,nw| meqV u`mw/ n eivmi kai. ouvk e; gnwka,j me( Fi,lippeÈ Jesus replied, “ Have I been with you for so long, and you have not known me, Philip? [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 17: 17 pars.] w= genea. a; pistoj kai. diestramme, nh( e[ wj po,te meqV u`mw/ n e; somaiÈ e[wj po,te avne, xomai u`mw/ nÈ You unbelieving and perverse generation! How much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I endure you? [Mark 8: 21] ou; pw suni,eteÈ “Do you still not understand? ” [14: 9b] o` e` wrakw.j evme. e` w,raken to.n pate,ra\ pw/ j su. le,geij\ dei/ xon h`mi/ n to.n pate,raÈ The person who has seen me has seen the Father! How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? [1/ 1] See above on 14: 6b, 7: [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] [14: 10a] ouv pisteu,eij o[ti ev gw. ev n tw/ | patri. kai. o` path.r ev n ev moi, evstinÈ Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? [1/ 1] See above on 14: 6b, 7: [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] [14: 10b] ta. r`h, mata a] ev gw. le, gw u`mi/ n avpV ev mautou/ ouv lalw/ ( The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative, [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Luke 4: 18] pneu/ ma kuri,ou ev pV ev me. ouei[neken e; crise,n me euvaggeli,sasqai ptwcoi/ j( avpe, stalke,n me( khru,xai aivcmalw,toij a; fesin kai. tufloi/ j avna,bleyin( avpostei/ lai teqrausme, nouj evn avfe,sei( (…) The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, (…) [Matt 26: 39, 42 pars.] pa,ter mou( eiv dunato,n ev stin( parelqa,tw avpV ev mou/ to. poth,rion tou/ to\ plh.n ouvc w`j evgw. qe, lw avllV w`j su,Å (…) pa,ter mou( (…) genhqh,tw to. qe, lhma, souÅ My Father, if possible, let this cup pass from 264 me! Yet not what I will, but what you will. (…) My Father (…) your will must be done. [14: 10c] o` de. path.r ev n ev moi. me, nwn poiei/ ta. e; rga auvtou/ Å but the Father residing in me performs his works. [0/ 1] [Matt 12: 28 par. Luke 11: 20] eiv de. ev n pneu,mati qeou/ ev gw. evkba,llw ta. daimo,nia( a; ra e; fqasen evfV u`ma/ j h` basilei,a tou/ qeou/ Å But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you. [14: 11a] pisteu,ete, moi o[ti ev gw. ev n tw/ | patri. kai. o` path.r ev n ev moi, \ Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, [1/ 1] See above on 14: 6b, 7: [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] [14: 11b] eiv de. mh,( dia. ta. e; rga auvta. pisteu,eteÅ but if you do not believe me, believe because of the works themselves. [0/ 1] [Matt 11: 4-6 par. Luke 7: 18-23] poreuqe, ntej avpaggei,late VIwa,nnh| a] avkou,ete kai. ble, pete\ tufloi. avnable,pousin kai. cwloi. peripatou/ sin( leproi. kaqari,zontai kai. kwfoi. avkou,ousin( kai. nekroi. ev gei,rontai kai. ptwcoi. euvaggeli,zontai\ kai. maka,rio,j evstin o]j eva.n mh. skandalisqh/ | evn evmoi, Å “Go tell John what you hear and see: The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news proclaimed to them. Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” [0/ 1] [Matt 11: 20-24 par. Luke 10: 12-15] To,te h; rxato ovneidi,zein ta.j po,leij ev n ai-j ev ge, nonto ai` plei/ stai duna,meij auvtou/ ( o[ti ouv meteno,hsan\ ouvai, soi( Corazi,n( ouvai, soi( Bhqsai? da,\ o[ti eiv ev n Tu,rw| kai. Sidw/ ni ev ge, nonto ai` duna,meij ai` geno,menai ev n u`mi/ n( pa,lai a'n ev n sa,kkw| kai. spodw/ | meteno,hsanÅ plh.n le, gw u`mi/ n( Tu,rw| kai. Sidw/ ni avnekto,teron e; stai ev n h`me, ra| kri,sewj h' u`mi/ nÅ kai. su,( Kafarnaou,m( mh. e[ wj ouvranou/ u`ywqh,sh|È e[wj a[|dou katabh,sh|\ o[ti eiv ev n Sodo,moij ev genh,qhsan ai` duna,meij ai` geno,menai ev n soi, ( e; meinen a'n me, cri th/ j sh,meronÅ plh.n le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti gh/ | Sodo,mwn avnekto,teron e; stai evn h`me, ra| kri,sewj h' soi,Å Then Jesus began to criticize openly the cities in which he had done many of his miracles, because they did not repent. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it 265 [0/ 1] will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you! And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be thrown down to Hades! For if the miracles done among you had been done in Sodom, it would have continued to this day. But I tell you, it will be more bearable for the region of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you! ” [Mark 2: 10] i[na de. eivdh/ te o[ti ev xousi,an e; cei o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou avfie,nai a`marti,aj ev pi. th/ j gh/ j& le, gei tw/ | paralutikw/ |\ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,"- he said to the paralytic- [14: 12] VAmh.n avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n( o` pisteu,wn eivj evme. ta. e; rga a] ev gw. poiw/ kavkei/ noj poih,sei kai. mei,zona tou,twn poih,sei( o[ti ev gw. pro.j to.n pate, ra poreu,omai\ Amen, amen, I say to you, the person who believes in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these, because I am going to the Father. [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [Matt 11: 11] VAmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n\ ouvk ev gh,gertai ev n gennhtoi/ j gunaikw/ n mei,zwn VIwa,nnou tou/ baptistou/ \ o` de. mikro,teroj ev n th/ | basilei,a| tw/ n ouvranw/ n mei,zwn auvtou/ evstinÅ I tell you the truth, among those born of women, no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he is. [Mark 11: 22-24 par. Matt 21: 21] e; cete pi,stin qeou/ Å avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti o]j a'n ei; ph| tw/ | o; rei tou,tw|\ a; rqhti kai. blh,qhti eivj th.n qa,lassan( kai. mh. diakriqh/ | ev n th/ | kardi,a| auvtou/ avlla. pisteu,h| o[ti o] lalei/ gi,netai( e; stai auvtw/ |Å dia. tou/ to le,gw u`mi/ n( pa,nta o[sa proseu,cesqe kai. aivtei/ sqe( pisteu,ete o[ti ev la,bete( kai. e; stai u`mi/ nÅ Have faith in God. Amen, I say to you, if someone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him. For this reason I tell you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. [14: 13a] kai. o[ ti a'n aivth,shte evn tw/ | ovno,mati, mou tou/ to poih,sw( And I will do whatever you ask in my name, [1/ 2] [Matt 7: 7 par. Luke 11: 9] Aivtei/ te kai. doqh,setai u`mi/ n( zhtei/ te kai. eu`rh,sete( krou,ete kai. avnoigh,setai u`mi/ n\ Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. 266 [1/ 2] [Mark 11: 24 par. Matt 21: 22] dia. tou/ to le,gw u`mi/ n( pa,nta o[sa proseu,cesqe kai. aivtei/ sqe( pisteu,ete o[ti ev la,bete( kai. e; stai u`mi/ nÅ For this reason I tell you, whatever you pray and ask for, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. See also [Matt 18: 19-20]. [14: 13b] i[na doxasqh/ | o` path.r ev n tw/ | ui`w/ |Å so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. [0/ 0] Yet, cf. the synoptic narrative asides in [Matt 9: 8 pars.; Matt 15: 31; Luke 7: 16] et al., where God, the Father, is praised/ glorified through the work of his Son. [14: 14] ev a,n ti aivth,shte, me ev n tw/ | ovno,mati, mou evgw. poih,swÅ If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. [1/ 2] See above on 14: 13a: [Matt 7: 7 par. Luke 11: 9; Mark 11: 24] Three announcements in John 13 form the background of Jesus’ initial statement in John 14: 1a where Jesus announces his betrayal, the denial of Peter as well as his impending departure. These alarming proclamations obviously disturbed the emotional state of his disciples. Therefore, Jesus exhorts them by saying: “Do not let your hearts be distressed! ” The only time the verb tara,ssw is used on the lips of Jesus in the Synoptics is Luke 24: 38. There the exhortation not to be troubled is expressed by a question: “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? ” [1/ 2-level of closeness; note also the parallel usage of the noun kardi,a ]. The direct exhortation of the disciples in Matt 10: 31 (“Do not be afraid! ” [0/ 2-level of closeness]) is conceptually close as well, although the verb fobe,w is used instead of tara,ssw (note also the frequent synoptic commands of this kind in Matt 10: 26; Luke 5: 10; 8: 50 et al.). The following references to “belief” in John 14: 1b are ambiguous and could either be imperative (“Believe in God;; believe also in me;;” so most English translations), indicative (“You believe in God;; you believe also in me”) or a combination of both (“You believe in God, believe also in me”). The latter option seems to be preferable as Jesus would most likely designate his Jewish disciples as already believing in God. Yet again, he links belief in God with believing in him, since he has already revealed himself as the authority sent by the Father. Although Jesus’ synoptic teaching does not contain such a direct link between faith in God and faith in him, we do find in Mark 5: 36 par. Luke 8: 50 [1/ 1-level of closeness] a similar call to belief instead of giving in to anxiety (“Do not be 267 afraid, just believe”). 42 The invitation to trust in him, in his power and (not to be separated) in the gospel message he brings is certainly no idiosyncrasy of the Johannine Jesus (cf. also Mark 1: 15 [1/ 1-level of closeness]). Moreover, the specific significance of believing eivj evme, (Matt 18: 6 par. Mark 9: 42 [1/ 2-level of closeness]) is stressed by Jesus in the Synoptics as well. In John 14: 2-3 Jesus enunciates in more detail the reason why his disciples may have a peaceful instead of a troubled heart. He assures them saying: “There are many dwelling places in my Father’s house. (…) I am going away to make ready a place for you. And (…) I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may be too.” The exact referent of these statements is difficult to determine as “Jesus’ words in 14: 2-3 (…) are ambiguous enough to lend themselves to either an eschatological or an immediate postresurrection interpretation.” 43 Many have argued that Jesus refers here to his preparation of future heavenly dwelling places that he will assign to his followers at his second coming. 44 Seen in this light, the focus would be on the prospect of permanent residences in the presence of God in heaven. Others have noticed that at the only other place in the Fourth Gospel where the term monh, is used in 14: 23, it refers to spiritual relationship (“We [i.e., Jesus and the Father] will come to him and take up residence with him”), a figurative meaning also expressed in 8: 35 by the cognate verb menw, (“The slave does not remain in the family forever, but the son remains forever”). 45 As Jesus is about to promise his ongoing presence with the disciples through the Spirit, the immediate context may thus well suggest that his statement is not only related to the future eschatological motif of his Parousia. Rather, Jesus might be saying that his departure and his postresurrection return provide the way for a permanent spiritual relationship not only with him but as adopted sons and daughters with the Father. While the “realized eschatol- 42 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 197, additionally notes that the “links between believing in Jesus and believing in God resemble Jesus’ claims in the Synoptics concerning his followers ‘confessing’ him as the key to Jesus’ confessing them before the Father on Judgment Day (Matt. 10: 32;; Luke 12: 8).” 43 Keener, John, 2: 939. 44 Such a future, eschatological interpretation has been proposed by Beasley-Murray, John, 249-50; Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 198; Carson, John, 488-89; Frey, Eschatologie III, 134-53; David E. Holwerda, The Holy Spirit and Eschatology in the Gospel of John: A Critique of Rudolf Bultmann’s Present Eschatology (Kampen: Kok, 1959), 84; Köstenberger, John, 425-27; Lincoln, John, 389 et al.; cf. also Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 626. 45 Keener, John, 2: 936-39; Lindars, Gospel of John, 471; cf. also Günter Fischer, Die himmlischen Wohnungen: Untersuchungen zu Joh 14,2f, EHS 38 (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1975), 304-34. Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 627, acknowledges that this interpretation could be a secondary reinterpretation of John 14: 2-3 by the Johannine writer. Dodd, Interpretation, 404-05, as well as Becker, “Abschiedsreden,” 222-28, have similarly argued that what we find here is a deliberate reproduction in a spiritual sense of a saying originally referring to the second coming; cf. also Schnackenburg, John, 3: 61-62. 268 ogy” of the latter interpretation seems to fit the context well, the connotation of “future eschatology” cannot be easily denied. 46 A conscious use of double entendre is not beyond John as some have noted. 47 Whatever interpretation of these Johannine propositions one prefers, none is without synoptic correlations. If John 14: 2a, 2c, 3b are taken as referring to future, heavenly dwelling places to be occupied at the Parousia one may immediately think of two synoptic words of Jesus that relate to the concept of places prepared for his disciples. First, the concluding statement of Jesus’ dialogue with James and John, the sons of Zebedee, in Matt 20: 23 par. Mark 10: 40, where Jesus makes plain that he is not authorized to allocate them the places to his right or his left but at the same time assumes that those future places in the kingdom are set up in advance. Second, within the judgment scene of separating the sheep and the goats in Matt 25: 34 Jesus refers to “the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” Although both passages do not focus on Jesus as the one going away in order to do the preparation, the eschatological outlook at these late stages of Jesus’ ministry is apparently similar in John and the Synoptics [1/ 1-levels of closeness; note the parallel references to tou/ patro, j mou and the verb e`toima,zw ]. 48 This may be further confirmed by looking at the synoptic accounts of the Last Supper, where in Mark 14: 25 pars. Jesus anticipates a time when he will be in community with his disciples “drinking of the fruit of the vine anew in the kingdom of God.” This conceptually resembles Jesus’ Johannine prospect of a common dwelling place with his followers [0/ 1-level of closeness; cf. also Luke 15: 20-24]. 49 In John 14: 2b, 3a Jesus talks more specifically about his leaving the earthly scene, an an- 46 For more detailed comments on realized and future eschatology as it pertains to John 14 cf., e.g., Keener, John, 2: 937-39, and the literature mentioned there. 47 Robert H. Gundry, “‘In my Father’s House are many Monai, ’ (John 14 2),” ZNW 58 (1967): 68-72; Bock, Jesus According to Scripture, 499; cf. also Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 621. 48 These two parallels have been observed by Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 198; Keener, John, 2: 936; cf. also Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 625; as well as Christian Dietzfelbinger, Teilband 2: Johannes 13-21, vol. 2 of Das Evangelium nach Johannes, ZBK 4 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 2001), 41. Note also that in Matt 19: 29 pars. Jesus promises eternal rewards in exchange for “houses” left behind (Köstenberger, John, 427). 49 This synoptic resemblance is also mentioned by Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 198 and Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 625. For the possible parallel in Luke 15: 20-24, see Köstenberger, John, 427, who argues that with the reference to “his Father’s house” Jesus emphasizes “that believers’ future is bound up with a homecoming comparable to a son’s return,” something that makes one think about the parable of the lost son. Like the son in the parable, Jesus’ followers will ultimately take residence with him as fellow members of the Father’s household. Michaels, John, 767n19, has pointed out that the “household” as the sphere of God’s authority occurs in the other Gospels as well (especially in parables), e.g. in Matt 10: 25; 13: 27; 24: 45-51; Mark 13: 34, 35; Luke 12: 35-38; 13: 25; 14: 21. 269 nouncement likewise made in Mark 14: 21 pars. [0/ 2-level of closeness]. The next two propositions in John 14: 3c and 14: 3d again refer to Jesus’ return. In Luke 17: 34-35 par. Matt 24: 40-41 as in John the verb paralamba,nein is used in order to make reference to the Son of Man’s Parousia when he will “take” people with him [1/ 1-level of closeness]. 50 If these Johannine verses as a whole indeed point toward the Parousia as the decisive moment of taking over the heavenly inheritance we may finally mention Matt 16: 27 pars. as a synoptic parallel to this second coming in which the Johannine dwelling places are less specifically described as “reward” [1/ 1-level of closeness]. 51 Now if John 14: 2-3 has connotations of a post-resurrection spiritual relationship with him and the Father, two Matthean parallels stand out (here adduced especially for John 14: 3e). If the Johannine Jesus is promising his disciples a postresurrection experience of God’s presence including spiritual fellowship with him, this is indeed conceptually close to Jesus’ reassuring statements in Matt 18: 20 and Matt 28: 20 [0/ 2-levels of closeness]. There, Jesus not only promises, “where two or three are assembled in my name there I am among them” but in the great commission he actually affirms, “I am with you always, to the end of the age.” 52 Along those lines, both the Johannine as well as the Synoptic Jesus envision a permanent relationship with the ever-present Son. 53 In John 14: 4 Jesus tells the disciples “you know the way [to the place] where I am going.” It should have been clear by now (see the preceding verses) that he is going back to the Father, a place to which the disciples could not follow (13: 33). But Jesus had also promised that he would return in order for them to again experience fellowship with him. As Jesus directs the attention from his destination to the “way” he is going, he seems to 50 Theobald, Herrenworte, 515: “Die Übereinstimmung zwischen Joh 14,3d und diesem Q-Spruch [i.e., Luke 17: 34-35] in dem signifikanten paralamba,nein ist bemerkenswert! ” 51 Cf. also Mark 13: 27, where in the apocalyptic discourse mention is made of Christ’s second coming with the gathering of the elect (Lincoln, John, 389; Michaels, John, 772). For this saying as well as for Matt 16: 27 pars., see also Theobald, Herrenworte, 514-15. Matt 16: 27 (as well as 25: 31) is also adduced by Jean Zumstein, L’Évangile Selon Saint Jean (13-21), CNT IVb (Genève: Labor et Fides, 2007), 61n23. Note that in 1Thess 4: 15- 17 Paul refers to the coming of Jesus by a “word of the Lord.” Lindars, Gospel of John, 470, refers to Hoskyns who “suggests that this Johannine statement has been formed out of Jesus’ instructions to the two disciples to go ahead and prepare the Passover in Mark 14: 12-16” (cf. also Keener, John, 2: 932). 52 Both Matthean passages are mentioned by Keener, John, 2: 936; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 621, refers to Matt 28: 20 as a synoptic counterpart. Even if we relate John 14: 3e to Jesus’ Parousia the theme of “being together with Jesus” would still justify a 0/ 1- level of closeness. 53 For synoptic parallels to the Johannine “Father”-language (here and in John 14: 6, 7, 8, 9 [2x], 10 [3x], 11 [2x], 12, 13, 16, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28 [2x], 31 [2x]), see chapter 4 footnote 23 above. 270 remind his disciples of previous announcements of his impending death (12: 23-25, 32-33; also 8: 28). 54 He is going to the Father by way of the cross. It is not without irony that it is Thomas who immediately denies any knowledge of this procedure, although, slightly earlier, he had prompted his fellow disciples “Let us go too, so that we may die with him” (11: 16). Jesus’ indirect reference to his departure from the earthly scene here in John is obviously paralleled by several direct announcements of his death in the synoptic accounts made during the latter part of his ministry. While the Son of Man’s “going away” ( u`pa,gw ) is again announced in Mark 14: 21 pars. [1/ 1-level of closeness], Matt 20: 18-19 pars. contains the more specific declaration that his way to Jerusalem is tantamount to facing crucifixion [0/ 1-level of closeness; cf. also Mark 9: 31 pars.; Matt 16: 21]. 55 In John 14: 5 the response of Thomas (who acts as a spokesperson for the rest of the disciples) reveals that they have not yet grasped what Jesus has said about his destination, and thus the additional reference to their “knowledge of the way” leaves them entirely puzzled. Thomas, therefore, asks the teacher to give them a less ambiguous instruction of the way to the place where he is going. This gives Jesus the opportunity to utter the sixth “I am”-saying reported in the Fourth Gospel in John 14: 6a: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” What had seemed to be merely a question of destination is now filled by Jesus with an even deeper spiritual meaning. “The road that Jesus travels is not about a location; it is about providing access to God for individuals.” 56 By going to the Father, Jesus manifests himself as the exclusive way to God when he asserts in John 14: 6b that “no one comes to the Father except through me.” Divine truth is revealed for humankind in Jesus and through him access to eternal life may be gained, thus making him “the one and only way of salvation.” 57 Synoptic parallels of these significant christological statements can be found in Matt 7: 13-14 par. Luke 13: 23-27 where Jesus commands his listeners not to follow “the spacious way that leads to destruction” but rather “the narrow way that leads to life.” In both John and the Synoptics Jesus uses the image of “way” for his 54 Keener, John, 2: 939. 55 This is another instance where Maurice Casey’s denial of Johannine-Synoptic nonrelations is, to say the least, an overstatement. Admittedly, Jesus’ teaching of his return to the Father is not as explicit in the Synoptics as it is in the Fourth Gospel, but it is hardly “absent” as Casey would have us believe (Is John’s Gospel True? , 193). 56 Bock, Jesus According to Scripture, 500. 57 Köstenberger, John, 430. Besides the other major commentaries, see for this verse also the extensive exegetical treatment of Ignace de la Potterie, Le Christ et la Vérité, vol. 1 of La Vérité Dans Saint Jean, AnBib 73 (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1977), 263-78, esp. on the relationship of the three terms “way, truth, and life.” Cf. also the theological considerations of Craig R. Koester, “Jesus as the Way to the Father in Johannine Theology,” in Theology and Christology in the Fourth Gospel: Essays by the Members of the SNTS Johannine Writings Seminar, ed. Gilbert Van Belle, Jan G. van der Watt, and Petrus Maritz, BETL 184 (Leuven: University Press, 2005), 117-33. 271 soteriological teaching, though he does not explicitly identify himself in the Synoptics as the particular way leading to life [thus we left it with a 1/ 1- level of closeness; note the common usage of the words o`do.j , zwh, , and a form of ( eivs ) e; rcomai ]. Further, the Matthean constraint according to which only few individuals actually travel the way to life (“there are few who find it”) is not far removed from the soteriological limitation expressed in John. 58 The Johannine emphasis that Jesus is indeed the key to provide access to God is expressed in somewhat different terms in the Synoptics as well. In Matt 10: 32-33 par. Luke 12: 8-9, 26 Jesus states that he will either acknowledge or deny people before his Father in heaven due to their relationship with him; a procedure that is practically the same as deciding their eternal destiny [1/ 1-level of closeness; common use of path,r ]. 59 Finally, we ought to mention again the parallel found in the most Johannine of synoptic sayings: Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22. When in John 14: 6 Jesus declares himself to be “the truth,” he is basically saying that true knowledge about God is exclusively bound to him as a person. God’s identity can only be seen in Jesus. 60 This facet of our Johannine proposition is indeed closely similar to the synoptic statement, “no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him” [1/ 2-level of closeness; note the semantic overlap of the terms path,r and ouvdei.j ]. 61 In John 14: 7 Jesus continues to affirm that knowing him coincides with knowing the Father: “If you have known me, you will know my Father too. And 58 For this synoptic parallel, cf. also Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 198; Lindars, Gospel of John, 473;; Wenham, “Historical View,” 18, who makes reference to Matt 7: 14 and other texts stating: “It does not require a million-mile jump to get from such Synoptic texts to John’s ‘I am’ sayings.” Yet cf. Theobald, Herrenworte, 319-20. 59 Cf. on Matt 10: 32-33, e.g., Luz, Matthew, 2: 104: “His [i.e. Jesus’] ‘confessing’ before the court is an irrevocable statement of judgement (…) [and] is a decision about death and life.” Without explicitly mentioning our Johannine passage, the comments of Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2: 215 (who regard this Matthean saying as an authentic dominical word) also point to the conceptual similarity between Jesus’ soteriological teaching both here in John 14 and in the Synoptics: “The text [i.e., Matt 10: 32f.] tells us much about Jesus’ soteriology. For it makes Jesus and his proclamation the deciding factors in the coming judgement. Rejection of Jesus by those who hear him entails exclusion from the kingdom; acceptance of him brings salvation. Jesus is not just a revealer but the focus of God’s eschatological saving action and the criterion of judgement.” 60 Schnelle, Johannes, 252. 61 Cf. the NA 27 margin for this parallel; also Michaels, John, 775n52, as well as Denaux, “The Q-Logion,” 185: “He [Jesus] really knows and sees the Father. A similar idea is expressed in Jn 14,6: nobody can approach the Father, know Him, get in touch with Him, except through the mediation of the Son.” Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 628, calls upon another synoptic passage, namely Mark 12: 14, where the Pharisees are willing to admit that Jesus “teaches the way of God in accordance with the truth.” 272 from now on you do know him and have seen him.” 62 The so-called Johannine logion of Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 again forms a rather close parallel [1/ 2-level of closeness] because of its emphasis on Jesus as the only one who truly knows the Father and who is able to reveal him. 63 (The idea that Jesus and the Father are inseparable actually permeates the rest of this sequence thus making this synoptic saying a consistent counterpart for most of the following propositions; cf. also 6: 46; 8: 19, 38.) According to the Johannine Jesus the disciples from now on have true access to the knowledge of God since having seen Jesus they have indeed seen the Father. Without making direct reference to Jesus revealing the divine nature, in Luke 10: 23-24 par. Matt 13: 16-17 Jesus similarly opens the eyes of his followers to the significance of the important events related to his person and ministry that they see and experience in the present era: “For I tell you that many prophets and kings longed to see what you see but did not see it (…)” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. In the Fourth Gospel as well as in the Synoptics the disciples are comforted and depicted as being blessed because in Jesus they directly witness the divine intervention among humankind. Philip’s ensuing request (“Lord, show us the Father, and we will be content”) reveals that the disciples have not yet entirely grasped that God, the Father, has once and for all made himself known in Jesus, his Son. It seems that Philip asks for some kind of special theophany 64 that should provide them with an ultimate reassurance (cf. also 6: 7). In John 14: 9a Jesus responds with a counter question: “Have I been with you [ meqV u`mw/ n ] for so long, and you have not known me, Philip? ” Jesus’ point is that by now the disciples should know better. Despite being closer to Jesus than anyone else, the disciples have apparently still not significantly progressed beyond the spiritual ignorance of their compatriots (cf., e.g., 6: 30-31). A somewhat similar conceptual statement is the teacher’s rebuke in Matt 17: 17 pars. [1/ 1-level of closeness]: “You unbelieving and perverse generation! How much longer must I be with you [ meqV u`mw/ n ]? How much longer must I endure you? ” Both incidents differ in so far as in John the disciples fall short by an absence of understanding and spiritual insight, while in the Synoptics Jesus is more specifically concerned with a lack of faith. It is further debated whether Jesus’ reproof in Matthew, Mark, and Luke pertains to the crowd or is actually addressed towards the disciples (as the context seems to suggest). One reasonable interpretation of this synoptic saying, however, sees Jesus as “casting a mournful eye over his disciples who have, by their ‘little 62 This reading of the Greek text should probably be preferred over against the textual variant “If you had really known ( ev gnw,keite ) me, you would have known ( evgnw,keite a'n or a'n h; |deite ) my Father.” Cf. Metzger, Textual Commentary, 207. 63 This parallel is again mentioned by Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 198-99; also Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 631. 64 Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 632; Keener, John, 2: 944-45; Köstenberger, John, 431; Morris, John, 571. 273 faith,’ retrogressed to the spiritual level of the multitude.” 65 Mark 8: 17, 20 [0/ 1-level of closeness] further disclose his apparently common dissatisfaction with his closest followers that is also expressed in the Fourth Gospel. 66 In John 14: 9b Jesus continues to state with unsurpassable clarity: “The person who has seen me has seen the Father! How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? ” This, together with the ongoing rebuke in John 14: 10a provide another instance where Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 stands out as a prominent synoptic passage that parallels the christological ideas inherent in John [1/ 1-level of closeness; note the common usage of the noun path,r ]. 67 When Jesus asks Philip (and with him all other disciples) 68 “Do you not believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me? ” he uses what has been called a “reciprocal formula of immanence.” 69 Such mutual indwelling describes Jesus status as being more than God’s commissioned envoy and brings out his perfect unity with the Father. 70 Although our synoptic reference is admittedly not as poignant as Jesus’ christological utterance here in John, it nevertheless clearly resembles the concept of oneness between the Son and the Father. 71 According to John 14: 10b and 10c both Jesus’ words as well as his works testify to such oneness and ultimately reveal who he is. Jesus states that his teaching did not originate from him (“The words that I say to you, I do not speak on my own initiative”). His words are actually the words of God, 65 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2: 724. John 14: 9 is mentioned by these commentators as a Johannine parallel; cf. also the NA 27 margin. 66 Lincoln, John, 392, though only in his commentary on 14: 10-11, refers to the depiction of the disciples in Mark 8: 17-21 as a synoptic parallel. Smith, John, 270, rightly notes: “The ignorance of the twelve is a major motif of Mark’s Gospel.” 67 Keener, John, 2: 945, notes: “Philip’s request (…) reflects the assumption that Jesus had access to God’s glory, which he could in turn reveal to others, a true premise in Johannine theology (3: 13, 32;; cf. Q material in Matt 11: 27;; Luke 10: 22).” Cf. also Denaux, “The Q-Logion,” 186. 68 Note the change from singular to plural in 14: 11 as Jesus turns from Philip to the rest of the disciples. 69 Ridderbos, John, 495; also Schnackenburg, John, 3: 69. Cf. on the whole “immanence”theme in the Fourth Gospel Klaus Scholtissek, In ihm sein und bleiben: Die Sprache der Immanenz in den johanneischen Schriften, Herders Biblische Studien 21 (Freiburg: Herder, 2000), esp. 247-68 (on John 14). 70 Carson, John, 494; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 69. Beasley-Murray, John, 254, writes: “(…) in the depths of the being of God there exists a koinonia, a ‘fellowship,’ between the Father and the Son that is beyond all compare (…).” 71 Mark L. Appold, The Oneness Motif in the Fourth Gospel: Motif Analysis and Exegetical Probe into the Theology of John, WUNT 2/ 1 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1976), 290, has argued that in the Synoptic Gospels there is no use of the theme of oneness as a theological motif. Thus, he comments that “the isolated occurrences of reciprocity formulation in the so-called ‘Johannine logion’ in Mt. 10: 40 and 11: 27 (par.) are not understood within the context of oneness but rather representation.” But this can hardly be an absolute distinction which would rule out a 1/ 1-level of closeness as adduced here. 274 the Father, which, as Luke 4: 18 has it, Jesus was “anointed to proclaim” [0/ 1- level of closeness; cf. also Luke 4: 43, as well as 5: 23-24; 8: 18, 28, 38, 47; 12: 49]. For that matter, saying that he is the mouthpiece of the Father is again not far removed from the synoptic witness of Jesus being absolutely committed to the will of God as in Matt 26: 39, 42 pars. [0/ 1-levels of closeness; cf. Matt 6: 10]. Yet, it is not only the words of Jesus but even more so his works that reveal unity with the Father since he is “residing in me [and] performs his e; rga ” (cf. also 5: 20, 36; 9: 3-4; 10: 25, 32, 37-38). The term e; rga most likely refers to the miraculous signs Jesus performed during his ministry, signs that he regarded as visible manifestations of the power of God. 72 His deeds were intended to tell people that he truly belongs to the Father, an idea certainly behind Matt 12: 28 par. Luke 11: 20 where Jesus says, “if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God” the onlookers should realize that “the kingdom of God has already overtaken you” [0/ 1-level of closeness; Matt 11: 4-6 par. could be mentioned here as well but is treated in more detail in regard to the following statements]. John 14: 11a and 14: 11b reiterate the content of the preceding verse (see comments and parallels above) and more directly exhort the disciples to believe. If they are too hesitant to believe his spoken word, the “works themselves” should convince them of Jesus’ divine heritage. “Real belief in the works involves the ability to understand their role as signs - the ability to see through them to what they reveal, namely, that they are the work both of the Father and of the Son who are one, and thus that the Father is in Jesus and Jesus is in the Father [as in the parallel Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22].” 73 When John the Baptist sent his disciples to ask Jesus whether he is really “the one who is to come” he answered with a similar appeal in Matt 11: 4-6 par. Luke 7: 18-23 [0/ 1-level of closeness]. In order to provide a sustainable basis for John’s identification of Jesus (and in pointing to Isa 35: 5-6; 26: 19; 29: 18-19; 61: 1), his followers should report about both what they “hear” (cf. 14: 10) and what they “see” (i.e., the miraculous deeds). Similar to the disciples in the Fourth Gospel John the Baptist ought to believe because of the works Jesus was doing. That his works must serve as evidence of his union with the Father and consequently lead to faith in him is also hinted at in the synoptic woes upon Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum in Matt 11: 20-24 par. Luke 10: 12-15 [0/ 1-level of closeness]. Those cities are charged with not taking into consideration the witness of Jesus’ miracles, the exact failure that the Johannine Jesus wants to prevent his disciples 72 This is the view of Schnackenburg, John, 3: 69; also Beasley-Murray, John, 254; Brown, John (xiii-xii), 622; and Köstenberger, John, 432; against Bultmann, who understood the e; rga in this whole section primarily as “words.” Cf. also the discussion in Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 239-40, who himself argued that while in 14: 11 miraculous deeds are meant, in 14: 10 the e; rga may stand for the ministry of Jesus as a whole “since the ‘works’ embrace the ‘words.’” 73 Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 633. 275 from committing. Another synoptic statement in which Jesus depicts his miraculous activity as verifying signs can be found in Mark 2: 10: “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins (…)” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. Like the works mentioned in John, the following healing of the paralytic should be ample reason to believe in Jesus’ divine authority. Having summoned his disciples to believe, in John 14: 12 Jesus turns with another double Amen saying to the future mission of those who exhibit faith in him. He promises, “the person who believes in me will perform the works that I am doing, and will perform greater deeds than these.” The reference to “greater deeds” is astounding. Most likely, Jesus neither refers to more spectacular miracles nor to the greater missionary effectiveness of the early church but to salvation-historical differences between the transitory period of his earthly ministry and the new era of the Spirit. The concluding phrase, “because I am going to the Father” seems to point in this direction. As Andreas Köstenberger states: “In the context of John’s Gospel, however, ‘greater things’ has primarily a qualitative dimension, marking Jesus’ ‘signs’ as preliminary and his disciples’ ministry as ‘greater’ in the sense that their ministry is based on Jesus’ completed cross-work (12: 24; 15: 13; 19: 30) and that it belongs to a more advanced stage in God’s economy of salvation.” 74 Thus, Donald Carson is certainly right when he notes in regard to Matt 11: 11 [1/ 1-level of closeness] that “the contrast between the greatness of John the Baptist and the greatness of the least in the kingdom is not entirely dissimilar.” 75 Now, even if in John the emphasis is more on the salvation-historical character of the disciples’ deeds, “performing Jesus’ works” certainly includes the miraculous. The anticipation that those who have faith will perform marvelous works is by no means a Johannine idiosyncrasy. In Mark 11: 23 par. Matt 21: 21 Jesus promises, “if someone says to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart but believes that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.” With several semantic parallels like the introductory avmh.n le,gw u`mi/ n and the verb piste,uw this is at least somewhat conceptually related to Jesus’ statement in John 14: 12 [1/ 1-level of closeness; cf. also Matt 17: 20 par. Luke 17: 6]. 76 74 Köstenberger, John, 433; cf. also Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 633: “The additional promise that the believer ‘will perform works far greater than these’ is explicable in the changed situation of the post-resurrectional period.” Also Beasley-Murray, John, 254; Carson, John, 496; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 71-72; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 629. 75 Carson, John, 496. Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 199 and Köstenberger, John, 433, point to this parallel as well. 76 For this parallel, see also Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 633; Lincoln, John, 392; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 71. 276 Likewise, the longer ending of Mark’s Gospel (Mark 16: 17-18) mentions several “signs [which] accompany those who believe [ toi/ j pisteu,sasin ].” 77 None of the propositions in this first sequence of the discourse have a closer relationship to the Synoptics than John 14: 13a and 14: 14. The synoptic counterparts are indeed significant enough for the Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum to include these verses among the very few Johannine sayings listed side by side with synoptic parallels (see also 15: 7; 16: 23-24). 78 Jesus’ promise “I will do whatever you ask” is clearly paralleled in all other strands of canonical Jesus tradition, although the Synoptics do not explicitly repeat the Johannine emphasis on prayer “in Jesus’ name.” 79 One immediately thinks of the invitation to “ask and it will be given to you” in Matt 7: 7 par. Luke 11: 9 [1/ 2-level of closeness; note the common usage of the verb aivte,w ]. Having just cited Mark 11: 23 as a parallel to John 14: 12, the following verse in Mark 11: 24 par. Matt 21: 22, again in the context of cursing the fig tree, is likewise a conceptually close version of the Johannine Jesus’ teaching on prayer - “whatever you pray and ask for (…) it will be yours” [1/ 2- level of closeness; again semantic overlap with the verb aivte,w ]. 80 Even though Jesus’ instruction about prayer in the Fourth Gospel is not given during his public ministry as in the other three Gospels, 81 it is nevertheless apparent that his teaching on this particular topic is closely similar in both synoptic and Johannine tradition. 82 This impression remains unaltered 77 For this parallel, see also Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 633; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 71. On the usage of the textually secondary longer ending of Mark for our Johannine-Synoptic comparison, see above chapter 3 footnote 28. 78 Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum, 94. It is interesting to note that the NA 27 edition does not mention any synoptic parallels in the margin of John 14: 13-14. 79 Yet, cf. Matt 18: 19-20 that would also qualify as a synoptic parallel to John 14: 13-14 (so Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 199; Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 635; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 72): “Again, I tell you the truth, if two of you on earth agree about whatever you ask [ aivth,swntai ], my Father in heaven will do it for you. For where two or three are assembled in my name, I am there among them.” In this context the phrase “in my name” [ eivj to. ev mo.n o; noma vs. ev n tw/ | ovno,mati, mou in John] occurs, yet it is not directly related to the petition but to the coming together. Cf. also von Wahlde, Gospel and Letters of John, 2: 640-41, who includes in his commentary on this section an addendum “The Contribution of the Johannine Tradition of Petitionary Prayer and Its Relation to That of the Synoptics.” 80 These two parallels are mentioned by Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 199; Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 634; Crossan, Sayings Parallels, 42, 136; Keener, John, 2: 950; Lincoln, John, 392; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 72;; cf. now also Theobald, “Das sogenannte «johanneische Logion»,” 129, and Zumstein, Jean, 70. Reference to Mark 11: 24 is also made by Jürgen Becker, Kapitel 11-21, vol. 2 of Das Evangelium nach Johannes, ÖTK 4 (Gütersloh: Mohn, 3 1991), 554. 81 Lincoln, John, 392. 82 Without neglecting the differences between Johannine and synoptic utterances on prayer, Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 635, states: “It is clear that there are many similarities between John’s patterns and those of the Synoptics, especially those of Matthew (…).” 277 even by the fact that the ultimate goal of answered prayer in John 14: 13b, namely “the glorification of the Father in the Son,” is nowhere specified in the Synoptics. While this Johannine proposition lacks any significant synoptic counterpart [0/ 0-level of closeness], we may observe that the other three Gospels contain several narrative asides that testify to God, the Father, being praised and glorified through the work of his Son (Matt 9: 8 pars.; Matt 15: 31; Luke 7: 16 - as in John using the verb doxa,zw ). The comparison between this first sequence of the Farewell Discourse and the Synoptics has yielded the following results: in terms of semantic relations we have to once again corroborate that the general language is uniquely Johannine. Yet, most of the propositions show at least some overlap in vocabulary with the words of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, and Luke [1/ 1- and 1/ 2-levels of closeness]. When it comes to similarity in content, initially it needs to be noted that only a minority of synoptic parallels are actually located within the latter stages of Jesus’ earthly ministry. But at the same time, only one proposition (14: 13b) has no cognate in the other three Gospels at all. The remaining Johannine themes are all more or less closely resembled by synoptic sayings of Jesus. The Farewell Discourse motifs of challenging the disciples not to be distressed (14: 1a) but to believe more firmly (14: 1b, 10a, 11a-b) are not at all foreign to the Synoptics. The same is true for the essential themes such as Jesus going away in order to provide access to the Father (14: 2-3, 4, 6a-b), seeing the Father in the person and ministry of Jesus (14: 7, 9a-b, 10a-b), especially in both Jesus’ own works and in the deeds he will enable the disciples to do (14: 10c, 11b, 12), and praying expectantly (14: 13-14). What we find here in the first sequence of the Johannine Farewell Discourse in terms of Jesus’ teaching intended for his disciples just before his departure from the earthly scene is far from being a peculiarity of the Fourth Gospel. Rather, the synoptic words of Jesus contain sayings significantly similar to the propositions of John 14: 1-14, though not necessarily recorded within a farewell context. 5.1.3 Sequence 2: John 14: 15-24 (Jesus Promises the Spirit-Paraclete) [14: 15] VEa.n avgapa/ te, me( ta.j ev ntola.j ta.j evma.j thrh,sete\ If you love me, you will obey my commandments. [0/ 1] [1/ 1] [Luke 8: 21 pars.] mh,thr mou kai. avdelfoi, mou ou-toi, eivsin oi` to.n lo,gon tou/ qeou/ avkou,ontej kai. poiou/ ntejÅ My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it. [Matt 5: 19] o]j ev a.n ou=n lu,sh| mi,an tw/ n evntolw/ n tou,twn tw/ n ev laci,stwn kai. dida,xh| ou[twj tou.j avnqrw,pouj( ev la,cistoj klhqh,setai evn th/ | basilei,a| tw/ n ouvranw/ n\ o]j dV a'n poih,sh| kai. dida,xh|( ou-toj me, gaj klhqh,setai evn th/ | basilei,a| tw/ n ouvranw/ nÅ 278 [1/ 1] So anyone who breaks one of the least of these commands and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever obeys them and teaches others to do so will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. See also [Matt 7: 21; Luke 11: 28]. [Matt 22: 35-40 pars.] kai. evphrw,thsen ei-j evx auvtw/ n Înomiko.jÐ peira,zwn auvto,n\ dida,skale( poi,a ev ntolh. mega,lh ev n tw/ | no,mw|È o` de. e; fh auvtw/ |\ avgaph,seij ku,rion to.n qeo,n sou ev n o[lh| th/ | kardi,a| sou kai. ev n o[lh| th/ | yuch/ | sou kai. ev n o[lh| th/ | dianoi, a| sou\ au[th ev sti.n h` mega,lh kai. prw,th ev ntolh,Å deute,ra de. o`moi, a auvth/ |\ avgaph,seij to.n plhsi,on sou w`j seauto,nÅ ev n tau,taij tai/ j dusi.n ev ntolai/ j o[loj o` no,moj kre,matai kai. oi` profh/ taiÅ And one of them, an expert in religious law, asked him a question to test him: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest? ” Jesus said to him, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” [0/ 1] [Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48] Pa/ j ou=n o[stij avkou,ei mou tou.j lo,gouj tou,touj kai. poiei/ auvtou,j( o`moiwqh,setai avndri. froni,mw|( o[stij wv|kodo,mhsen auvtou/ th.n oiv ki,an ev pi. th.n pe, tran\ kai. kate,bh h` broch. kai. h=lqon oi` potamoi. kai. e; pneusan oi` a; nemoi kai. prose, pesan th/ | oiv ki,a| ev kei,nh|( kai. ouvk e; pesen( teqemeli,wto ga.r ev pi. th.n pe, tranÅ Everyone who hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the flood came, and the winds beat against that house, but it did not collapse because it had been founded on rock. [14: 16] kavgw. ev rwth,sw to.n pate,ra kai. a; llon para,klhton dw,sei u`mi/ n( i[na meqV u`mw/ n eivj to.n aivw/ na h=| ( Then I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you forever - [1/ 1] [Luke 11: 13] eiv ou=n u`mei/ j ponhroi. u`pa,rcontej oi; date do,mata avgaqa. dido,nai toi/ j te,knoij u`mw/ n( po,sw| ma/ llon o` path.r Îo`Ð evx ouvranou/ dw,sei pneu/ ma a[gion toi/ j aivtou/ sin auvto,nÅ If you then, although you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! 279 [0/ 2] [Luke 24: 49] kai. Îivdou.Ð ev gw. avposte,llw th.n ev paggeli,an tou/ patro,j mou ev fV u`ma/ j\ u`mei/ j de. kaqi,sate evn th/ | po,lei e[wj ouev ndu,shsqe evx u[youj du,naminÅ And look, I am sending you what my Father promised. But stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. [14: 17a] to. pneu/ ma th/ j avlhqei,aj( o] o` ko,smoj ouv du,natai labei/ n( o[ti ouv qewrei/ auvto. ouvde. ginw,skei\ the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it does not see him or know him. [0/ 0] [14: 17b] u`mei/ j ginw,skete auvto,( o[ti parV u`mi/ n me, nei kai. ev n u`mi/ n e; staiÅ But you know him, because he resides with you and will be in you. [0/ 1] See above on 14: 16: [Luke 24: 49; Luke 11: 13] [Mark 13: 11] avllV o] ev a.n doqh/ | u`mi/ n ev n ev kei,nh| th/ | w[ra| tou/ to lalei/ te\ ouv ga,r ev ste u`mei/ j oi` lalou/ ntej avlla. to. pneu/ ma to. a[gionÅ But say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit. [14: 18a] Ouvk avfh,sw u`ma/ j ovrfanou,j( I will not abandon you as orphans, [0/ 1] [Matt 28: 20] kai. ivdou. ev gw. meqV u`mw/ n eivmi pa,saj ta.j h`me, raj e[ wj th/ j suntelei,aj tou/ aivw/ nojÅ And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. [14: 18b] e; rcomai pro.j u`ma/ jÅ I will come to you. [0/ 1] [Mark 10: 34 pars.] kai. ev mpai,xousin auvtw/ | kai. ev mptu,sousin auvtw/ | kai. mastigw,sousin auvto.n kai. avpoktenou/ sin( kai. meta. trei/ j h`me, raj avnasth,setaiÅ They will mock him, spit on him, flog him severely, and kill him. Yet after three days, he will rise again. [0/ 1] [Mark 9: 31 par. Matt 17: 22-23] ev di, dasken ga.r tou.j maqhta.j auvtou/ kai. e; legen auvtoi/ j o[ti o` ui` o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou paradi,dotai eivj cei/ raj avnqrw,pwn( kai. avpoktenou/ sin auvto,n( kai. avpoktanqei.j meta. trei/ j h`me, raj avnasth,setaiÅ The Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise. 280 [14: 19a] e; ti mikro.n kai. o` ko,smoj me ouvke, ti qewrei/ ( In a little while the world will not see me any longer, [0/ 1] [0/ 2] [Matt 9: 15 pars.] mh. du,nantai oi` ui`oi. tou/ numfw/ noj penqei/ n ev fV o[son metV auvtw/ n ev stin o` numfi,ojÈ ev leu,sontai de. h`me, rai o[tan avparqh/ | avpV auvtw/ n o` numfi,oj( kai. to,te nhsteu,sousinÅ The wedding guests cannot mourn while the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days are coming when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast. [Matt 23: 39] le, gw ga.r u`mi/ n( ouv mh, me i; dhte avpV a; rti e[ wj a'n ei; phte\ euvloghme, noj o` ev rco,menoj ev n ovno,mati kuri,ouÅ For I tell you, you will not see me from now until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! ’ [14: 19b] u`mei/ j de. qewrei/ te, me( but you will see me; [0/ 2] [Matt 28: 10 par. Mark 14: 28] mh. fobei/ sqe\ u`pa,gete avpaggei,late toi/ j avdelfoi/ j mou i[na avpe, lqwsin eivj th.n Galilai,an( kavkei/ me o; yontaiÅ “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. They will see me there.” [14: 19c] o[ti evgw. zw/ because I live, [0/ 1] [Mark 9: 31 par. Matt 17: 23] o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou paradi,dotai eivj cei/ raj avnqrw,pwn( kai. avpoktenou/ sin auvto,n( kai. avpoktanqei.j meta. trei/ j h`me, raj avnasth,setaiÅ The Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise. See also [Mark 8: 31 pars.; 10: 34 pars.; Matt 17: 9] et al. [14: 19d] kai. u`mei/ j zh,seteÅ you will live too. [1/ 1] [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] avmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n o[ti u`mei/ j oi` avkolouqh,sante,j moi (…) o[tan kaqi,sh| o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ev pi. qro,nou do,xhj auvtou/ ( (…) kai. zwh.n aivw,nion klhronomh,seiÅ Amen, I say to you (…) when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will (…) inherit eternal life. 281 [14: 20a] ev n ev kei,nh| th/ | h`me, ra| gnw,sesqe u`mei/ j o[ti ev gw. ev n tw/ | patri, mou kai. u`mei/ j ev n ev moi. kavgw. evn u`mi/ nÅ You will know at that time that I am in my Father [1/ 1] The eschatological time specification evn evkei,nh| th/ | h`me,ra is frequent in the Old Testament and may also be found in the Synoptics; see [Matt 7: 22; Luke 17: 31; also Matt 24: 36 par. Mark 13: 32]. [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] Pa,nta moi paredo,qh u`po. tou/ patro,j mou( kai. ouvdei.j ev piginw,skei to.n ui`o.n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate,ra tij evpiginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j kai. w-| eva.n bou,lhtai o` ui`o.j avpokalu,yaiÅ All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. [14: 20b] kai. u`mei/ j evn evmoi. and you are in me [0/ 0] [14: 20c] kavgw. evn u`mi/ nÅ and I am in you. [1/ 1] [Matt 28: 20] kai. ivdou. ev gw. meqV u`mw/ n eivmi pa,saj ta.j h`me, raj e[ wj th/ j suntelei,aj tou/ aivw/ nojÅ And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. [14: 21a] o` e; cwn ta.j ev ntola,j mou kai. thrw/ n auvta.j ev kei/ no,j ev stin o` avgapw/ n me\ The person who has my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me. [0/ 1] [1/ 1] For parallels to love as evidenced by obeying Jesus’ commands, see [Matt 5: 19; Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48; Matt 22: 35-40 pars.; Luke 8: 21 pars.] and above our comments on 14: 15. [14: 21b] o` de. avgapw/ n me avgaphqh,setai u`po. tou/ patro,j mou( kavgw. avgaph,sw auvto.n kai. ev mfani,sw auvtw/ | ev mauto,nÅ The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him.” [0/ 1] [0/ 1] [Matt 10: 40 pars.] ~O deco,menoj u`ma/ j ev me. de, cetai( kai. o` ev me. deco,menoj de,cetai to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ (…) whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. See possibly also [Matt 28: 20]. [Matt 10: 37] ~O filw/ n pate,ra h' mhte,ra u`pe. r ev me. ouvk e; stin mou a; xioj( kai. o` filw/ n ui`o.n h' qugate, ra u`pe. r ev me. ouvk e; stin mou a; xioj\ Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 282 [14: 22] “Lord,” Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, “how is it that you are going to reveal yourself to us and not to the world? ” [Luke 6: 16] Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. [14: 23] avpekri,qh VIhsou/ j kai. ei=pen auvtw/ | \ ev a,n tij avgapa/ | me to.n lo,gon mou thrh,sei( kai. o` path,r mou avgaph,sei auvto.n kai. pro.j auvto.n ev leuso,meqa kai. monh.n parV auvtw/ | poihso,meqaÅ Jesus replied, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and take up residence with him. [0/ 1] [1/ 1] [0/ 1] For parallels to love as evidenced by obeying Jesus’ commands, see [Matt 5: 19; Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48; Matt 22: 35-40 pars., and Luke 8: 21 pars.] and above our comments on 14: 15. [Matt 28: 20] kai. ivdou. ev gw. meqV u`mw/ n eivmi pa,saj ta.j h`me, raj e[ wj th/ j suntelei,aj tou/ aivw/ nojÅ And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. [14: 24a] o` mh. avgapw/ n me tou.j lo,gouj mou ouv threi/ \ The person who does not love me does not obey my words. [0/ 1] [1/ 1] For parallels to love as evidenced by obeying Jesus’ commands, see [Matt 5: 19; Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48; Matt 22: 35-40 pars., and Luke 8: 21 pars.] and above our comments on 14: 15. [14: 24b] kai. o` lo,goj o]n avkou,ete ouvk e; stin ev mo.j avlla. tou/ pe, myanto,j me patro,jÅ And the word you hear is not mine, but the Father's who sent me. [0/ 1] [1/ 1] [Luke 4: 18] pneu/ ma kuri,ou ev pV ev me. ouei[neken e; crise,n me euvaggeli,sasqai ptwcoi/ j( avpe, stalke,n me( khru,xai aivcmalw,toij a; fesin kai. tufloi/ j avna,bleyin( avpostei/ lai teqrausme, nouj evn avfe,sei( (…) The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and the regaining of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, (…) [Matt 24: 35] o` ouvrano. j kai. h` gh/ pareleu,setai( oi` de. lo,goi mou ouv mh. pare,lqwsinÅ Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Having summoned the disciples to belief in the first sequence of the Farewell Discourse, the second sequence shows a stronger emphasis on love 283 (14: 15, 21, 23-24). 83 In John 14: 15 Jesus demonstrates that a close relationship with him has its foundation in love that manifests itself in obedience to him: “If you love me, you will obey my commandments.” “A response of love for Jesus will result in obedience to his commands and at the same time that obedience will be an indicator of whether genuine love is present.” 84 What Jesus has in mind is probably not an observance of individual ethical commands, but loyalty to the whole of his teaching and revelation (cf. 3: 31- 32; 8: 51; 12: 47-49; 17: 6). 85 John is somewhat unique among the Gospels in highlighting obedience as proof of genuine love. However, the interconnection between love and keeping divine commands is not unknown to the Synoptic Jesus. In Luke 8: 21 pars. Jesus utters a similar thought [0/ 1-level of closeness] saying “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” The basic idea is no different than the words in the Fourth Gospel: obedience (in this case to “the word of God”) is said to be the ultimate sign of a close relationship with Jesus (similarly Matt 5: 19 [1/ 1-level of closeness; use of the common noun evntolh, ]; cf. also Matt 7: 21; Luke 11: 28). That adherence to God’s commands is instantaneously connected with love towards him is also visible in Jesus’ famous statement regarding the greatest commandment in Matt 22: 35-40 pars. [1/ 1-level of closeness; note the common usage of evntolh, and avgapa,w ]. While Jesus in John’s Gospel maintains that genuine love will lead to obedience, the gist of his synoptic teaching seems to complement this thought by turning it around: true obedience to God’s law is impossible without a loving allegiance of the heart (both to God and the neighbor), since “all the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments [of love].” 86 However, in comparing this proposition of the Farewell Discourse with Jesus’ teaching in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we must not ignore the fact that unlike the synoptic passages cited so far the Johannine Jesus does not require obedience to God’s demands but “revolutionizes that concept by insisting that the obedience be directed towards him.” 87 Yet, even this christologically significant appeal is not without kin in the Synoptic Gospels as Jesus clearly redirects authority to himself by claiming in Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48 that “everyone who 83 Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 642; Lincoln, John, 393 et al. 84 Ibid. 85 Beasley-Murray, John, 256; Carson, John, 498. The command to love one another (13: 34-35) may be immediately in view (Lincoln, John, 393; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 630). 86 Cf., e.g., Hagner, Matthew 14-28, WBC 33B (Dallas: Word, 1995), 647-48; also Craig L. Blomberg, Matthew, NAC 22 (Nashville: Broadman, 1992) 335-36; Donald A. Carson, “Matthew,” in Matthew, Mark, Luke, EBC 8, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984), 464; W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison, Commentary on Matthew XIX - XXVIII, vol. 3 of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997), 246. 87 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 201. [italics his] 284 hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man who built his house on rock” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. 88 To set up his own authoritative teaching as the new norm for disciples to obey and to follow is no doubt startling, but not uniquely Johannine. In what follows, Jesus gives a number of promises to those who love him, obey him, and thereby show their close relationship to him. Jesus’ first promise in John 14: 16 is that he “will ask the Father, and he will give you another para,klhtoj to be with you forever.” This is the first of several Paraclete sayings in the Farewell Discourse (cf. 14: 26; 15: 26-27; 16: 7-11; 16: 12-15 [although in this last passage the designation of the Spirit as “Paraclete” is absent]). The Greek term para,klhtoj is difficult to translate and originally referred to someone “called to one’s aid.” The figure of the Paraclete occurs only in the Johannine literature (see above and 1John 2: 1) and as it refers to someone actively involved on behalf of others, it may be best designated by the English word “helper” or “advocate.” 89 With this prospect of an Advocate Jesus continues to comfort his disciples in view of his impending departure. The reference to “another Advocate” implies that Jesus who himself has held this role throughout his ministry is now asking the Father for a replacement in this mission on behalf of the disciples. 90 This substitute and successor of Jesus is identified in 14: 17 as the “Spirit of truth,” a Spirit already introduced and anticipated in the Fourth Gospel (3: 5-8, 34; 4: 23-24; 7: 39). While the designation “Paraclete” draws attention to his helping, strengthening and encouraging presence, 91 the identification “Spirit of 88 Cf. Bock, Luke 1: 1-9: 50, 621: “[Luke 6: 47 stresses] the importance of following Jesus’ teaching and to picture the authority of that teaching.” Also Blomberg, Matthew, 134; Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 281; Keener, Matthew, 255; and Hagner, Matthew 1-13, 190-91: “The standard of orthopraxy, of righteousness, is the words of Jesus.” This parallel is noted by Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 201. 89 Cf. reference works such as BDAG, 766 (“one who appears in another’s behalf, mediator, intercessor, helper”) or LSJ, 1313 (“called to one’s aid, legal assistant, advocate, summoned, intercessor”);; cf. also the article of G. Braumann, “Advocate, Paraclete, Helper,” in A-F, vol. 1 of NIDNTT, ed. Colin Brown, rev. ed. (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1986), 90-91. For a good overview of the translation difficulties of the term, see Köstenberger, John, 436n70. We remained with the NET rendering of para,klhtoj as “Advocate” (also NLT, NRSV, TNIV - NIV, RSV: “Counselor” - ESV, NASB: “Helper”). For a rationale for this translation, see the NET Bible note on this verse;; a defence of this meaning of the term in regard of its legal underpinnings is given by Lincoln, John, 393-94. For an elaborate discussion of the meaning of para,klhtoj in John 14: 16-17, cf. now also David Pastorelli, Le Paraclet dans le corpus johannique, BZNW 142 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2006), 211-58. 90 Beasley-Murray, John, 256; Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 644. 91 Cf. Köstenberger, John, 436n70: “Perhaps ‘helping presence’ captures the import of the term better than any other (…) for the following reasons: (1) this is what Jesus was while with the disciples; (2) this encompasses the various functions laid out for 285 truth” adds the function of communicating the true knowledge of God that is uniquely found in the person of Jesus, who himself is the truth (14: 6; cf. also 8: 32, 40, 45-46; 18: 37). 92 Andreas Köstenberger notes that while John’s treatment of the Spirit in the first half of the Fourth Gospel largely resembles that of the Synoptics, we find a “vastly enhanced portrayal” in the Farewell Discourse. 93 However, this should not be taken to mean that the theme of the Paraclete introduced in John 14: 16-17 is totally self-contained with no resemblance in the Synoptic Gospels. Again, while the figure of the Paraclete does not occur in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, the gift of the Spirit is promised in Luke 11: 13 where Jesus assures the disciples that “the heavenly Father [will] give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him” [1/ 1-level of closeness; semantic resemblance in the usage of o` path.r and the future tense verb dw,sei ]. Interestingly enough, Luke 11: 9-12 follows the same sequence as does John when associating the giving of the Spirit with the theme of answered prayer (note the two themes in John 14: 13-14 and 16-17). 94 Thus, the anticipation of spiritual empowerment is certainly not a uniquely Johannine theme. This may also be seen in the promise made by the risen Jesus in the last chapter of Luke’s Gospel. In Luke 24: 49, right before his ascension, Jesus leaves behind the pledge of “sending you what my Father promised.” This refers to the “power from on high” that in turn should be identified with the Paraclete of John’s Gospel, the Holy Spirit [0/ 2-level of closeness]. 95 Though the Synoptic Jesus may be less specific in his theology of the Spirit (and less extensive for that matter), the significant conceptual overlap between the Fourth Gospel and its synoptic counterparts, especially when it comes to this provident part of Jesus’ teaching can hardly be denied. 96 In the Spirit in John 14-16; (3) this transcends (but may include) the legal context of the term (see esp. 16: 7-11).” 92 Beasley-Murray, John, 257; Carson, John, 500; cf. also Lincoln, John, 395; as well as George Johnston, The Spirit-Paraclete in the Gospel of John (Cambridge: University Press, 1970), 121-22. 93 Köstenberger, John, 435. 94 This parallel has been observed by Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 644, who also mentions in passing the overlap in sequence between Luke and John. 95 Cf., e.g., François Bovon, Lk 19,28-24,53, vol. 4 of Das Evangelium nach Lukas, EKK 3/ 4 (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 2009), 595: “[Luke 24: 49] kündigt die zukünftige Gabe des Heiligen Geistes an.” Among the older commentators, Alfred Plummer, The Gospel According to St. Luke, ICC (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 5 1922), 563, explicitly refers to John 14: 16 (and 15: 26; 16: 7) as similar instances of Jesus speaking about the Spirit as his gift. Luke 24: 49 as a parallel has also been noted by Keener, John, 2: 972. 96 Note, e.g., the editor’s comment on Braumann’s entry on para,klhtoj in the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (see footnote 89 above): “The question may, however, be asked whether the other evangelists do not express aspects of Jn’s paraclete teaching in other ways. Matt., in particular, speaks of the continued presence and help of Christ in a way which does not involve his physical presence (Matt 18: 20). It is linked with the Father and the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28: 19 f.; Lk. 24: 48 f.; cf. 286 John 14: 17a Jesus further specifies his explanation of the soon to be received gift of the Spirit-Paraclete. This gift of the “Spirit of truth,” says Jesus, “the world cannot accept, because it does not see him or know him.” When read as another general reference to the Spirit we might again adduce for this statement the synoptic parallels mentioned in regard to the preceding verse. The main concern of this proposition, however, namely the world’s unresponsiveness to the coming Paraclete (which parallels the worldly attitude towards Jesus himself and the Father, cf. 8: 19, 54-55; 15: 21; 16: 3; 17: 25) and its lack of “spiritual insight,” have no real counterpart in the Synoptic Gospels (thus, a 0/ 0-level of closeness). In contrast to the incapacity of the world to receive the Spirit, Jesus assures the disciples in John 14: 17b, “you know him, because he resides with you and will be in you.” What Jesus seems to indicate is that intimate knowledge of the Spirit as well as the experience of his assistance, advocacy and power is due to his abiding presence with and in his followers. 97 This coheres with the synoptic tradition in Mark 13: 11 pars., where in the context of upcoming trials Jesus asseverates the disciples of the subsidiary role of the indwelling Spirit. 98 Similar to John, Jesus apparently assumes that his disciples will have received the gift of the Spirit in them, and thus tells them not to worry about what to say at the time of trial, “for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit” [0/ 1- level of closeness]. 99 Jesus then continues to reassure his disciples, who might still have difficulty to deal emotionally with Jesus’ announcement of his impending departure (13: 33; 14: 2-3) by saying: “I will not abandon you as orphans, I will come to you.” The affirmation in John 14: 18a of not “abandoning them as orphans” has no semantically similar counterpart in the Synoptics. Yet, on a conceptual level, Jesus suggests here that he is not permanently leaving his disciples alone but that his presence will continue with them. It is difficult to determine exactly the relation of the coming of Jesus to the coming of the Spirit. One could certainly argue that the presence of Jesus is actualized in the impartation of the Spirit. Yet, despite the two references to the Matt. 11: 27; Lk. 10: 22 [see also our comments on John 14: 17-20]). (…) Moreover, Jesus promised the assistance of the Holy Spirit in enabling them speak under trial (Matt. 10: 20;; Mk. 13: 11;; cf. Lk. 21: 15 [see our comments on John 14: 17b]). (…) This gives rise to the suggestion that what in Matt. and Lk. is depicted as the continuing presence and work of Jesus in the post-resurrection church is depicted by Jn. as the activity of the paraklētos of Jesus.” 97 Schnackenburg, John, 3: 75-76. 98 Cf. Lincoln, John, 394;; also Braumann, “Advocate, Paraclete, Helper,” 90-91; Wilckens, Johannes, 228. 99 Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum, 445, mentions Mark 13: 11 pars. in small print as synoptic passages related to John 14: 15-26. Cf. also Johannes Beutler, “Synoptic Jesus Tradition in the Johannine Farewell Discourse,” in Jesus in Johannine Tradition, ed. Robert T. Fortna and Tom Thatcher (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 170. 287 Paraclete in 14: 16-17 and 14: 25-26 it seems that Jesus has in mind more than just an ongoing “presence in or through the Spirit” (see comments below). 100 In any event, the theme of reassurance makes one immediately think of the risen Christ’s consoling statement in Matt 28: 20: “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. 101 Both the Johannine and the Synoptic Jesus clearly communicate to the disciples that he has no intention to leave them desolate. In the second half of the statement in John 14: 18b Jesus’ promise to come to the disciples has been taken by some to refer to his Parousia in light of 14: 3. However, the immediate context (cf. 14: 19-20) makes clear that “this return, unlike the public parousia at the end of the history, is one not visible to the world, and the events described will take place ‘in a little while’ and so are associated with Jesus’ more immediate departure.” 102 The most likely point of reference, therefore, is to Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances to his disciples, 103 something that might well include the anticipation of the bestowal of the life-giving Spirit as one immediate consequence of the resurrection (John 20: 22). 104 After his departure, Jesus will come again to his followers by way of resurrection; an announcement made in the Synoptics as well, albeit without using the Johannine e; rcomai and without direct reference to 100 Cf. the extensive discussion in Beasley-Murray, John, 258-61, who - for all parallelism between the function of the Spirit and the work of Jesus - wants to stress the distinction between the two in the present passage; also Carson, John, 502: “It is not that the two Paraclete passages [14: 16-17 and 14: 25-26] force us to detect in these verses yet another reference to the Paraclete, this one somewhat veiled; rather, the coming of the Paraclete in the two unambiguous passages is conditioned by Jesus’ death and resurrection.” But cf. Keener, John, 2: 973; as well as Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 645-46, who argues within his redaction-critical scheme that while this passage might have originally referred to Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances, in the present sequence it is “probably to be interpreted in terms of the coming of the Paraclete.” For a brief general treatment of the relationship between the promised Paraclete and Jesus, see Schnackenburg, John, 3: 77. 101 Cf. for this parallel Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 644. 102 Ibid., 395; also Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 632. If John 14: 18 is taken to refer to the Parousia, Matt 16: 27 could be cited as a synoptic parallel (note the use of the verb e; rcomai ). 103 Carson, John, 501-02; Beasley-Murray, John, 258 (“clearly this points to Easter, with its manifestations of the risen Lord in mind”);; and most commentators. Cf. now also Jean Zumstein, “Jesus’ Resurrection in the Farewell Discourses,” in The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John, ed. Craig R. Koester and Reimund Bieringer, WUNT 222 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 108-11; and the long list of scholars cited there. 104 So Keener, John, 2: 973; similarly Morris, John, 579. Bock, Jesus According to Scripture, 503, states (with no direct connection to the Spirit): “Jesus here seems to fuse the resurrection appearances with the benefits that grow out of resurrection.” Cf. also Carson, John, 501: “The consequence of Jesus’ rising from the dead is new life for the disciples, new eschatological life mediated by the Spirit.” Yet, Köstenberger, John, 439, also 436, seems to go too far when he takes the whole passage as referring “to Jesus’ coming to his followers in the Spirit (…) at Pentecost.” [italics mine] 288 the disciples. Without mentioning the consequential implications, in Mark 10: 34 pars. the Synoptic Jesus simply states on the road to Jerusalem (and thus likewise during the last stages of his earthly ministry) that “after three days he [i.e., Jesus as the Son of Man] will rise again” [0/ 1-level of closeness; cf. also Mark 9: 31 par. Matt 17: 22-23]. “In a little while the world will not see me any longer.” Jesus goes on to announce his near departure in John 14: 19a (cf. 8: 21). The same thought is expressed in the triple tradition in the metaphor of the “bridegroom who will be taken away” in Matt 9: 15 pars. [0/ 1-level of closeness]. Jesus as the bridegroom will withdraw from human sight - “virtually for all time from the ‘world.’” 105 Such proclamation clearly carries overtones of judgment. That “the world will not see Jesus any longer” is promoted in Matt 23: 39 where Jesus (likewise with his immediate departure in view) tells the world represented by unbelieving Jerusalem that “you will not see me from now until you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! ’” [0/ 2- level of closeness]. But while the world has to wait to see him again until he returns for judgment at the Parousia, in contrast, Jesus assures the eleven in John 14: 19b and 19c that “you will see me;; because I live.” In other words, Jesus’ resurrection from the dead and the ensuing appearances will allow his disciples to see him. As noted earlier, the Johannine prediction of Jesus’ resurrection is also common in the Synoptics (cf. Mark 9: 31 par. Matt 17: 23; also Mark 8: 31 pars.; 10: 34 pars.; Matt 17: 9 [0/ 1-level of closeness]). 106 Even closer conceptually are two statements of the already risen Jesus who in Matt 28: 10 (cf. Mark 14: 28) commissions the disciples to Galilee because “they will see me there” [0/ 2-level of closeness]. The Johannine Jesus finally even broadens the perspective in John 14: 19d by saying that because of his resurrection, “you will live too” (cf. 5: 21, 26; 6: 35, 57, 63). The point of this statement seems to be (in light of the connection between resurrection and life already in Jesus’ “I am”-saying in John 11: 25-26) 107 that the ultimate benefit of the resurrection life of their Master is the gift of unceasing life for themselves. Having overcome death, Jesus lives and is thus enabled to give life to those who follow him in faith. One is reminded of Jesus’ prospect of his glorification in Matt 19: 28-29: “When the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me (…) will inherit eternal life.” Even though the eschatological view here in John does not primarily envision the Parousia, the idea behind Jesus’ Matthean prophecy is similar [1/ 1-level of closeness]. While in the Fourth Gospel Jesus focuses on the resurrection as the basis for the mediation of life, in Matthew he looks to the ultimate fulfilment, when the living Son of Man establishes his reign and the eternal life 105 Beasley-Murray, John, 258. 106 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 202. 107 Beasley-Murray, John, 258; Lincoln, John, 395. 289 anticipated through Jesus’ resurrection is finally consummated by those who believe. That Jesus’ resurrection, in keeping with John’s overall eschatological framework, is depicted as the inauguration of the kingdom that is still to come in its fullness can also be seen in the usage of the eschatological time specification evn evkei,nh| th/ | h`me,ra| in John 14: 20a. This phrase is frequently used in the Old Testament (Isa 2: 11; 3: 7; Jer 31: 29 et al.) and repeatedly found in the Synoptics to refer to end time events (note the semantic overlap with Matt 7: 22; Luke 17: 31; also Matt 24: 36 par. Mark 13: 32). 108 In John, it is applied to the time following Jesus’ resurrection, an event that will serve for the disciples as final confirmation of the mutual relationship of the Son and the Father. 109 What was still subject to some ignorance and doubt (as Jesus’ answer to Philip in John 14: 10-11 reveals) will ultimately be known “at that time.” While the Synoptic Gospels do not contain such an allusion to post-resurrection knowledge, Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 (“no one knows the Father except the Son” [1/ 1-level of closeness]) may once more serve as a parallel to the Johannine concept of a mutuality of Jesus and the Father (cf. 14: 6-7). Yet, the disciples not only receive insight into Jesus’ relationship with the Father, but will also be able to recognize the continuing presence of Christ with them. When Jesus is raised they will know that “you are in me” (John 14: 20b) and “I am in you” (John 14: 20c). The first of these two pillars of the concept of the mutual indwelling of Jesus and those who believe in him is not repeated in the synoptic accounts of dominical teaching [0/ 0-level of closeness]. Regarding the second component, we find again some similarity in both wording ( kavgw. evn u`mi/ n vs. kai. evgw. meqV u`mw/ n eivmi ) and content in the last verse of Matthew’s Gospel. Matt 28: 20 may specifically refer to the disciples as a group (i.e., the church to be established), yet the core of the promise resembles the predication in John: by virtue of the resurrection believers are assured of their Lord’s presence that they are called to enjoy [1/ 1-level of closeness]. 110 John 14: 21a reiterates the truth of 14: 15 but in a reversed order: “The person who has my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me.” Loving Jesus and obeying his commandments ought to go hand in hand. This link between obedience to divine commands and genuine love as well as the tapered insistence that it is no longer the Sinaitic covenant stipulations that need to be observed but Jesus’ own teaching have their synoptic counterparts in Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48; Matt 22: 35-40 pars.; and Luke 8: 21 pars. (see above our extensive comments on 14: 15). In the remainder of the verse, John 14: 21b, Jesus goes on to say that “the one who 108 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 202; Carson, John, 502; Köstenberger, John, 439; Lindars, Gospel of John, 481; Zumstein, Jean, 80n15. 109 Cf. Lincoln, John, 395; Morris, John, 579; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 79. 110 Cf. for this parallel Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 646. 290 loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and will reveal myself to him” (cf. 16: 27). The Synoptics contain no close parallel to this lucid expression of love both by the Father and Jesus. What is visible in the Synoptics, however, is again the idea of oneness between the two, so that positioning oneself in regard to Jesus inevitably involves the Father. “Love for Jesus” equals “being loved by the Father,” which (although no active reaction of the Father is mentioned) at least somewhat resembles the synoptic saying, “whoever receives me receives the one who sent me” (Matt 10: 40 pars. [0/ 1-level of closeness]). This announcement where Jesus reveals himself to those who love him may not only refer to the resurrection appearances (cf. also Matt 28: 9, 17; Mark 16: 9, 14; Luke 24: 31, 36; John 20-21), “but also to the corresponding self-disclosures of Jesus to his disciples in later times.” 111 In the latter case we may again adduce as a synoptic parallel the words of the risen Jesus in Matt 28: 20 (cf. below on 14: 23). 112 Further, while the preeminence of love for Jesus himself is only implicitly assumed in John, the primacy of such love is more explicitly expressed in Matt 10: 37 by the statement: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, (…)” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. Now another disciple, “Judas (not Judas Iscariot),” who is mentioned elsewhere only in the Lukan list of Jesus’ core group of twelve (cf. Luke 6: 16;; Acts 1: 13), asks one further question (14: 22). Referring back to Jesus’ statement in 14: 19 he asks why Jesus is going to reveal himself exclusively to them and not to the world (cf. 7: 4). Behind this question stands the conviction that if Jesus was indeed the Messiah, he ought to disclose his identity in an irresistible theophany visible to all. 113 Jesus replies in John 14: 23 by insisting once again that his self-disclosure will take place among and within those who show their love towards Jesus by obedience to his word: “if anyone loves me, he will obey my word, and my Father will love him” (cf. 14: 15, 21 and the synoptic parallels mentioned there [0/ 1- and 1/ 1-levels of closeness]). The reference to monh, forms an inclusio with 14: 2. While in 14: 2 a future heavenly dwelling place might well be in view (see above our discussion of the exact referent in this verse), Jesus is clearly talking about an ongoing spiritual relationship: “and we will come to him and take up residence with him.” Only here in the New Testament are both Father and Son said to indwell believers. 114 Yet, we may again point to Matt 28: 20 [0/ 1- level of closeness], where the Synoptic Jesus promises that “I am with you always,” thus similarly promoting the prospect of a divine dwelling among his disciples. 111 Carson, John, 503. 112 Ibid. Cf. also Keener, John, 2: 975: “Nevertheless, Jesus’ selective revelation (14: 21) has roots in the historical Jesus tradition (e.g., Acts 10: 41; cf. Mark 8: 11-12;; Matt 16: 1, 21).” 113 Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 633; also Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 647 et al. 114 Köstenberger, John, 440-41. 291 Conversely to 14: 15, 21, 23, Jesus restates, though in a negative form, for one last time the issue of love and obedience, making emphatically clear that obedience will only manifest itself out of a loving embrace of himself (see parallels above). The implication in John 14: 24a is that “the person who does not love me [and thus] does not obey my words” will not have his share in the blessings of God’s indwelling presence. Jesus amplifies this in John 14: 24b when he says, “the word you hear is not mine, but the Father’s who sent me” (cf. 7: 16; 8: 26, 28; 12: 49-50). Jesus’ word needs to be received as a divine message; disobeying him means disobeying the Father. Jesus same selfconsciousness regarding his own utterance of divine words can be also found in Matt 24: 35: “my words [ oi` lo,goi ] will never pass away” [1/ 1-level of closeness]. For the motif of “the Father sending the Son” see once again Matt 10: 40 pars.;; 15: 26;; Luke 10: 16. As the “sent one” Jesus is the Father’s “mouthpiece” with the assignment to proclaim the divine message, a notion not peculiar to John, but visible also in Luke 4: 18 (“the Spirit of the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news” [0/ 1-level of closeness]; cf. Luke 4: 43). The semantic accordance of the 14 propositions in this sequence with Jesus’ words used in the Synoptics is again sparse. Nine propositions show no more than some overlap in certain vocabulary [1/ 1- and 1/ 2-levels of closeness], which again demonstrates that even in cases of conceptual similarity, the language remains in large part unique to the Fourth Gospel. With the exception of two propositions (14: 17a, 20b), all of Jesus’ words have synoptic counterparts with a more or less significant degree of similarity in content; yet, not all of the synoptic sayings adduced here are likewise found at the end of his earthly life. A total of three propositions, containing the main themes of the promise of the Spirit-Paraclete (14: 16) and the post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to his disciples, but not to the world (14: 19a, 19b) closely resemble concepts in the Synoptic Gospels [0/ 2-levels of closeness]. The remaining motifs of love and obedience (14: 15, 21a, 23, 24a), the consoling announcement of Jesus’ coming to the disciples and indwelling them (14: 18, 20c), as well as the mutuality of Jesus and the Father (20a, 21b, 24b) are also present to some extent in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Even though the content of some of the parallels mentioned appears to be somewhat abstracted from the Johannine base, it is fair to conclude that the core of Jesus’ words in John 14: 15-24 is contained in his synoptic teaching as well. 292 5.1.4 Sequence 3: John 14: 25-31 (Jesus Continues to Encourage His Disciples) [14: 25] Tau/ ta lela,lhka u`mi/ n parV u`mi/ n me,nwn\ I have spoken these things while staying with you. [0/ 2] [1/ 2] [Mark 13: 23] proei,rhka u`mi/ n pa,ntaÅ I have told you everything ahead of time. [Luke 24: 44] ou-toi oi` lo,goi mou ou]j evla,lhsa pro.j u`ma/ j e; ti w'n su.n u`mi/ n( o[ti dei/ plhrwqh/ nai pa,nta ta. gegramme, na ev n tw/ | no,mw| Mwu? se, wj kai. toi/ j profh,taij kai. yalmoi/ j peri. evmou/ Å “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled.” [14: 26] o` de. para,klhtoj( to. pneu/ ma to. a[gion( o] pe, myei o` path.r ev n tw/ | ovno,mati, mou( ev kei/ noj u`ma/ j dida,xei pa,nta kai. u`pomnh,sei u`ma/ j pa,nta a] ei=pon u`mi/ n Îev gw,ÐÅ But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and will cause you to remember everything I said to you. [1/ 2] [Mark 13: 11 pars.] kai. o[tan a; gwsin u`ma/ j paradido,ntej( mh. promerimna/ te ti, lalh,shte( avllV o] ev a.n doqh/ | u`mi/ n ev n ev kei,nh| th/ | w[ra| tou/ to lalei/ te\ ouv ga,r ev ste u`mei/ j oi` lalou/ ntej avlla. to. pneu/ ma to. a[gionÅ [Luke 12: 12: (…) to. ga.r a[gion pneu/ ma dida,xei u`ma/ j evn auvth/ | th/ | w[ra| a] dei/ eivpei/ nÅ ] When they arrest you and hand you over, do not worry beforehand about what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but it is the Holy Spirit. [Luke 12: 12: (…) for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that moment what you must say.] [14: 27a] Eivrh,nhn avfi,hmi u`mi/ n( eivrh,nhn th.n ev mh.n di,dwmi u`mi/ n\ ouv kaqw.j o` ko,smoj di,dwsin evgw. di,dwmi u`mi/ nÅ Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give it to you as the world does. [1/ 1] [Luke 24: 36] Tau/ ta de. auvtw/ n lalou,ntwn auvto.j e; sth ev n me, sw| auvtw/ n kai. le,gei auvtoi/ j\ eivrh,nh u`mi/ nÅ While they were saying these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” [14: 27b] mh. tarasse,sqw u`mw/ n h` kardi,a mhde. deilia,twÅ Do not let your hearts be distressed or lacking in courage. [1/ 2] [Luke 24: 38] ti, tetaragme, noi evste. kai. dia. ti, dialogismoi. avnabai,nousin evn th/ | kardi,a| u`mw/ nÈ Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 293 [0/ 2] [Matt 10: 31] mh. ou=n fobei/ sqe\ So don't be afraid;; (…) See also [Matt 1: 20; 10: 26; Luke 5: 10; 8: 50] et al. [14: 28a] hvkou,sate o[ti ev gw. ei=pon u`mi/ n\ u`pa,gw You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away [1/ 2] [Matt 26: 24 pars.] o` me. n ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou u`pa,gei kaqw.j ge, graptai peri. auvtou/ ( (…) The Son of Man will go as it is written about him, (…) [0/ 1] [Matt 9: 15 pars.] mh. du,nantai oi` ui`oi. tou/ numfw/ noj penqei/ n ev fV o[son metV auvtw/ n ev stin o` numfi,ojÈ ev leu,sontai de. h`me, rai o[tan avparqh/ | avpV auvtw/ n o` numfi,oj( kai. to,te nhsteu,sousinÅ The wedding guests cannot mourn while the bridegroom is with them, can they? But the days are coming when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and then they will fast. [14: 28b] kai. e; rcomai pro.j u`ma/ jÅ and I am coming back to you.’ [1/ 2] [Matt 16: 27 pars.] me, llei ga.r o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou e; rcesqai evn th/ | do,xh| tou/ patro.j auvtou/ meta. tw/ n avgge, lwn auvtou/ ( kai. to,te avpodw,sei e` ka,stw| kata. th.n pra/ xin auvtou/ For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. [0/ 1] [Mark 9: 31 pars.] o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou paradi,dotai eivj cei/ raj avnqrw,pwn( kai. avpoktenou/ sin auvto,n( kai. avpoktanqei.j meta. trei/ j h`me, raj avnasth,setaiÅ The Son of Man will be betrayed into the hands of men. They will kill him, and after three days he will rise. Cf. also [Mark 10: 34]. [14: 28c] eiv hvgapa/ te, me ev ca,rhte a'n o[ti poreu,omai pro.j to.n pate, ra( If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, [0/ 0] 294 [14: 28d] o[ti o` path.r mei,zwn mou, ev stinÅ because the Father is greater than I am. [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [Matt 20: 23 par. Mark 10: 40] to. me. n poth,rio, n mou pi,esqe( to. de. kaqi,sai evk dexiw/ n mou kai. evx euvwnu,mwn ouvk e; stin evmo.n Îtou/ toÐ dou/ nai( avllV oi-j h`toi,mastai u`po. tou/ patro,j mouÅ “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right and at my left is not mine to give. Rather, it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” [Mark 13: 32 par. Matt 24: 36] 115 Peri. de. th/ j h`me, raj ev kei,nhj h' th/ j w[raj ouvdei.j oi= den( ouvde. oi` a; ggeloi ev n ouvranw/ | ouvde. o` ui`o,j( eiv mh. o` path,rÅ But as for that day and hour no one knows it- not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son- except the Father alone. [Matt 26: 39, 42 pars.] pa,ter mou( eiv dunato,n ev stin( parelqa,tw avpV ev mou/ to. poth,rion tou/ to\ plh.n ouvc w`j ev gw. qe, lw avllV w`j su,Å (…) pa,ter mou( (…) genhqh,tw to. qe, lhma, souÅ My Father, if possible, let this cup pass from me! Yet not what I will, but what you will. (…) My Father (…) your will must be done. [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] Pa,nta moi paredo,qh u`po. tou/ patro,j mou( All things have been handed over to me by my Father. [14: 29] kai. nu/ n ei; rhka u`mi/ n pri.n gene, sqai( i[na o[tan ge, nhtai pisteu,shteÅ I have told you now before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe. [1/ 2] [Mark 13: 23, 29] u`mei/ j de. ble, pete\ proei,rhka u`mi/ n pa,ntaÅ (...) ou[twj kai. u`mei/ j( o[tan i; dhte tau/ ta gino,mena( ginw,skete o[ti evggu,j ev stin evpi. qu,raijÅ Be careful! I have told you everything ahead of time. (…) So also you, when you see these things happening, know that he is near, right at the door. 115 The phrase “nor the Son” is lacking in the majority of witnesses of Matthew. For their probable originality, see Metzger, Textual Commentary, 51-52; pace the text-critical notes of the NET Bible. 295 [14: 30] ouvke, ti polla. lalh,sw meqV u`mw/ n( e; rcetai ga.r o` tou/ ko,smou a; rcwn\ kai. evn evmoi. ouvk e; cei ouvde,n( I will not speak with you much longer, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, [0/ 2] [0/ 2] [Mark 14: 41-42 par. Matt 26: 45-46] kai. e; rcetai to. tri,ton kai. le,gei auvtoi/ j\ kaqeu,dete to. loipo.n kai. avnapau,esqe\ avpe, cei\ h=lqen h` w[ra( ivdou. paradi,dotai o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou eivj ta.j cei/ raj tw/ n a`martwlw/ nÅ ev gei,resqe a; gwmen\ ivdou. o` paradidou,j me h; ggikenÅ He came a third time and said to them, “Are you still sleeping and resting? Enough of that! The hour has come. Look, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up, let us go. Look! My betrayer is approaching! ” [Luke 22: 53] kaqV h`me, ran o; ntoj mou meqV u`mw/ n ev n tw/ | i`erw/ | ouvk ev xetei,nate ta.j cei/ raj evpV ev me, ( avllV au[th ev sti.n u`mw/ n h` w[ra kai. h` evxousi,a tou/ sko,toujÅ Day after day when I was with you in the temple courts, you did not arrest me. But this is your hour, and that of the power of darkness! [14: 31a] avllV i[na gnw/ | o` ko,smoj o[ti avgapw/ to.n pate, ra( but the world must know that I love the Father [0/ 0] [14: 31b] kai. kaqw.j evnetei,lato, moi o` path,r( ou[twj poiw/ Å and that I am doing just what the Father commanded me. [0/ 2] [Mark 14: 36 pars.] pare,negke to. poth,rion tou/ to avpV ev mou/ \ avllV ouv ti, ev gw. qe, lw avlla. ti, su,Å Take this cup away from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will. See also [Mark 3: 35 pars.] and [Matt 6: 10]. [14: 31c] ev gei,resqe( a; gwmen ev nteu/ qenÅ Get up, let us go from here.” [2/ 2] [Mark 14: 42 pars.] ev gei,resqe a; gwmen\ Get up, let us go. The phrase “I have spoken these things while staying with you” occurs frequently in the Farewell Discourse (cf. 15: 11; 16: 1, 4, 6, 25, 33) and in John 14: 25 it introduces some concluding remarks of this first unit. Jesus indicates that his instruction to the disciples is about to end, which, at the same time, elevates the importance of what he has already told them and also 296 what he is about to impart to them. 116 It was his concern to let them know what is coming while still being with them. The exact same concern is also expressed in the Synoptics. In the Markan eschatological discourse Jesus, having introduced the Holy Spirit as a helping presence for the future (Mark 13: 11), assures his followers that he has not left them uninformed about what is to come, but “I have told you everything ahead of time”(Mark 13: 23 [0/ 2-level of closeness]). Thus, both Markan and Johannine accounts merge as they link the future work of the Spirit with Jesus’ instruction about things to come (see below on 14: 26). Likewise, the risen Jesus in Luke 24: 44 testifies in retrospect that all along it was his concern to provide all necessary instruction for his disciples “while I was still with you” [1/ 2-level of closeness]. What follows in John 14: 26 is a second Paraclete passage in the Farewell Discourse. Only at this point in the Fourth Gospel is the Paraclete equated with to. pneu/ ma to. a[gion , the Holy Spirit (cf. 1: 33; 20: 22, and our comments on the Paraclete in 14: 16). 117 With “the limitations that time has put on what Jesus himself could teach” 118 (cf. 14: 25), the teaching function of the coming Advocate is now highlighted. The Spirit-Paraclete will reinforce and bring to remembrance Jesus’ teaching and will do so in continuity with what Jesus has said during his earthly ministry: 119 “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit [ to. pneu/ ma to. a[gion ], whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you [ u`ma/ j dida,xei ] everything and will cause you to remember everything I said to you.” Being himself “the authoritative sent one” by the Father (cf. 116 Note the article by D. Pastorelli, “La formule johannique tau/ ta lela,lhka u`mi/ n (Jn 14,25; 15,11; 16,1.4.6.25.33). Un exemple de parfait transitif,” FN 19 (2006): 73-88. 117 For a characterization of the Paraclete in John 14: 25-26, cf. Pastorelli, Le Paraclet, 259- 90. 118 Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 652. 119 We already noted in our introductory comments to this chapter that it is common among Johannine scholars to interpret a passage like John 14: 26 as a carte blanche legitimization regarding the production of dominical sayings within the Johannine community (cf., e.g., Lindars, “Traditions Behind the Fourth Gospel,” 121;; Theobald, Herrenworte, 611). Without being able to discuss the probability of such an approach within the religious, sociological, and literary context of the Fourth Gospel (indeed a worthwhile study), I suspect that we are dealing with no more than a hermeneutical presupposition still waiting for some sustainable evidence. On an exegetical level the meaning of the verb u`pomimnh,| skw hardly supports the idea of unqualified production of Jesus-sayings but obviously narrows the specific role of the Paraclete. Cf., e.g., Beasley-Murray, John, 261 [italics his], who states that the Spirit “enables them [i.e., the disciples] to recall these things (…) [and] to perceive their significance (…) [and] it is clear that the Spirit brings no new revelation.” Similarly, Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 635 [italics his]: “Der Geist lehrt alles dadurch daß er an alles von Jesus Gesagte erinnert. Wie Jesu Logos nicht sein eigener, sondern der Logos dessen ist, der ihn gesandt hat (V. 24), so ist auch die Lehre des Geist-Parakleten nicht seine, sondern nur die Erinnerung an Jesu Worte und Taten (…). Gerade indem er so an den Weg des historischen Jesus erinnert, fügt der Geist ihm aber nichts hinzu (…).” 297 14: 24), Jesus announces the sending of the Spirit by the Father “in his name,” thus making the Paraclete “one who is the authorized representative both of the Father and of him.” 120 The Johannine emphasis on the teaching activity of the Spirit is closely paralleled in the synoptic triple tradition (Mark 13: 9-11 par. Matt 10: 17-20 par. Luke 12: 11-12). Whereas the Lukan version shows an especially significant overlap even in wording [1/ 2-level of closeness]: “for the Holy Spirit will teach you [ to. ga.r a[gion pneu/ ma dida,xei u`ma/ j ] at that moment what you must say.” 121 Mark 13 embeds this statement, similar to John, in the context of Jesus’ words immediately preceding his departure. The reassuring promise of the provision of the Spirit as teacher is clearly a part of the Synoptic Jesus’ instruction to his disciples. In John 14: 27a Jesus turns to another benefit that will absorb the consequences of his physical absence. Not only are the disciples promised the help of the Spirit-Paraclete, but also the gift of Jesus’ peace: “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; I do not give it to you as the world does.” While worldly peace is often no more than a pious wish that is temporary at best, Jesus is able and willing to extend to his followers a peace that transcends human categories and serves as the source of ongoing confidence and composure in the midst of coming affliction (cf. 15: 18; 16: 33; 17: 15). The term eivrh,nh denotes the Hebrew ~lv , which is an insoluble part of the messianic kingdom anticipated in the Old Testament (e.g., Num 6: 26; Ps 29: 11; Isa 9: 6-7; 52: 7; 54: 13; Ezk 37: 26) and established in the New (e.g., Acts 10: 36; Rom 1: 7; 5: 1). 122 The ensuing events inaugurate this divine presence and reign so that by means of his crucifixion and resurrection “the departing Lord bequeaths to his followers the permanent end-time blessing of a right relationship with God.” 123 With this in mind, the post-resurrection Jesus’ threefold repetition of the greeting “Peace be with you! ” in John 20: 19, 21, 26 is probably more than customary. Rather, the greetings serve as powerful reminders of Jesus’ promise of eschatological peace in the Farewell Discourse (here and 16: 33). 124 The affinity of this part of the Johannine Easter account with Luke 24: 36-42 has been repeatedly noted. 125 We would, however, argue that this synoptic text, which contains the exact same peace-greeting of the risen Christ, serves just as well as a parallel to the 120 Lincoln, John, 396. 121 Cf. NA 27 ; also Crossan, Sayings Parallels, 55; Lindars, Gospel of John, 484; Keener, John, 2: 978n407: “The wording may be Luke’s, but the idea is earlier (Mark 13: 11).” 122 Carson, John, 505; also Beasley-Murray, John, 262. 123 Köstenberger, John, 443. 124 Keener, John, 2: 1201; also Carson, John, 646-47. 125 E.g., Bock, Luke 9: 51-24: 53, 1931-33; Eckey, Lukas, 2: 989; I. Howard Marshall, The Gospel of Luke: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978), 901. 298 present proposition of the promise in John 14: 27. 126 Not only might the Lukan reference to eivrh,nh have had similar connotations as the earlier announcements of peace in John, but its context including the conjunction with the promised gift of the Spirit (Luke 24: 49; cf. 14: 26) and the exhortation not to be troubled (Luke 24: 38; cf. 14: 27b), allows for even more common ground between this latter part of the Johannine Farewell Discourse’s first unit and the Lukan post-resurrection account [1/ 1-level of closeness]. This is to say that Jesus’ admonition in John 14: 27b “Do not let your hearts be distressed or lacking in courage” can also be found on the lips of the risen Jesus in Luke 24: 38, though in the form of a question: “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? ” [1/ 2-level of closeness; note the common usage of the verb tara,ssw and the noun kardi,a ]. Generally speaking, we may thus assert that several themes of Jesus’ teaching between his resurrection and ascension as portrayed in Luke are significantly similar to what the Fourth Evangelist included in his account of Jesus’ last words before his impending death. For further synoptic parallels to the exhortation of the disciples not to be troubled, see especially Matt 10: 31 [0/ 2-level of closeness] as well as Matt 10: 26; Luke 5: 10; 8: 50 et al. (see also above our comments on 14: 1). While John 14: 27b sets up a formal inclusio with 14: 1, the following verse provides a brief summary of the content of Jesus’ speech. 127 John 14: 28a and 14: 28b reiterate Jesus’ promise to come back after his departure: “You heard me say to you, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’” The announcement of leaving the earthly scene occurs during the final stages of Jesus’ ministry in the Synoptics as well, e.g., in Matt 26: 24 pars., where Jesus declares that “the Son of Man will go as it is written about him” [1/ 2- level of closeness; note the parallel use of the verb u`pa,gw ] and also in Matt 9: 15 pars. [0/ 1-level of closeness]. The depiction of this departure as the “return to the Father” is certainly Johannine (cf. below 14: 28c, also 16: 5, 17, 18; 17: 13 et al.). But to say that this theme is generally absent from the Synoptics 128 is inaccurate as the Synoptic Jesus at least implicitly reveals that his final destination is a place in the kingdom of his Father (cf., e.g., Matt 26: 29, 64). As seen earlier in the discourse, Jesus’ reference to his “coming back” is somewhat ambiguous. While in 14: 18b the referent is most likely his post-resurrection appearances, the present summary statement lends itself both to a more immediate as well as to an eschatological interpretation (see above our more detailed comments on 14: 2-3, 4, 18). Either way, synoptic parallels are at hand. If Jesus is indeed pointing to his future Parousia, Matt 16: 27 pars. may serve as a conceptually close counterpart: “For the Son of Man will come with his angels in the glory of his Father” [1/ 2-level of 126 So also Beutler, Habt keine Angst, 98-99. 127 Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 635. 128 So Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 193. 299 closeness; note the common use of e; rcomai ; cf. also Matt 23: 39 par. Luke 13: 35]. If the primary referent of Jesus’ statement here in John is his resurrection, synoptic parallels are likewise not hard to find. That he is going to “come back” after his death is repeatedly announced in the Synoptic Gospels (see our comments on 14: 18b), where Jesus in Mark 9: 31 pars. refers to himself in the third person and states that “after three days he will rise again” [0/ 1-level of closeness; cf. again also Mark 9: 31 par. Matt 17: 22-23). Granted that our Johannine proposition implies not only a singular reappearance of Jesus but his ongoing presence among his disciples, the concluding statement of Matthew’s Gospel (Matt 28: 20) may again be adduced as a conceptually somewhat similar promise of the risen Jesus, who is “with you always, to the end of the age.” In John 14: 28c Jesus finally takes up the recurring theme of “love,” using a so-called contrary-to-fact condition: 129 “If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father.” Implied is a lack of love on the part of the disciples. Instead of rejoicing in view of their Lord’s soon-to-be-realized presence with the Father, they remain trapped by their emotional distress. For Jesus, going to the Father means returning to the place of divine fellowship where he actually belongs. Thus, their continuing grief “is an index of their self-centredness,” because if they had truly loved their Master, “they would have perceived that his departure to his own ‘home’ was his gain and rejoiced with him at the prospect [see 17: 4-5].” 130 No similar exposition of the disciples’ inner attitude, linking their sense of fear and loss to their failure to truly love Jesus, can be found in the Synoptics [0/ 0-level of closeness]. What follows is a causal proposition in John 14: 28d that establishes the reason why Jesus’ return to the Father is indeed a joyous perspective: “because the Father is greater than I am.” For centuries this short statement has generated significant christological debate. 131 Suffice it to say that what is meant here is neither a denial of Jesus’ divine nature (cf. 1: 1;; 8: 58;; 20: 28) nor some other kind of ontological inferiority. Craig Keener has ably summarized the indications of this verse, saying “The issue is not Jesus’ nondeity, or even his distinction from the Father (which is assumed), but his subordination to the Father, which portrays Jesus as the Father’s obedient agent and therefore appeals to those who honor the Father to honor him.” 132 Such subordination or dependence of the Son on the Father is a theme that is visible at least four times in the Synoptic Gospels, albeit on different levels of conceptual abstraction. In Matt 20: 23 par. Mark 10: 40 129 Ernst G. Hoffmann and Heinrich von Siebenthal, Griechische Grammatik zum Neuen Testament (repr., Riehen: Immanuel Verlag, 2007), 559; also Wallace, Grammar, 694-96. 130 Carson, John, 508 [italics his]; also Köstenberger, John, 444. 131 Cf., e.g., Charles K. Barrett, “‘The Father is Greater Than I’ John 14.28: Subordinationist Christology in the New Testament,” in Essays on John (London: SPCK, 1982), 19-36. 132 Keener, John, 2: 983. 300 Jesus states, “to sit at my right and at my left is not mine to give. Rather, it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father [ tou/ patro, j ]” [1/ 1-level of closeness]. Jesus thus indicates that it is the Father who has the final authority to settle heavenly seating arrangements;; “some sort of subordinationism is implied.” 133 Another synoptic passage with notable reminiscences to John 14: 28d is Matt 24: 36 par. Mark 13: 32: “But as for that day and hour no one knows it- not even the angels in heaven- except the Father [ o` path,r ] alone” [1/ 1-level of closeness]. Here we are confronted with a clear limitation of Jesus’ knowledge. Regarding the hour of his Parousia he is entirely dependent on the Father’s timing. 134 The triple tradition in Matt 26: 39, 42 pars. provides a third synoptic counterpart to our Johannine proposition: “Yet not what I will, but what you will. (…) My Father [ path,r ] (…) your will must be done” [1/ 1-level of closeness]. As with the two parallels mentioned earlier, this statement is also taken from the latter part of Jesus’ earthly ministry, yet in contrast to those utterances it is not addressed to the disciples but rather to the Father himself. Nevertheless, it likewise reveals a “subordinate touch” as the incarnate Jesus acknowledges the supremacy of the Father’s will above his own intentions. 135 Finally, we may mention the “Johannine statement” of Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22. When Jesus affirms that “all things have been handed over to me by my Father [ tou/ patro, j ]” [1/ 1- level of closeness] he at least implicitly indicates a contrast between himself as the Son and the Father. What exactly has been handed over to Jesus in this context is up for debate, but Jesus again seems to denote himself as an obedient agent commissioned by someone “greater.” The subordination of Jesus to what is identified as the “greater Father” in the Fourth Gospel is definitely not foreign to Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptic Gospels. The statement “I have told you now before it happens, so that when it happens you may believe” in John 14: 29 reiterates an earlier predication in 13: 19 (cf. 16: 4) and shows that Jesus had announced the events of his death, resurrection, ascension and the coming of the Spirit in order to strengthen the 133 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3: 92. In their commentary on Matt 20: 23, they do not refer to John 14: 28 as a Johannine parallel, yet do state that one is reminded of John 5: 19-23 and John 12: 44-50. Luz, Matthew, 2: 544, refers to Matt 20: 23 as containing an “idea of subordination,” and [like John 14: 28] as a verse heavily used in support of Arianism. 134 This parallel has been noted by Köstenberger, John, 444. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3: 377, when commenting on Matt 24: 36, mention “the numerous Johannine contrasts between ‘the Father’ and ‘the Son’.” Cf. also R. T. France, The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text, NIGTC (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 543-44; as well as M. Eugene Boring, Mark: A Commentary, NTL (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006), 376; and Joachim Gnilka, Mk 8,27 - 16,20, vol. 2 of Das Evangelium nach Markus, EKK 2/ 2 (Zürich: Benziger, 1979), 207, who all note that later theologians were bothered by the christological implications of Jesus’ “confession of ignorance.” 135 Cf., e.g., France, Mark, 585. 301 faith of the disciples. 136 Although the reported content of Jesus’ teaching might contain different emphases, in the eschatological discourse in Mark 13: 23, 29 (cf. also Matt 24: 25) Jesus employs exactly the same argument to explain the reason for his extended words of farewell: “I have told you everything ahead of time. (…) So also you, when you see these things happening, know that he is near, right at the door” [1/ 2-level of closeness; note the consistent usage of ( pro ) le,gw u`mi/ n , o[tan , and gi,nomai ]. 137 In John 14: 30, Jesus then draws the first unit of the Farewell Discourse to a close, actually indicating that the shocking events about to happen will not catch him off guard. Jesus will not speak much longer with his disciples since “the ruler of this world is coming (…) [who] has no claim on me.” The “ruler of this world” is most likely the devil, but it seems that Judas Iscariot is in the picture as carrying out the devil’s will and as the embodiment of his anti-godly efforts (cf. 13: 27; 17: 12; 18: 2-3). In Mark 14: 41-42 par. Matt 26: 45-46, at the end in the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus makes a similar announcement: “My betrayer is approaching! ” Yet, while this is a more direct reference to Judas’ approach, “John is more interested in the approach of Satan who is the real force acting in Judas” 138 [0/ 2-level of closeness]. Yet, in both cases Jesus realizes that the devil’s agent is at hand. Likewise, when in Luke 22: 53, during his arrest, Jesus talks with regard to his opponents about “your hour, and that of the power of darkness,” he uses the darkness metaphor to refer to the same cosmic conflict that he anticipated here in John [0/ 2-level of closeness]. 139 And while the Johannine description of the ruler of the world as “having no claim” on Jesus is not found in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, the synoptic passion accounts make no less clear that the devil and his dark forces have their moment, yet are not ultimately in control. 140 136 Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 655; also Carson, John, 508; Keener, John, 2: 983; Köstenberger, John, 445. 137 This parallel has also been noted by Dietzfelbinger, Johannes, 2: 70; Keener, John, 2: 983. 138 Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 656; cf. also Beasley-Murray, John, 263, who states regarding the relationship between Mark 14: 42 and John 14: 30: “Mark speaks of the approach of Judas, John of the approach of ‘the Prince of this world,’ for Judas is but the tool of the devil.” This parallel is also adduced by Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 204; Takashi Onuki, “Die johanneischen Abschiedsreden und die synoptischen Tradition: Eine traditionskritische und traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung,” AJBI 3 (1977): 226; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 87: “As the name ‘ruler of this world’ shows, the formulation is Johannine, but there may objectively be a memory of the text in Mk 14.41f behind the evangelist’s words: ‘The hour has come … see, my betrayer is at hand.’” Cf. also Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 636. 139 Luke 22: 53 has been mentioned as a synoptic parallel to John 14: 30 by Beutler, Habt keine Angst, 90; Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 204;; Onuki, “Abschiedsreden,” 226;; Ridderbos, John, 513; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 87; Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 636-37; cf. also Bovon, Lukas, 4: 333n66. 140 Cf., e.g., Bock, Luke 9: 51-24: 53, 1773. 302 The evangelist did not include in the Fourth Gospel Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane, yet the concluding verse of this unit of the Farewell Discourse continues to display elements parallel to that synoptic scene. When Jesus repeats in John 14: 31b that “I am doing just what the Father commanded me,” this is indeed comparable to his commitment to God’s will during his intense prayer in the garden in Mark 14: 36 pars.: “Take this cup away from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will” [0/ 2-level of closeness; cf. Mark 3: 35 pars.; Matt 6: 10]. 141 That he approaches death in total obedience to the Father is a strong theme in all four canonical accounts of Jesus’ last days before his crucifixion. That he thereby demonstrates his love for the Father as indicated in John 14: 31a (“but the world must know that I love the Father”) is unique to John [0/ 0-level of closeness]. Even though it is not said that Jesus loves the Father, the Synoptics agree, however, that such love was indeed at the core of Jesus’ existence and teaching, as we see in the triple tradition of Mark 12: 30 pars. Finally, Jesus turns to his disciples in John 14: 31c with the statement that it is time to go: “Get up. Let us go from here.” Since Jesus and the disciples seem to not have left the upper room until 18: 1 and since Jesus continues to teach for three more chapters, this present remark has often been considered as an aporia. 142 With no intent of getting entangled with complex redactional theories, none of them having convinced more than a small faction of Johannine scholars, we will be content to recognize that at least for those who finally published the Fourth Gospel these concluding words did not appear to be completely out of place. 143 Within the actual scope of our study, i.e. Johannine-Synoptic relations, we may note that John 14: 31 is one of the very few instances where the Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum 141 Cf. Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 656, who has also noted this parallel, albeit in its Lukan form. 142 Several literary-critical models have been proposed to explain the present text (Schnelle, Johannes, 261-63): While some have tried to solve the problem by rearranging the sequence of the several chapters (e.g., Bultmann), others have argued that John 15-17 should be considered as an addition of a later redactor (e.g., Schnackenburg, and proponents of a relecture-model like Zumstein or Dettwiler). John 14: 31c has also been taken as referring not to physical movement but to a movement of the spirit, a willful decision to meet the spiritual adversary (e.g., Dodd, also Thyen). 143 E.g., Lincoln, John, 399. Schnelle, Johannes, 263, understands the transition from John 14: 31c to John 15-17 and finally to John 18: 1 as a literary procedure employed by the evangelist following the Markan story line. In his redactional study Kellum, Unity, 232-33, comes to the conclusion that appeals to a literary seam are not warranted, thus the original writer of John’s Gospel included 14: 31c as “an indicator of motion.” As John 18: 1 refers to departure from the city, it follows for him “that the disciples actually left the Upper Room upon Jesus’ command is the most likely depiction.” Carson, John, 479 and Köstenberger, John, 445-46 (while suggesting that Jesus might have added further instruction before they finally left; cf. also Morris, John, 486-87) both regard this traditional understanding as a viable option as well; but cf. Beasley- Murray, John, 223. 303 actually lists a synoptic and a Johannine passage side by side. 144 The instruction to rise and leave is the same instruction given by Jesus at the end of his Gethsemane prayer in Mark 14: 42 par. Matt 26: 46, even using the exact same two verbs evgei,resqe a; gwmen [2/ 2-level of closeness]. 145 At the end of his ministry, at a “similar point of crisis for the disciples” 146 both the Johannine and the Synoptic Jesus clearly shows his willingness to meet whatever is necessary to accomplish the Father’s plan of redemption. This last sequence of the first unit of the Farewell Discourse has in part the character of a summary as Jesus takes up several of the themes that he had earlier touched on (e.g., 14: 28a-b). Thus, it does not come as a surprise that again only two propositions (14: 28c, 31a) lack any similarity both in content and in wording. Regarding the latter, this sequence has the unusual case of one statement (14: 31c) that is in close verbal agreement with synoptic words of Jesus [2/ 2-level of closeness]. Of the remaining 10 Johannine propositions at least eight can claim some verbal reminiscences to the teaching of the Synoptic Jesus [1/ 1- and 1/ 2-levels of closeness]. When it comes to similarity in content, it is significant that actually nine out of 13 propositions bear close conceptual resemblance to synoptic sayings of Jesus [0/ 2- and 1/ 2-levels of closeness]. Furthermore, in most cases these parallels are located in a similar farewell context within the Synoptic Gospels. The motifs of foretelling his departure (14: 25, 29), the promise of the Spirit who will teach them (14: 26), the admonition not to be troubled (14: 27b), the reference to the devil (14: 30), and Jesus’ commitment to his Father’s will (14: 31b) all reveal a close similarity in content to the Synoptics. Even the promise of peace (14: 27a) and the subordination of Jesus (14: 28d) are no idiosyncrasies of the Fourth Gospel but are at least somewhat similar [0/ 1- or 1/ 1-levels of closeness] to what Jesus has uttered in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. 5.1.5 Summary The Farewell Discourse in the Fourth Gospel in general, and its first unit in John 14: 1-31 in particular, is often thought to exhibit a post-Easter standpoint rooted in the needs and challenges of an early Johannine community. This does not, of course, depend entirely on an assumed lack of parallels between the words of Jesus in John and in the Synoptics. But, as noted with the other discourse sections examined thus far, the more extensive the perceived gap between the Johannine Jesus and his teaching in the Synoptics 144 Aland, Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum, 298. 145 For this parallel, see Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 656; Keener, John, 2: 986; Lindars, Gospel of John, 486;; Onuki, “Abschiedsreden,” 227;; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 88; Schnelle, Johannes, 263; cf. also Beutler, Habt keine Angst, 26-27; as well as Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3: 501; and the NA 27 margin. 146 Keener, John, 2: 986. 304 the more plausible becomes a negative verdict regarding the historical pedigree of Jesus’ words. However, as we have seen from the other comparisons thus far, our close examination of the first unit of the Farewell Discourse has revealed that the “ditch” between John and his canonical counterparts, which may seem rather broad at first, is not as “ugly” after all. At first glance, the verbal agreement between John 14: 1-31 and the Synoptics is indeed not very impressive. 19 out of a total of 53 Johannine propositions (again several verses had to be split) show no significant semantic overlap with the Synoptic Gospels [0/ 0-, 0/ 1- or 0/ 2-levels of closeness], 147 though about two thirds of the Johannine propositions demonstrate at least some words similar to those found on the lips of the Synoptic Jesus when talking about similar issues [1/ 1- or 1/ 2-kinds of closeness] 148 and one proposition (14: 31c) has even a close verbal resemblance [2/ 2-kind of closeness]. While all this is within the limits of what had to be expected, in keeping with our earlier results, these findings again display that, despite some verbal bridges, the general language of the Johannine Jesus in the first unit of the Farewell Discourse demonstrates significant verbal differences from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. This apparent ditch, however, diminishes as soon as we approach the Johannine-Synoptic relationship with a conceptual lens. Only five propositions have no conceptual parallel in the Synoptic Gospels at all [0/ 0-level of closeness]. And though not extant as a clear utterance of Jesus, the concept of “the glorification of the Father in the Son” (14: 13b) is not absent from synoptic thought, while 14: 17a seems to fit without difficulty into a synoptic pneumatology. Even the typically Johannine “you are in me”saying in 14: 20b is certainly more of a supplement rather than an alteration or contradiction to the way Jesus defines the relationship of believers to himself in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Further, all other 48 propositions are related conceptually to the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. More than half show at least some conceptual similarity [0/ 1- or 1/ 1-levels of closeness] 149 and about one third of the propositions are even closely related in content [0/ 2-, 1/ 2- or 2/ 2-levels of closeness]. 150 Several key thematic elements of this first unit of Jesus’ Farewell Discourse have a somewhat similar counterpart in the other three canonical Gospels, namely, Jesus’ pre-departure call to not be distressed but to believe (14: 1a-b, 10a, 11, 27b 147 John 14: 2b/ 3a, 3e, 10b, 10c, 11b, 13b, 17a, 17b, 18a, 18b, 19a, 19b, 19c, 20b, 21b, 28c, 30, 31a, 31b. 148 John 14: 1a, 1b, 2a/ 2c/ 3b, 3c, 3d, 4, 6a, 6b, 7, 9a, 9b, 10a, 11a, 12, 13a, 14, 15, 16, 19d, 20a, 20c, 21a, 23, 24a, 24b, 25, 26, 27a, 27b, 28a, 28b, 28d, 29. 149 John 14: 2a/ 2c/ 3b, 3c, 3d, 4, 6a, 9a, 9b, 10a, 10b, 10c, 11a, 11b, 12, 15, 17b, 18a, 18b, 19c, 19d, 20a, 20c, 21a, 21b, 23, 24a, 24b, 27a, 28d. 150 John 14: 1a, 1b, 2b/ 3a, 3e, 6b, 7, 13a, 14, 16, 19a, 19b, 25, 26, 27b, 28a, 28b, 29, 30, 31b, 31c. 305 par. Matt 10: 31; Luke 24: 38 et al.), the declaration of his going away to provide access to the Father (14: 2-3, 4, 6, 25, 29 par. Matt 20: 23 par. Mark 10: 40; Mark 13: 23; 14: 21 pars.; Luke 24: 44 et al.), the possibility of seeing the Father in the person and ministry of Jesus (14: 7 [also 9a-b, 10a-b] par. Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22), the challenge to pray expectantly (14: 13a, 14 par. Matt 7: 7 par. Luke 11: 9; Mark 11: 24 par. Matt 21: 22), the promise of the Spirit-Paraclete (14: 16, 26 par. Luke 24: 49; Mark 13: 9-11 pars.), and the announcement of Jesus’ post-resurrection appearance to his disciples but not to the world (14: 18a-b, 19a-b par. Mark 10: 34 pars.; Matt 9: 15 pars.; Matt 28: 10 par. Mark 14: 28). Even the shorter remarks regarding the devil (14: 30 par. Mark 14: 41-42 par. Matt 26: 45-46) and Jesus’ commitment to the Father’s will (14: 31b par. Mark 14: 36 pars.) are part of dominical teaching material outside of John. Moreover, in other concerns addressed by Jesus, we also find at least the core thrust being mirrored in the Synoptics, such as the relationship between love and obedience (14: 15, 21a, 23, 24a par. Luke 8: 21 pars. et al.), the mutuality of Jesus and the Father (14: 20a, 21b, 24b par. Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22), the promise of peace (14: 27a par. Luke 24: 36), and the subordination of Jesus (14: 28d par. Matt 20: 23 par. Mark 10: 40; Matt 26: 39, 42 pars. et al.). 306 5.2 Jesus’ Post-Resurrection Words to his Disciples (John 20: 11-29) 5.2.1 Introduction Structure and Character of the Post-Resurrection Narrative in John 20 In this section we are about to complete our study of Johannine-Synoptic relations by adding to our examination of Jesus’ extended discourses a survey of his post-resurrection utterances. With this additional category of dominical words spoken to the disciples we intend to not only broaden our data base, but to see whether our comparative results for words of the risen Jesus are similar or different to what we have observed so far. Not counting as discourse material in the narrow sense, this assessment of dominical speech material from the time after the resurrection thus serves as a crosscheck of the results of our preceding research. Embedded in the post-resurrection narratives of the canonical Gospels are several appearance stories in which Jesus converses with one or more of his disciples. The Fourth Gospel is no exception. 151 For reasons we are unable to discuss here, each of the gospel writers focuses only on a certain selection of post-resurrectional manifestations. In Matthew Jesus’ first appearance in Jerusalem is to two women (Matt 28: 9-10) and later to the eleven on a mountain in Galilee (Matt 28: 16-20). The Markan references to Jesus’ appearances are confined to this Gospel’s probably secondary appendix in Mark 16: 9-20. Without mention of specific locations, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene (Mark 16: 9), to two unnamed disciples on their way to the country (Mark 16: 12-13), and to the eleven (Mark 16: 14-19). In Luke we find appearances to Simon (Luke 24: 34), to two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24: 15-31) and to the eleven (Luke 24: 36-50), apparently all taking place in Jerusalem. In John 20, the passage in focus here, three consecutive post-resurrection appearances in Jerusalem are depicted, complemented by a fourth Galilean encounter narrated in John 21, where Jesus appears to seven disciples at the Sea of Tiberias. In all four post-resurrection scenes in the Fourth Gospel Jesus utters a total of 210 words. However, our present assessment is limited to Jesus’ statements contained in the post-resurrection narrative of John 20. This is due mainly to the fact that the majority of Johannine scholarship regards John 21 as a secondary redaction, an epilogue added to the original Gospel. 152 Without necessarily agreeing with this hypothesis, 153 it nevertheless 151 For a general treatment of the “Anagnorisis”-genre in the Fourth Gospel, see Kasper Bro Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger: Recognition Scenes in the Gospel of John, BIntS 93 (Leiden: Brill, 2008). 152 Schnelle, Einleitung, 523-24, speaks about a “relative consensus” about the secondary character of John 21 (but see the list of scholars in the following footnote); also now 307 seems appropriate to stay within the bounds of the current consensus as we thereby preserve the relevance of our findings regardless of one’s redaction-critical stance. The Johannine post-resurrection narrative begins in John 20: 1-2 with the description of the discovery of the empty tomb. These remarks are generally consistent with the synoptic accounts of what happened early on the first day of the week (Matt 28: 1; Mark 16: 1-4; Luke 24: 1-3); John focuses especially on Mary Magdalene among the women to first witness the emptiness of Jesus’ tomb. 154 That Mary immediately reports back this startling discovery to both Simon Peter and the beloved disciple coheres well with Luke 24: 9, even though in Luke the disciples who received word about Joachim Kügler, “Das Johannesevangelium,” in Einleitung in das Neue Testament, ed. Martin Ebner and Stefan Schreiber, Kohlhammer Studienbücher Theologie 6 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2008), 213 (“herrscht weitestgehend Konsens, dass es sich bei Joh 21 um eine redaktionelle Ergänzung handelt”). Cf., among many others, also Beasley- Murray, John, 395-96;; Charles K. Barrett, “John 21.15-25,” in Essays on John, London: SPCK, 1982, 159-60 (also idem., John, 576-77); Jürgen Becker, Die Auferstehung Jesu Christi nach dem Neuen Testament: Ostererfahrung und Osterverständnis im Urchristentum (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 63-65; Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 1077-80; Michael Lattke, “Joh 20: 30f. als Buchschluss,” ZNW 78.3/ 4 (1987): 288-92; Lincoln, John, 508-09; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 350; Folker Siegert, Das Evangelium des Johannes in seiner ursprünglichen Gestalt: Wiederherstellung und Kommentar, SIJD 7 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2008), 619-23; Klaus Wengst, Kapitel 11-21, vol. 2 of Das Johannesevangelium, Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament 4/ 2 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2001), 30-31. However, Moloney, John, 546, notes that “the contemporary rise of canonical and literary approaches to biblical narrative has led to increased effort among a newer generation of scholars to explain John 1: 1-21: 25 as a literary and theological unit” (mentioning, e.g., Segovia, Brodie, Schneiders, and Okure). 153 Among those who regard John 21 as part of the original Gospel (with the possible exception of 21: 24-25) are Richard Bauckham, “The Beloved Disciple as Ideal Author,” in The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple. Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 73-91; P. F. Ellis, “The Authenticity of John 21,” SVTQ 36 (1992): 17-25;; Paul S. Minear, “The Original Functions of John 21,” JBL 102 (1983): 85-98; Ruckstuhl, Die literarische Einheit, 134-49, 218;; Frans Neirynck, “John 21,” NST 36 (1990): 321-36; Hartmut Thyen, “Noch einmal: Joh 21 und ‘der Jünger, den Jesus liebte’,” in: Texts and Contexts: Biblical Texts in Their Textual and Situational Contexts. Essays in Honor of Lars Hartman, eds. T. Fornberg and D. Hellholm (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995), 147-89 (cf. also idem., Johannesevangelium, 772); as well as the commentaries of Carson, Keener, Morris, Ridderbos and others. 154 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 829n11, asks the question whether John uses the device of “silent companions.” Although the Fourth Evangelist only mentions Mary Magdalene by name, the usage of the first person plural in John 20: 2 (“we don’t know where they have put him”) could well indicate that he is aware of other women having accompanied Mary to the tomb. Regarding the difference between the Johannine setting “while it was still dark” vs. the Markan “just after sunrise,” Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 260, is probably right when he notes: “In the first century, this would scarcely have seemed to be the contradiction we moderns make it in our obsession with scientific precision.” 308 Jesus’ resurrection are envisioned as a larger group. 155 What follows in John 20: 3-10 is a description of the two disciples’ response to the testimony of Mary as they run to the burial site, where the only things they find are the graveclothes. Confronted with the evidence of an empty tomb the beloved disciple believes, presumably, in the resurrection even though both he and Peter are said to have not yet grasped the scriptural necessity for Jesus to rise from the dead. A similar story line is again found in Luke 24: 12, yet there the evangelist’s interest centers on Peter alone. Thus initially, to say the least, a stable core for both synoptic and Johannine empty tomb stories is present despite all noteable diversity. 156 Having introduced the first witnesses to the empty tomb, John continues to narrate several appearances of Jesus among his disciples. During these events in John 20 a total of 103 words are found on the lips of Jesus. Quite naturally, the rest of the chapter falls into three distinct sequences, each one dealing with a single post-resurrection appearance. Characteristically, all of them take place in Jerusalem. The first recorded instance of anyone seeing Jesus after the resurrection is Mary Magdalene’s encounter with the risen one [Appearance 1: John 20: 11-18]. After some initial difficulty to identify him, Jesus’ direct address evokes in Mary a joyful recognition of her living Master, a life-changing moment she is happy to share with the rest of the disciples. The second post-resurrection appearance (at the same time the first of three appearances of Jesus to a group of disciples 157 ) occurs on the evening of that same day [Appearance 2: John 20: 19-23]. At the core of this sequence is Jesus’ commissioning of the disciples as he sends them out empowered by the Holy Spirit. Finally, the Fourth Evangelist tells us that Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not present during the disciples’ first encounter with the resurrected Jesus. This necessitates, as it were, a further appearance since Thomas is unwilling to belief the testimony of his col- 155 Cf. ibid., 261. The Markan tradition is difficult here as it states in Mark 16: 8 that the women did not tell anyone - which seems to contradict the other gospel accounts. Blomberg remarks that the silence depicted “is obviously not the state in which the women remained or they would never have been described as witnesses to the resurrection at all! ” Robert H. Stein, Mark, BECNT (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 733, mentions that this statement could possibly mean that the women did not tell anyone until they told the disciples (but cf. the skepticism regarding this view in France, Mark, 684). 156 Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 829-30. Cf. also Brendan Byrne, “The Faith of the Beloved Disciple and the Community in John 20,” JSNT 23 (1985): 85: “It is generally agreed from comparison with Synoptic material that the Fourth Evangelist’s account of the episodes at the tomb of Jesus is based on traditions about the discovery of the empty tomb by the women disciples.” 157 Whether John refers only to the core group of disciples (in this case the eleven minus Thomas) is not entirely clear. Since Thomas is designated as “one of the Twelve” in John 20: 24 it may well be that only the inner circle of Jesus’ followers is in view, although we can not rule out the possibility that a larger group of disciples was present. 309 leagues “We have seen the Lord! ” Thus, eight days later as Thomas is present with the rest of the disciples, Jesus appears again and invites Thomas to overcome his unbelief by touching his wounds [Appearance 3: John 20: 24- 29]. The chapter ends with a clear statement of purpose for writing the Fourth Gospel (John 20: 30-31). The Authenticity of the Post-Resurrection Appearances in Johannine Research The answer to the question of the authenticity of the post-resurrection appearances in John 20 is, of course, dependent on one’s evaluation of the resurrection miracle in general. “Dead people don’t rise, therefore Jesus didn’t either.” Thus summarized N. T. Wright the strong negative judgment of Gerd Lüdemann regarding any serious claim for the historicity of the resurrection stories. 158 Such a view, of course, fuelled by scientific positivism as well as philosophical and ideological commitments, answers any historical question about the resurrection before it has a chance to be raised. 159 Many others have indeed argued that we should entirely abstain from raising the historical question, since the resurrection of Jesus is by no means accessible to historical investigation. This cautious proposal may certainly serve to keep us from passing any rash judgment on the authenticity of our canonical reports about the resurrection. But the attempt to prevent any historical study leaves us with the rather counter-intuitive option of not passing any judgment at all - an agnostic stance that is difficult to sustain. In his magisterial work on the Christian Easter tradition N. T. Wright rightly debunks the “reasons frequently advanced for not considering the resurrection as a historical problem (…) [as] not in themselves cogent.” We thus should indeed consider the resurrection as a historical datum: “The historian cannot, then, be debarred from asking whether or not it is true that Jesus was raised from the dead.” 160 158 N. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, vol. 2 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), 685. 159 Cf. Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 258. The problem of believing in an event like the resurrection of Jesus within the realms of an enlightened worldview has also been succinctly summarized by Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, 503-04: “The resurrection of Jesus who had been executed on the cross, which is unanimously asserted by the New Testament, runs counter to the modern picture of the world. Measured by Troeltsch’s axioms of historical method, the resurrection of Jesus cannot be a historical event: it is by definition without analogy in history; it has no cause within history (and therefore contradicts the principle of correlation), and, as believers understand it, it may not be measured by the criteria of probability, because this would include the recognition that it is possibly not historical.” 160 Wright, Resurrection, 28. For a persuasive rebuttal of the claims of those arguing that we cannot or should not address the resurrection as a historical problem, see ibid., 3- 31; similar judgments are found in Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 825-28; Alexander J. M. Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection (London: SCM, 1999), 21-32 (“The traditions about Jesus’ resurrection are therefore neither removed from, nor immune to, the enquiries 310 John Dominic Crossan is a well known historical Jesus scholar who clearly denies the historical pretensions of all the canonical resurrection narratives. According to his own tradition-history of early Christian texts, the roots of the resurrection stories are of political rather than historical nature. Crossan argues that what we find mirrored in the resurrection accounts is a political power play in which different factions within earliest Christianity sought to establish (in this case through literary means) the importance of certain authority figures. Thus, the scenes reported in John 20 (including appearances and dialogues) should be taken as the attempt of the Fourth Evangelist to indicate his own authority and leadership: “The Beloved Disciple is contrasted against and exalted over Peter, Mary, and Thomas.” 161 Another no less ingenious way of explaining the formation of the resurrection narratives is offered by the already mentioned German scholar Gerd Lüdemann. Like others before him, he proposes a so-called “vision hypothesis” that traces the origins of the Christian resurrection tradition back to an initial vision (and audition) of Peter, who “saw” the living Jesus not long after the day of his death. This vision, of course, is not to be mistaken as an actual encounter with Jesus but is explained in psychological terms as the result of Peter’s mourning after his betrayal and the death of his Lord. Consequently, Peter’s first vision proved to be “infectious” and thus ignited a “visionary movement” with similar experiences first among the Twelve, then followed by an appearance to more than 500 (cf. 1Cor 15: 5-6). 162 Lüdemann goes on to state that “when opponents on the Jewish side objected and asked where the body of Jesus was, it could immediately be reported that the women had found the tomb empty and later that Jesus had even appeared to the women at the tomb.” 163 Now, more specifically, regarding the authenticity of the three post- of historians, [...].”);; as well as William Lane Craig, Assessing the New Testament Evidence for the Historicity of the Resurrection of Jesus, SBEC 16 (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1989), 418-20 (“But furthermore, the methodological principle that prohibits any historian from adducing a supernatural cause for an event in history seems to be either arbitrary or based on bad science or philosophy.”). 161 John Dominic Crossan, The Birth of Christianity: Discovering What Happened in the Years Immediately After the Execution of Jesus (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1998), 562. 162 Gerd Lüdemann, The Resurrection of Jesus: History, Experience, Theology, trans. John Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), 97-108, 174-79. The “subjective vision hypothesis” has been classically stated by Strauß, Life of Jesus, 742-44. An objective type of a vision theory has been championed by Hans Graß, Ostergeschehen und Osterberichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956), e.g., 189, 233-49, combining the idea of an intra-mental vision with the objective fact of an actual appearance. Such appearance, of course, did not take place in bodily form, as Graß rejected the empty tomb stories as unhistorical. For a good overview of the critical discussion about the Easter faith, see Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, 474-511, who themselves lean towards a priority of the appearance tradition over the empty tomb. 163 Lüdemann, Resurrection, 174-75. 311 resurrectional appearances in John 20, such a tradition-historical framework leads to the expected results. With any claim to historicity ruled out from the start, Lüdemann argues that for Mary Magdalene “her role as first witness to the ‘resurrection’ cannot be confirmed.” 164 Jesus’ second appearance in John 20: 19-23 may be “authentic” in the way that it represents the original vision of the core group of disciples, even though the “objectification” of Jesus in v.20 has to be regarded as “unhistorical” even according to Lüdemann’s own terms. 165 Finally, the Thomas pericope in John 20: 24-29 has “no genetic relationship to the earliest Easter events.” 166 By now it comes as no surprise that Maurice Casey comments on the historical trustworthiness of these Johannine accounts in a similarly skeptical way. Not only does he find quite a few general inconsistencies with the synoptic post-resurrection narratives, but he insists that certain Johannine themes like Jesus’ announcement to Mary Magdalene of his ascension to the Father (20: 17), the recognition scene with his disciples (20: 19-23), as well as the high Christology inherent in Jesus’ dialogue with Thomas (20: 24-29) are particularly incompatible with any of the other gospels. 167 Casey comes to the conclusion that the Johannine resurrection stories as a whole are “a presentation of falsehood” and basically evoked by the needs of the Johannine community. As an attempt to reaffirm the faith of the community, the narratives “have been rewritten to demonstrate in a quite spurious manner that Jesus rose bodily from an empty tomb, and to put forward a view of Jesus as present with the Johannine community through the Holy Spirit. (…) The resulting stories are untrue from beginning to end.” 168 Likewise, for A. J. M. Wedderburn it is (among other things) the plethora of differences between the canonical resurrection accounts that undermine any plausible claim for historicity. 169 In the end, he opts for a “regrettable and thoroughly unsatisfactory (...) historical agnosticism” in that he concludes regarding the resurrection and the ensuing appearances “that very little can be verified historically above and beyond the disciples’ faith: something, a mysterious something, happened to them, but further 164 Ibid., 160. 165 Ibid., 163. 166 Ibid., 164. 167 Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 191-98. The first to deny the historicity of the Easter accounts because of their supposedly irresolvable contradictions was Hermann Samuel Reimarus, whose critical writings were published posthumously in 1777/ 78 by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing;; cf. Paul Hoffmann, “Die historisch-kritische Osterdiskussion von H.S. Reimarus bis zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts,” in Zur neutestamentlichen Überlieferung von der Auferstehung Jesu, ed. Paul Hoffmann, WdF 522 (Darmstadt: WBG, 1988), 15-67. 168 Ibid., 197-98. 169 Wedderburn, Beyond Resurrection, 24-37. 312 than that we cannot penetrate.” 170 Jürgen Becker, in his recent monograph on the resurrection of Jesus according to the New Testament, has likewise classified all canonical Easter stories as “narrated Christology” with no pretensions of recounting a historical incident. 171 Hence, when it comes to John 20, Becker is convinced that while the account of Jesus’ appearance before the disciples might have roots in a traditional passion narrative known to the author of the Fourth Gospel, the other two reported epiphanies to Mary Magdalene and to Thomas have been freely created by the evangelist. 172 Again, other scholars like Raymond Brown have been more moderate in their assessment of the historical question. For one thing, as an exegete, Brown is unwilling to unduly speculate about whether or not the bodily resurrection of Jesus could have taken place. He is aware of significant divergences between the canonical narratives of the post-resurrectional appearances, yet does not rate them as necessary counter-evidence against the historicity of any of these accounts “as they may be the product of the way in which and the purpose for which the stories were told and preserved.” 173 Brown remains unconvinced on a historical level of the view that the resurrection stories have been produced for purely apologetic reasons. Thus, he can presuppose a significant amount of traditional material underlying even the appearance stories, while at the same time allowing for secondary developments. Regarding our Johannine passage under scrutiny, it is especially two sayings of Jesus that Brown identifies as “the editorial work of the evangelist himself.” Both “expansions,” according to Brown, reveal the specific “Johannine interest” as John 20: 17 reinforces the teaching of the Farewell Discourse and John 20: 29 reflects the relation of sight to faith. 174 Along similar lines and in keeping with his general outlook 170 Ibid., 96, 89. 171 Becker, Auferstehung, 249. 172 Ibid., 73-75. 173 Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 971 (966-78). 174 Ibid., 975. Cf. Dodd, Historical Tradition, 151, who concludes: “The extent to which the narrative [i.e., the passion and resurrection narrative] has been subjected to the influence of the specifically Johannine theology is confined to a few (readily separable) passages, though apologetic motives already recognizable in the Synoptic narratives have sometimes been given greater emphasis.” The one ‘readily separable’ postresurrection passage explicitly mentioned by Dodd is the story of the doubting Thomas in John 20: 26-29 (145-46). Cf. also Dodd’s remarks in his earlier essay “The Appearances of the Risen Christ: An Essay in Form-Criticism of the Gospels,” in Studies in the Gospels. Essays in Memory of R.H. Lightfoot, ed. D.E. Nineham (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1957), 20. In this piece, Dodd also notes regarding the appearance to Mary Magdalene: “Either we have here a free, imaginative composition based upon the bare tradition of an appearance to Mary Magdalen, akin to that represented by Matt. 28 9-10 , or else the story came through some highly individual channel directly from the source, and the narrator stood near enough to catch the nuances of the origi- 313 on the Fourth Gospel, Barnabas Lindars has considered the Johannine resurrection account as a “free and creative treatment of traditional items.” 175 Lindars thus reckons with at least some historical worth behind the traditions of John 20, yet at the same time presupposes significant reworking due to the Fourth Evangelist’s theological emphases. 176 One of the most elaborate defences of the historicity of the resurrection accounts (both Johannine and synoptic) has been undertaken by William Lane Craig. Examining in detail the evidence for the resurrection appearances, he concludes that there are “good grounds for holding to the historicity of the appearance accounts in general.” 177 Against any visionary hypotheses, Craig adheres to the extra-mental character of Jesus’ postresurrectional appearances and thus argues that the Gospels’ narratives of Jesus’ physical, bodily resurrection are probably historically wellfounded. 178 Regarding the specific appearances of Jesus, including the ones to the women (of whom John focuses on Mary Magdalene) and the Twelve, Craig finds no reason to deny that they are rooted in reliable tradition - even in their Johannine form. Regarding the appearance to Thomas, though only told by John, Craig sees likewise no reason to regard this account as unhistorical, since it has some verisimilitude as a reminiscence of the evangelist, as eyewitness testimony of the beloved disciple. 179 Generally speaking, the post-resurrectional appearances, including those of the Fourth Gospel, “have in themselves positive marks of historical reliability.” 180 This is also the general conclusion of Jesus scholar N. T. Wright in his recent tome on the resurrection of the Son of God. Wright recognizes the freedom exercised by the canonical evangelists to retell and reshape the resurrection narratives, yet, from a historian’s standpoint, he sees no reason at all to nal experience. It would be hazardous to dogmatize. (...) Yet I confess that I cannot for long rid myself of the feeling (it can be no more than a feeling) that this pericopé has something indefinably first-hand about it. It stands in any case alone. There is nothing quite like it in the Gospels. Is there anything quite like it in all ancient literature? ” 175 Barnabas Lindars, Behind the Fourth Gospel (London: SPCK, 1971), 76. 176 Idem., Gospel of John, 594-99. 177 Craig, Assessing, 380. For a discussion of Craig with Gerd Lüdemann, see Paul Copan and Ronald K. Tacelli, eds., Jesus’ Resurrection: Fact or Figment? A Debate between William Lane Craig & Gerd Lüdemann (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2000). A recent debate on issues pertaining to Jesus’ resurrection can be found in Michael F. Bird and James G. Crossley, How Did Christianity Begin? A Believer and a Non-Believer Examine the Evidence (London: SPCK, 2008), 38-69. 178 Craig, Assessing, 391-97; also idem., “The Bodily Resurrection,” in Studies of History and Tradition in the Four Gospels, vol. 1 of Gospel Perspectives, ed. R. T. France and David Wenham (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1983). 179 Craig, Assessing, 253-79. Another positive evaluation of the Thomas episode may be found in Murray J. Harris, Jesus as God: The New Testament Use of Theos in Reference to Jesus (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 111-19. 180 Ibid., 391. 314 suppose that behind these accounts stands a secondary, either theologically or politically motivated apologetic. Rather, in the Fourth Gospel, as with the Synoptic Gospels, the obvious intention was to convey to the readers what actually happened on Easter morning. 181 Finally, Wright is able to answer the historical question as follows: “The two things which must be regarded as historically secure when we talk about the first Easter are the emptiness of the tomb and the meetings with the risen Jesus.” 182 Likewise, Craig Keener, one of the Johannine commentators continually concerned with historical questions, returns the verdict that “strong evidence appears to favour the substantial picture of resurrection appearances.” 183 As we are about to approach more specifically the issue of Johannine- Synoptic relations a few further comments are in order. (1) To be sure, many scholars who strongly deny the historical accuracy of the Fourth Gospel’s account of the post-resurrectional appearances would also include the synoptic stories in their negative judgment. Although the authenticity question is part of this study in only a secondary manner, we still ought to be aware of the fact that no positive evidence of significant similarities between John and the Synoptics would probably have the potential to make them alter their verdict about the historical reliability of any of the canonical resurrection narratives. (2) The divergence between the four gospel accounts can certainly not be ignored. However, in view of those scholars who make much of what they regard as general inconsistencies between the canonical stories of the risen Jesus (not least in terms of chronology and location), we need to emphasize that in the following pages we do not attempt to harmonize the Johannine resurrection narrative with those of the other gospels. At the same time, to abstain from any major harmonization does not mean that our examination of Johannine utterances of the risen Jesus will not also involve several references to parallels in the general story line of the Synoptics. Suffice it here to say that, in our estimation, the frequent designation of the canonical resurrection stories as hopelessly contradictory is a stark overstatement. While acknowledging the general difficulty of harmonization, it seems to take a so-called “hermeneutic of suspicion” to disregard the significant parallels in content and out- 181 Wright, Resurrection, 680 (for a whole chapter on John, see ibid., 662-82). 182 Ibid., 686 (see also the whole chapter on “Easter and History,” ibid., 685-718). For several articles engaging Wright’s arguments, see the Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 3.2 (2005). 183 Keener, John, 2: 1167, also 1177-78. Cf. now also in support of the authenticity of the resurrection appearances (with special focus on John 20: 19-23 par. Luke 24: 36-49) Grant R. Osborne, “Jesus’ Empty Tomb and His Appearance in Jerusalem,” in Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus: A Collaborative Exploration of Context and Coherence, ed. Darrell L. Bock and Robert L. Webb, WUNT 247 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), esp. 791-804. 315 look and to insist that the narratives are irreconcilable. 184 (3) It is obvious that the canonical resurrection narratives lend themselves to traditionand redaction-critical studies. Yet, in our own brief assessment of Jesus’ postresurrection words as they relate to his synoptic utterances, we leave open the more specific question of the extent to which John shares traditional material with Matthew, Mark, or Luke. In other words, it is neither our intention to isolate within the Johannine reports of the post-resurrection appearances individual pieces of tradition nor to examine John’s peculiar redactional tendencies. 185 This being said, we are happy to acknowledge the usefulness of tradition-critical works as reference points for our own study of Johannine-Synoptic relations. Regarding the relationship between Jesus’ words spoken during his appearances in John and in the Synoptics, it is notable that the Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum lists two of the three post-resurrection appearances in John 20 as parallel to the Synoptic Gospels (John 20: 14-18 par. Matt 28: 9-10 par. [Mark 16: 9-11] par. Luke 24: 10-11, and John 20: 19-23 par. Luke 24: 36- 43). 186 In contrast, however, only one out of 10 verses containing the words of Jesus (namely, 20: 23) has been noted as having a synoptic counterpart in the NA 27 margin. Our inventory of synoptic parallels listed in chapter 2 has three entries (20: 19, 23, 29). Taking into account both words of the preand the post-resurrection Jesus, the following comparison will show that at least the conceptual closeness between the words of the risen Jesus in John and the Synoptic Jesus in general (at least as far as the evidence in John 20) is significantly larger than what has thus far been suggested. 184 Cf. the statement by I. Howard Marshall: “This is not to say that the narratives are necessarily irreconcilable, but that so far nobody has produced a convincing hypothesis,” quoted by John Wenham in the introduction to his monograph Easter Enigma: Are the Resurrection Stories in Conflict? (Exeter: Paternoster, 1984), 10. In this work Wenham offers his own synthesis of the different resurrection accounts that in our opinion should be taken into consideration; cf. also George Eldon Ladd, I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 91-93. N. T. Wright likewise refers to the harmony suggested by Wenham, yet states that “not many have found it convincing.” Wright himself says it like this: “(…) when placed side by side, they [i.e., the resurrection accounts] tell a tale which, despite the multiple surface inconsistencies, succeeds in hanging together” (Resurrection, 614). 185 For this cf., e.g., Grant R. Osborne, The Resurrection Narratives: A Redactional Study (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1984), esp. 147-92, and 221-72; also Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 841-66, as well as Dodd, Historical Tradition, 142-51 (on John 20: 11-21: 23). Cf. also the history-of-traditions analysis by John E. Alsup, The Post-Resurrection Appearance Stories of the Gospel Tradition, CThM 5 (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1975), who suggests that we should recognize in these New Testament accounts an appearance story Gattung. 186 Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum, 327-28, 330-31. 316 5.2.2 Appearance 1: John 20: 11-18 (The Risen Jesus and Mary Magdalene) [20: 11-14] But Mary stood outside the tomb weeping. As she wept, she bent down and looked into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white sitting where Jesus' body had been lying, one at the head and one at the feet. They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? ” Mary replied, “They have taken my Lord away, and I do not know where they have put him! ” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. [Luke 24: 4] While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood beside them in dazzling attire. [Luke 24: 16] (…) but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. See also [Mark 16: 12]. [20: 15a] le, gei auvth/ | Vihsou/ j\ gu,nai( ti, klai,eijÈ Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? [1/ 1] [1/ 1] [Luke 7: 13] kai. Ivdw.n auvth.n o` ku,rioj evsplagcni,sqh evpV auvth/ | kai. Ei=pen auvth/ |\ mh. Klai/ eÅ When the Lord saw her, he had compassion for her and said to her, “Do not weep.” [Luke 8: 52] e; klaion de. Pa,ntej kai. Evko,ptonto auvth,nÅ o` de. Ei=pen\ mh. Klai,ete( ouv ga.r avpe, qanen avlla. Kaqeu,deiÅ Now they were all wailing and mourning for her, but he said, “Stop your weeping; she is not dead but asleep.” [20: 15b] ti,na zhtei/ jÈ Who are you looking for? ” [0/ 0] 317 [20: 15c] Because she thought he was the gardener, she said to him, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will take him.” On the theme of “not immediately recognizing the risen Jesus,” see above on John 20: 14 [Luke 24: 16; Mark 16: 12; cf. also John 21: 4]. [20: 16a] le, gei auvth/ | Vihsou/ j\ Maria,mÅ Jesus said to her, “Mary.” [0/ 0] Yet, cf. [Luke 10: 41; 22: 31]. [20: 16b] She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni” (which means Teacher). [20: 17a] le, gei auvth/ | Vihsou/ j\ mh, mou a[ptou( Jesus replied, “Do not hold on to me, [0/ 0] Yet, cf. [Matt 28: 7]. [20: 17b] ou; pw ga.r avnabe,bhka pro.j to.n pate,ra\ for I have not yet ascended to my Father. [0/ 1] [Luke 24: 26] ouvci. tau/ ta e; dei paqei/ n to.n cristo.n kai. eivselqei/ n eivj th.n do,xan auvtou/ È Wasn’t it necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and enter into his glory? [20: 17c] poreu,ou de. pro.j tou.j avdelfou,j mou kai. eivpe. auvtoi/ j\ Go to my brothers and tell them, [1/ 1] [Matt 28: 9-10] kai. ivdou. VIhsou/ j u`ph,nthsen auvtai/ j le, gwn\ cai,reteÅ ai` de. proselqou/ sai ev kra,thsan auvtou/ tou.j po,daj kai. proseku,nhsan auvtw/ |Å to,te le, gei auvtai/ j o` VIhsou/ j\ mh. fobei/ sqe\ u`pa,gete avpaggei,late toi/ j avdelfoi/ j mou i[na avpe, lqwsin eivj th.n Galilai,an( kavkei/ me o; yontai But Jesus met them, saying, “Greetings! ” They came to him, held on to his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. They will see me there.” [20: 17d] avnabai,nw pro.j to.n pate, ra mou kai. pate, ra u`mw/ n kai. qeo,n mou kai. qeo.n u`mw/ nÅ ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” [0/ 1] [Matt 26: 24 pars.] o` me. n ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou u`pa,gei kaqw.j ge, graptai peri. auvtou/ ( (…) The Son of Man will go as it is written about him, (…) For the actual event of ascension, see [Luke 24: 51]. 318 [1/ 1] [Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22] Pa,nta moi paredo,qh u`po. tou/ patro,j mou( kai. ouvdei.j evpiginw,skei to.n ui`o.n eiv mh. o` path,r( ouvde. to.n pate, ra tij evpiginw,skei eiv mh. o` ui`o.j kai. w-| eva.n bou,lhtai o` ui`o.j avpokalu,yaiÅ All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him. [20: 18] Mary Magdalene came and informed the disciples, “I have seen the Lord! ” And she told them what Jesus had said to her. Having been introduced as the first to witness the empty tomb, Mary Magdalene is said to have returned to the burial site, standing outside the grave weeping. We find her entirely on her own as the change to the first person plural indicates (John 20: 13: “I do not know (...)”;; cf. in contrast 20: 2). Looking into the tomb, Mary sees two angels in white sitting one at the head and one at the feet of where Jesus had been lying. While the resurrection accounts of Mark and Matthew mention only one angel, the presence of two angels is in line with Luke 24: 4 where it is spoken of “two men in dazzling attire.” The angels’ question to Mary (“Woman, why are you weeping? ”) is at least reminiscent of the way in which they approached other witnesses to the empty tomb in the Synoptic Gospels (cf. Matt 28: 5; Mark 16: 6; Luke 24: 5). 187 Answering the angels, Mary repeats what she has lamented earlier on to Peter and the other disciple, namely that she is disturbed by the fact that the body of her Lord has vanished. Mary still does not understand the significance and meaning of the tomb being empty. What follows is the first recorded instance of anyone seeing Jesus after the resurrection: as Mary turned around she “saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus.” Indeed, at first, she identifies him with the gardener who might have been responsible for the dislocation of Jesus’ body (20: 15b). Failure to recognize Jesus immediately after his resurrection is a recurring theme in the canonical accounts. The two disciples on the road to Emmaus 187 Cf., e.g., Beasley-Murray, John, 374. Note, however, that in Matthew, Mark, and Luke the angel(s) generally act as angeli interpretes, pronouncing the reality of the empty tomb as the result of the resurrection, while in John the angels simply approach Mary with a question (e.g., Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger, 199; also Ridderbos, John, 636; Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 330). 319 “were kept from recognizing him” to which the longer ending of Mark adds that Jesus appeared, “in a different form” (cf. also 21: 4). 188 John 20: 15a and 15b contain the first reported words of the postresurrection Jesus for which there is no parallel in the synoptic resurrection accounts. The first question (“Woman, why are you weeping? ”) reiterates the initial question of the angel in 20: 13 and may express either a mild rebuke or compassionate empathy. Whatever the exact nuance here, it seems that the Synoptic Jesus is capable of expressing similar emotions in the context of mourning and weeping. What is implicit in his question found in John (i.e., that there is no longer a reason to cry) is expressed more directly when Jesus tells people in Luke 7: 13 and 8: 52 that they ought to stop weeping (likewise using the verb klai,w [1/ 1-levels of closeness]). The second question (“Who are you looking for? ”) is an invitation to concentrate “on the person of the one who then makes himself known” 189 and has no parallel in the Synoptic Gospels [0/ 0-level of closeness]. Supposing Jesus to be the gardener, Mary urges the stranger to tell her where he has put her Lord. Her “lack of spiritual receptivity” is still more than evident, 190 as she ironically asks the living Jesus about the location of his own body. 191 What follows has been called “the greatest recognition scene in all literature - and one told in two words! (Mary! Rabboni! ).” 192 The recognition of the stranger’s true identity then takes place through Jesus’ personal address of the woman using her first name in John 20: 16: “Mary.” No similar address can be found in the Synoptic Gospels [0/ 0- level of closeness], but we may note that Jesus repeatedly secured the attention of particular persons by calling them by name, indeed often a double name (cf. Luke 10: 41; 22: 31). 193 As noticed by many commentators, this is in keeping with Jesus’ role as the good shepherd, who calls his sheep by name and they follow him because they recognize his voice (cf. 10: 3-4). This is what happens with Mary: she hears the voice of her Lord, recognizes him, and answers. The joyful exclamation rabbouni , the Aramaic term for “teacher” as John conveniently translates for his non-Jewish audience (only here and in Mark 10: 51; cf. also John 1: 38), reflects the re-establishment of the 188 Cf., e.g., Carson, John, 641; Keener, John, 2: 1189; Köstenberger, John, 567; Ridderbos, John, 637; also Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 264; Lindars, Gospel of John, 605, who also mention Matt 28: 17. 189 Schnackenburg, John, 3: 317; cf. also Köstenberger, John, 568. 190 Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 331. 191 Lincoln, John, 493; Moloney, John, 525: “(…) the one whom she seeks asks her whom she is seeking (…). The one whose body she is seeking is asked for a solution to the mystery of the empty tomb.” 192 G. H. C. MacGregor quoted in Nicolas Wyatt, “‘Supposing Him to Be the Gardener’ (John 20: 15): A Study of the Paradise Motif in John,” ZNW 81 (1990): 38. 193 Keener, John, 2: 1191. 320 personal relationship Mary had enjoyed with Jesus before the crucifixion. 194 Interestingly enough, her personal address of Jesus is not quite a christological confession yet (contrast 20: 28 below). 195 Indeed, Jesus’ response “Do not hold on to me” in John 20: 17a reveals that Mary’s reaction is a sign of an ongoing entanglement in past realities. It seems likely that Mary, overwhelmed with emotion after having recognized the true identity of the stranger, had at least made the attempt to embrace Jesus, much like the women had done in Matt 28: 7. Yet, what we find here does not constitute a general prohibition to touch Jesus as the invitation to Thomas in John 20: 27 will show. Rather, Jesus (in keeping with what he had taught his disciples in the Farewell Discourse) seeks to convey to Mary that through his death and resurrection a whole new era is about to transpire that brings about a significant change to the way in which his presence is to be experienced. Larsen captures it well, saying that “Mary thinks that the story has now come to an end, since she has been beautifully reunited with her beloved master (...), and, accordingly, she seeks to hold on to this recovered reality.” 196 Jesus’ command reflects the need for Mary to overcome her desire to cling to the old earthly nature of her relationship with her Lord so that Jesus “may leave once again and turn back to the Father in order to convert his temporary and particular presence into an everlasting, universal presence.” 197 The resurrection appearances are only an intermediate step in Jesus’ return to the Father, which has a salvation-historical necessity. Once Jesus’ return is completed (“for I have not yet ascended to my Father”), it will establish a permanent and abiding relationship for Jesus and his followers through the Spirit. The Synoptics have no such clear statement that the process of glorification still awaits completion. But the necessity of his return to the Father is hinted at in Luke 24: 26, where on the Emmaus road the risen Jesus asks the rhetorical question: “Wasn’t it necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? ” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. Even though the wording in Luke suggests that the entry into glory is already accomplished through the resurrection, it seems that the term glory ultimately refers to Jesus’ 194 Cf. Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 990-91, who argues that there is less indication that “Rabboni” is a diminutive of endearment than is often supposed since John gives it the exact same translation as for the term “Rabbi” (also Beasley-Murray, John, 375-76). 195 Cf., e.g., Carson, John, 641: “It may not be the highest Christological confession (…), but at this point Mary is enthralled by the restored relationship, not contemplating its theological implications.” Also Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 1010; Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 264: “Even here, Mary does not use an exalted Christological title for Jesus, which again supports historicity.” 196 Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger, 204; cf. also Dorothy A. Lee, “Partnership in Easter Faith: The Role of Mary Magdalene and Thomas in John 20,” JSNT 58 (1995): 42. 197 Ibid. 321 authoritative position in God’s presence. 198 The context in Luke indeed shows that, like in John, Jesus considered the appearances in his resurrection body as merely a visible inauguration of the glorified state that awaits his ascension and (immediately associated with it [cf. John 14: 25-26]) the sending of the Spirit. 199 Rather than holding on to Jesus, Mary is commissioned in John 20: 17c to inform his brothers about her encounter with the Lord: “Go to my brothers [ tou.j avdelfou,j mou ] and tell them (...).” By using the term “brothers” Jesus obviously refers to his followers (confirmed by the fact that in the next verse Mary actually returns to her fellow disciples). Such terminology is once more consistent with synoptic usage (Mark 3: 34-35). In Matthew 28: 9- 10 Jesus utters the exact same request, namely, that the group of women should serve as witnesses to the brothers [ toi/ j avdelfoi/ j mou ] of his postresurrectional activity [1/ 1-level of closeness]. 200 Only the content of the message appears to be different at first sight. While in Matthew we find a call to meet the risen Jesus in Galilee, the Johannine Jesus has Mary take the news of his being in the process of ascending. 201 Yet, in both cases the thrust of the message is the same: the disciples whose knowledge is still on the level of an empty tomb are to learn that Jesus is truly alive. As noted earlier in our discussion of the first unit of the Farewell Discourse (see especially on 14: 28a), the designation of Jesus’ parting from the earthly scene as a “return” or, here in John 20: 17d, as an “ascension” to the Father is peculiar to John. The dominical declaration, “the Son of Man will go as it is written about him” is, however, also found in the Synoptics (Matt 26: 24 pars. [0/ 1-level of closeness]), as it is clear that Jesus’ final destination is the place at the right hand of his Father. This final destination is conspicuously described in John as “my Father [ to. n pate,ra mou ] and your Father [ kai. pate,ra u`mw/ n ], (...) my God and your God.” “This language expresses the strong sense of identification between Jesus and his disciples in relation to God. But it is also carefully nuanced to reflect the difference in status between Jesus and his disciples. The covenant relationship in which believers become God’s 198 Bock, Luke 9: 51-24: 53, 1917. 199 See Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 1013. 200 This parallel is mentioned (among others) by Beasley-Murray, John, 377; Carson, John, 645; Keener, John, 2: 1193; Lindars, Gospel of John, 607; Lincoln, John, 493; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 317. Cf. Reimund Bieringer, “‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’ (John 20: 17): Resurrection and Ascension in the Gospel of John,” in The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John, ed. Craig R. Koester and Reimund Bieringer, WUNT 222 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 222-32, who reads John 20: 17 as a Johannine redaction of Matt 28: 9-10. 201 While some have argued from a redaction-critical standpoint that the Fourth Evangelist has simply modified the pre-text of Matt 28: 8-10 to make it suitable for his own story, Wenham, Easter Enigma, 94-97, has comprehensibly argued that Matthew (appearance to the women) and John (appearance to Mary Magdalene) indeed refer to two distinct events. 322 ‘family’ is dependent on Jesus as Son (14.6;; also 10.7, 9).” 202 Thus, at its core, this reflects once more the double tradition of Matthew and Luke (Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22) according to which “no one knows the Father [ to.n pate,ra ] except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him” [1/ 1- level of closeness]. Both in John and in the Synoptics Jesus presents himself as having a unique access to a true relationship with God who then not only continues to be his Father but also becomes the Father of those who enter into such relationship through him. This first appearance story ends in John 20: 18 with Mary Magdalene informing the disciples about her eyewitness experience with the risen Jesus. We are not told how the disciples responded, but their reaction was probably similar to the one displayed in the Synoptics when they heard the report about the empty tomb (Luke 24: 9-11, also John 20: 1-2; Mark 16: 14). 203 5.2.3 Appearance 2: John 20: 19-23 (Jesus and His Disciples) [20: 19a] On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the disciples had gathered together and locked the doors of the place because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. [20: 19b] h=lqen o` VIhsou/ j kai. e; sth eivj to. me, son kai. le,gei auvtoi/ j\ eivrh,nh u`mi/ nÅ Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” [2/ 2] [Luke 24: 36] Tau/ ta de. auvtw/ n lalou,ntwn auvto.j e; sth ev n me, sw| auvtw/ n kai. le,gei auvtoi/ j\ eivrh,nh u`mi/ nÅ While they were saying these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” [20: 20] When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. [Luke 24: 37-41] But they were startled and terrified, thinking they saw a ghost. Then he said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; it's me! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones like you see I have.” When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And 202 Lee, “Partnership,” 45. 203 Carson, John, 646. 323 while they still could not believe it (because of their joy) and were amazed, he said to them, “Do you have anything here to eat? ” [20: 21] ei=pen ou=n auvtoi/ j Îo` VIhsou/ jÐ pa,lin\ eivrh,nh u`mi/ n\ kaqw.j avpe, stalke,n me o` path,r( kavgw. pe, mpw u`ma/ jÅ So Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. Just as the Father has sent me, I also send you.” [2/ 2] [0/ 1] [Luke 24: 36] Tau/ ta de. auvtw/ n lalou,ntwn auvto.j e; sth ev n me, sw| auvtw/ n kai. le,gei auvtoi/ j\ eivrh,nh u`mi/ nÅ While they were saying these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” [Matt 28: 18-20] kai. proselqw.n o` VIhsou/ j evla,lhsen auvtoi/ j le, gwn\ ev do,qh moi pa/ sa ev xousi,a evn ouvranw/ | kai. ev pi. Îth/ jÐ gh/ jÅ poreuqe, ntej ou=n maqhteu,sate pa,nta ta. e; qnh( bapti,zontej auvtou.j eivj to. o; noma tou/ patro.j kai. tou/ ui`ou/ kai. tou/ a`gi,ou pneu,matoj( dida,skontej auvtou.j threi/ n pa,nta o[sa ev neteila,mhn u`mi/ n\ kai. ivdou. ev gw. meqV u`mw/ n eivmi pa,saj ta.j h`me, raj e[ wj th/ j suntelei,aj tou/ aivw/ nojÅ Then Jesus came up and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [0/ 2] [Matt 10: 40 pars.] ~O deco,menoj u`ma/ j ev me. de, cetai( kai. o` ev me. deco,menoj de,cetai to.n avpostei,lanta, meÅ Whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me. [20: 22] kai. tou/ to eivpw.n ev nefu,shsen kai. le, gei auvtoi/ j\ la,bete pneu/ ma a[gion\ And after he said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. [1/ 1] [0/ 1] [Mark 13: 11] avllV o] ev a.n doqh/ | u`mi/ n ev n ev kei,nh| th/ | w[ra| tou/ to lalei/ te\ ouv ga,r ev ste u`mei/ j oi` lalou/ ntej avlla. to. pneu/ ma to. a[gionÅ But say whatever is given you at that time, for it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit. [Luke 24: 49] kai. Îivdou.Ð ev gw. avposte,llw th.n ev paggeli,an tou/ patro,j mou ev fV u`ma/ j\ u`mei/ j de. kaqi,sate evn th/ | po,lei e[wj ouev ndu,shsqe evx u[youj du,naminÅ And look, I am sending you what my Father promised. But stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high. 324 [20: 23] a; n tinwn avfh/ te ta.j a`marti, aj avfe,wntai auvtoi/ j( a; n tinwn krath/ te kekra,thntaiÅ If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven; if you retain anyone’s sins, they are retained.” [0/ 2] [1/ 1] [Matt 18: 18 par. Matt 16: 19] VAmh.n le, gw u`mi/ n\ o[sa eva.n dh,shte ev pi. th/ j gh/ j e; stai dedeme,na ev n ouvranw/ |( kai. o[sa ev a.n lu,shte ev pi. th/ j gh/ j e; stai lelume, na ev n ouvranw/ |Å I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven. [Luke 24: 47] kai. khrucqh/ nai ev pi. tw/ | ovno,mati auvtou/ meta,noian eivj a; fesin a`martiw/ n eivj pa,nta ta. e; qnhÅ avrxa,menoi avpo. VIerousalh.m and repentance for the forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. We are told in John 20: 19a that the second post-resurrectional appearance happened on the evening of the same day on which the risen Jesus had conversed with Mary Magdalene. The disciples were gathered together, most likely in Jerusalem, 204 having locked the doors out of fear that the Jewish authorities would track the followers of a recently executed leader. Despite significant differences in emphasis and reported content, the tangential points of this second appearance story with Luke 24: 36-42 (cf. Matt 28: 18-20) are highly visible. 205 Thus, as John does not tell us exactly how many disciples were present, it seems reasonable on the basis of Luke’s account to think of a wider company of disciples and not just the eleven minus Thomas, who is later mentioned as having been absent from this particular meeting. 206 All of a sudden, as John 20: 19b continues, Jesus stood in the midst of the group of fearful disciples greeting them with the customary “Peace be with you! ” These exact same words are reported in Luke’s account of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples [2/ 2-level of closeness]. By the time Jesus repeats the greeting in John 20: 21, the disciples certainly grasped the deeper meaning of it as they recalled the promise of eschatological peace he had 204 Keener, John, 2: 1201: “Those familiar with the passion tradition might envision a spacious room in well-to-do upper-city Jerusalem (Mark 14: 15; Luke 22: 12; Acts 1: 13), (…).” 205 Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 766; cf. also Becker, Auferstehung, 74; Schwank, Johannes, 481; Smith, John, 379; Zumstein, Jean, 283, as well as Osborne, Resurrection Narratives, 246-51; and especially Gilbert Van Belle, “Lukan Style in the Fourth Gospel,” in Luke and His Readers. Festschrift A. Denaux, edited by R. Bieringer, G. Van Belle, and J. Verheyden, BETL 182 (Leuven: University Press, 2005), 366-72. In his form-critical examination of the appearances of the risen Christ, C. H. Dodd, “Appearances,” 9, designates this pericope as a “concise type” and compares it to Matt 28: 8-10, 16-20. 206 Pace Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 265; Carson, John, 646. 325 made to them in his farewell speech before the crucifixion (only reported in John 14: 27 [see above]; 16: 33). 207 In John 20: 20, Jesus then goes on to show the disciples his wounds as evidence that the one who entered the room through locked doors should be truly identified as their crucified and now risen Lord. While John only mentions Jesus’ “hands and his side” the Lukan parallel also refers to his showing them his “feet” (Luke 24: 37-41). In both cases, however, the disciples are said to respond with joy when they finally saw Jesus. Apparently, for the disciples, Mary’s earlier announcement that she had seen Jesus alive was not enough - “it takes this appearance to them before the narrator can speak of their rejoicing instead of their fear.” 208 This resurrection encounter is again a fulfillment of earlier promises made in the Farewell Discourse, where Jesus had said in John 14: 19 (cf. also 16: 16, 22): “In a little while the world will not see me any longer, but you will see me.” In John 20: 21 what follows is the charge to carry on his mission that the Johannine Jesus gives to his disciples: “Just as the Father has sent me, I also send you.” In a proleptic fashion, Jesus, in his so-called high-priestly prayer in John 17: 18, had already compared his own mission to the one on which he was sending his disciples: “Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.” 209 As Jesus is about to complete his mission on earth, he emphasizes that it is now their assignment to continue his work as his authorized envoys. Although the Johannine version does not spell out the content and extent of their mission, Jesus’ commission is still clearly reminiscent of Matt 28: 18-20 [0/ 2-level of closeness; cf. also Luke 24: 47- 49]. 210 In both Matthew and in John, Jesus formally commissions his followers before his ascension to resume the missionary task that is (and continues to be) at the core of the incarnational ministry of the ultimate “Sent One.” Further, the Johannine concept of Jesus’ disciples as his emissaries who are truly unified with him in the same mission, certainly resonates with the synoptic rule of Matt 10: 40 pars., namely, “whoever receives you receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me” [0/ 1-level of closeness]. 211 Since the messengers are indeed sent by Jesus, the originator and incorporation of the message (as emphasized in John), the reception of such apostolic delegates is therefore of major importance. 207 Carson, John, 647. 208 Lincoln, John, 497. 209 Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 767; cf. also Carson, John, 648; Köstenberger, John, 573n12 et al. 210 This parallel has been observed by Carson, John, 649; Lindars, Gospel of John, 611; Ridderbos, John, 642; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 324; Smith, John, 381. Cf. also the comments on this commissioning scene by Köstenberger and Swain, Father, Son, and Spirit, 101-02. 211 This parallel has been noted by Ridderbos, John, 642-43. 326 In John 20: 22 Jesus breathes on the disciples and says: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” These words have provoked a fair amount of discussion among Johannine commentators who generally opt for one of basically three common interpretations. Many scholars argue that this is the radically transposed Johannine version of Pentecost (cf. Acts 2), i.e., the fulfillment of the promised endowment of the Spirit-Paraclete dealt with here for theological reasons. 212 Others interpret Jesus’ activity as a symbolic and anticipatory promise of the later bestowal of the Spirit, 213 while a third group maintains that the incident described in John 20: 22 and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost are to be viewed as two separate events, yet both being equally real but distinguishable manifestations of the Spirit. 214 Though we cannot here discuss these options in detail, for our purposes the following observations must suffice: the Johannine context makes plain that Jesus’ behavior has to be understood as an empowerment for the mission that he has just conferred on his disciples (note the introductory “after he said this”). And even though none of the Synoptic Gospels in this preascension time frame includes a similar reference to a transmission of the Spirit (symbolical or not), it seems that a conceptual link between obtaining the Holy Spirit and the daunting task of missions is also part of Jesus’ pneumatological teaching in the Synoptics. This connection is made in Mark 13: 11 (“it is not you speaking, but the Holy Spirit [ to. pneu/ ma to. a[gion ]” [1/ 1-level of closeness]) and Luke 24: 49 (“And look I am sending you what my Father promised. But stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high” [0/ 1-level of closeness]). Therefore, regardless of the actual relation of Jesus’ action in John 20 to the outpouring of the same in Acts 2, there can be no doubt that the substantial core of Jesus’ announcement, namely, that the bestowal of the Spirit is necessary to equip the disciples for ministry, is consistent with dominical references to the gift of the Spirit elsewhere. A necessary inconsistency between the Johannine incident and the Synoptics occurs only if John 20: 22 does not refer to a symbolic or partial impartation of the Spirit but rather represents an equivalent to the Pentecost event deliberately written up by the Fourth Evangelist due to his own peculiar theology. In this case, the invitation in Luke 24: 49 to wait for 212 A view held with different emphases by (among others) Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 1038; Beasley-Murray, John, 382; cf. also Schnackenburg, John, 3: 325-26. For a detailed argument for this interpretation as well as an extensive discussion of other views (including additional bibliographic references to what is noted in the following footnotes), see Gary M. Burge, The Anointed Community: The Holy Spirit in the Johannine Tradition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 114-49. 213 So Carson, John, 648-55; Köstenberger, John, 574. 214 So with different specification Westcott, St. John [1980], 294-95;; M. M. B. Turner, “The Concept of Receiving the Spirit in John’s Gospel,” VE 10 (1976): 24-42; and now Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 267 (naming F. F. Bruce; J. Ramsey Michaels, and J. van Rossum as fellow supporters of this view). 327 the transmission of the Spirit’s power until Jesus’ glorification is finally completed would contradict the Johannine version of a comprehensive fulfillment of Jesus’ previous Paraclete-promises during this second postresurrection appearance. 215 Jesus ends his address to his disciples in John 20: 23 with a further elaboration on what their future mission involves: “If you forgive anyone’s sins, they are forgiven;; if you retain anyone’s sins, they are retained.” Even though Matt 18: 18 par. Matt 16: 19 (“Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven, and whatever you release on earth will have been released in heaven”) do not coincide at all semantically with John 20: 23, many have argued that the Matthean double tradition and our Johannine logion reflect a common dominical saying. 216 At the very least John and Matthew feature both a similar structure and analogous content. 217 Referring to the one who owns “the key to the house of David” from Isa 22: 22, both Gospels affirm that the disciples are furnished with the strong authority to provide or deny access to the Father’s household, i.e., the kingdom of heaven (to use Matthew’s term). An assignment of a 0/ 2-level of closeness is justified despite the slightly different contexts; “in Matthew the focus is on Peter’s and the new messianic community’s didactic and intracommunitarian authority, [whereas] John focuses on the pronouncement of the forgiveness (in case of repentance) or the retention of sins (in the case of a person’s 215 Cf. Lindars, Gospel of John, 612, who states that “the promise oft he Holy Spirit, shortly to be fulfilled at Pentecost (…) may well be a Lucan adaptation of something much closer to John in the source.” Also Van Belle, “Lukan Style,” 372. 216 E.g., John A. Emerton, “Binding and Loosing - Forgiving and Retaining,” JTS 13 (1962): 325-31;; G. Claudel, “Jean 20,23 et ses parallèles matthéens,” RevScRel 69 (1995): 71-86; now Theobald, Herrenworte, 174-99, who reckons with a common “Ursprungslogion,” with John 20: 23 representing an older form of this saying; cf. also Davies and Allison, Matthew, 2: 639-40 (“16.19 and Jn 20.23 are translation variants of the same logion”). A derivation of the Johannine logion from Matt 16: 19 and/ or 18: 18 has been denied by Manfred Lang, Johannes und die Synoptiker: Eine redaktions-geschichtliche Analyse von Joh 18-20 vor dem markinischen und lukanischen Hintergrund, FRLANT 182 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), 286; and Hartwig Thyen, Studien zur Sündenvergebung im Neuen Testament und seinen alttestamentlichen und frühjüdischen Voraussetzungen, FRLANT 96 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1970), 247; cf. also Keener, Matthew, 430n93, commenting on the relation of Matt 16: 19 and John 20: 23: “the sayings are different enough to suggest that they may reflect the same Jesus speaking on different occasions.” Dodd, Historical Tradition, 349, seems to assume that Matthew and John have followed a similar, yet not identical (presumably oral) tradition. 217 Matt 18: 18 and 16: 19 have been noted as parallels in the NA 27 margin; as well as Beasley-Murray, John, 382-83; Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 267; Carson, John, 655; Keener, John, 2: 1207; Lindars, Gospel of John, 612-13; Ridderbos, John, 644; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 326; Schwank, Johannes, 485 (with reluctance); Thyen, Johannesevangelium, 767; Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 343 (with emphasis on the differences); and others. Cf. also Hagner, Matthew 14-28, 473. 328 refusal to believe).” 218 In commissioning his disciples for evangelism, the Johannine Jesus insists that personal salvation or judgment depends on one’s reaction to the disciples’ witness in word and deed. Conceptually, this again resembles the final words of Jesus in the Gospel of Luke (24: 47), where he likewise refers to a worldwide witness of his followers that includes the call to “repentance for the forgiveness of sins” [1/ 1-level of closeness]. 219 5.2.4 Appearance 3: John 20: 24-29 (Jesus and Thomas) [20: 24-26a] Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord! ” But he replied, “Unless I see the wounds from the nails in his hands, and put my finger into the wounds from the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will never believe it! ” Eight days later the disciples were again together in the house, and Thomas was with them. [Matt 28: 17] When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted. [Luke 24: 11, 37] But these words seemed like pure nonsense to them, and they did not believe them. (…) But they were startled and terrified, thinking they saw a ghost. See also [Mark 16: 11, 13-14]. [20: 26b] e; rcetai o` VIhsou/ j tw/ n qurw/ n kekleisme, nwn kai. e; sth eivj to. me, son kai. ei=pen\ eivrh,nh u`mi/ nÅ Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you! ” [2/ 2] [Luke 24: 36] Tau/ ta de. auvtw/ n lalou,ntwn auvto.j e; sth evn me, sw| auvtw/ n kai. le,gei auvtoi/ j\ eivrh,nh u`mi/ nÅ While they were saying these things, he himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” 218 Köstenberger, John, 575. Theobald, Herrenworte, 177, who denies the historical authenticity of John 20: 23, has noted the differences between the sayings, yet maintains a general compatibility: “dann ergibt sich tatsächlich von Mt 18,18 her eine Brücke zu Joh 20,23: Was hier als Vergebung der Sünden durch die Jünger (! ) in ein eher religiöses Wortspiel gefasst ist, das wird dort im Kontext der Gemeinderegel 18,15-17 nach seiner ‘bindenden’, juridischen Seite hin ausformuliert. Die Verwandtschaft von Joh 20,23 mit dem mt. Spruch in seiner Fassung von Mt 18,18 scheint also unabweisbar.” [italics mine] 219 Cf. Lincoln, John, 499-500;; Van Belle, “Lukan Style,” 372. 329 [20: 27a] ei=ta le,gei tw/ | Qwma/ |\ fe, re to.n da,ktulo,n sou w-de kai. i; de ta.j cei/ ra,j mou kai. fe, re th.n cei/ ra, sou kai. ba,le eivj th.n pleura,n mou( Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and examine my hands. Extend your hand and put it into my side. [1/ 2] [Luke 24: 39] i; dete ta.j cei/ ra,j mou kai. tou.j po,daj mou o[ti ev gw, eivmi auvto,j\ yhlafh,sate, me kai. i; dete( o[ti pneu/ ma sa,rka kai. ovste,a ouvk e; cei kaqw.j evme. qewrei/ te e; contaÅ Look at my hands and my feet;; it’s me! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones like you see I have. [20: 27b] kai. mh. gi,nou a; pistoj avlla. pisto,jÅ Do not continue in your unbelief, but believe.” [1/ 1] [Mark 5: 36] mh. fobou/ ( mo,non pi,steueÅ “Do not be afraid;; just believe.” For similar reproaches due to a lack of faith, see [Matt 14: 31; 17: 17 pars.; Mark 4: 40]. [20: 28] Thomas replied to him, “My Lord and my God! ” [20: 29] le, gei auvtw/ | o` VIhsou/ j\ o[ti e` w,raka,j me pepi,steukajÈ maka,rioi oi` mh. ivdo,ntej kai. pisteu,santejÅ Jesus said to him, “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are the people who have not seen and yet have believed.” [1/ 1] [Matt 13: 16 par. Luke 10: 23] u`mw/ n de. maka,rioi oi` ovfqalmoi. o[ti ble, pousin kai. ta. w=ta u`mw/ n o[ti avkou, ousinÅ But your eyes are blessed because they see, and your ears because they hear. John 20: 24-26a sets the stage for the third post-resurrection appearance in the Fourth Gospel. Initially, we are informed that Thomas, one of the Twelve, was not present for the commission during the earlier epiphany of Jesus. Now the disciples repeat to him what Mary had testified to them (cf. 20: 18): “We have seen the Lord! ” Being the skeptic that he is, Thomas insists that unless he sees and touches Jesus’ wounds he will certainly not believe. Such a response expresses “lack of confidence in his fellow disciples’ judgment as much as skepticism regarding the possibility of Jesus having risen from the dead.” 220 The Synoptics did not include the Thomas 220 Köstenberger, John, 578. William Bonney, Caused to Believe: The Doubting Thomas Story at the Climax of Johns Christological Narrative, BIntS 62 (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 159-60, in- 330 pericope in their narrative, but several synoptic passages (Matt 28: 17; Luke 24: 11, 37-38; also Mark 16: 11, 13-14) testify that Thomas did not stand alone with his doubts; others had a hard time fully embracing the truth of the bodily resurrection as well. 221 Eight days after the first appearance of Jesus, again on a Sunday, the disciples meet again in the same place, only that now Thomas has joined them. As with the week before, the doors are locked, but this does not deter Jesus from appearing once again among the group of disciples. Even Jesus’ initial greeting, “Peace be with you! ” in John 20: 26b is the same (cf. 20: 19, 21 par. Luke 24: 36 [2/ 2-level of closeness]). In John 20: 27a Jesus, well aware of Thomas’ skepticism, shows willingness to fulfil his conditions as he offers to him an invitation: “Put your finger here, and examine my hands [ i; de ta.j cei/ ra,j mou ] . Extend your hand and put it into my side.” To show the token of one’s wounds is a common motif in ancient recognition scenes, 222 but even more important for our purposes is the fact that, once more, these Johannine words resemble the postresurrection narrative of Luke, despite the fact that in Luke the invitation goes to a broader group of disciples and not to Thomas alone. In Luke 24: 39 we find the exact same offer: “Look at my hands [ i; dete ta.j cei/ ra,j mou ] and my feet;; it’s me! Touch me and see (...) [1/ 2-level of closeness].” 223 The physical indications of suffering are made accessible by both the Johannine and the Synoptic Jesus. The ensuing request in John 20: 27b “Do not continue in your sists that Thomas’ remark in John 20: 25 is not a demand for physical proof: “Thomas’ words in 20: 25 are more likely a sarcastic expression of unbelief than a request for proof. He rejects the possibility of Jesus’ resurrection.” For a somewhat more positive view of Thomas, see Lee, “Partnership,” 43. 221 E.g., Keener, John, 2: 1209: “That some disciples disbelieved (cf. Mark 16: 11, 13-14) - some even after seeing (Matt 28: 17; Luke 24: 37, 41) - fits other historical traditions about Jesus’ resurrection appearances.” Cf. also Schnackenburg, John, 3: 329. Plisch, Gospel of Thomas, 77, argues that in the Gosp. Thom. 17 we find the same theological intention expressed: “Jesus says, ‘I will give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched, and what has not occurred to the human mind.’” 222 Larsen, Recognizing the Stranger, 209. 223 This parallel is mentioned by Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 1026; Keener, John, 2: 1210; Lindars, Gospel of John, 614;; Van Belle, “Lukan Style,” 372. Dodd, “Appearances,” 20: “The Thomas-pericopé has its nearest analogue in Lk. 24 36-43 , but it is at once farther removed in character from the primitive tradition and far more delicate and perceptive in approach.” According to Jeffrey Paul Garcia “See My Hands and My Feet: Fresh Light on a Johannine Midrash,” in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel, eds. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, Early Christianity and Its Literature 2 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 333, “[t]he historicity of the Doubting Thomas account is a layered question. While it is clear that John is reworking an earlier Gospel narrative [i.e., Luke 24: 36-43], thus not precisely recording a historical encounter with Thomas, his midrashic work is reflecting the interpretative history of the period in which he writes.” 331 unbelief, but believe” is likewise hardly a general oddity of the Fourth Gospel. The particular referent may vary, but faith in Jesus and his supernatural capacities (such as here rising from the dead) is expected by Jesus in the Synoptics as well (cf. Mark 5: 36 [1/ 1-level of closeness]; also Mark 1: 15; 16: 16, and the criticism of disbelief in Matt 14: 31; 17: 17 pars.; and Mark 4: 40). 224 There is no indication in the text that Thomas indeed inspects Jesus’ wounds in order to verify the actuality of the resurrection. Apparently, and in contrast to his pronounced statement in John 20: 25, seeing Jesus and being directly addressed by him is enough evidence to counter Thomas’ unbelief. 225 Without hesitation he acknowledges Jesus in John 20: 28 as “My Lord and my God.” 226 This christological declaration surely is the climactic confession of the Fourth Gospel and forms an inclusio with the Johannine prologue in 1: 1, 18 (for similar synoptic confessions, cf. Matt 14: 33; Mark 15: 39). Thomas’ confession indicates that he has come to the realization that the person before him is truly God incarnate; the confession of Jesus’ equality with God is “unmistakeable” (cf. Rev 4: 11). 227 Finally in John 20: 29, Jesus reacts with a rhetorical question and a beatitude: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are the people who have not seen and yet have believed.” There is certainly present here a mild rebuke for Thomas’ lack of belief regarding the testimony of his fellow disciples. But this does not necessarily limit the value of faith based on hard evidence. Thomas believes because he has seen Jesus; such faith is by no means degraded as inferior, rather Jesus acknowledges that not everybody has the advantage of having access to tangible proof of the resurrection. “The point of Jesus’ remark is (...) to show the limitation of a faith in 224 Dodd, Historical Tradition, 354-55, notes that in Matt 24: 45-51 par. Luke 12: 42-46 we have the parable of the faithful and the unfaithful steward that turns upon the difference between a; pistoj and pisto,j (the adjective a; pistoj occurs only in Luke but is implicit in Matthew). Dodd concludes: “A saying such as that of John xx. 27 might well have occurred as the ‘moral’ of such a parable (…). Here again, the Johannine saying would have been the simplest and most concise way of expressing the idea.” 225 Köstenberger, John, 579; Lincoln, John, 503; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 332; Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 344; and most other major commentaries. 226 Many have argued that the confession of Thomas can by no means have a plausible Sitz im Leben at the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry, but reflects the developed theological conviction of the Johannine community when the Fourth Gospel was written (e.g., Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 197). Among those who have defended the historical verisimilitude of the confessional statement (and the Thomas episode in general) is Harris, Jesus as God, 111-19 (“the pericope has so many signs of verisimilitude that its historicity may be confidently assumed, and since the confession in verse 28 is pivotal and climactic in the story it may be reckoned ipsissima verba Thomae” [italics his]); cf. also Carson, John, 657-58. 227 Keener, John, 2: 1211; also Harris, Jesus as God, 129 (“affirming the substantial deity of the risen Jesus”);; as well as Beasley-Murray, John, 385-86; Bonney, Caused to Believe, 161; Lincoln, John, 503; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 333; Smith, John, 383 et al. 332 Jesus based on seeing him risen and to signal the transition from such faith to believing in the apostles’ testimony.” 228 Jesus’ blessing is aimed at all those people present and future who exercise faith, although they “have not seen” (1Pet 1: 8). 229 This second of two macarisms in the Fourth Gospel (cf. 13: 17) has no immediate parallel in the Synoptics. Yet, C. H. Dodd has suggested that, “there is a saying to which its thought seems to be intimately related.” 230 In Matt 13: 16 par. Luke 10: 23 Jesus’ blessing is poured out upon those who see. Far from being a contradiction to the Johannine macarism regarding those who do not see, this saying clarifies the change about to occur as Jesus prepares to return to the Father. At their cores, both the Johannine and the Synoptic Jesus are concerned with the relationship between “seeing” and the appropriate “response of faith,” but we observe a logical progression of thought: while during Jesus’ earthly ministry a blessing could be pronounced on those who were able to respond in faith to what was happening before their eyes, the risen Jesus in John anticipates that his glorification will bring about a time in which faith has to be evoked not through a direct encounter with Jesus but through the trustworthy witness of others. The macarisms in the synoptic double tradition and in John constitute complementary applications of a similar theme (thus a 1/ 1- level of closeness; note the common use of the term maka,rioi ). 231 5.2.5 Summary The canonical resurrection accounts have always caused problems for those dealing with the historical credibility of this most incredible of miraculous incidents. Though we are here unable to address all philosophical, theological, or historiographical problems pertaining to the biblical resurrection stories, we have observed one conviction prevalent within critical scholarship, namely that the Johannine narrative of the post-resurrection appearances (and for that matter all resurrection narratives) have been - to a more or less significant degree - creatively produced for apologetic reasons. To be sure, the argument from Johannine-Synoptic non-correlations does not 228 Köstenberger, John, 580. 229 Regarding the aorist pisteu,santej the Fourth Evangelist may be thinking about “those people who had already believed without the benefit of seeing the risen Jesus” (cf. NET Bible notes, thus the translation “yet have believed”), but it is also possible to treat this verbal form as a gnomic aorist (“and yet believe;;” e.g., RSV) which would make this beatitude apply more directly to all future believers. In any case, John 20: 29 clearly “encompasses future believers” (Köstenberger, John, 580; cf. also Bonney, Caused to Believe, 169; Ridderbos, John, 648-49). 230 Dodd, Historical Tradition, 354. 231 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 269, sees in Matt 13: 16 and Luke 10: 23 also a parallel “of form and content.” [italics his] 333 appear to be as prominent a factor in coming to such a verdict as has been the case regarding the Johannine discourse material examined thus far. Nevertheless, in keeping with the scope of this study, our task for this section was to see whether the words of the Johannine Jesus spoken during his post resurrection epiphanies cohere with what we find on his lips in the Synoptic Gospels. The results may be summarized as follows. Besides the general impression that the Johannine resurrection appearances as a whole plausibly engage with the synoptic perspective on the events, we have again demonstrated that there is little in the direct speech propositions in John 20 that cannot be shown to at least correlate to some degree with utterances attributed to Jesus in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. With regard to verbal agreement, only three out of a total of 13 Johannine propositions are not at all related semantically to the Synoptic Gospels [0/ 0- or 0/ 1-levels of closeness]. 232 More than half of the examined speech units show at least some verbal overlap with the other three Gospels [1/ 1- or 1/ 2-levels of closeness], 233 while the threefold peace-greeting reveals the closest verbal (and thus also conceptual) resemblance [2/ 2-kind of closeness]. 234 More important still is the fact that only two of Jesus’ postresurrection utterances show absolutely no conceptual similarity to the Synoptics. Admittedly, the question “Who are you looking for? ” (20: 15b), as well as the personal address “Mary” (20: 16a) [1/ 1-levels of closeness] are not among the more significant statements covered. Yet all other 11 propositions are more or less closely related to words of the risen Jesus in the Synoptics or in some way compatible with expressions made in his precrucifixion ministry reported elsewhere. Thus, Jesus’ commission of the disciples in John 20: 21 (par. Matt 28: 18-20) as well as his invitation to Thomas to examine his hands and side in John 20: 27a (par. Luke 24: 39) are closely reminiscent of the post-resurrection Jesus outside of John [0/ 2- or 1/ 2-levels of closeness]. In addition, we have found that several other Johannine speech elements are (at least in their general thrust) not foreign to the Synoptic Jesus: the call to Mary to stop weeping and to tell the disciples what she has encountered (20: 15a, 17b par. Luke 7: 13, 8: 52), Jesus’ references to the ascension and the Holy Spirit (20: 17a, 17b, 22 par. Luke 24: 46, 49), his emphasis on the disciples’ authority to provide and deny access to salvation (20: 23 par. Matt 18: 18, 16: 19), the call to believe (20: 27b par. Mark 5: 36), and Jesus’ final beatitude (20: 29 par. Matt 13: 16 par. Luke 10: 23). 232 John 20: 15b, 17a. 233 John 20: 15a, 17b, 22, 23, 27a, 27b, 29. 234 John 20: 19b, 21, 26b. 334 Chapter 6 Conclusion: Implications for the Question of Authenticity Having studied in detail the relationship between several Johannine discourses and the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics, at this point it is necessary to integrate our results with their implications for the question of authenticity. Our analysis included Jesus’ dialogues with individuals (chapter 3), two of the Johannine discourses addressed to the Jewish public (chapter 4), and the first unit of Jesus’ Farewell Discourse (chapter 5). Not counting our survey of Jesus’ post-resurrection words to his disciples, these speech units include almost 2,000 words (nearly two thirds of Jesus’ words in the extended discourse sections of the Fourth Gospel) and thus enough for us to gain a representative picture of the extent of correspondence between the teaching of the Johannine and the Synoptic Jesus. The first extensive encounter with an individual we explored was Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus in John 3: 1-21 (3.1). Our results demonstrated the seeming impossibility to postulate serious differences in content between the Nicodemus discourse and the synoptic teaching of Jesus, as Jürgen Becker, Maurice Casey and others have done. The language may be significantly different, but in terms of meaning and content, the words of Jesus in John 3 cohere well with what we hear him saying in the Synoptic Gospels. This is true not only in part, but on a broad scale. In fact, only two Johannine propositions, namely John 3: 14a (“Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness”) and 3: 21a (“But the one who practices the truth comes to the light”), are without conceptual parallel. In contrast, the important themes of the necessity of rebirth (3: 3, 5 par. Matt 18: 3 and Mark 10: 15), the unwillingness of people to accept Jesus’ testimony (3: 11-12 par. Luke 22: 67- 68 et al.), the importance of faith in Jesus as a prerequisite of a new birth (3: 14-15 par. Matt 19: 28 pars. et al.), and the emphasis on Jesus as the one who came not to condemn but to give eternal life to those who believe (3: 16-18 par. Matt 19: 28 pars.; Luke 19: 10) are all similar in content to the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics (cf. 3.1.5). Despite the fact that certain themes in John are formulated differently and function on other levels of abstraction when compared to their Synoptic counterparts should not blur 335 our vision to the substantial correlation between the different strands of Gospel tradition. To speak, as Casey does, about central concepts of Jesus’ Synoptic teaching being drastically transmuted in John 3 (and consequently no longer comparable) does not seem tenable in light of the evidence. The key concepts as well as the core thrust of what is expressed in the dialogue with Nicodemus are in unity with the Jesus we know from the first three Gospels. On comparative grounds, the authenticity of the content of Jesus’ words to Nicodemus can hardly be contested. Likewise, regarding Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman in John 4: 1-30 (3.2), we conclude, against scholars like Andrew Lincoln, that the evidence requires a more positive perception of Johannine-Synoptic relations than is commonly assumed. Not only is the general portrayal of the barrier-crossing Jesus consistent with the Synoptics, but there is also a basic unity of thought between the two strands of dominical teaching. The position of scholars like Raymond Brown or Udo Schnelle, who consider Jesus’ discourse as a creative elaboration on authentic tradition, seems to be contradicted by the traditional roots that are verified through synoptic comparison and appear to be more widespread than simply a core of traditional “nuggets.” The four propositions with no synoptic parallel (4: 7b, 16, 17b, 18) do not belong, strictly speaking, to Jesus’ teaching material but are closely related to the specific encounter with the woman at the well. And while the messianic self-revelation is the only Johannine proposition with a close parallel in content to synoptic teaching (John 4: 26 par. Mark 14: 62 pars.), our comparison has shown that at least the gist of all other propositions correlates with Jesus’ communication in Matthew, Mark, and Luke (cf. 3.2.5). Thus, the evidence presented does not seem to allow for any negative historical argument to be built on supposedly significant differences between Jesus’ dialogue with the Samaritan woman and his teaching in the Synoptics. In light of the observable conceptual correlations such an argument is not able to carry quite as much weight as is often assumed. Turning to Jesus’ discourses addressed to the Jewish public, a similar picture unfolds. Regarding the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6: 22-59 (4.1) it appears that the scholarly claim of overwhelming dissimilarities between this Johannine discourse and the Synoptic Gospels (as again most pointedly expressed by Maurice Casey) rests on a superficial consideration of the evidence. While the semantic correlations remain manageable, it is difficult to maintain that major Johannine themes are absent in the Synoptics. Not only are there no significant dissimilarities or contradictions in content, but the main propositions of the discourse resemble (some to a lesser, some to a greater degree) the teaching of Jesus as represented elsewhere in the canonical Gospels. Of the just nine propositions without any conceptual parallel one is linked with the narrative context (John 6: 26: “you are looking for me not because you saw miraculous signs, but because you ate all the loaves and had 336 your fill”), while three propositions refer specifically back to the wilderness event (e.g., John 6: 49: “Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died; ” cf. also 6: 32a, 58b). The additional Johannine non-correlations hardly stand against the general thought of the Synoptics, as there are in John 6: 29a (“The work of God is this”), 43 (“Stop grumbling among yourselves”) 45b (“‘And they will all be taught by God’”), 56b (“[The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood] resides in me”), and 57b (“I live because of the Father”). On the other hand, the Synoptic Gospels contain key concepts of Johannine thought such as the unique role of the Son in the work of salvation (6: 27b, 27c, 40 par. Matt 16: 27 et al.), the envoy-Christology (6: 29b, 33, 35b, 37b, 40, 47, 50-51, 53-56, 58 par. Matt 20: 28 par. Mark 10: 45 et al.), or the Father as the final source of redemption (6: 32b, 37a, 44a, 45c par. Matt 10: 26-27; Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22; Luke 12: 32 et al.) (cf. 4.1.7). In sum, then, there is little in favor of a negative judgment concerning the historical authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Bread of Life Discourse based upon assumed differences from the Synoptics. The Bread of Life Discourse may be couched in Johannine idiom, but it conveys a message that is compatible with the Synoptic Jesus. Further, on the basis of our comparison between Jesus’ words in John 8: 12-59 and his teaching in the Synoptics (4.2), we maintain that the frequent call for a “two level reading” of this Johannine discourse that insinuates a lack of historical authenticity does not seem to be justified. When the evidence is considered, the reference to significant differences does not hold up to close scrutiny, since the major Johannine themes are more or less closely resembled in the synoptic teaching of Jesus. Though only five propositions show no correlations to the Synoptic Gospels, neither the direct addresses in John 8: 14d (“But you people do not know where I came from or where I am going”), 25b (“What I have told you from the beginning”), and 46a (“Who among you can prove me guilty of any sin? ”), nor the assertion in 8: 15b (“I do not judge anyone”) and the reference to Abraham in 40c (“Abraham did not do this! ”) significantly add to or even alter the theology of the Synoptic Jesus. At the same time, the two major thematic threads that permeate the Light of the World Discourse are paralleled in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, namely Jesus’ invitation to embrace his truth and to thereby gain eternal life (8: 12, 24, 31, 32, 51 par. Matt 19: 28-29 pars.; Matt 11: 29; Luke 8: 8, 15 et al.) and the identity of Jesus as the sent one who truly knows and obeys the Father (8: 14a-c, 16a-b, 18b, 23b, 28a-c, 29a-b, 38a, 40b, 42b, 55b par. Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22; Matt 26: 39, 42 pars. et al.). Further, neither the motif of Jesus’ preexistence (as Maurice Casey has argued) nor the central content of the dispute with the Jewish public (as Dwight Moody Smith has insisted) are completely absent from the Synoptics (cf. 4.2.7). Thus, aside from several meaningful correlations in terms of wording, it seems difficult to deny that a close comparison between Jesus’ teaching in John 8 and in 337 the Synoptics reveals more than mere mutual echoes but a basic unity of thought. The guiding question of this study has been to determine whether a negative historical judgment concerning the authenticity of Jesus’ discourses in the Fourth Gospel can be substantiated by an examination of Johannine-Synoptic non-correlations. Presumably, with regard to the Light of the World Discourse, the answer is a negative one. The same can be said when it comes to Jesus’ teaching addressed to his disciples in John 14: 1-31 (5.1). It has been frequently assumed that significant parts of the content of the Farewell Discourse are contingent on Johannine theology, yet with little roots in the actual ministry of Jesus. Our findings in this part of our study, however, make such claims about a supposed lack of Johannine-Synoptic relations difficult when assessed on a conceptual level. The evidence presented in this section seems to undermine the assertion that much of the first unit of the Farewell Discourse is alien to Synoptic outlook. The correlations are too significant to ignore and thus contradict well-founded arguments that find substantial inconsistencies in content between Jesus’ words of farewell in John 14: 1-31 and synoptic speech material. Once again, in only five propositions is there no extant synoptic parallel. These are John 14: 13b (“so that the Father may be glorified in the Son”), 17a (“the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it does not see him or know him”), 20b (“and you are in me”), 28c (“If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father”), and 31a (“but the world must know that I love the Father”). None of these utterances contradict in any way the synoptic teaching of Jesus. Instead, key elements of Jesus’ teaching in this discourse resemble the Synoptic Gospels, the most important of which are Jesus’ announcement to go away in order to provide access to the Father (14: 2-3, 4, 6, 25, 29 par. Matt 20: 23 par. Mark 10: 40; Mark 13: 23; 14: 21 pars.; Luke 24: 44 et al.), the possibility of encountering the Father in the person and ministry of Jesus (14: 7 [also 9a-b, 10a-b] par. Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22), and the challenge to pray expectantly (14: 13a, 14 par. Matt 7: 7 par. Luke 11: 9; Mark 11: 24 par. Matt 21: 22). Furthermore, any doubts regarding the historical authenticity of the Johannine promise of the Spirit-Paraclete due to its incompatibility with Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics (as Casey has entertained) do not seem to be applicable (14: 16, 26 par. Luke 24: 49; Mark 13: 9-11 pars.). Unable to detect major contradictions or significant non-correlations, we conclude that the synoptic comparison does certainly not support the thesis that the pneumatology of the Johannine Jesus was an invention of an early Christian group. Indeed, this unit of the Farewell Discourse, as far as conceptual content is concerned, does cohere with synoptic teaching material. In other words, the results of this section seem to invalidate the reasoning of those who affirm the inauthenticity of this Johannine speech unit based on differences between John and the Synoptics. Regarding the historical reliability of John 14: 1-31, a negative verdict based 338 mainly on alleged discrepancies with the general outlook of the Synoptic Jesus hardly does justice to the evidence. In fact, on the backdrop of ancient historiographical standards, the significant multiple attestation of teachings, themes, and motifs suggests that the “case from incoherence” is rather weak for the secondary nature of this part of the Farewell Discourse. The findings of our cross-check on Jesus’ post-resurrection words to his disciples in John 20: 11-29 corroborate the picture of Johannine-Synoptic relations gained in our earlier examination of Jesus’ discourses in the Fourth Gospel (5.2). Our survey of the post-resurrection appearances in John 20 revealed once again that, at least for the words of the risen Jesus, no general incompatibility with the Synoptic Jesus can possibly be adduced. Rather, without ignoring the problems of harmonization posed by the canonical resurrection narratives, the significant correlations in terms of content (and in parts, even in wording) should deter one from driving too great a wedge between Jesus’ post-resurrection sayings in John and the Synoptics. Furthermore, the commonality of thought and outlook as found in the other discourses hitherto examined can be seen as well in these sayings; additional evidence for the existence of a basic conceptual coherence between the words of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel and those attributed to him in its synoptic counterparts. Before we move on to reflect in more detail on the historical perspectives raised by the evidence (chapter 8), we should briefly consider the main implications for the question of authenticity. In the main part of this study a relatively consistent picture of Johannine-Synoptic relations has emerged that fits with the provisional results of C. H. Dodd’s comparison of Jesus’ discourse in John 5: 19-30 with the Synoptics - a result that apparently evoked in him a more optimistic view on Johannine authenticity than he had entertained earlier in his career (1.2.2 and 1.3.2). Having established the methodological necessity for a distinction between wording and content, what we find in the Fourth Gospel, is, to borrow Dodd’s words, a representation of the teaching of Jesus that corresponds conceptually to a significant degree with the picture offered by the Synoptics, though couched in a very different idiom. With regard to the discourses examined in this study, the question remains as to whether John accurately rendered the words of Jesus, when compared to the three Synoptic Gospels. The significant correlations in terms of content between the Johannine discourses and the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics seem to require a positive answer. This result is, of course, a far cry from having demonstrated the general historicity of Jesus’ words in the Gospel of John. However, what has been shown is that to deny the possible authenticity of the Johannine discourses based upon an alleged incoherence with Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptic Gospels is unjustified in light of the evidence. Indeed, such a skeptical view (1.2.1) toward the authenticity of the Johannine discourses can simply not 339 be sustained. Far from being mutually exclusive, most of the themes expressed by the Johannine Jesus have a more or less close parallel in content in the synoptic portrait of Jesus’ teaching. This significant amount of conceptual overlap between John and the Synoptics further requires us to go beyond the moderate-skeptical perspective (1.2.2) which finds within the Johannine discourses only scattered pieces of authentic teaching tradition that can be confirmed through synoptic analogies. If synoptic relations are considered to give historical credibility to particular elements of Jesus’ teaching in John (as scholars holding this view have repeatedly affirmed), then the considerable extent of coherent (and complementary) teaching material argues for a more positive evaluation of the authenticity of the Johannine discourses. Yet, our comparative approach has unearthed very little evidence in favor of an optimistic view (1.2.4) confident to find in the Johannine discourses a significant amount of Jesus’ ipsissima verba. Therefore, the overall data seems most in line with a moderate-optimistic view (1.2.3) of Johannine authenticity. Admittedly, the parallels at large point toward a considerable degree of development or redaction of speech material on the part of the Fourth Evangelist (cf. also chapter 7 below). But, again, this is far from saying that the differences in terms of content are insurmountable. Rather, despite the existing differences in the way the Fourth Evangelist has handled his discourse material, we should not lose sight of the fact that the general thrust of Jesus’ teaching is consistently reproduced in both major strands of gospel tradition. Therefore, we suggest that, at least as far as the passages examined in this study are concerned, on the basis of a detailed comparison with the Synoptics no strong evidence precludes us from accepting the Johannine discourses as authentic representations of the actual content of Jesus’ words. 340 Part Three Literary, Theological, and Historical Perspectives Chapter 7 The Johannine Discourses and the Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics: A Tentative Characterization Instead of repeating in detail both correlations and non-correlations outlined in the previous chapters (and thus avoiding unnecessary redundancy), the intention of this present chapter is to characterize more specifically the nature of the differences and similarities encountered between Johannine and synoptic teaching traditions. Based on this study’s findings, we want now to capture certain regularities in the way the Fourth Evangelist has employed Jesus’ teaching material when compared with the Synoptics. Do regular patterns or emphases exist in the manner by which the substance of synoptic material is handled in the Fourth Gospel? How can we describe the differences and points of contact especially in those instances where a certain degree of resemblance between the teaching of Jesus in the Johannine discourses and the Synoptics has been demonstrated? As we comment on several conspicuous features of the Johannine treatment of dominical speech material, it is important to note that we thereby neither presuppose any given theory of literary dependence nor attempt to answer the question regarding the literary relationship between John and the Synoptics. We feel compelled, however, to make the cautious assumption that the Fourth Evangelist knew at least one or more of the Synoptics or could at least resort to common traditions predating the writing of the Gospels. 1 1 Some have observed a trend toward some kind of literary dependency between John and the Synoptics;; cf., e.g., Klaus Scholtissek, “The Johannine Gospel in Recent Research,” in The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research, ed. Scot McKnight and Grant R. Osborne (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 455; also Udo Schnelle, “Aus der Literatur zum Johannesevangelium 1996-2010. Erster Teil: Die Kommentare als Seismographen der Forschung,” TRu 75.3 (2010), 291: “Gegenwärtig kann davon gesprochen werden, dass eine Mehrheit innerhalb der Johannesexegese mit einer Kenntnis eines oder mehrerer Synoptiker durch Johannes rechnet, was durch die neueren Kommentare bestätigt wird.” The literary dependency of John on the Synoptics has been strongly argued for by the so-called “Leuven school” especially represented by Frans Neirynck;; cf., e.g., idem., “John and the Synoptics 1975-1990,” in John and the Synoptics, ed. A. Denaux, BETL 101 (Leuven: Peeters, 1991), 3-62, as well as idem., “John and the Synoptics,” in L’Évangile de Jean, ed. M. de Jonge, BETL 44 (Leu- 343 This does not affect nor constitute our depiction of characteristic marks of the Johannine speech material. Our presupposition is that by and large the synoptic account is closer to what Jesus has originally said than the Johannine. In other words, when referring below to the Fourth Evangelist’s “transforming,” “redacting,” or “developing” the teaching of Jesus, we are not implying a conscious rewriting of available synoptic tradition. Instead, we simply intend to bring into focus distinctives of the Johannine representation of Jesus’ words when compared to the Synoptics. Our overview consists of two stages. In keeping with a differentiation that permeated our whole study, we will first examine several literary (or formal) differences and points of contact in the way the teaching of Jesus is depicted (7.1). Second, we will compare theological content as we explore both distinctions and commonalities, different emphases and traceable continuities in the presentation of various theological themes in John and in the Synoptic Gospels (7.2). 7.1 Literary Features of the Johannine Discourses The general distinctives between the representation of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel and in the Synoptics have been mentioned already in the introduction to this study. Highly visible is the contrast between the elaborate discourses in John as compared to the primarily short and stylized literary renderings of Jesus’ teaching in the other three canonical Gospels. Even then, we need to remind ourselves that the Synoptics are not void of longer sermons of Jesus as can be seen in contiguous passages like Matt 5- 7; 10; 13; 18; 23; 24-25; Mark 13; Luke 6; 21. That these general differences between John and the Synoptics are complemented by the peculiar style of the Fourth Evangelist is barely worth repeating. Based on its idiosyncratic nature, Johannine style has been frequently designated as an “idiolect.” 2 Characteristic traits of language and style are also visible in the Fourth Gospel’s presentation of dominical teaching as opposed to the utterances of the Synoptic Jesus. Far from conducting a detailed stylistic analysis of the Gospel of John, 3 we will restrict ourselves to a brief overview of special ven: Peeters, 1977), 73-106. For an overview of the recent discussion with extensive bibliography, see Stefan Schreiber, “Kannte Johannes die Synoptiker? Zur aktuellen Diskussion,” VF 51.1 (2006): 7-24. 2 E.g., Reiser, Sprache, 68: “Bei diesem eigentümlichen Stil handelt es sich offensichtlich um einen Idiolekt, (…).” See also the discussion in Jörg Frey, Ihre Probleme im Spiegel der Forschung seit Reimarus, vol. 1 of Die johanneische Eschatologie, WUNT 96 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997), 439-445 [hereafter Eschatologie I]. 3 Detailed listings of Johannine stylistic features may be found in the two volumes of Abbott, Johannine Vocabulary; idem., Johannine Grammar (London: Black, 1906); as well 344 features in the Johannine account of dominical speech material, namely, the features of significant repetition (7.1.1), reduced semantics (7.1.2), and the propensity for abstraction (7.1.3). 7.1.1 The Johannine Discourses Feature Significant Repetition One of the most ostentatious stylistic features of the Fourth Gospel is the literary technique of repetition. 4 Repetition is an important device in Old Testament narrative style. In the Old Testament, we have to distinguish, generally speaking, between repetitive devices that consist of repeated keywords, motifs and actions, with only limited verbatim resumption of entire phrases and those repetitions that could be described as a “tapestry of literally repeated, intertwined, and ingeniously reordered [and varied] statements.” 5 In later rabbinic tradition repetition becomes a means of memorization. 6 As with no other New Testament writing, repetition be- as Eduard Schweizer, Ego Eimi: Die religionsgeschichtliche Herkunft und theologische Bedeutung der johanneischen Bildreden, zugleich ein Beitrag zur Quellenfrage des vierten Evangeliums, FRLANT 56 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2 1965); Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg, Stilkritik, 63-162 (chapter 5: “Die Stilmerkmale des Johannesevangeliums erarbeitet und ausführlich dargestellt”); and M.-É. Boismard and A. Lamouille, L’Évangile de Jean, vol. 3 of Synopse des Quatre Évangiles en Français (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1977), 491-531; see now also Wolfgang Schenk, Kommentiertes Lexikon zum vierten Evangelium: Seine Textkonstituenten in ihren Syntagmen und Wortfeldern, Texttheoretical Studies of the New Testament 1 (Lewiston: Mellen Biblical Press, 1993); and (for a historical survey) Gilbert Van Belle, “Style Criticism and the Fourth Gospel,” in One Text, a Thousand Methods: Studies in Memory of Sjef van Tilborg, ed. Patrick Chatelion Counet and Ulrich Berges, BIntS 71 (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 292-96. 4 For a recent survey of the history of research pertaining to this stylistic feature (including an extensive listing of relevant literature), see Gilbert Van Belle, “Repetitions and Variations in Johannine Research: A General Historical Survey,” in Repetitions and Variations in the Fourth Gospel: Style, Text, Interpretation, ed. Gilbert Van Belle, Michael Labahn, and Petrus Maritz, BETL 123 (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 33-85. For an enthusiastic appraisal of Popp’s work Grammatik des Geistes as “pioneering and innovative” with respect to the study of Johannine style, especially the technique of repetition, variation, and amplification, see idem., “Repetition, Variation and Amplification: Thomas Popp’s Recent Contribution on Johannine Style,” ETL 79 (2003): 166- 78. 5 Alter, Biblical Narrative, 104. For an instructive (and more detailed) overview of different Old Testament techniques of repetition, see ibid., 88-113; also James Muilenburg, “A Study in Hebrew Rhetoric: Repetition and Style,” in Congress Volume Copenhagen 1953, VTSup 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1953), 97-111. On the usage of keywords, see specifically Martin Buber, “Leitwortstil in der Erzählung des Pentateuchs,” in Schriften zur Bibel, vol. 2 of Werke (München: Kösel, 1964), 1131-49. 6 Cf. Birger Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript: Oral Tradition and Written Transmission in Rabbinic Judaism and Early Christianity (Lund: Gleerup, 1961), 163- 70. 345 longs to the essence of John’s Gospel. 7 Redundancy is not only a characteristic feature of the Johannine discourses but of the Fourth Gospel’s narrative as well. Regarding Johannine repetitions we may roughly distinguish between word-repetition and phrase-repetition. 8 We will treat the former more elaborately in the next section. With respect to the latter, a brief glance at our comparative tables in the preceding chapters reveals a frequent recourse to the same (or similar) synoptic parallels. This is an unmistakable sign that we encounter in the Johannine discourses a repetitive use of particular Leitgedanken. Each of the five discourses or dialogue sections examined in this study contains several instances of phrase-repetition. Different remarks of Jesus are reiterated in the immediate context, many of which are taken up with minor variation. 9 In Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus, for example, the phrase “unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God” in John 3: 3 is repeated in slightly modified form in 3: 5: “unless a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” Similarly,“born of the Spirit” in John 3: 6 is repeated verbatim in 3: 8, whereas in 3: 7 the same procedure is designated “born from above” (cf. also the re- 7 Popp, Grammatik des Geistes, 67: “Von daher spielt diese (…) Repetitionstechnik im JohEv eine herausragende Rolle. Wie bei keiner anderen neutestamentlichen Schrift gehören Wiederholungen zum Wesen des JohEv.” Cf. ibid., 67n110: “(…) seit Abbott [Johannine Grammar, 437-65] gelten nach Ruckstuhl (…) Wiederholungen als joh. Stileigentümlichkeit.” Cf. now also the papers of the Leuven Colloquium on Johannine repetition published in Gilbert Van Belle, Michael Labahn, and Petrus Maritz, eds., Repetitions and Variations in the Fourth Gospel: Style, Text, Interpretation, BETL 123 (Leuven: Peeters, 2009). Besides those essays mentioned in the footnotes below, see esp. Jan van der Watt, “Repetition and Functionality in the Gospel According to John: Some Initial Explorations” (ibid., 87-108) as well as (on the repetition of the mission imagery in John; cf. also chapter 7.2.1 below) Ruben Zimmermann, “Metaphoric Networks as Hermeneutic Keys in the Gospel of John: Using the Example of the Mission Imagery” (ibid., 381-402). 8 Cf. David E. Aune, “Repetition,” in The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christian Literature and Rhetoric (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2003), 399: “Repetition is a figure of Greek prose style, whether of a word, a phrase, or a main clause.” For a much more elaborate subdivision of the stylistic feature of repetition, see Popp, Grammatik des Geistes, 60-63. Gilbert Van Belle, “Theory of Repetitions and Variations in the Fourth Gospel: A Neglected Field of Research? ” in Repetitions and Variations in the Fourth Gospel: Style, Text, Interpretation, ed. Gilbert Van Belle, Michael Labahn, and Petrus Maritz, BETL 123 (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 29, concludes that repetition is found on different levels: (a) word level; (b) sentence level; (c) rhetoricalnarrative level; (d) socio-rhetorical level. 9 Cf., e.g., Morris, Studies, 293 (under the heading “Variation - A Feature of Johannine Style”): “John has quite a habit of introducing slight variation.” For a rather extensive list of repetitions with slight variations, see ibid., 293-319. What Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 257, has tentatively determined as a Johannine propensity to paraphrase (on the meager basis of observations in John 10: 38 and 14: 11) would possibly fit with this category of repetition with variation. 346 dundancy in 3: 15-16). 10 Likewise, in Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman his initial statement in John 4: 13 “everyone who drinks some of this water will be thirsty again” is immediately taken up and amplified in the subsequent promise in 4: 14: “whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.” We find another twofold repetition with slight modification in John 4: 23-24: “(…) the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth;; (…) the people who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” We find the same stylistic phenomenon in Jesus’ discourses addressed to the Jewish public. In John 6, Jesus’ self-designation as the “bread of life” or “the (living) bread that came down from heaven” is repeated multiple times (John 6: 48, 50, 51, 58). Additionally, the acknowledgement “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves” is replicated twice in John 6: 54 (“The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life”) and in 6: 56 (“The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him”). More examples of Johannine repetition in the Bread of Life Discourse can be found in John 6: 31/ 6: 49; 6: 38/ 6: 40; 6: 39/ 6: 40/ 6: 44/ 6: 54; 6: 37/ 6: 45; and 6: 40/ 6: 47. 11 Repetitive elements can also be seen in the Light of the World Discourse in John 8. The conditional “even if I testify about myself” in John 8: 14 is taken up as the declarative sentence “I testify about myself” in 8: 18. And the announcement that “you will die in your sin” occurs twice on the lips of Jesus (John 8: 21, 24; cf. also the repetition of “where I came [/ come] from and [/ or] where I am going” in 8: 14). For a repeated theme with more variation see John 8: 37/ 8: 43/ 8: 45/ 8: 47. Finally, the first unit of Jesus’ Farewell Discourse addressed to his disciples contains the same elements of constant repetition. The phrase “And I will do whatever you ask in my name” in John 14: 13 is not only reiterated in 14: 14 (“If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it”) but also in the later parts of the discourse (15: 16/ 16: 23-24). Jesus’ assessment “If you love me, you will obey my commandments” in John 14: 15 is taken up twice in 14: 21, 23. 12 Further repetition (to some extent with significant variation or amplification) can be found in John 14: 1/ 14: 27; 14: 2/ 14: 3; 14: 3/ 14: 18/ 14: 28; 14: 10/ 14: 11/ 14: 20; 14: 13-14/ 15: 7/ 15: 16/ 16: 23/ 16: 26; 14: 15/ 15: 10; 14: 16/ 14: 26/ 15: 26/ 16: 7; and 14: 21/ 15: 14. 10 Cf. also the list of varied repetition in John 3 in Popp, Grammatik des Geistes, 242-43. 11 On the Johannine characteristic of repetition with variation in John 6, see ibid., 446- 48, as well as two essays in the above mentioned volume Repetitions and Variations (cf. footnote 4 above), namely, Ulrich Busse, “Sprachökonomisch optimierte Kommunikation in Joh 6,” 419-34, and Jean Zumstein, “‘Ich bin das Brot des Lebens.’ Wiederholung und Variation eines johanneischen Ego-Eimi-Wortes in Joh 6,” 435-52. 12 On the thematic repetition of the love theme in John, especially in the Farewell Discourse(s), see again in the volume Repetitions and Variations Jörg Frey, “Love Relations in the Fourth Gospel: Establishing a Semantic Network,” 171-98; and Udo Schnelle, “Die Johanneischen Abschiedsreden und das Liebesgebot,” 589-608. 347 In addition to these instances where the repetition follows closely in the immediate context of the discourse, the Fourth Gospel also features dominical utterances as later resumptions in different contexts. At times these resumptions feature significant variation and amplification in the way they are expressed, while the key theme of dominical teaching is repeated. 13 A good example of this kind of repetition is the recurrence of the concept of “stilled thirst” where the core of John 4: 14 (“whoever drinks some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again”) is presented in another form in 6: 35 (“the one who believes in me will never be thirsty”). Similarly, the theme of “not knowing the Father” in John 8: 19 (“If you knew me you would know my Father too”) has already occurred in 7: 28 (“You do not know him”) and is further embraced in 15: 21 (“they do not know the one who sent me”) and 16: 3 (“They will do these things because they have not known the Father or me”). A final illustration of this pattern is the reception of John 5: 41 (“I do not accept praise from people”) in 8: 50 (“I am not trying to get praise for myself;;” cf. also 7: 18). Further examples of these types of later resumptions with more or less significant variation are John 3: 13/ 6: 46; 3: 15/ 3: 36/ 6: 40; 3: 17/ 12: 47; 3: 18/ 5: 24/ 6: 40/ 6: 47; 3: 20/ 7: 7; 4: 26/ 9: 37; 5: 31/ 8: 14/ 8: 18; 7: 24/ 8: 15; 7: 28/ 8: 19/ 8: 55/ 15: 21/ 16: 3/ 17: 25; 8: 26/ 8: 38/ 12: 49/ 14: 10/ 14: 24/ 17: 8; 8: 28/ 12: 32; 12: 26/ 14: 3; 10: 30/ 10: 38/ 14: 10/ 14: 20/ 17: 21-22; 10: 25/ 10: 38/ 14: 11; and 7: 33/ 14: 19/ 16: 16. A third kind of phrase repetition in the Fourth Gospel is what Abbott has called Johannine repetition through negation. 14 In these cases a statement is repeated through a negated form of its opposite. This can be expressed in a simple “not (…) but”-form or through an inversion of a particular phrase. The frequent ouv / mh. - avlla, pattern can be observed, e.g., in John 6: 27 (“Do not work [ evrga,zesqe mh. ] for the food that disappears, but [ avlla. ] for the food that remains to eternal life”) or 8: 12 (“The one who follows me will never walk [ ouv mh. peripath,sh| ] in darkness, but [ avllV ] will have the light of life”). Examples of inversions of certain constructions are 6: 53-54 (“unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life”) and 14: 23-24 (“If anyone loves me, he will obey my word, […] The person who does not love me does not obey my words.”). Other repetitions through negation can be found in 3: 16; 3: 17; 3: 18; 4: 21-22; 6: 44-45; 6: 49-50; 8: 42; 8: 47; 8: 55; 14: 11. 13 On the relationship between “repetitio” and “variatio,” see Van Belle, “Theory,” 24- 27;; also idem., “Historical Survey,” 84, where he concludes his history of research saying: “As a matter of fact, repetition is closely related to other literary devices such as variation, parallelism, antithesis and different forms of amplification.” Cf. also the definition by Abbott, Johannine Grammar, 401, who understands variation as “the habit of repeating the same thing (…) in slightly dissimilar words and with slight dissimilarities of order.” 14 Ibid., 445-46; cf. also Reiser, Sprache, 66. 348 In contrast, the Synoptic Gospels do not contain such plethora of repetitions, variations, and amplifications. 15 As for most of the redundant elements that do appear, they are “of a very different character from those of the Fourth Gospel.” 16 Common to the Synoptics is the technique of later “resumptions” in order to establish compositional frameworks for certain passages (Matt 19: 30/ 20: 16; 24: 42/ 25: 13), to emphasize particular elements of Jesus’ teaching (Matt 5: 29-30/ 18: 8-9; 5: 31/ 19: 7-9; 9: 13/ 12: 7; 10: 38/ 16: 24; 12: 39/ 16: 4; 20: 26/ 23: 11), or to consider the same material under different aspects (Matt 7: 16-19/ 12: 33; 10: 22/ 24: 13). 17 Though found on a large scale in John, resumptions that feature direct alignments in the immediate context are relatively rare in the synoptic repetitions of speech material. In most cases, such utterances of Jesus are taken up with little or no variation, e.g., “If your hand [foot, eye] causes you to sin” (Mark 9: 43, 45, 47), “and now, something greater than the temple [Salomon, Jonah] is here” (Matt 12: 6, 41-42 par. Luke 11: 31-32). Notable examples are also those of Matthew’s direct speech passages that resemble the Johannine discourses with regard to their length: “You have heard that it was said to an older generation” (Matt 5: 12, 33), “And your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you” (Matt 6: 4, 6, 18), and “Woe to you, experts in the law and you Pharisees, hypocrites! ” (Matt 23: 13, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27, 29). Perhaps the closest point of contact to Johannine repetition can be found in the Markan version of Jesus’ encounter with the rich young ruler (Mark 10: 23-25). Here the initial “How hard it is for the rich to enter the kingdom of God! ” is picked up twice in the following verses. 18 Johannine-Synoptic points of contact are also visible in the realm of repetition through negation. And though this feature is not uncommon in the Synoptics, it is less exposed than in the Fourth Gospel. Examples among the synoptic parallels include Matt 20: 28 (“the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve”), Mark 2: 17 (“Those who are healthy don't need a physician, but those who are sick do”), or Mark 16: 16 (“The one who believes and is baptized will be saved, but the one who does not believe will be condemned”). 19 In sum, the technique of repetition that forms an articulate quality of the rendering of Jesus’ speech material in the Fourth Gospel is also present in the Synoptic Gospels. John, however, for reasons we are unable to discuss here, far surpasses the other three Gospels in his usage of repetitions 15 Ibid., 441-43. 16 Ibid. 17 For Matthew cf., e.g., Luz, Matthew, 1: 21-22, who refers to these features as “doublets,” and assumes that some of Jesus’ logia are purposely repeated in order to burn them into the minds of the readers. On repetition in Mark, see generally Reiser, Sprache, 60-61: “Wörter und Wendungen werden bei Markus scheinbar überflüssigerweise wiederholt (…). Matthäus und Lukas sind im Gebrauch dieser Eigenart zurückhaltender, Johannes dagegen liebt sie ähnlich wie Markus.” 18 Abbott, Johannine Grammar, 442. 19 For further remarks on repetition through negation in the Synoptics, see ibid., 442-43. 349 to communicate his accounts of Jesus’ teaching. 20 Though John is much shorter than at least Matthew and Luke, he has a considerable amount of repetitions and variations. This gives the impression of a highly concentrated account and has an intensifying effect on the reader. While most of the repetitive elements in John hold conceptual similarities to dominical doctrine in the Synoptics, the Fourth Evangelist is far more prone to employ the literary form of varied repetition to highlight what he considers as key themes of Jesus’ teaching. In other words, far from inventing new dominical speech material, the Fourth Evangelist replicates in many places elements of Jesus’ teaching, which, for the most part, are also found in the Synoptics. This kind of redactional activity hardly supports the assumption of an incisive, conceptual gap between John and the other three Gospels. 20 Popp, Grammatik des Geistes, 465, interprets the repetitive language of John in general terms as evidence for the compositional freedom of the fourth evangelist by which he creatively developed discourses out of certain core traditions (cf. the moderate-skeptical view in chapter 1): “An Joh 3 und 6 läßt sich das literarische Verfahren des vierten Evangelisten zeigen, aus Kernlogien der joh. Tradition (…) größere, theologisch gehaltvolle kohärente konzentrische Kompositionen zu entwickeln.” In the first systematic study of the theme of repetition and variation in the Fourth Gospel, Peter S.C. Chang, “Repetitions and Variations in the Gospel of John” (diss., University of Strasbourg, 1975), 185-93, has outlined nine possible reason for this phenomenon (cf. also Popp, Grammatik des Geistes, 466-79): (1) limitation of the language, (2) the composition of an old man, (3) numerical symbolism, (4) structural arrangement, (5) meditative mood, (6) the pedagogical memory aid, (7) homiletical background, (8) liturgical background, and (9) Christ-centeredness. In his conclusion he gives less credence to the first four, whereas the other five appear to be very closely related. They seem to “often exist simultaneously.” Yet, Chang concludes that “Christ-centeredness is the most important. (…) Christ compels him [i.e., John] to repeat. His genius enables him to vary. Hence arise the repetitions and variations in the Gospel.” (Ibid., 193.) This concurs with George Mlakuzhyil, The Christocentric Literary Structure of the Fourth Gospel, AnBib 117 (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 1987), who has argued for a Christocentric scope of the Fourth Gospel on a structural level; cf. also the theological perspectives below (7.2.1). In addition, it needs to be noted that within modern literary studies repetition is considered to be a feature of oral transmission, i.e., a sign of the spoken word, so that the frequent varied repetitions (which Morris, Studies, 318, has called “a habit of mind”) may be less the result of composition than of ongoing oral proclamation by the Fourth Evangelist. 350 7.1.2 The Johannine Discourses Operate with Reduced Semantics The stylistic feature of redundancy relates well with the limited vocabulary of the Fourth Gospel as compared to the Synoptics. John’s vocabulary is much smaller than any of the other canonical Gospels. 21 As the above table shows, Luke has more than double the vocabulary than John while being only about 4,000 words longer. Even Mark, by far the shortest of the canonical Gospels, uses a significantly broader spectrum of terms than John. This words-to-vocabulary ratio relates here to the Gospels as a whole. However, no one has ever specified this kind of ratio exclusively for the speech material. We suspect that the results of such a comparison would be roughly similar. Thus, impressions gained from the above numbers are probably equally applicable with reference to the discourse material. 22 When it comes to the Johannine speech material, the reduced semantics are not only due to phrase-repetition (see above) but also to a strong inclination to organize Jesus’ discourses around certain key terms. This results in a tightly knit net of interconnection between discourses and parts of discourses through the coherence of frequently repeated catchwords. To substantiate this observation, we may note that several of the Johannine Vorzugswörter permeate Jesus’ direct speech in the Fourth Gospel. 23 Verbs 21 The following table has been adapted from Kierspel, The Jews, 142. The numbers are according to Morgenthaler, Statistik, 164. Kierspel mentions that a computergenerated count with Bibleworks 7.0 reveals a slightly higher number of total words in each gospel, i.e., Matthew: 18,346; Mark: 11,304; Luke: 19,482; John: 15,635. 22 Cf. Jörg Frey, “Appendix: Erwägungen zum Verhältnis der Johannesapokalypse zu den übrigen Schriften des Corpus Johanneum,” in Martin Hengel, Die johanneische Frage: Ein Lösungsversuch, WUNT 67 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), 339, who states (in accordance with S. Pancaro, “A Statistical Approach to the Concept of Time and Eschatology in the Fourth Gospel,” Bib 50 [1969]: 513): “(…) in allen ,johanneischen‘ Schriften werden relativ wenige Vokabeln im Ganzen häufiger wiederholt, wobei der Eindruck der sprachlichen Monotonie in den Briefen und in den Reden des Evangeliums am stärksten (…) ausfällt.” [italics his] 23 Morgenthaler, Statistik, 182, has labeled those terms as Vorzugswörter that do occur with high frequency in John when compared with other New Testament writings. For the Vorzugswörter of John 3 and John 6, see Popp, Grammatik des Geistes, 237-41, re- Gospel Words (total) Vocabulary Words/ Vocabulary Matthew 18,278 1691 10.8 Mark 11,229 1345 8.3 Luke 19,404 2055 9.4 John 15,420 1011 15.2 351 such as agapei/ n , ginw,skein , ei=nai , kri,nein , oi=da , pe,mpein , or piste,uein are repeatedly found on the lips of Jesus in more than one of the discourses covered in this study. 24 Other verbs that are not particularly Johannine also play a key role in one or more discourse units, such as e; rcomai (being used in all five discourses examined), genna/ n (in the dialogue with Nicodemus), or prosku,nein (in the dialogue with the Samaritan woman). 25 In addition, several nouns stand out as Johannine Leit-Lexeme within the discourses of the Fourth Gospel. Among those keywords that are repeatedly clustered in different sections are avlh,qeia / avlhqh,j , zwh. / zh/ n , e; rgon , ko,smoj , or path.r . 26 Nouns such as a; rtoj , ouvrano,j , fw/ j , or u[dwr are especially significant in one particular discourse. 27 In addition to these redundant keywords, we may also mention another prominent type of Johannine word-repetition that stands out when compared with the Synoptics, i.e., the “most Johannine of expressions,” 28 the double avmh,n used to introduce dominical sayings. While spectively 444-46. A rather extensive list of “Johannine words comparatively seldom or never used by the Synoptists” can be found in Abbott, Vocabulary, 195-239. 24 The distribution is as follows: agapei/ n (13x): 3: 16, 19; 8: 42; 14: 15, 21 (4x), 23 (2x), 24, 28, 31; ginw,skein (13x): 3: 10; 8: 28, 32, 43, 55; 14: 7 (3x), 9, 17 (2x), 20, 31; ei=nai (70x): 3: 6 (2x), 8, 10, 19 (2x), 21; 4: 10, 18, 22, 23, 26; 6: 29, 33, 35, 39, 40, 45 (2x), 46, 48, 50, 51 (2x), 55 (2x), 58; 8: 12, 14, 16 (2x), 17, 18, 23 (4x), 24, 26, 28, 29, 31, 34, 36, 37, 39, 42, 44 (4x), 47 (2x), 50, 54 (3x), 55, 58; 14: 2, 3 (2x), 6, 9, 10, 16, 17, 21, 24, 28; kri,nein (8x): 3: 17, 18 (2x); 8: 15 (2x), 16, 26, 50; oi=da (17x): 3: 8, 11; 4: 10, 22 (2x); 8: 14 (2x), 19 (3x), 37, 55 (3x); 14.4, 5 (2x); pe, mpein (9x): 6: 38, 39, 44; 8: 16, 18, 26, 29; 14: 24, 26; or piste,uein (25x): 3: 12 (2x), 15, 16, 18 (3x); 4: 21; 6: 19, 35, 36, 40, 47; 8: 24, 30, 31, 45, 46; 14: 1 (2x), 10, 11 (2x), 12, 29. 25 The distribution is as follows: e; rcomai (21x): 3: 8, 19, 20, 21; 4: 16, 21, 23; 6: 35, 37, 44, 45; 8: 14 (2x), 21, 42; 14: 3, 6, 18, 23, 28, 30; genna/ n (6x): 3: 3, 5, 6 (2x), 7, 8 [see also 4 (2x)]; prosku,nein (7x): 4: 21, 22 (2x), 23 (2x), 24 (2x) [see also 20 (2x)]. Both genna/ n as well as prosku,nein are on Morgenthaler’s list of “Johannine Vorzugswörter,” yet both verbs are more frequently represented in Matthew than in John. 26 All of those terms made Morgenthaler’s list of key Johannine terms and are spread as follows: avlh,qeia / avlhqh,j (12x): 3: 21; 4: 23, 24; 8: 32 (2x), 40, 44 (2x), 45, 46; 14: 6, 17, zwh. / zh/ n (24x): 3: 15, 16; 4: 10, 11, 14; 6: 27, 33, 35, 40, 47, 48, 51 (3x), 53, 54, 57 (3x), 58; 8: 12; 14: 6, 19 (2x); e; rgon (9x): 3: 19, 20, 21; 6: 29; 8: 39, 41; 14: 10, 11, 12; ko,smoj (17x): 3: 16, 17 (3x), 19; 6: 33, 51; 8: 12, 23 (2x), 26; 14: 17, 19, 22, 27, 30, 31; or path.r (53x): 4: 21, 23 (2x); 6: 17, 32, 37, 40, 44, 45, 46 (2x), 49, 57 (2x), 58; 8: 16, 18, 19 (2x), 28, 38 (2x), 41, 42, 44 (3x), 49, 54, 56; 14: 2, 6,7, 8, 9 (2x), 10 (3x), 11 (2x), 12, 13, 16, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 28 (2x), 31 (2x). 27 These nouns occur in the following places: a; rtoj (13x): 6: 26, 32 (2x), 33, 35, 41, 48, 50, 51 (3x), 58 (2x) [see also 6: 31, 34]; ouvrano, j (11x): 3: 13 (2x); 6: 32 (2x), 33, 38, 41, 42, 50, 51, 58; fw/ j (7x): 3: 19 (2x), 20 (2x), 21; 8: 12 (2x); or u[dwr (9x): 3: 5; 4: 7, 10, 11, 13, 14 (3x), 15. Of these four terms only u[dwr is listed in Morgenthaler, but at least fw/ j should be mentioned as well with 23 occurrences in John, compared to Matthew (7x), Mark (1x), and Luke (7x). 28 Brown, John (xiii-xxi), 1106. 352 the single avmh,n occurs frequently at the beginning of one of Jesus’ sayings in the Synoptics, the doublet is only found in the Fourth Gospel. 29 We conclude that “there is [in John] much less variety and more simplicity in Jesus speech compared with (…) the Synoptic Jesus.” 30 The Johannine discourses reveal a stronger concentration of particular keywords around which the teaching of Jesus is developed. The dense, repetitive diction of the Fourth Gospel on the level of vocabulary is without analogy in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. The Synoptic Gospels are, of course, not entirely void of word-repetition. 31 But they largely refrain from such extensive and repeated language clusters as found in the Fourth Gospel. While the substance of Jesus’ teaching material is similar in John and his synoptic counterparts, the fourth evangelist is unique in his semantically reduced presentation of dominical doctrine. Thus, it seems that by repeatedly using certain Leit-Lexeme the Fourth Evangelist has sought semantic uniformity when recasting the words of Jesus to fit into his Gospel. However, this is by no means tantamount to a removal from synoptic content. 7.1.3 The Johannine Discourses Display a Propensity for Abstraction Besides the Fourth Evangelist’s fondness for semantic simplicity, another prominent feature of Johannine style is his tendency toward literary abstraction. Other than the occasional remark, this phenomenon seems to constitute a rather neglected area of style research. What is usually meant by the term “abstraction” is (a) the generalization of ideas, (b) the reduction of particulars to key concepts, and (c) the omission of vivid detail. 32 First, when it comes to the issue of (a) generalization, Lars Kierspel, in his helpful summary of the function of direct speech in John, says it well: “The [Johannine] statements are often expressed in (or surrounded by) a gnomic style to communicate truths that apply to all people (…).” 33 Gnomic style in the discourses of the Fourth Gospel is enunciated through several typical formulations. We find sayings formed with pa/ j , o]j , ti.j or ouvdei.j , statements with a prefixed articular substantival participle (e.g., o` pis- 29 On the Johannine double-amen sayings with a discussion of the significance of this stylistic feature, see, e.g., Culpepper, “The Origin of the ‘Amen, Amen’ Sayings.” 30 Kierspel, The Jews, 144. Reiser, Sprache, 65: “Die Sprache der johanneischen Schriften zeichnet sich durch eine - offenbar gewollte - Simplizität (…) aus. (…) und arbeitet mit einem sehr beschränkten Wortschatz.” [italics his] 31 On repeated keywords in Mark 5: 21-43, see Dagmar Oppel, Heilsam erzählen - erzählend heilen: Die Heilung der Blutflüssigen und die Erweckung der Jairustochter in Mk 5,21- 43 als Beispiel markinischer Erzählfertigkeit, BBB 102 (Weinheim: Beltz Athenäum, 1995), 88-89, 135. 32 E.g., Ross Murfin and Supryia M. Ray, eds., The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms (New York: Bedford, 2 2004), 1. 33 Kierspel, The Jews, 141. 353 teu,wn ), and aphorisms constructed with eva.n mh. . 34 Thomas Popp, in his literary-critical work on John 3 and 6, subsumes these Johannine stylistic features under the heading of “proverbial maxims” (“weisheitliche Sentenzform”) and points out the affinities of these gnomic elements with wisdom tradition. 35 He then connects these insights to the assumption that these gnomic statements verify the stronger Johannine transformation of speech tradition when compared to the Synoptics. 36 The list of gnomic utterances in the Johannine discourses covered is impressive: [John 3: 3]: “unless [ eva.n mh. ] a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God” [John 3: 5]: “unless [ eva.n mh. ] a person is born of water and spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” [John 3: 6]: “What is born [ to. gegennhme, non ] of the flesh is flesh, and what is born [ to. gegennhme,non ] of the Spirit is spirit.” [John 3: 8]: “So it is with everyone [ pa/ j ] who is born of the Spirit” [John 3: 13]: “No one [ ouvdei.j ] has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven - the Son of Man” [John 3: 15]: “so that everyone who believes [ pa/ j o` pisteu,wn ] in him may have eternal life” [John 3: 16]: “so that everyone who believes [ pa/ j o` pisteu,wn ] in him will not perish but have eternal life” [John 3: 18]: “The one who believes [ o` pisteu,wn ] in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe [ o` de. mh. pisteu,wn ] has been condemned already” [John 3: 21]: “But the one who practices [ o` poiw/ n ] the truth comes to the light” [John 4: 13]: “Everyone who drinks [ pa/ j o` pi,nwn ] some of this water will be thirsty again” [John 4: 14]: “But whoever drinks [ pa/ j o` pi,nwn ] some of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again” [John 6: 35]: “The one who comes [ o` ev rco,menoj ] to me will never go hungry, and the one who believes [ o` pisteu,wn ] in me will never be thirsty” [John 6: 37]: “Everyone [ pa/ n ] whom the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes [ to.n evrco,menon ] to me I will never send away.” [John 6: 40]: “for everyone who looks [ pa/ j o` qewrw/ n ] on the Son and believes [ pisteu,wn ] in him to have eternal life” [John 6: 44]: “No one [ ouvdei.j ] can come to me unless [ ev a.n mh. ] the Father who sent me draws him” [John 6: 45]: “Everyone [ pa/ j ] who hears and learns from the Father comes to me” [John 6: 46]: “Not that anyone [ tij ] has seen the Father except the one who is from God- he has seen the Father.” [John 6: 47]: “the one who believes [ o` pisteu,wn ] has eternal life” [John 6: 50]: “so that a person [ tij ] may eat from it and not die” 34 Cf. the brief overview ibid.; supplemented by Popp, Grammatik des Geistes, 473. 35 Ibid., 473-74, quoting Hermann von Lips, Weisheitliche Traditionen im Neuen Testament, WMANT 64 (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1990), 265: “[The fourth evangelist has] weisheitlichen Stil seiner theologischen Redeintention dienstbar gemacht. (…) Weisheitliches Argumentieren und Formulieren werden für eine theologische Intention verwendet.” 36 Popp, Grammatik des Geistes, 473: “[These sayings] belegen die im Vergleich mit den Synoptikern stärkere joh. Transformation des rezipierten Materials.” 354 [John 6: 51]: “If anyone [ tij ] eats from this bread he will live forever” [John 6: 53]: “unless [ eva.n mh. ] you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves” [John 6: 54]: “The one who eats [ o` trw,gwn ] my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life” [John 6: 56]: “The one who eats [ o` trw,gwn ] my flesh and drinks my blood resides in me, and I in him” [John 6: 58]: “The one who eats [ o` trw,gwn ] this bread will live forever” [John 8: 12]: “The one who follows [ o` avkolouqw/ n ] me will never walk in darkness” [John 8: 24]: “For unless [ eva.n mh. ] you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins” [John 8: 34]: “everyone who practices [ pa/ j o` poiw/ n ] sin is a slave of sin” [John 8: 51]: “if anyone [ tij ] obeys my teaching, he will never see death” [John 14: 6]: “No one [ ouvdei.j ] comes to the Father except through me” [John 14: 9]: “The person [ o` e`wrakw.j ] who has seen me has seen the Father” [John 14: 12]: “the person who believes [ o` pisteu,wn ] in me will perform the miraculous deeds that I am doing” [John 14: 21a]: “The person who has [ o` e; cwn ] my commandments and obeys them is the one who loves me” [John 14: 21b]: “The one who loves [ o` avgapw/ n ] me will be loved by my Father” [John 14: 23]: “If anyone [ tij ] loves me, he will obey my word” [John 14: 24]: “The person who does not love [ o` mh. avgapw/ n ] me does not obey my words” Despite this obvious Johannine propensity to render the words of Jesus in more generic terms, we must note that this literary phenomenon is not entirely foreign to the Synoptics. Rather, a comparison between dominical speech material reveals that both the words of the Johannine and the Synoptic Jesus are at times cast in gnomic style. A few examples may suffice. The eva.n mh. -sayings in John 3: 3, 5 are closely paralleled by the equally general statement of Jesus in Matt 18: 3 (“unless [ eva.n mh. ] you turn around and become like little children”). Gnomic expressions of this kind can also be found in John 8: 24 and Luke 13: 3, 5. The affirmation of Jesus’ heavenly origin in John 3: 13 features a generic ouvdei.j -construction that is reminiscent of Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 (“No one [ ouvdei.j ] knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son”). The frequent Johannine usage of the o` + participle construction is also common in the Synoptic Gospels. Mark 16: 16 (“The one who believes [ o` pisteu,saj ] and is baptized will be saved”) is similar in outlook to several gnomic sayings in the Fourth Gospel, e.g., John 3: 15, 16, 18; 6: 47 et al.). Another prominent synoptic example of a substantival participle used to communicate common truth can be found in Matt 10: 40 pars. (par. John 13: 20) (“Whoever receives [ o` deco,menoj ] you receives me, and whoever receives [ o` deco,menoj ] me receives the one who sent me”). Finally, universalistic pa/ j -statements can also be found in both strands of speech tradition, as we see, e.g., in John 6: 40 and the (negated) parallel in Matt 7: 21 (“Not everyone [ ouv pa/ j ] who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter into the kingdom of heaven - only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven”). Yet, regardless of a significant number of generic utterances in the Synoptics, the process of abstraction in the entirety of the Johannine speech material goes beyond what we find in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Two 355 356 observations may substantiate this assessment. First, the prominent disposition within the discourses of the rather universal evgw, eivmi -statements (John 6: 35, 48, 51; 8: 12, 58; 14: 6; cf. also 10: 7, 9, 11, 14; 11: 25; 15, 1, 5) reinforces the generalized characteristic of Jesus’ direct speech in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus’ self-designations as “bread of life,” “light of the world,” or “the way, the truth, and the life” are culmination points as he reveals the universal implications of his identity. The “I am”-sayings are concentrated summaries of Johannine revelatory theology. 37 Second, the cumulative force of gnomic or generic sayings within the Johannine discourses extinguishes the significance of the synoptic evidence for that matter. The quantity of generic predications in several of the discourses is impressive. Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus in John 3 contains nine gnomic or universalistic kinds of sayings, the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6 has 13, and the first unit of the Farewell Discourse in John 14 has at least seven of these generic type of propositions. 38 The Fourth Evangelist appears to use these discourses to weave a dense web of generic statements that give the impression of a rather abstract account of Jesus’ teaching. In addition to these more general observations, can this process of abstraction in the Johannine discourses be further described? Does our examination of Johannine-Synoptic relations allow us to identify at least some regularities in the way the Fourth Gospel has molded speech tradition when compared with the Synoptics? In compliance with our brief definition of the term “abstraction” above, we introduce here two further categories in order to characterize the literary formation of the Johannine discourses as opposed to the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics. Our first additional observation with regard to the Johannine portrayal of Jesus’ teaching is (b) the Fourth Evangelist’s reductionist tendency to focus on key concepts. This propensity manifests itself in several ways. More than once, where in the Synoptics a whole parable is employed to communicate the message, the Johannine Jesus conveys one core concept of the parable without bothering about the graphic context of the story. For example, the parable of the tenants in Mark 12: 1-11 pars. expresses the central truth that moral corruptness ultimately is the cause for rejecting the divine Son, which leads to God’s judgment. This is summarized in general terms and metaphorical force in John 3: 19: “Now the judgment is this: that the light has come into the world and people loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil.” A similar development is perceptible with the synoptic parable of the sower in Luke 8: 5-15 pars. At the core of this parabolic story is the differentiation between a temporary absorption of the seed of God’s word and an effective understanding of the divine message which 37 Udo Schnelle, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2007), 646. 38 In addition to the generic utterances listed above, we add John 3: 19; 6: 33; 6: 48; 8: 58. 357 leads to continuing growth and fruit. Again, this condensed content of the more detailed parabolic teaching is employed “in short” in the Johannine discourses in John 8: 31 (“If you continue to follow my teaching, you are really my disciples”) and 8: 43 (“Why don’t you understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot accept my teaching”). 39 Further, Johannine proclivity to reduce particulars to basic concepts is also mirrored in the Fourth Gospel’s repeated use of succinct definitions. At times, instead of specific applications of a certain teaching as found in the Synoptics, the Johannine Jesus prefers to pinpoint the quintessence of a certain concept by way of an evstin statement: “judgment is this” (3: 19, as noted above), “the work of God is” (6: 29), “the bread of God is” (6: 33), “this is the will of the one who sent me/ my Father” (6: 39, 40) etc. By doing so, the more situational nature of several synoptic teaching propositions is transposed and abstracted into a more universal predication. Another helpful illustration of Johannine “reductionism” can be found in comparing John 8: 15 with its synoptic counterparts. While we find in Matt 23: 25-28 par. Luke 11: 37-39, 44 an ostensive description of Pharisaic hypocrisy and a critique of their sole focus on outwardness, for the Johannine Jesus it is enough to simply name the underlying issue: “You people judge by outward appearances.” A further observation with regard to Jesus’ speeches in the Fourth Gospel is that they reveal (c) a disposition to omit specific details. This feature is limited to Johannine speech material (to the extent outlined below). This lack of vivid detail does not, of course, pertain to the Fourth Gospel’s narrative framework with its precise depiction of geography, topography, chronology, and the like. Generally speaking, the Johannine discourses are less closely linked with specific events and encounters within a certain narratival structure as is the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics (except the dialogue with the Samaritan woman and parts of Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus). In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus’ words are regularly and profoundly embedded in the details of the surrounding narrative, which is one of the reasons they tend to be significantly more situational and particularistic in nature than their Johannine counterparts. Thus, when we compare Jesus’ words in John with his teaching in the Synoptics we observe that they have often encountered a process of abstraction with a decreasing concern for detail and literary embellishment. Several examples from the discourses covered in this study should be enough to substantiate this picture. A first plain instance of this feature can be found in John 3: 14-15, where it is said that “the Son of Man must be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life.” When we compare this soteriological statement with the main synoptic parallel adduced above, we observe that 39 For a general treatment of (synoptic) parabolic forms and contents in the Johannine discourses, see Dodd, Historical Tradition, 366-87. 358 John is much less elaborate than Matt 19: 28-29 pars.: “In the age when all things are renewed, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne, you who have followed me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And whoever has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” Leaving aside the more explicit focus on Jesus’ glorification, the synoptic saying appears significantly more circumstantial by adding details required by the narrative context (cf. Peter’s question in Matt 19: 27). Note that especially the more kingdom-oriented terminology of the glorious throne, the twelve thrones, and the judging of the twelve tribes of Israel is omitted in John. The Light of the World Discourse in John 8 contains several examples that have a rather compact Johannine proposition on the one hand and a more specific synoptic utterance on the other. In John 8: 16 we find a reference to Jesus as judge, whereas the Johannine Jesus’ narrow focus is the accurateness of his judgment (“if I judge my evaluation is accurate”). To this he only adds that he indeed judges together with the Father (cf. Matt 16: 27; 22: 44). In contrast to this sober statement in the Fourth Gospel, in Matt 25: 31-46 (here only 31-32) the Synoptic Jesus gives a much more explicit and graphic account of how this judgment will take place: “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be assembled before him, and he will separate people one from another like a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.” Neither the coming in glory with the angels nor the glorious throne of the judge and the exact result of separation are mentioned in John. Another instance of Johannine conciseness versus synoptic circumstantiality can be seen when comparing John 8: 49a with Matt 12: 25-28ff. In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus succinctly answers the accusation of being possessed by a demon (John 8: 48) with the negative “I am not possessed by a demon.” Such a short and to the point answer would have been sufficient to counter the Pharisaic accusations in Matt 12: 24 as well. But in Matthew, Jesus not only denies his opponents’ charge but goes on at great length to reveal the fallacy in their argument: “Every kingdom divided against itself is destroyed, and no town or house divided against itself will stand. So if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? (…) But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you.” Once again, we find in the Synoptics details and thoughts that go unmentioned in John. The Fourth Evangelist does not specifically explicate the inconsistency of the Pharisaic charge by pointing out that God must be at work, since Satan would not act against himself. For one final piece of evidence, we point to a verse in the first unit of the Farewell Discourse in John 14: 11b: “if you do not believe me, believe because of the works themselves.” If we liken this reference to his miraculous deeds 359 with Jesus’ similar answer to the Baptist’s disciples in Matt 11: 4-6 par. Luke 7: 18-23, we immediately realize that in this synoptic passage Jesus is once again much more specific than in John: “The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news proclaimed to them. Blessed is anyone who takes no offense at me.” While in John’s account Jesus merely hints at his miracle working, the synoptic statement presents detailed results, such as healing, raising the dead, and proclaiming the good news. 40 Examples of this or similar types could be multiplied, thus deepening the general impression that the distinctively Johannine presentation of Jesus’ words frequently omits what may have seemed to be deflective or secondary details. 41 The Johannine tendency for abstraction significantly shapes the way Jesus’ teaching is presented in the Fourth Gospel. Abstraction in John, however, as the examples presented in this section have shown, does not equal disentanglement from the Synoptics. Rather, the discourses examined demonstrate that many “abstracted” Johannine propositions have a counterpart in the synoptic words of Jesus with which they share general content and from which a trajectory of abstraction can be identified. Thus once again, even with this important feature of Johannine style, there seems to be no reason to argue that it undermines the impression of significant Johannine-Synoptic correlations on a conceptual level, which could then, in turn, shed a negative light on Johannine authenticity. 7.1.4 Additional Literary Characteristics of the Johannine Discourses As we compare John with the Synoptics, not every stylistic characteristic is as salient as the features of repetition, reduced semantics, and literary abstraction. However, sifting through the comprehensive list of characteristically Johannine stylistic traits provided by Ernst Ruckstuhl and Paul Dschulnigg 42 (following Eduard Schweizer 43 ), we notice several additional features that can also be found in the discourses examined in this study. 40 Regarding a similar Johannine proposition in John 5: 36, Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 256, remarks that “[these words] could hardly be improved upon as a summary of what we find in Mt. 11.4f., par. Lk. 7.22, taken in context.” Indeed, it seems that Ensor’s observation of the tendency of the Fourth Evangelist to summarize is in accordance with what we are presenting here in more detail under the category of “abstraction.” 41 Other examples where synoptic details are absent in more summary propositions in John (some examples clearer than others) may be found in John 6: 44; 8: 14b; 8: 14c; 8: 18; 8: 26c; 8: 28a; 8: 29a; 8: 34; 8: 42b; 8: 54; 14: 2-3; 14: 4; 14: 10b; 14: 12; 14: 15; 14: 19; 14: 28b. 42 Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg, Stilkritik, esp. 63-162. 43 Schweizer, Ego Eimi, 87-109. 360 Five of these features seem to be especially appreciable. Strictly speaking, the first one does not occur in the discourse material. Rather, it concerns the introductions of Jesus’ teaching. The Fourth Gospel tends to introduce Jesus’ direct speech with asyndetical formulas that occur much less frequently in the Synoptics. These include such introductory phrases as avpekri,qh ( auvtw/ | / auvtoi/ j ) Îo`Ð VIhsou/ j or avpekri,qh ( Îo`Ð VIhsou/ j ) kai. ei=pen or le,gei + dative object + Îo`Ð VIhsou/ j 44 and can be found, e.g., in John 3: 3, 5, 10; 4: 7, 10, 13, 17, 21, 26; 6: 26, 29, 43; 8: 14, 19, 39, 43, 49, 54; 14: 6, 9, 23; 20: 15, 16, 17, 29. A second stylistic feature unique to John is the adjacent possessive pronoun with the article. 45 This feature appears twenty-nine times in the Fourth Gospel, twenty-seven of which are found in direct speech on the lips of Jesus, as, e.g., in John 6: 38 ( to. qe,lhma to. evmo.n ) and 8: 16 ( h` kri,sij h` evmh. ); as well as 8: 17, 31, 37, 43, 56; 14: 15, 27. Another conspicuous trait of the style of the Fourth Gospel is the frequent occurrence of the particle i[na , appearing almost as often in John (145 times) as in all three Synoptic Gospels together. As a special usage of this particle Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg mention the i[na epexegeticum ( ou-to, j evstin …, i[na ) that occurs in the Johannine corpus only. 46 This feature is found within segments of dominical speech in John 6: 29, 39, 40, 50 (also 17: 3; similarly 15: 8). A fourth noteworthy attribute characteristic of Johannine style is the frequent distribution of the demonstrative evkei/ noj . 47 Seldom used in the Synoptic Gospels, 80 percent of all Gospel occurrences are in John. Among the words of Jesus, evkei/ noj is found in John 4: 25; 6: 29; 8: 42, 44; 14: 21, 26; 20: 15, 16. A final stylistic feature in the Fourth Gospel that should be noted is the inter-related usage of the two personal pronouns evgw, and u`mei/ jÅ 48 In the Synoptics these two pronouns appear together only once (Luke 22: 70: u`mei/ j le,gete o[ti evgw, eivmi ) where they emphasize the person of Jesus and his christological dignity. Their use in John is far more prominent, being featured in Jesus’ teaching regarding the confrontation between himself ( evgw, ) and his opponents or disciples ( u`mei/ j ), e.g., in John 8: 15, 21, 22, 23, 38, 49; 14: 3, 19, 20; also 5: 34; 10: 25; 13: 14. In sum, all these minor stylistic features contribute to the different impression made by the Johannine speeches of Jesus when compared to the presentation of his teaching in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 44 Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg, Stilkritik, 68-70, 71-73; cf. also Boismard and Lamouille, Jean, 500. 45 Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg, Stilkritik, 74-75. 46 Ibid., 76-77; cf. also Boismard and Lamouille, Jean, 492, 503; Schweizer, Ego Eimi, 89. 47 Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg, Stilkritik, 88-90; Schweizer, Ego Eimi, 90-91. 48 Ibid., 113-14; cf. also Boismard and Lamouille, Jean, 494, 499. 361 7.2 Theological Features of the Johannine Discourses The comparative results of our study allow us in brief to locate several distinctive features of the theological content in the Johannine discourses without losing sight of fundamental continuities with Jesus’ teaching in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. This should help us to be more precise in describing the development undergone by the Johannine discourses when compared to the words of Jesus in the Synoptics. Given the constraints of this dissertation, we will not be able to do justice to Johannine theology and its unique characteristics in any detail. 49 The primary theological characteristics of the Fourth Gospel are accounted for in the purpose statement in John 20: 30-31: Now Jesus performed many other miraculous signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. Here the Fourth Evangelist tells his readers that his Gospel is designed to lead to and strengthen faith in Jesus as the Son of God. 50 Covered in nuce in 49 Besides the theological introductions in the major commentaries, cf. the following summaries of Johannine theology: D. Moody Smith, The Theology of the Gospel of John, New Testament Theology (Cambridge: University Press, 1995); Peter Stuhlmacher, Von der Paulusschule bis zur Johannesoffenbarung. Der Kanon und seine Auslegung, vol. 2 of Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), 199-286; Ferdinand Hahn, Die Vielfalt des Neuen Testaments: Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums, vol. 1 of Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), 586-732; Frank J. Matera, New Testament Theology: Exploring Diversity and Unity (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 261-317; Schnelle, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 659-750; and now Thomas Schreiner, Theology of the New Testament: Magnifying God in Christ (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2008), 80-95, 133-38, 240-60, 276-87 et al.); as well as Craig R. Koester, The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008) and Köstenberger, A Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters: The Word, the Christ, the Son of God. Biblical Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2009). Among the few works of New Testament Theology that deal explicitly and in some detail with the differences and commonalities between the “theologies” of John and the Synoptics are Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 249-344, and I. Howard Marshall, New Testament Theology: Many Witnesses, One Gospel (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2004), 579-93. 50 The questions regarding this purpose statement of the Fourth Gospel are extremely complex. It is not entirely clear whether the author is writing for unbelievers (i.e., to lead to faith) or for believers (i.e., to strengthen faith). On the syntactical questions involved, see Donald A. Carson, “Syntactical and Text-Critical Observations on John 20: 30-31: One More Round on the Purpose of the Fourth Gospel,” JBL 124.4 (2005): 693-714 (who opts for an evangelistic purpose) and Gordon D. Fee, “On the Text and Meaning of John 20, 30-31,” in vol. 3 of The Four Gospels, ed. Frans van Segbroeck, BETL 100 (Leuven: Peeters, 1992), 2193-2205 (who argues that John was primarily written for believers). Among the commentators who argue that the Fourth Evangelist is primarily writing for an audience of unbelievers are, besides Carson, also Mor- 362 this purpose statement is the Fourth Gospel’s distinctive approach to Jesus’ christological identity (7.2.1), to the importance of belief in Jesus as the divine Son (7.2.2), and to life as a present soteriological reality (7.2.3). 51 To this we may add the distinct dualistic emphasis displayed in the teaching of Jesus in John (7.2.4). 7.2.1 The Johannine Discourses Offer a More Extensive and Explicit View of Jesus’ Christological Identity The Johannine discourses examined in this study are characterized by a few dominant theological features regarding the identity of Jesus. While Christology in general is central to the Fourth Gospel, three christological concepts stand out within these portions of direct speech material: (a) Jesus’ heavenly origin and preexistence, (b) his identity as an emissary sent by God, as well as (c) his special filial relationship with God the Father. Again, none of these themes are uniquely Johannine, yet all constitute a significant development from the christological portrait presented in Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptic Gospels. Before tackling in detail the differences (and similarities) between John and the Synoptics, we ought to be aware of a fundamental christological agreement between the Fourth Gospel and the Synoptics, namely, they concur in their portrayal of Jesus as both a human person and the divine representative. In both major legs of gospel tradition Jesus is presented as the Messiah, sent by God the Father to redeem mankind. And all four Gospels climax their christological accounts by focusing on Jesus’ obedience to God’s will that manifests itself in his death on the cross, his vindication through resurrection, and his second coming in glory. With this general picture in mind, we turn to the three distinct christological features in the Johannine discourses mentioned above. In the Fourth Gospel Jesus frequently refers to (a) his own preexistence or heavenly origin. 52 In John 3: 13 he portrays himself as “the one who descended from heaven.” Likewise, the Bread of Life Discourse is permeated by the recurrent refrain that Jesus has “come down from heaven” (John 6: 33, 38, 50, 51). Another explicit statement of Jesus’ divine provenance can be found in ris, John, 30-35 and Dodd, Interpretation, 9. Keener, John, 2: 1215-16 and Thyen, Johannesevangelium 775-76, see the primary purpose of the Fourth Gospel in strengthening the faith of believers. However, it may well be that the Fourth Gospel was written with dual purpose, both to initiate faith in Jesus and to deepen the faith of those who already believed. 51 Cf. Frank Thielman, Theology of the New Testament: A Canonical and Synthetic Approach (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2005), 50. 52 For a brief discussion of preexistence in the Fourth Gospel, see Loader, Christology, 147-53. 363 John 8: 42: “I have come from God” (cf. also 8: 14, 23, 26, 40). Yet, when it comes to this christological concept of heavenly origin the recent work of Simon Gathercole on The Preexistent Son in the Synoptics has made it difficult to restrict preexistence Christology to John among the canonical Gospels. 53 This is to say that far from containing only “a restrained Christology from below,” preexistence seems to be indeed a notable aspect of the selfconsciousness of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. 54 In our comparison between the Johannine statements of preexistence and Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics we have identified Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 with its focus on the unique relationship between Jesus and the Father as an at least implicit clue towards the Son’s heavenly origin: “No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him.” 55 Further, we have adduced as parallels to Johannine propositions several “I have come”-sayings such as Luke 12: 49 (“I have come to bring fire on the earth”) or Mark 2: 17 (“I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners”; cf. also Matt 5: 17; Luke 12: 51 par. Matt 10: 34; Matt 10: 35 et al.). In all likelihood, these synoptic sayings presuppose a heavenly abode of the preexistent Jesus even though the focus is more on the actual purpose of his coming. 56 As Gathercole remarks: “References to Jesus’ coming have much the same sense in all four Gospels, although John does of 53 Cf. the statement of Friedrich Avemarie on the back cover of Gathercole’s monograph. 54 Gathercole, The Preexistent Son, 294-95. Gathercole builds on the work of scholars like Richard Bauckham and Larry Hurtado, who have emphasized the divine and transcendent nature of Jesus, thus arguing for a rather exalted Christology in the Synoptics. Cf., e.g., Richard Bauckham, “The Throne of God and the Worship of Jesus,” in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism: Papers from the St Andrews Conference on the Historical Origins of the Worship of Jesus, ed. C.C. Newman, J. Davila, and G. Lewis (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 43-69;; Larry Hurtado, “Pre-70 CE Jewish opposition to Christ- Devotion,” JTS 50 (1999): 35-58. Among those who find the idea of the Son’s preexistence in the Synoptics are Johannes Schreiber, Die Markuspassion: Eine redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung, BZNW 68 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1993), 210-59, 374-77; and Ludger Schenke, “Gibt es im Markusevangelium eine Präexistenztheologie? ,” ZNW 91 (2000): 45-71. For an overview of the previous consensus, i.e., a denial of preexistence Christology in the Synoptics, see Gathercole, The Preexistent Son, 4-9. Most prominent among those who do not find preexistence in the Synoptic Gospels is James D. G. Dunn (cf. his Christology in the Making, esp. 47, 257). Dunn has severely criticized Gathercole’s results in a book review for the Review of Biblical Literature 4 (2007). 55 Gathercole remarks that traditionally, Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 has been the most important evidence for preexistence in the Synoptics. He himself then goes on to conclude with some caution: “The imagery of Jesus’ presence in the heavenly council at the deliberation of the predestined divine purpose (Matt. 11.26) might perhaps point in the direction of preexistence. Again, the statement immediately after about the Father’s commission of all things to the Son (Matt. 11.27 could then be interpreted as involving the preexistent Christ in a similar heavenly court setting, but this really only remains in the realm of possibility.” (Preexistent Son, 280.) 56 Ibid., 296. 364 course make explicit what is only implicit in the other three: it is a coming ‘down from heaven’ ‘into the world.’” 57 Without denying the differences among the Gospels, what we find in the Johannine discourses is no theological construct sui generis but a fuller development of what, to say the least, is already hinted at in the Synoptic Gospels. Whereas the Synoptic Jesus does not clarify where he actually came from, leaving the question of preexistence open, the Johannine discourses are characterized by a strong christological emphasis on the heavenly existence of Jesus before his earthly manifestation. 58 Having enhanced the synoptic teaching of the “coming Jesus,” a clearer and more prominent vision of Jesus’ origin and preexistence becomes a Johannine hallmark. The christological concept of heavenly origin closely coheres with (b) the Johannine Jesus’ emphasis of being commissioned by God. 59 Yet, while the notion of preexistence is only implicit in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we find explicit allusions to the sending of Jesus in the Synoptics, though less frequent than in John. The repeated reference to Jesus as “the sent one” is obviously among the most redundant elements in the Johannine discourses. What we see in the Fourth Gospel is an “envoy Christology” featuring Jesus as the divine emissary sent on a mission by the Father. Hence, Jesus frequently refers to the Father as “the one who sent me,” especially in the Bread of Life Discourse (John 6: 29, 39, 44, 57) and the Light of the World Discourse (John 8: 16, 18, 26, 29, 42; cf. also 14: 24; as well as 3: 17). Outside the passages treated in this study, we find an additional 27 references to 57 Ibid., 295. 58 Marshall, New Testament Theology, 583: “The difference, therefore, [between John and the Synoptic Gospels] lies more in the way in which the preexistence of the Logos or Son of God is thematic and central in John.” However, what we find between John and the Synoptics seems to be less of a development than Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 269, has allowed for in saying that “the statement that Jesus was ‘sent’ from God, which may originally have merely had the connotations of a prophetic role, in the Johannine context may be said to have taken on the extra connotation of pre-existence.” 59 Cf., e.g., Zimmermann, “Metaphoric Networks,” 387: “The specialists in this area will immediately agree that the mission imagery or the envoy Christology is clearly emphasized in the Gospel of John both immanently in the text as well as in comparison to the other Gospels.” In his deliberations on metaphor in the Fourth Gospel, Jan G. van der Watt, states that “the mission of the Son is a central motif as well as one of the structural pillars of this Gospel” (Family of the King: Dynamics of Metaphor in the Gospel according to John, BIntS 47 [Leiden: Brill, 2000], 300 [296-303], and literature there). On the significance of the mission of Jesus according to the Fourth Gospel, see also Andreas J. Köstenberger, The Missions of Jesus and the Disciples according to the Fourth Gospel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 45-140; as well as Paul N. Anderson, “The Having-Sent-Me Father: Aspects of Agency, Encounter, and Irony in the Johannine Father-Son Relationship,” Semeia 85 (1999): 33-57. 365 the sending motif. 60 The conspicuous prevalence of such “sending statements” in the Johannine discourses deepens Jesus’ christological selfportrait as the heavenly emissary who has come to fulfill the divine plan of salvation. When we compare this characteristic feature of Johannine Christology with the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics we observe once again that the Johannine Jesus enhances the synoptic picture without introducing an entirely new theological element. We have found scattered references to Jesus’ sending throughout the Synoptic Gospels. 61 Luke 4: 18 (“He has sent me to proclaim”) and 4: 43 (“that is what I was sent to do”) reveal that Jesus had a clear sense of his being sent on a (messianic) mission. The sending motif is also present in Matt 10: 40 (“whoever receives me receives the one who sent me”; also Mark 9: 37 par. Luke 9: 48) and Luke 10: 16 (“the one who rejects me rejects the one who sent me”). In addition, two synoptic parables may contain references to Jesus as the divine emissary. In the parable of the great banquet in Luke 14: 17, it is possible to identify Jesus as the slave “sent” to invite guests to the banquet. 62 Similarly, in the parable of the wicked tenants in Matt 21: 37 pars., the vineyard owner finally “sent his son,” which is best understood as a reference to Jesus as the Son of God. 63 Thus, once again, we find traceable continuities between a theological theme in the Fourth Gos- 60 In John 4: 34; 5: 23, 24, 30, 38; 7: 16, 18, 28, 29, 33; 9: 4; 10: 36; 11: 42; 12: 44, 45, 49; 13: 16, 20; 15: 4; 16: 5; 17: 3, 8, 18, 21, 23, 25; 20: 21. On the phrase o` pe, myaj me as a characteristic feature of Johannine style, see Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg, Stilkritik, 151-52. 61 On Jesus’ sending expressed in the Synoptic Gospels, see Gathercole, The Preexistent Son, 177-89. Gathercole argues that the “sending sayings” do not imply preexistence per se as their exact meaning is contingent upon the interpretation of the “coming sayings” in the Synoptics. Yet, he concludes, “when these statements are placed within the framework of Jesus’ coming from God and his heavenly identity expressed in the ‘I have come’ sayings, the sending sayings also make best sense in that framework.” (189) 62 Cf. Arland J. Hultgren, The Parables of Jesus: A Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 337; as well as Bock, Luke 9: 51-24: 53, 1273; and Nolland, Luke, 2: 755: “The action corresponds to Jesus’ invitation of his contemporaries into the kingdom of God (to be rejected in v 18).” Cf. also Bovon, Luke, 2: 509, pace Joseph A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke (x-xxiv). Introduction, Translation, and Notes, AB 28A (New York: Doubleday, 1985), 1055. 63 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3: 176: “sending + rejection of son stand for sending + rejection of Jesus;;” as well as Klyne Snodgrass, The Parable of the Wicked Tenants: An Inquiry into Parable Interpretation, WUNT 27 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), 80-87; and Craig L. Blomberg, Interpreting the Parables (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1990), 250, who talks about a “veiled self-reference” of Jesus. We do not find convincing the view that such an allegorizing equation of the son with Jesus strongly argues for the inauthenticity of the parable. No more compelling is the argument of John S. Kloppenborg, The Tenants in the Vineyard: Ideology, Economics, and Agrarian Conflict in Jewish Palestine, WUNT 195 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), who regards the synoptic versions as secondary, christologically inflated modifications of the original message of the parable which has been preserved in Gosp. Thom. 65 and had to be interpreted in realistic-fictional terms. pel and its synoptic counterparts. The Synoptic Jesus apparently understood himself to be sent on a divine mission even though this only selectively comes to the fore in his teaching. By contrast, we find that the sending motif in the Johannine discourses develops into a much more dominant marker of Jesus’ christological identity through the means of constant repetition. 64 Arguably the primary focus of Jesus’ christological identity in the Fourth Gospel, and one distinguishable from the synoptic tradition, is (c) his filial relationship with God the Father. 65 Because he is of heavenly origin, the Johannine Jesus repeatedly emphasizes his close unity with “the Father” who sent him. The close relationship between the Father and the Son “is interwoven throughout the entire fabric of the Gospel.” 66 This is clearly not the case in the Synoptic Gospels. Indeed, the Synoptic Jesus is somewhat reticent when it comes to his sonship and relation to the Father. While the theological motif of divine sonship is self-evident in the Synoptic Gospels (cf., e.g., Mark 1: 11; 9: 7; Matt 3: 11 par. Luke 4: 41), the self-designation as “Son [of God]” appears only occasionally in the teaching of Jesus in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Once again we find an implicit parallel present in Jesus’ parable of the wicked tenants in Matt 21: 37 par. Mark 9: 37: “Finally he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’” Other claims to sonship can be found in Jesus’ statement of ignorance about the time of the Parousia (Mark 13: 32: “But as for that day or hour no one knows it- neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son- except the Father”) as well as (albeit only in implicit form) in his positive answer to the high priest’s question “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One? ” in Mark 14: 61-62. The most explicit among synoptic christological statements is again Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22: “All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son decides to reveal him.” Here Jesus’ unique sonship and the mutual knowledge of the Son and the Father are featured as the basis for Jesus’ role as the authoritative revealer of divine truth. This saying also reveals Jesus’ address to God as Father as another point of connection between the Johannine discourses and the 64 On the much more frequent use of the verb pe,mpw (especially in phrases like o` pe, myaj me “the one who sent me”) in the Fourth Gospel when compared with the Synoptics, see Abbott, Vocabulary, 226. 65 Cf. Donald Guthrie, New Testament Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1981), 312: “This indeed is the dominant feature in John’s Christology and distinguishes it from that of the synoptic gospels.” Also Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 283: “One of the most distinct differences between the Synoptics and John is the different role Jesus’ sonship plays. (…) It is obvious that Jesus’ sonship is the central christological idea in John (…).” On the fundamental role of the Father-Son-relationship in John, cf. also Marianne Meye Thompson, “The living Father,” Semeia 85 (1999): 19-31. 66 Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 284. 366 words of Jesus in the Synoptics. It is not uncommon even for the Synoptic Jesus to call God “my Father,” thus highlighting his distinctive identity as the unique Son of God (Matt 7: 21; 10: 32, 33; 11: 27; 12: 50; 16: 17; 18: 10, 14, 19; 20: 23; 25: 34; 26: 29, 39, 42, 53; Luke 2: 49; 10: 22; 22: 29; 24: 49). The word path,r as a form of address for God occurs on Jesus’ lips in all strands of synoptic gospel tradition; four times in Mark, eight times in Matthew-Luke, four times in Luke, and 23 times in Matthew. 67 In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus addresses God as “my Father” 24 times. More significant still, in the portrayal of his teaching in John, Jesus constantly stresses his filial relationship to God, referring over a hundred times to “the Father.” 68 Again, there can be no doubt that the christological identity of Jesus expressed in the Johannine discourses centers on Jesus’ unique role as the Son of the Father. 69 In the discourse sections examined in this study we are told that belief in the one and only Son of God is necessary in order to be saved (John 6: 40: “everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life;;” also 3: 15-16, 18; 6: 47; 8: 24; as well as 5: 24; 9: 35; 10: 9; 11: 25-26); Jesus is the exclusive way to the Father (John 14: 6: “No one comes to the Father except through me;;” also 6: 37). The Son has been sent by the Father (see above) and thus both his works and his words are works and words of God (John 8: 18, 26, 28, 38; 14: 10, 24; cf. also 5: 17, 19; 10: 32; 17: 8). Because of his heavenly origin, Jesus owns exclusive knowledge of the Father (John 6: 46; 14: 7) so that whoever has seen or known him has encountered the Father (John 14: 9: “The person who has seen me has seen the Father;;”also 8: 19; 14: 13). As Son, Jesus has been given divine authority handed over to him by the Father (John 6: 27; cf. also 3: 35) and he is committed to honor and love his Father by doing his will (John 8: 49; 14: 31; also 15: 10). What is more, Jesus acknowledges his own subordination to the Father to whom he will return (John 14: 28: “I am going to the Father, because the Father is greater than I am; ” also 14: 2; 5: 19-20). Whereas all of these characteristics of Jesus’ relation with the Father are Johannine in their specifics, none of them does more than make explicit what can reasonably be deduced from what we find in the Synoptic Gospels as our detailed comparison has shown. Even the poign- 67 Cf. Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology: The Proclamation of Jesus (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971), 62. E.g., Mark 8: 38 pars.; 14: 36 pars.; Matt 6: 9 par. Luke 11: 2; Matt 7: 11 par. Luke 11: 13; Luke 23: 34, 46; Matt 6: 1, 4; 10: 32, 33; 15: 13; 18: 35. 68 Edith Zingg, Das Reden von Gott als „Vater“ im Johannesevangelium, Herders Biblische Studien 48 (Freiburg: Herder, 2006), 317, concludes at the end of her study: “Wie keine andere biblische (und frühjüdische) Schrift ist das JohEv von der Gottesbezeichnung ‚Vater‘ geprägt.” 69 On the following compilation of features of Jesus’ sonship, see also Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 284-85; Köstenberger and Swain, Father, Son, and Spirit, 75-92. On the presentation of God as “the Father” in the Fourth Gospel, see ibid., 61-74; Zingg, Vater, esp. 107-131 (on John 8: 31-59), 167-212 (on John 13: 31-14: 31), and the summarized inventory 303-25;; also Meyer, “Father.” 367 ant culmination of Johannine christological identity, namely, the perfect unity or oneness between the Son and the Father in John (John 14: 10-11: “I am in the Father, and the Father is in me; ” also 5: 23; 10: 15, 30, 38; 12: 44-45; 13: 20) is not far removed from the intimate connection expressed in at least one stratum of synoptic tradition (Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22; cf. also Matt 10: 40; Luke 10: 16). 70 On the whole, the parallels between John and its synoptic counterparts show that the theological features reviewed here with reference to a conception of Jesus’ identity are, at their core, also found in the Synoptic Gospels. 71 We are dealing with the same Christology in different guise. 72 Regarding the christological themes mentioned in this section, what sets the Johannine portrait apart is its willingness to underline with greater clarity what is only implied in the Synoptics, the sheer quantity of references to Jesus’ origin, sending, and sonship, and a more detailed exposition of what his filial relationship with the Father entails. The Johannine discourses have significantly expanded on parts of synoptic Christology, thus offering us a deepened, yet corresponding view of who Jesus is. The angle from which the Fourth Evangelist presents his account of Jesus’ teaching allows us to appreciate with greater clarity the christological self-expression of the one sent by the Father. However, to invoke a large christological gap between John and the Synoptics and to use it as an argument against the reliability of the Fourth Gospel goes well beyond what the evidence permits. 7.2.2 The Johannine Discourses Have a Clearer Focus on Jesus as the Personal Object of Faith In conjunction with their elaborate portrait of Jesus’ identity, the Johannine discourses further highlight Jesus as the essential object of faith necessary to appropriate salvation. This central theme spans the whole of the Fourth Gospel from the prologue (John 1: 12: “But to all who have received him- those who believe in his name- he has given the right to become God's 70 On the “uniqueness of the Johannine motif,” see Appold, Oneness Motif, esp. 289-94, yet note his reservation regarding any synoptic resemblances to it (cf. above chapter 5 footnote 71). 71 Cf. Dodd, “The Portrait of Jesus,” 195, who used a similar formulation referring to the relationship between the Synoptics and John 5: 19-30. 72 Cf. also Eugen Ruckstuhl, “Jesus und der geschichtliche Mutterboden im vierten Evangelium,” in Vom Urchristentum zu Jesus: Für Joachim Gnilka, ed. Hubert Frankemöller and Karl Kertelge (Freiburg: Herder, 1989), 286: “Wir können sagen, daß die literarischen Ausdrucksformen der johanneischen Christusreden eine Transformation der Hoheitsaussagen des irdischen Jesus, wie wir sie in den synoptischen Evangelien finden, darstellen. Der vierte Evangelist verwendet einen anderen Sprachschlüssel als Zugang zu den gleichen hoheitlichen Inhalten, einen Sprachschlüssel, der dem geschichtlichen Jesus nicht zur Verfügung stand.” 368 children”) to the final purpose statement (John 20: 31: “But these are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name”). In order to gain eternal life, the Johannine Jesus requires faith in himself, the great “I am,” the ultimate Son of the Father. If we approach this theological motif from a Synoptic angle, we realize that the kind of faith that comes to the fore in the Johannine discourses surpasses the picture we find in Matthew, Mark, or Luke. 73 This impression is confirmed by a brief glance at word statistics, which generally reveal the importance of faith for Johannine Soteriology, especially when compared with the Synoptics. The verb piste,uw is used 89 times in John (64 times on the lips of Jesus 74 ), as opposed to 11 times in Matthew (nine), 14 times in Mark (nine), and nine times in Luke (five). 75 In the Synoptics Jesus often speaks about faith in the context of his miracle working. Thus, he tells the synagogue ruler in Mark 5: 36: “Do not be afraid, just believe” (cf. also Matt 8: 13;; 9: 23, 28). Lack of trust in Jesus’ authority to perform miracles is expressed in Matt 17: 17 pars. (“You unbelieving generation”), similar in perspective to John 6: 36 (“you have seen me and still do not believe”; cf. 6: 64; 8: 45, 46; also 10: 25; Luke 22: 67-68). More specifically, Jesus speaks of believing in the good news of the gospel that he proclaims (Mark 1: 15: “Repent and believe the gospel! ”). The call to believe in the message (John 5: 47; [4: 50], also 3: 12) and works (John 14: 11b; also 10: 38; [4: 48; 6: 30; 7: 31]) of Jesus is present in the Fourth Gospel as well. But the Johannine discourses go beyond the Synoptic Gospels in accentuating that faith in Jesus’ witness (oral or through signs) is actually tantamount to believing Jesus himself (e.g., John 8: 46: “If I am telling you the truth, why don’t you believe me? ; ” cf. also 8: 45; [8: 31]; 5: 38, 46; 10: 37, 38). In the Fourth Gospel Jesus further specifies the essential content of faith by stating that people ought to “believe that” ( piste,uw o[ti ) 76 he is in perfect unity with the Father (John 14: 10-11: “I am in the Father and the Father is in me”), and that he actually is the divine “I am” (John 8: 24: “For 73 E.g., Rudolf Schnackenburg, “Exkurs VII: The Notion of Faith in the Fourth Gospel,” in vol. 1 of The Gospel According to St. John, trans. Kevin Smyth (New York: Crossroad, 1980), 558: “Auch nach Art und Sinn ist ‚Glauben‘ bei Joh weit über die Syn hinausgewachsen (…).” Also Ferdinand Hahn, “Das Glaubensverständnis im Johannesevangelium,” in Glaube und Eschatologie: Festschrift für Werner Georg Kümmel, ed. Erich Gräßer and Otto Merk (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985), 52: “Bei der Verwendung und dem Verständnis des Glaubensbegriffs im Johannesevangelium ist der Unterschied zu den Synoptikern (…) beachtenswert (…).” 74 Occurrences in John 3, where it is unclear whether Jesus or the evangelist is speaking, have been counted (see above chapter 3.1.1). 75 Interestingly enough, the noun pi,stij does not occur in the Fourth Gospel, yet the number of occurrences in the Synoptic Gospels is not too large either (eight times in Matt, five times in Mark, and 11 times in Luke). 76 Cf. Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg, Stilkritik, 149-50, on piste,uw o[ti as a conspicuous element of Johannine style. 369 unless you believe that I am he; ” also 13: 19). 77 The saving consequences of such faith are repeatedly made explicit in John (John 6: 47: “the one who believes has everlasting life; ” also 6: 40; 3: 15-16; 3: 18; 8: 24; as well as 5: 24; 9: 35; 11: 25-26). While the Synoptics are certainly aware of this concept (cf. Luke 8: 12-13; Matt 19: 28-29), a clear utterance in this respect is limited to one (likely secondary) passage (Mark 16: 16: “The one who believes and is baptized will be saved”). More significant still, in the Johannine discourses, Jesus becomes the personal object of faith in which faith refers “to selfcommitment to the person whose teaching has been accepted intellectually.” 78 This is mainly expressed by the use of piste,uw eivj 79 that means “the response of the whole person to the revelation that has been given in Christ” 80 (e.g., John 6: 40: “Everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him;;” cf. 3: 15, 16, 18; 6: 29, 35; 14: 12; also 7: 38; 12: 36, 44, 46). This is determinant for the Fourth Gospel’s overall Christology: Jesus, as the sent one, is the representative of God in an absolute sense, so that believing in him has to be equated with faith in God. 81 Nowhere can this be seen more clearly than in John 14: 1, where Jesus states “You believe in God, believe also in me.” The Synoptic Jesus does not quite attain this christological explicitness. Surely, what is present in both the Johannine and the synoptic teaching is the importance and necessity of “following Jesus” or “coming to Jesus” (John 6: 35, 37, 44, 45). The description of Jesus’ disciples as followers pictured in John 8: 12 (“Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness; ” cf. 8: 31, also 10: 4, 27; 12: 26) can also be found in Matt 16: 24 pars. (“If anyone wants to become my follower, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”) or Matt 19: 28 (“you who have followed me;;” also Matt 9: 9 pars.). The invitation to come is pronounced both in John 6: 35 (“The one who comes to me will never go hungry; ” cf. 6: 37, 44, 45; also 5: 40; 7: 37) as well as in Matt 11: 28 (“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened”) or Luke 6: 47 (“Everyone who comes to me and listens to my words and puts them into practice - I will show you what he is like”). However, this type of general adherence is a step from the Johannine emphasis of a personal identification with Jesus as the central object of faith. The only overt reference to faith directed toward Jesus in the Synop- 77 Outside the discourses covered in this study, Jesus summons people to believe that he came from God (John 16: 27, 30), and that God has sent him (11: 42;; 17: 8, 21). Peter’s confession in John 6: 69 contains the belief that Jesus is the Holy One of God, while in John 11: 27 Martha believes that he is the Christ. 78 Marshall, New Testament Theology, 585. 79 The phrase piste,uw eivj has also been noted as characteristic of John’s style by Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg, Stilkritik, 150-51. 80 Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 308. In accordance with Hahn, “Glaubensverständnis,” 56, also Schnelle, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 677: “(…) womit ein grundlegender Zug des joh. Glaubensverständnisses offenbar wird: Die Bindung des Glaubens an die Person Jesus Christus.” [italics his] 81 Hahn, “Glaubensverständnis,” 57-58. 370 tics (expressed by piste,uw eivj ) is Matt 18: 6, where Jesus mentions, almost incidentally, “these little ones who believe in me.” 82 Yet, despite a clear and frequent use of this theme as a theological motif, it has been rightly observed that the concept of Jesus requiring faith in himself is implied throughout the Synoptic Gospels. That Jesus called for faith in himself as Messiah can be seen in the words of the scoffers at the cross (Mark 15: 32: “Let the Christ, the king of Israel, come down from the cross now, that we may see and believe! ”) and is at least reflected in his insistence to be acknowledged before men (Matt 10: 32 par. Luke 12: 8: “Whoever, then, acknowledges me before people, I will acknowledge before my Father in heaven.”). 83 Having outlined this second theological feature of the Johannine discourses in relation to Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics a pattern seems to emerge. When both portraits of dominical teaching are compared, we do not discover an underlying incompatibility, but once again find a Johannine tendency to recast with christological clarity and great consistency elements that are rooted in the kind of utterances we find in the other three canonical Gospels. Thereby, the main difference lies in the fact that in John the relationship between the disciples and their Lord is considerably more often expressed in terms of “believing in Jesus.” By heavily accentuating the general motif of “believing” as the required response to his ministry and even more explicitly “personalizing” such belief, the Johannine Jesus has taken to a further degree the understanding of faith as is found in the Synoptic Gospels. In other words, in his representation of dominical speech material the Fourth Evangelist has laid a much clearer focus on Jesus as the personal object of saving faith than the Synoptics. Such difference in emphasis, however, should not blur our vision on the fundamental theology which is shared between John and the Synoptics. 7.2.3 The Johannine Discourses Put Greater Emphasis on Life as a Present Soteriological Reality The third theological characteristic present in the Johannine purpose statement is that of “having life.” In contrast to the Synoptic Gospels the soteriological and eschatological perspective of the Fourth Gospel is mainly qualified not in terms of the “kingdom of God” but by the concept of “(eternal) life.” 84 Though the two terms are present interestingly enough in 82 In the parallel verse in Mark 9: 42 the additive eivj evme, is textcritically uncertain. NA 27 includes it in square brackets (see Metzger, Textual Commentary, 86). 83 Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 306-07; pace Kümmel, The Theology of the New Testament according to Its Major Witnesses: Jesus-Paul-John (London: SCM, 1974), 64. 84 Soteriological and eschatological perspectives frequently overlap. On this general theme see the encyclopedic three-volume work of Jörg Frey, Die johanneische Eschatologie, WUNT 96, 110, and 117 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997-2000), esp. idem., Escha- 371 both John and the Synoptics, they occur in significantly different frequency. While the usage of “(eternal) life [ zwh, ( aivw, nion )]” “assumes massive proportions in John,” 85 it occurs only infrequently in the Synoptics. At the same time, while the term “kingdom of God [ basilei,a tou/ qeou ]” is at the core of Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics, in John it appears on Jesus’ lips only twice in John 3: 3, 5 (cf. also 18: 36). Yet, from this profound difference in idiom, there is no reason to assume an aggravating divergence between the soteriological outlook of John and that of the Synoptics. While simply equating the concepts of the kingdom of God and eternal life would certainly go too far, the soteriological referent of both terms seems to be very similar. 86 In the triple tradition of Matt 19: 16-29 pars. Jesus connects the question of the rich young man about gaining eternal life with a saying on entering the kingdom of God (see also Matt 18: 3-9 par. Mark 9: 43-47; Matt 25: 31-46). Reciprocally, the two kingdom sayings in John 3: 3, 5 are contextually related to the concept of eternal life (cf. 3: 15). 87 Thus, the observable semantic preferences do not lend themselves to the assumption that the soteriological focus of John and the Synoptics is different at its core. However, as we further compare the soteriological and eschatological perspective of John and the Synoptics, we do find in the Fourth Gospel a distinct emphasis that is lacking in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. That the concept of (eternal) life is an important category in Johannine theological thought has already been noted. 88 Almost 70 percent of all occurrences of the term in the Gospels are in John. Once again, the Synoptics testify to the same concept. Yet, in line with the traditionally futuristic understanding of entering into the basilei,a tou/ qeou/ , they use it to speak of life in the Age to Come. For example, in his apocalyptic discourse in Matt 25: 46, Jesus predicts that at the end, when the Son of Man comes, he will separate humankind into two groups: “[the unrighteous] will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life [ avpe,rcesqai eivj zwh.n aivw, nion ].” Nowhere is this synoptic accentuation of eschatological life in tologie III, 261-70. See also the comments on Johannine eschatology in most major commentaries, recently, e.g., Keener, John, 1: 320-23. 85 Marshall, New Testament Theology, 586. 86 Chrys C. Caragounis, “The Kingdom of God in John and the Synoptics: Realized or Potential Eschatology? ,” in John and the Synoptics, ed. Adelbert Denaux, BETL 101 (Leuven: University Press, 1992), 473, talks about “dynamic equivalents for the believers’ eschatological experience of divine salvation.” Cf. Buchhold, “L’évangile de Jean,” 23: “La « vie éternelle de Jean » est le « Royaume de Dieu » des synoptiques! ” 87 Brown, John (i-xii), 159: “Eternal life and the kingdom of God are closely allied concepts for John.” Cf. Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 295, in referring to the two concepts: “(…) the underlying theological structure is the same, though expressed in different categories.” 88 Cf. Frey, Eschatologie III, 261: “ zwh, ist der Heilsbegriff kat V evxoch,n im Johannesevangelium.” [italics his] 372 the future more evident than in Jesus’ teaching about the rewards of discipleship in Luke 18: 29-30 pars.: “I tell you the truth, there is no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of God’s kingdom who will not receive many times more in this age - and in the age to come, eternal life [ evn tw/ | aivw/ ni tw/ | evrcome,nw| zwh.n aivw, nion ]” (cf. also Matt 18: 8-9 par. Mark 9: 43-45; Matt 7: 14; 19: 16, 17, 29; Mark 10: 17 par. Luke 18: 18; Luke 10: 25). 89 In the Synoptic Gospels, “the idiom ‘life’ and ‘eternal life’ in its redemptive significance is always a future eschatological blessing.” 90 This eschatological perspective is preserved in the Fourth Gospel, as can be seen in several Johannine predications focusing on the future state of believers. What has not, however, prevailed is the view present in parts of earlier Johannine scholarship, that viewed futuristic passages as belonging to a secondary stratum of Johannine redaction rather than to the original composition of the Gospel of John. 91 Within the discourses covered in this study we encountered several references to a future-oriented designation of the concept of life. In John 4: 14 and 6: 27 the water and the food that Jesus will give are said to “spring up” and “remain” to eternal life (cf. also 6: 35). This is to say that Jesus’ gift extends into a future period of life and thus transcends the present experience of salvation. A similar prospect seems to be in the background of the Johannine Jesus’ predication that “if anyone obeys my teaching, he will never see death” (John 8: 51). In addition, in the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6, the promise of the final resurrection is repeated in the fourfold refrain of raising the believer up (to eternal life) “at the last day” ( ÎevnÐ th/ | evsca,th| h`me,ra| ; John 6: 39, 40, 44, 54; also 5: 28-29). 92 This is clearly a preview of a future event and thus agrees with the predominant eschatological perspective to be encountered in the Synoptics. Moreover, though using “life”-language, the future dimension of Johannine eschatology is at least implicitly present in John 14: 2-3: “There are many dwelling places in my Father's house. Otherwise, I would have told you, because I am going away to make ready a place for you. And if I go and make ready a place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me, so that where I am you may 89 In these texts zwh, is contrasted with avpw,leia (Matt 7: 13), pu/ r aivw,nion (Matt 18: 8), pu/ r a; sbeston (Mark 9: 43,45), or ge,enna tou/ puro,j (Matt 18: 9). 90 Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 292; cf. also Frey, Eschatologie III, 267. 91 Schnelle, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 702, who refers to the detailed discussions of this issue in Frey, Eschatologie I; as well as idem., “Eschatology in the Johannine Circle,” in Theology and Christology in the Fourth Gospel, ed. Gilbert Van Belle, Jan G. van der Watt, and Petrus Maritz, ETL 184 (Leuven: Peeters, 2005), 47-82. “Deutero- Johannine supplements” such as John 5: 28-29; 6: 39, 40, 44; and 6: 51c-58 are still assumed by Hahn, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 1: 597; cf. now also Michael Theobald, “Futurische versus präsentische Eschatologie? Ein neuer Versuch zur Standortbestimmung der johanneischen Redaktion,” in Studien zum Corpus Iohanneum, WUNT 267 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 534-73. 92 On the phrase ÎevnÐ th/ | ev sca,th| h`me, ra| as a Johannine characteristic of style, cf. Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg, Stilkritik, 135. 373 be too.” If an eschatological interpretation of this passage is allowed for, 93 Jesus is talking about the preparation of future heavenly dwelling places to which he will take his disciples at his second coming. Outside of the speech material examined, John 12: 25 is probably the most articulate example of an inherent future perspective in the teaching of the Johannine Jesus. There Jesus contrasts life “in this world [ evn tw/ | ko,smw| tou,tw| ]” with guarding it “for eternal life [ |eivj zwh.n aivw, nion ],” thus triggering an awareness for one’s future destination (cf. also 11: 25-26). 94 It is obvious then, that in designating the gift of life as a future eschatological blessing, John’s Gospel concurs with the general thought of the Synoptics. 95 However, a closer look at several of the eschatological “life”sayings reveals that from Johannine perspective, even the future-oriented, post-mortal dimension of eternal life often has as its vantage point the present experience of coming to faith or following Jesus (e.g., John 4: 14; 6: 27; 8: 51). 96 It is this emphasis on future life as a present reality that constitutes the most remarkable characteristic of the soteriological teaching of the Johannine Jesus and one by which he goes significantly beyond the portrayal of his teaching in the other three canonical Gospels. 97 Before we take a closer look at this particular emphasis of the Fourth Gospel, we ought to remind ourselves briefly of the fact that Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics is not entirely future-oriented either. That the eschatological basilei,a tou/ qeou/ has invaded the present is clearly part of the salvationhistorical structure of the Synoptic Gospels. In his answer to the Pharisees, Jesus states: “But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has already overtaken you” (Matt 12: 28 par. Luke 11: 20; cf. his answer to John the Baptist in Matt 11: 2-6). Early in his ministry Jesus proclaims: “The 93 See the discussion in chapter 5.1.2 and the literature cited there; also Schnelle, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 705; Schreiner, Theology of the New Testament, 89. 94 See, e.g., Theobald, Johannes, 804: “(…) so bezeichnet zoē aiōnion (=ewiges Leben) das totaliter aliter des ihm geschenkten postmortalen Lebens bei Gott. Von daher gesehen, hebt sich der Vers von der stärker präsentisch konzipierten Lebensvorstellung des Evangelisten [see below] dann doch ab.” Also Lincoln, John, 350; and (on the relationship with synoptic thought) Dodd, Interpretation, 146: “This passage [i.e., John 12: 25] is the more significant because it is a Johannine rendering of a saying which is given in the Synoptics in various forms: Mark viii. 35, Matt x. 39, xvi. 25, Luke ix. 24, xvii. 33.” 95 On the roots of the Johannine (and, for that matter, synoptic) doctrine of eternal life in the Jewish idea of life in the Age to Come, see Frey, Eschatologie III, 262-68 (esp. 267), with reference to Dodd, Interpretation, 146-47. 96 Frey, Eschatologie III, 270. 97 E.g., Schnelle, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 703: “(…) traditionell zukünftige Vorgänge reichen bei ihm bereits in die Gegenwart hinein. Unübersehbar ist die Dominanz präsentisch-eschatologischer Aussagen im 4.Evangelium.” [italics his] Also Hahn, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 1: 702: “In der johanneischen Theologie steht unverkennbar die Gegenwart der Heilsverwirklichung und Heilsteilhabe im Vordergrund.” 374 time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is near” (Mark 1: 15; cf. similarly John 4: 23; also 5: 25). The presence of the kingdom is also acknowledged in Luke 17: 21: “For indeed, the kingdom of God is in your midst.” Regarding God’s gift of life, the assumption comes naturally that an inaugurated kingdom would bring with it “a foretaste of the life of the future age.” 98 In John, the life of the Age to Come becomes an explicit reality to be received by faith in the here and now in the person of Jesus. 99 Indeed, it was Jesus’ mission “to give life to the world” (John 6: 33) and thus he repeatedly affirms the truth that the one who believes possesses eternal life already in the present. This can be seen in John 3: 15-16 (“everyone who believes in him may have eternal life”) or 6: 47 (“the one who believes has eternal life”), as well as 6: 54; 3: 36; 5: 24, all featuring the present indicative of e; cw . 100 By locating the gift of life in the present age, it follows that the non-believer currently stands under judgment (John 3: 18: “The one who believes in him is not condemned. The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God”). The main reason for the emphasis on the present enjoyment of life has to do with what Jörg Frey has called “the personal identification of the eschatological zwh, with Jesus himself.” 101 In John, “the life of the age to come is (…) radically Christ-centered.” 102 Jesus teaches that he himself is “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14: 6; also 11: 25); the Father has granted him “to have life in himself” (John 5: 26). Jesus is the one who not only gives “living water” (John 4: 10), but as “the living bread that came down from heaven” he is also the ultimate giver of life as proven through his resurrection (John 6: 51: “If anyone eats from this bread he will live forever. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”). Therefore, the life of the Age to Come manifests itself in the present encounter with Jesus. Thus, Jesus states that “the one who follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8: 12). In the 98 Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 295. 99 E.g., ibid., 293: “Here is a teaching that is not found in any explicit form in the Synoptics, that the life of the Age to Come is already imparted to the believer.” 100 Caragounis, “Kingdom of God,” (going back to two earlier articles of his) has argued that the passages presented here do not actually contain what has been called a “present” or “realized” eschatology. Rather, on exegetical grounds, he opts for a different description of John’s standpoint, calling it a “potential” eschatology. We need not engage in this terminological dispute, since, in any event, Caragounis does not seem to contradict the case presented here, namely, that when it comes to the soteriological and eschatological perspective, we observe a Johannine development when compared with the Synoptics. On the phrase zwh.n e; cw as typically Johannine, see Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg, Stilkritik, 151. 101 Frey, Eschatologie III, 270: “Der letzte Grund der Gegenwart der Heilsgabe der zwh, liegt in der personalen Identifikation der eschatologischen zwh, mit Jesus selbst (…).“ Also ibid., 269: “Die Gegenwärtigkeit der Lebensgabe ist mithin christologisch begründet.” 102 Schreiner, Theology of the New Testament, 85-86. 375 same way, outside of the discourses covered, Jesus maintains that “I have come so that they may have life, and may have it abundantly” (John 10: 10) and defines life in terms of knowing him as the divine “sent one,” when he says, “Now this is eternal life - that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent” (John 17: 3). Finally, in anticipation of his cross and resurrection, Jesus speaks most clearly about the soteriological reality of possessing life in the here and now in John 6: 54: “The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” Tough not denying a future fulfillment of the promise of life, the Johannine Jesus accentuates that having eternal life is essentially an issue of identifying with him (his person, message, and ultimately his work on the cross) in the present. To conclude this brief summary of the Fourth Gospel’s view of salvation, we note that it is presented as multi-dimensional - both futureoriented and presently inaugurated. 103 If we compare this theological characterization with the Synoptic Gospels, we observe both substantial correlations as well as a significant shift in emphasis. The fundamental agreement between John and the Synoptics is well summarized by Smalley. He concludes that “John’s eschatological perspective, with its built-in resonance between the present and future tenses of Christ’s coming and the Christian’s salvation, is not far from that which is attributed to Jesus himself by the synoptic writers. They also suggest that the teaching of Jesus contained double polarity. Admittedly, (…) their emphasis differs from John’s by being markedly futurist. But as well as referring to the parousia of Jesus and the eternal life of the believer as future possibilities, the synoptic Gospels preserve a tradition which implies that these are also present realities.” 104 In other words, even with this theological feature, we need not affirm an antagonism between the Johannine discourses and the Synoptics that could increase our skepticism regarding the trustworthiness of the teaching of Jesus as represented in John. Both dimensions of Jesus’ teaching on eternal life belong - albeit to a varying degree - to the two major canonical strands of the Jesus tradition. At the same time, the author of the 103 Cf. on the basis of different redactional theories, e.g., Schnelle, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 706-07; as well as Brown, John (i-xii), cxvi-cxxi; Guthrie, New Testament Theology, 798-801; Frey, Eschatologie III, 464-71; Keener, John, 1: 320-23; now R. Alan Culpepper, “Realized Eschatology in the Experience of the Johannine Community,” in The Resurrection of Jesus in the Gospel of John, ed. Craig R. Koester and Reimund Bieringer, WUNT 222 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 254-58 et al.; pace Hans- Christian Kammler, Christologie und Eschatologie: Joh 5: 17-30 als Schlüsseltext johanneischer Theologie, WUNT 126 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 234, who denies a coexistence of present and futurist eschatology as genuine parts of Johannine theology: “Es kann deshalb keine Rede davon sein, daß das in anderen Schriften des Neuen Testaments zu beobachtende ,dialektische‘ Nebeneinander von präsentischer und futurischer Eschatologie auch für die johanneische Sicht kennzeichnend sei.” 104 Smalley, John, 269-70. 376 Fourth Gospel stands out from the writers of the Synoptic Gospels by his distinctive redaction of this aspect of dominical speech material. In his representation of Jesus’ words, the - in the truest sense - eschatological (i.e., futurist) designation of life plays a less significant role than the present aspects of salvation. While the Johannine Jesus approves of a futuristeschatological dimension within the concept of “life” and thus remains in basic continuity with synoptic ideas, he helps one to recognize with greater clarity the present soteriological implications of his incarnational ministry. More than for the Synoptic Jesus, the Age to Come has invaded the present so much so that the Johannine Jesus emphasizes that divine life is anchored in himself and thus becomes reality already in the here and now. In the Johannine discourses the “not yet” character of the salvation event is retained, but eternal life is given a greater distinctiveness as a present soteriological reality that manifests itself through believing in the life-giving Son of God. 7.2.4 The Johannine Discourses Contain a Distinct Dualistic Emphasis A final observation with regard to the theological content of the Johannine discourses is that they present us with a dualistic emphasis that seems to deviate significantly from the outlook of the Synoptic Gospels. Some have gone as far as saying that “[t]he most difficult problem in the Johannine theology is its apparently different dualism from that of the Synoptics.” 105 There can be no doubt that the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics is framed by a horizontal dualism between “this age” and the “Age to Come” (see, e.g., Matt 12: 32; Mark 10: 30). Contrary to that, the dualism in the Fourth Gospel is primarily vertical in nature. In John, Jesus prefers to contrast the world below and the world above, darkness and light, flesh and Spirit. All of these contrasts are prominent in the dialogues and discourses examined in this study. 106 The vertical dualism between two worlds is most clearly 105 Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 259. 106 In addition, see also the juxtaposition of “truth and lie” in John 8: 44-46, as well as the contrast between “freedom and slavery” in John 8: 31-36. For an overview of dualistic motives in the Fourth Gospel, see Köstenberger, Theology of John’s Gospel and Letters, 282-92. Cf. also Jörg Frey, “Zu Hintergrund und Funktion des johanneischen Dualismus,” in Paulus und Johannes: Exegetische Studien zur paulinischen und johanneischen Theologie und Literatur, ed. Dieter Sänger and Ulrich Mell, WUNT 198 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), 14-20, and Edzard Enno Popkes, Die Theologie der Liebe Gottes in den johanneischen Schriften, WUNT 2/ 197 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 14-17, who both, rather than referring to the Johannine dualism tend to speak of (several) dualistic motifs or dualisms (cf. also Schnelle, Theologie des Neuen Testaments, 643). According to Frey, “Dualismus,” 70, the different Johannine dualistic motifs do not go back to any history-of-religions milieu but are rooted in the intention of the author to 377 expressed by Jesus in John 8: 23: “You people are from below; I am from above. You people are from this world;; I am not from this world.” 107 The same distinction is visible in Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus, where he not only emphasizes the necessity of being “born from above” (John 3: 3; cf. also 3: 5) but also establishes an “above-“ and a “below-sphere” by saying, “No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven” (3: 13). At the core of Jesus’ teaching in the Bread of Life Discourse is his selfidentification as the true bread that “comes down from heaven [above] and gives life to the world [below]” (John 6: 33; cf. also 6: 38). From Johannine perspective, the world below is the sphere of darkness, while the world above is the sphere of light. 108 According to John 8: 12, Jesus as the “light of the world” has invaded the realm of darkness in order for people to escape this dark sphere and to “have the light of life” (cf. 9: 5; 11: 9; 12: 35-36, 46, also 1: 4- 9). Yet, the dualism between the two worlds is profound. In John 3: 19-20, Jesus remarks that even though “the light has come into the world” there remain people who “loved the darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed.” A final contrast that represents the vertical dualism in the Fourth Gospel is the one of flesh and Spirit. Human flesh, belonging to the earthly sphere, is unable in and of itself to enter the realm of the divine. What is needed is a birth from above, a birth of the Spirit that enables one to cross the border between the world of the flesh below and the heavenly realm above (John 3: 6-7). mould his material in this particular way: “Der Gestaltungswille des johanneischen Autors ist daher höher zu bewerten als der Einfluß religionsgeschichtlicher Milieus.” For the fundamental differences between Johannine and Gnostic thought, see Herbert Kohler, Kreuz und Menschwerdung: Ein exegetisch-hermeneutischer Versuch zur johanneischen Kreuzestheologie, ATANT 72 (Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 1987), 137-39 (cf. also the earlier remarks by Adolf Schlatter, Die Theologie der Apostel [Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 3 1977], 192). A strong influence of the Qumran writings on the dualism in the Fourth Gospel is denied by, among others, Richard Bauckham, “Qumran and the Fourth Gospel. Is there a Connection? ,” in The Scrolls and the Scriptures. Qumran Fifty Years After, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Craig A. Evans, JSPSup 26 (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1997), 267-79; and Jörg Frey, “Licht aus den Höhlen. Der johanneische Dualismus und die Texte von Qumran,” in Kontexte des Johannesevangeliums: Das vierte Evangelium in religions- und traditionsgeschichtlicher Perspektive, ed. Jörg Frey and Udo Schnelle, WUNT 175 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004), 117-203. 107 This opposition of “above” and “below” has been described as “the basic structure of Johannine dualism” by David E. Aune, “Dualism in the Fourth Gospel and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Neotestamentica et Philonica. Studies in Honour of Peder Borgen, ed. David E. Aune, Torrey Seland, and Jarl Henning Ulrichsen, NovTSup 106 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 285. 108 On these opposing metaphors of darkness and light, see also Otto Schwankl, Licht und Finsternis: Ein metaphorisches Paradigma in den johanneischen Schriften, Herders Biblische Studien 5 (Freiburg: Herder, 1995), esp. 148-222 (on John 3: 19-21 and 8: 12). 378 That this Johannine dualism is significantly different from the one generally expounded in the Synoptics can hardly be denied. At the same time, classifying this feature of Jesus’ teaching in John as a radically idiosyncratic piece of theology will not do either. Far from being inconsistent with the basic outlook of the Synoptic Gospels, a closer look at their conceptual content suggests that a vertical dualism is not entirely absent. For example, several synoptic words adduced as parallels to Johannine dualistic propositions refer to the “kingdom of heaven” or the “kingdom of God” (Matt 18: 3; Mark 10: 15 par. Luke 18: 17 et al.). Such phraseology certainly goes beyond a mere horizontal dualism of “this age” and “the Age to Come” but rather includes the notion of a vertical, heavenly counterpart to the present earthly sphere. Not focusing only on an eschatological kingdom about to unfold in history, in the Synoptics “heaven is conceived of as the dwelling place of God to which Jesus’ disciples become dynamically related.” 109 Apart from those synoptic parallels explicitly mentioned in our comparison, this vertical perspective is similarly expressed in several other places. 110 Jesus promises a “reward in heaven” to those suffering on account of him (Matt 5: 12) and exhorts people to not accumulate “treasures on earth” but “treasures in heaven” (Matt 6: 19-20; 19: 21). All this seems to suggest that the Johannine Jesus explicitly develops a theological element that is at least implicitly present in his synoptic teaching as well. This is underscored by the fact that the contrast between two competing realms of darkness and light is also not foreign to the theology of the Synoptic Jesus. Albeit not as pronounced as in John, the Synoptic Jesus can likewise describe this darkness-light dualism by somewhat cryptically referring to himself as the revealer of light. In this role he is able to remove darkness and to lift up those who respond to him to a life in the light of what John would have called “the world above”: 111 “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is full of light, but when it is diseased, your body is full of darkness. Therefore see to it that the light in you is not darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, with no part in the dark, it will be as full of light as when the light of a lamp shines on you” (Luke 11: 34-36; cf. also Matt 5: 14; 8: 12, as well as the Old Testament quotation in Matt 4: 16). The Johannine dualistic emphasis is also inherent in Jesus’ remark in the parable of the dishonest manager in Luke 16: 8, where he juxtaposes the world of darkness with the world of light by saying that “the people of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their contemporaries than the people of light” (cf. also the contrast between “people of the kingdom” and the “people of the evil one” in Matt 13: 38). Finally, we have seen that the contrast between flesh and Spirit is not outside the theological 109 Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 272. 110 Cf. ibid. 111 Cf. our comments on John 8: 12c above and literature cited there. 379 mind of the Synoptic Jesus, as he confronts the limits of the flesh with the spiritual realm of heaven (Matt 16: 17; cf. also Matt 26: 41 par. Mark 14: 38). When comparing the dualistic emphasis of the Fourth Gospel with the one in the Synoptics, one further observation needs to be taken into account. Despite the prominence of the vertical dimension of the dualism in the Fourth Gospel, the Johannine teaching of Jesus contains traces of the salvation-historical framework so salient in the Synoptic Gospels. This is to say that far from lifting the horizontal approach to an entirely different level, Johannine theology retains the conviction of a temporal sequence in which the old order is contrasted to and indeed replaced by a new eschatological era. This is visible in John 4: 21-23 where the vertical dimension of Spirit-empowered worship is supplemented by the horizontal contrast between worship in the old order and worship in the new salvationhistorical period inaugurated by Jesus (“a time is coming - and now is here; ” cf. also 5: 24-29). 112 That the Johannine discourses are not void of this horizontal dimension may also be suggested by the anticipation of a new era initiated by the departure of Jesus and the sending of the Holy Spirit (John 14: 16, 26). Thus, while there is no doubt that Johannine dualistic thought borders on the vertical, even from the limited scope of evidence discussed in this study, it appears to be reductionistic to confine it. 113 In summary, a comparison between Jesus’ discourses in John and his teaching in the Synoptics seems to indicate no more than a difference in emphasis regarding their particular dualistic outlook. The fundamental traits of both horizontal and vertical dualism are present in each of the two major strands of the canonical gospel tradition. The theological difference between the two portraits is that in the teaching of Jesus in John the historical (i.e., horizontal) dimension of salvation remains in the background, while the vertical dimension assumes center stage. As we saw, John is not unaware of the dawning of what the Synoptics call the eschatological “Age to Come” (even though he does not use such terms), nor would he ascribe to any kind of salvific action outside of history. Yet, rather than highlight the salvation-historical shift as done by the Synoptics, he consciously extends a theological element that is certainly present in the Synoptics and continually emphasizes the inimitability of the divine incarnation in Jesus - the “otherness” of the heavenly realm of light that invades the darkness of the present world through the mission of Jesus. Thus, even from this last feature of Johannine theology, the overall impression gained in this section is confirmed. Rather than trivializing the differences, we observe that there is a distinctive accentuation of the content of Jesus’ words in John when 112 Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 261: “Here we meet for the first time the joining of the vertical with the horizontal.” 113 Brown, John (i-xii), cxvi: “(…) the Johannine view of salvation is both vertical and horizontal.” 380 compared to the Synoptics. Yet, at the same time, there is sufficient continuity in substance between John and the Synoptics to conclude that the different renderings of dominical teaching are rooted in the same theological soil. To pin one against the others in terms of authenticity would not only underestimate the overall picture of Johannine-Synoptic relations, but would demand from the evangelists (in anachronistic fashion, as we have seen in chapter 2) a type of accuracy in transmitting Jesus’ teaching that lies outside the historiographical conventions and facilities of their time. 381 Chapter 8 The Johannine Discourses and Jesus’ Teaching in the Synoptics: Historical Implication s The results gathered in the main part of this study have revealed that the designation of the Johannine discourses as inauthentic on the grounds of assumed differences from the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics is unwarranted. The conceptual correlations between the major strands of Jesus tradition are too significant to justify on comparative grounds the categorical exclusion of the Johannine discourses from the pool of utterances that go back to the historical Jesus. This, however, is only a negative conclusion. As noted from the outset, the approach employed in this study does not have the potential to demonstrate in any way the historical accuracy of the Johannine discourses. So far, we did not prove that the Fourth Evangelist authentically reproduced the words of Jesus but only that Johannine-Synoptic relations may not be used as evidence to deny the historicity of Jesus’ discourses in the Gospel of John. Yet, is there more to be said? In the introduction we noted that despite our somewhat restricted approach, looming in the background of this study is the question as to what extent the author of the Fourth Gospel takes us back to the authentic voice of Jesus and whether Johannine discourses can provide an adequate portrayal of the historical Jesus. Thus, beyond the conclusions drawn hitherto, the question remains: How are we to deal with the historical aspects of the evidence examined in the preceding chapters? What is the value of the adduced correlations between the Johannine discourses and the Synoptics for an overall historical assessment of the reliability of the Fourth Gospel as a source for the words of Jesus? Without making any claim at completeness, the intention of this final chapter is to outline and reflect on a couple of historical issues that are of importance for rendering judgment on the authenticity of Jesus’ discourses in John. The first factor that influences the general historical verdict is the appraisal of the authenticity and relevance of the synoptic parallels as put forward in our comparative approach (8.1). Second, we need to ask how much confidence the Fourth Gospel deserves when it comes to the historical trustworthiness of its non-speech material (8.2). Third, we must give some thoughts on the question of authorship and its bearing on matters of 383 authenticity (8.3) before we finally reflect on the origin of the Johannine speech tradition and the conscious handling of Jesus tradition among the early Christians (8.4). However, the following sections are not designed to deal with these issues in any detail, but only to bring into focus the fact that answers given to these questions will figure largely as we evaluate the significance of the Johannine-Synoptic relations as presented in this study. The methodological approach of scholars like Peter Ensor or Craig Blomberg who have taken similar historical questions as the starting point of their investigation of Johannine authenticity is entirely appropriate. 1 They have rightly based the core of their studies on preliminary reflections regarding introductory matters that impinge on the question of authenticity. Since, for us, the question of authenticity has not been primary, a different approach was justified. Because our specific argument was not directly affected by answers to introductory questions, we did not frontload our study with a discussion of several controversial issues. However, as we now bring our study to a close it is necessary to broaden our perspective and reflect on the way these matters relate to the evaluation of our results. 8.1 The Authenticity and Relevance of Synoptic Parallels In our comparative approach employed in this examination, we have, until this point, avoided any discussion about the authenticity of Jesus’ synoptic utterances. However, we need to be aware that the overall assessment of our results is strongly dependent on the degree of authenticity that we ascribe to the synoptic sayings adduced as parallels for the Johannine discourses examined. Maurice Casey has made this clear in his response to Michael F. Bird in a literary debate on the birth of Christianity. Bird had argued that “[s]ome of the differences between John and the Synoptics are not quite as sharp as is often supposed,” substantiating his claim with what he considered as synoptic parallels coherent to Johannine teaching. 2 Against this, Casey insisted that in doing so, “he [Bird] compares John with the completed Synoptic Gospels, rather than with the historical Jesus.” 3 Assuming a gap between the historical Jesus and the Synoptics as we have them, Casey is actually arguing that if a synoptic saying cannot be verified as coming from the historical Jesus it can hardly serve as corroboration for any given teaching in the Johannine discourses. In other words, a synoptic parallel adds credibility to a Johannine proposition only as long as it can with some probability be proven as an authentic statement of Jesus. 1 Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 5-26; Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 17-67. 2 Michael F. Bird, “The Gospels,” in How Did Christianity Begin? A Believer and a Non- Believer Examine the Evidence (London: SPCK, 2008), 111. 3 Maurice Casey, “Response to Michael F. Bird by Maurice Casey,” in How Did Christianity Begin? A Believer and a Non-Believer Examine the Evidence (London: SPCK, 2008), 184. 384 8.1.1 Criteria for Authenticity of Synoptic Parallels Historical Jesus research has developed an extensive arsenal of criteria by which to assess the authenticity of synoptic sayings of Jesus. Yet, not all of these criteria can bear the same weight in making historical judgments. While some more or less categorically deny the usefulness of these criteria, 4 five of them are generally recognized as primary for the historical enterprise of authenticating the words of the Synoptic Jesus. 5 It serves our purposes here to give only brief definitions of these criteria. More detailed descriptions and possible weaknesses and limitations of each particular criterion can be found in the literature mentioned in the footnotes. 6 (1) Criterion of Embarrassment: Material that could have been perceived as embarrassing or problematic for the early church may be considered more likely to be authentic. (2) Criterion of Multiple Attestation (in Sources or Forms): Material that is found in multiple independent sources and/ or in different literary forms may be judged more likely to be authentic. 7 (3) Criterion of Dissimilarity (or Discontinuity): Material may be regarded as authentic, if it can be shown to be dissimilar to and thus not plausibly derived from both Judaism and the early church. Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter have argued that this principle ought to be replaced by a criterion of historical plausibility “which reckons with influences of Jesus on early Christianity and his involvement in a Jewish context.” 8 Likewise, N. T. Wright has nuanced this criterion of (double) dissimilarity proposing that it 4 Cf., e.g., Klaus Berger, “Kriterien für echte Jesusworte? ” ZNT 1 (1998), 52-58. 5 Cf., e.g., Meier, Marginal Jew, 1: 168-95, who lists a total of ten criteria but only considers the five we mention here as of primary importance; quite similarly now Robert L. Webb, “The Historical Enterprise and Historical Jesus Research,” in Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus: A Collaborative Exploration of Context and Coherence, ed. Darrell L. Bock and Robert L. Webb, WUNT 247 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 60-68. Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 115, focus on three criteria only. Cf. also Dennis Polkow, “Method and Criteria for Historical Jesus Research,” in Society of Biblical Literature 1987 Seminar Papers, ed. Kent H. Richards, SBLSP 26 (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987), 336-56; as well as several articles on method in Bruce Chilton and Craig A. Evans, eds., Authenticating the Words of Jesus, NTTS 28 (Leiden: Brill, 1999). 6 The definitions are largely based on Webb, “Historical Jesus Research,” 60-69. For further discussion, see also Craig A. Evans, Jesus and His Contemporaries: Comparative Studies, AGJU 25 (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 13-26; Stanley E. Porter, The Criteria for Authenticity in Historical-Jesus Research: Previous Discussion and New Proposals, JSNTSup 191 (Sheffield: Academic Press, 2000), 28-123; Stein, “‘Criteria’ for Authenticity.” 7 Unlike Meier, Marginal Jew, 1: 174-75, Webb treats “multiple attestation” and “multiple forms” as two separate primary criteria (“Historical Jesus Research,” 60-63). 8 Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria, trans. M. Eugene Boring (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002); citation taken from Theissen and Merz, The Historical Jesus, 116. Cf. Porter, Criteria for Authenticity, 113-22. 385 “must go [with] a criterion of double similarity: when something can be seen to be credible (...) within first-century Judaism, and credible as the implied starting-point (...) of something in later Christianity, there is a strong possibility of our being in touch with the genuine history of Jesus.” 9 (4) Criterion of (Literary) Coherence: Material that is coherent with other material already established as probably authentic may also be considered as likely having a certain historical credibility. (5) Criterion of Historical Coherence: Material that coheres with the historical circumstances of the time and can help one understand why Jesus was rejected by the Jewish authorities and was executed by Roman authorities is more likely to be authentic. 10 These and other secondary criteria 11 are applied to synoptic sayings in order to verify whether these sayings can be considered with some plausibility as coming from the historical Jesus. The assessment of such plausibility, as already indicated, is now a necessary next step for the historian who compares the Johannine discourses with the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics. In light of the results of this dissertation, the implications of these judgments of authenticity can be exemplified by looking at two synoptic utterances of Jesus that have been chosen due to their being repeatedly adduced as parallels to material found in the Johannine discourses. Thus, we will consider briefly the Son of Man sayings in Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 and in Mark 14: 62 pars. 9 Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 131-33, here 132. [italics his] 10 The designation “criterion of historical coherence” (to be distinguished from the “criterion of literary coherence” above) is proposed by Evans, Jesus and His Contemporaries, 13-15. Meier, Marginal Jew, 1: 177, calls this the “criterion of rejection and execution.” 11 Meier, Marginal Jew, 1: 178-83, mentions as secondary the criterion of traces of Aramaic, the criterion of Palestinian environment, the criterion of vividness of narration, the criterion of the tendencies of the developing synoptic tradition, and the criterion of historical presumption. 386 Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 The so -called ransom logion of Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 has been put forward as a synoptic parallel of John 3: 15, 16b, 17; 6: 33b, 48, 50a, 51a, 51c. But can it be considered as a faithful representation of the teaching of the historical Jesus? 12 Rudolf Pesch is among those who deny the authenticity of this synoptic saying. In a debatable reversal of the criterion of dissimilarity he argues that the ransom logion has verisimilitude in the milieu of Hellenistic Jewish Christians and thus has to be considered as a secondary formation. 13 E. P. Sanders employs the dissimilarity criterion in much the same way, claiming that “all the sayings which attribute to Jesus the will to die correspond so closely with what happened, and with early Christian doctrine, that the case for their creation by the early church is overwhelmingly strong.” 14 The Jesus Seminar, especially skeptical regarding the Johannine discourses as we have seen, has colored the saying in Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 gray, meaning that the utterance does not go back to Jesus but that the ideas it contains might be close to his own. Thus, the members of the Seminar reach the final conclusion that “[m]uch of the famous line recorded in v. 45 is Mark’s creation.” 15 On the other hand, Jesus’ passion prediction in Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 has not been without advocates of its authenticity. Sydney H. T. Page has defended the genuineness of this synoptic saying not least with reference to the criterion of multiple attestation. He finds a series of similar dominical sayings that seem to confirm that Jesus foresaw his early death and that he considered it a divine necessity. 16 Volker Hampel also renders 12 For detailed discussion of several interpretive issues in Mark 10: 45 pertaining to the question of authenticity, see (besides the major commentaries) esp. Scot McKnight, Jesus and His Death: Historiography, the Historical Jesus, and Atonement Theory (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2005), 160-238. 13 Pesch, Markusevangelium, 2: 162-64. 14 Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 332. 15 Funk and Hoover, Five Gospels, 95. Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3: 99-100, appear to be somewhat undecided on the matter with a tendency toward inauthenticity as they state regarding Matt 20: 28 that “an origin in the community will appeal to many, perhaps most.” 16 Sydney H. T. Page, “The Authenticity of the Ransom Logion (Mark 10: 45b),” in Studies of History and Tradition in the Four Gospels, vol. 1 of Gospel Perspectives, ed. R. T. [Mark 10: 45] For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. [Matt 20: 28] Just as the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. kai. ga.r o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ouvk h=lqen diakonhqh/ nai avlla. diakonh/ sai kai. dou/ nai th.n yuch.n auvtou/ lu,tron avnti. pollw/ nÅ w[sper o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou ouvk h=lqen diakonhqh/ nai avlla. diakonh/ sai kai. dou/ nai th.n yuch.n auvtou/ lu,tron avnti. pollw/ nÅ 387 “a historical judgment of high probability” in favor of authenticity. He once again applies the criterion of dissimilarity, yet comes to the conclusion that Mark 10: 45 can neither be derived from the Judaism of Jesus’ time nor from the theology of the early Palestinian church. 17 Even Maurice Casey, recognized as among the most skeptical scholars when it comes to the historical reliability of John, discusses Mark 10: 45 as an authentic Son of Man saying due to the possibility to reconstruct an underlying Aramaic level of tradition. 18 Scot Mc Knight is confident that Jesus knew he would die but cautiously adds regarding the latter part of Mark 10: 45 that “we are not sure that ‘ransom for many’ can be assigned to what Jesus said in the context of Mark 10: 35-45, but we must admit that his own appeal to the Servant does make ‘ransom for many’ a possible saying of Jesus.” 19 Mark 14: 62 pars. [Mark 14: 62] “I am,”said Jesus, “and you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming with the clouds of heaven.” [Matt 26: 64] Jesus said to him, “You have said it yourself. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of the Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” [Luke 22: 69-70] “But from now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the power of God.” (…) He answered them, “You say that I am.” o` de. VIhsou/ j ei=pen\ ev gw, eivmi( kai. o; yesqe to.n ui`o.n tou/ avnqrw,pou ev k dexiw/ n kaqh,menon th/ j duna,mewj kai. ev rco,menon meta. tw/ n nefelw/ n tou/ ouvranou/ Å le, gei auvtw/ | o` VIhsou/ j\ su. ei=pajÅ plh.n le, gw u`mi/ n\ avpV a; rti o; yesqe to.n ui`o.n tou/ avnqrw,pou kaqh,menon ev k dexiw/ n th/ j duna,mewj kai. ev rco,menon ev pi. tw/ n nefelw/ n tou/ ouvranou/ Å avpo. tou/ nu/ n de. e; stai o` ui`o.j tou/ avnqrw,pou kaqh,menoj ev k dexiw/ n th/ j duna,mewj tou/ qeou/ Å ei=pan de. pa,ntej\ su. ou=n ei= o` ui`o.j tou/ qeou/ È o` de. pro.j auvtou.j e; fh\ u`mei/ j le, gete o[ti ev gw, eiv miÅ France and David Wenham (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1983), 137-61 (esp. 143-47). The parallel pericope in Luke 22: 24-27 lacks the reference to redemption, which has prompted the assumption that Mark theologically expanded on an authentic saying about service. However, Page (as well as Hampel [see following footnote]) argues that there are several indicators suggesting Mark to be the more ancient of the two passages. Cf. also the discussion in Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 812-15. 17 Volker Hampel, Menschensohn und historischer Jesus: Ein Rätselwort als Schlüssel zum messianischen Selbstverständnis Jesu (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1990), 339-40. Cf. Peter Stuhlmacher, “Vicariously Giving His Life for Many, Mark 10: 45 (Matt. 20: 28),” in Reconciliation, Law and Righteousness: Essays in Biblical Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), 16-29. 18 Casey, The ‘Son of man’ Problem, 131-34, esp. 134: “(…) the reconstruction of the Aramaic level of the tradition [of Mark 10: 45] has proved essential in working out the original teaching of Jesus. Its Sitz im Leben is in the ministry of Jesus, not in the early church.” Cf. also his earlier Aramaic Sources of Mark’s Gospel, SNTSMS 102 (Cambridge: University Press, 1998), 193-218. 19 McKnight, Jesus and His Death, 160-238, here 238. [italics mine] 388 In our Johannine-Synoptic comparison Jesus’ extraordinary claims regarding his identity (especially in the Light of the World Discourse in John 8) have been repeatedly confronted with his answer to the high priest’s question during his trial in Mark 14: 62 pars. (cf. John 4: 26; 8: 14c, 16b, 24, 26a, 28b, 58). Yet, as with the ransom logion in Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28, the authenticity of this synoptic saying is far from being universally accepted. The whole trial scene as recorded in the Synoptics (including the expressions of Jesus) has been discounted by, among others, E. P. Sanders. He argues that the exchanges between the high priest and Jesus lack historical plausibility especially since “[t]he issue which in Matthew and Mark is said to lead to the charge of blasphemy, Jesus’ being Christ (Messiah) and Son of God, is not compelling.” 20 Likewise, Ulrich Luz is convinced that what we have before us in the synoptic trial accounts rests upon “narrative fictions,” “the christological emphasis” in particular. 21 Historical plausibility for Jesus’ trial before the Jewish authorities is also denied by the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar. The saying in Mark 14: 62 pars. has thus been colored in black in the Seminar’s Gospel edition as the Fellows further insist that even if there had been a hearing before the high priest, the responses given by Jesus have to be undoubtedly the invention of the evangelists, since “none of Jesus’ disciples was present to hear and report his responses.” 22 For Maurice Casey, Mark 14: 62 is among the two Markan Son of Man sayings that he considers as “certainly secondary.” He severely questions, e.g., the historical verisimilitude of the high priest’s utilization of titles for Jesus (cf. Mark 14: 61: “Christ” and “Son of the Blessed One”) and his charge of blasphemy as a result of Jesus’ response. This leads him to conclude that the dominical utterance in Mark 14: 62 has an all too “obvious Sitz im Leben in the early church.” 23 Among those who maintain that Mark 14: 62 pars. represents something Jesus really said are Rudolf Pesch, 24 Raymond Brown, 25 N. T. 20 Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 296-99, here 297. Sanders gives a total of seven reasons not to accept the historicity of the synoptic trial accounts. 21 Luz, Matthew, 3: 437. 22 Funk and Hoover, Five Gospels, 123, also 264-65, 393. 23 Casey, The ‘Son of man’ Problem, 243-45. Cf. Marinus de Jonge, Christology in Context: The Earliest Response to Jesus (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1988), 210: “Mark’s account of the trial before the Sanhedrin in 14: 55-65 too clearly serves Mark’s own Christological purpose to be a useful historical source.” 24 Pesch, Markusevangelium, 2: 439: “Im Kontext jüdischer Traditionen interpretiert, widersetzt sich V 62 allen Versuchen, Jesu Antwort vor dem Hohen Rat Jesus selbst abzusprechen.” Cf. also Frey, “Der historische Jesus,” 307: “Und zumindest in der Prozeßszene [i.e., Mark 14: 61ff.] ist es historisch m. E. durchaus plausibel, wenn auch heftig umstritten, daß Jesus die Frage des Hohenpriesters mit einem Bekenntnis zu seiner Sendung und einem Drohwort beantwortet hat.” 389 Wright, 26 and W. D. Davies and Dale C. Allison. 27 Extensive arguments for the authenticity of Mark 14: 62 pars. are provided by Craig A. Evans 28 and Darrell L. Bock. 29 Both supply ample evidence for the historical plausibility of the trial scene including explanations of why the saying of Jesus could indeed be conceived as blasphemous. Evans finds the strongest claim to the historical credibility of the whole passage Mark 14: 61-64 “in its coherence with Jesus’ promise to his disciples that they will someday sit with him on thrones in the Kingdom of God.” 30 Conceptually similar statements may be found in Mark 10: 37-40 and Matt 19: 28 par. Luke 22: 28-30, passages that are increasingly accepted as authentic sayings of Jesus. On quite similar lines, Bock points to the fact that the apocalyptic Son of Man is well-attested in every level of the synoptic tradition and thus questions the view that a reference to this figure was the sole product of the early church. He states, “If the criterion of multiple attestation means anything or has any useful purpose, then the idea that Jesus spoke of himself in these terms should not be doubted.” 31 Additionally, Bock suggests that both the high priest’s address of Jesus as “Son of the Blessed One” as well as Jesus’ reference to “the Power” are, at the one hand, perfectly appropriate within this Jewish setting, yet, on the other hand, both expressions are unique enough to support their authenticity on the basis of the criterion of dissimilarity. 32 25 Raymond E. Brown, Death of the Messiah. From Gethsemane to the Grave: A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels, ABRL (New York: Doubleday, 1994), 1: 484-515, here 515: “(…) there is reason to believe that in 14: 62 we may be close to the mindset and style of Jesus himself.” 26 Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, 524, who considers Jesus’ answer in the trial scene as “completely comprehensible.” Note that for Wright the affirmative answers in Matthew (“You have said it”) and Luke (“You say that I am”) seem to be “more historically probable than Mark’s ‘I am.’” 27 Davies and Allison, Matthew, 3: 532. 28 Evans, Jesus and His Contemporaries, 407-34 (Chapter 11: “In What Sense ‘Blasphemy’? Jesus Before Caiaphas in Mark 14: 61-64”). 29 Darrell L. Bock, “Blasphemy and the Jewish Examination of Jesus,” in Key Events in the Life of the Historical Jesus: A Collaborative Exploration of Context and Coherence, ed. Darrell L. Bock and Robert L. Webb, WUNT 247 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), 589- 667, esp. 625-56. Cf. also his earlier Blasphemy and Exaltation for a comprehensive study of the nature of blasphemy in Mark 14: 53-65. 30 Evans, Jesus and His Contemporaries, 424-29, here 424. 31 Bock, “Blasphemy,” 645-52, here 647. 32 Ibid., 631-38;; cf. also idem., “Jewish Expressions in Mark 14.61-62 and the Authenticity of the Jewish Examination of Jesus,” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 1 (2003): 147-59. 390 8.1.2 The Authenticity of Synoptic Parallels and Jesus’ Teaching in the Fourth Gospel The intention of this all-too-brief summary of scholarly perspectives on these two synoptic Son of Man sayings is to reveal in exemplary manner the kind of historical considerations that are necessary as we further reflect on the comparative results that have emerged from this study. The value of these comparative results is ultimately dependent on the confidence one can attain concerning the authenticity of the synoptic sayings that have been determined as parallels to Johannine propositions. If a synoptic saying is (at least to a certain degree) parallel to the Fourth Gospel and can with some probability be considered as going back to the historical Jesus, this substantially increases the likelihood of the Johannine teaching of Jesus being historically reliable. 33 Regarding the synoptic parallels mentioned, the implications are as follows. As we take the originally inner-synoptic criteria of multiple attestation and literary coherence and relate them to John, we see that any conclusion that supposes that the ransom saying in Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 can only with difficulty be derived directly from the Judeo-Christian church and has thus (in light of other criteria of authenticity) to be considered with some probability as a genuine utterance of Jesus will render considerable verisimilitude to Jesus’ teaching in the Johannine discourses. If the Synoptic Jesus had foreseen his (in the double sense of the term) “life-giving work,” the Johannine announcement of his giving himself as the bread of life for the sake of humanity in John 6 becomes entirely comprehensible. Similarly, if Jesus’ claim to possess quasidivine prerogatives and comprehensive authority in Mark 14: 62 pars. is most likely authentic, this adds credibility at least to the general thrust of several self-references of the Johannine Jesus in John 8 that display a rather high Christology. The opposite is also true. If scholars like E. P. Sanders or the Fellows of the Jesus Seminar are right in assuming that the origin of the ransom saying in Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 is most plausibly located in the theology of the early church (or the evangelist for that matter), it would detract from the potential of this synoptic utterance to confirm Johannine teaching. And with a lack of historical plausibility for Jesus’ testimony in Mark 14: 62 pars., as Maurice Casey and again the Jesus Seminar have maintained, support for the authenticity of Jesus’ Johannine claims regarding his unique identity would have to come from elsewhere. Furthermore, 33 This is especially true, of course, if we assume that John is for the most part independent from the Synoptics, at least at a literary level. Cf., e.g., Martha Howell and Walter Prevenier, From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 70: “If two independently created sources agree on a matter, the reliability of each is measurably enhanced.” In this regard, it barely needs to be mentioned that on the basis of the criterion of multiple attestation, the historical probability of any given synoptic saying is likewise increased by Johannine parallels. 391 synoptic parallels that have to be considered with some probability as inauthentic are not only incapable of corroborating the Fourth Gospel’s authenticity but, under certain circumstances, indeed question the reliability of their Johannine counterpart. For if close synoptic parallels of any given Johannine teaching are secondary inventions of the evangelist rather than trustworthy utterances of the historical Jesus, the question would need to be asked whether the Johannine parallel is not likely to stem from the same or a similar theologically creative environment within the early Christian communities. 8.1.3 Johannine Passages without Synoptic Parallels The last issue that needs to be addressed can be expressed as a question: What about Johannine passages without (authentic) synoptic parallels? Initially, the single attestation of a dominical saying only means that it lacks independent corroboration. That this should by no means lead the historian to skeptically dismiss such singly attested material has already been solemnly affirmed in the classic presentation of historical method by Ernst Bernheim 34 and is repeatedly noted in discussions of the criterion of multiple attestation. 35 In other words, single attestation does not necessarily entail a judgment of inauthenticity. It is here that other criteria of authenticity ought to come into play, such as the one of a broader type of coherence. In other words, it may be asked whether a singly attested Johannine saying, on the one hand, coheres well with the rest of the speech material in the Fourth Gospel (inner-Johannine coherence), and, on the other hand, is in general accord with Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics. It is also here that one’s general view on the historical credibility of the Fourth Gospel becomes especially effective (see also below 8.2). The higher one’s skepticism regarding the general trustworthiness of the Fourth Gospel, the more one will be inclined to cast doubt on the authenticity of singly attested material. Generally, Robert Webb reminds us that “material benefiting from multiple attestation has not a higher probability than singly attested material, but this is only because this criterion has raised the probability of the multiply attested material; it has not lowered the probability of the singly attested material.” 36 However, in applying these insights to the issue 34 Ernst Bernheim, Lehrbuch der historischen Methode und der Geschichtsphilosophie (Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, 5/ 6 1908), 536-38, who states regarding singly attested material: “(…) noch haben wir Grund, jedes solche Zeugnis, stamme es woher und von wem es wolle, skeptisch (…) zu verwerfen.” 35 E.g., Stein, “‘Criteria’ for Authenticity,” 232: “There is no reason or need to deny the authenticity of a tradition simply because it is found in only one source.” Cf. Meier, Marginal Jew, 1: 175. 36 Webb, -“Historical -Jesus Research,” -62. 392 of Johannine-Synoptic relations regarding Jesus’ teaching material, it even seems reasonable to go one step further. It can be argued that if the historical probability of a significant amount of propositions within the Johannine discourses is raised through the existence of synoptic parallels, this, far from lowering the credibility of the singly attested material, actually militates in favor of its authenticity. For if the Johannine discourses can be found trustworthy in those places where they can be confirmed through synoptic teaching (at least regarding the general substance and meaning of Jesus’ words), there is ample reason to assume that their reliability is not significantly lower in those passages where no (verbal or conceptual) parallels can be adduced. 37 More difficult is the evaluation of those singly attested sayings that seem to contain some sort of contradiction to Synoptic teaching. In this case, the historian has to verify whether he is actually dealing with a true or only with an apparent contradiction. 38 If this does not yield a solution, the reliability of each testimony has again to be measured by means of other criteria. 39 Of course, as already hinted at, far-reaching historical judgments as the ones pondered in this section will have to be embedded into a more general discussion of the Fourth Gospel as a historical document. Our initial consideration of the relevance of synoptic parallels for the evaluation of 37 Cf., e.g., Armin D. Baum, “Die Authentizität der synoptischen Worte Jesu,” in Exegetische und hermeneutische Grundfragen, vol. 2 of Das Studium des Neuen Testaments, ed. Heinz-Werner Neudorfer and Eckhard J. Schnabel, BWM 8 (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 2 2000), 172; also Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 63: “A historian who has been found trustworthy where he or she can be tested should be given the benefit of the doubt in cases where no tests are available.” The question of whether the “burden of proof” is actually on the person accepting gospel material as authentic or on the one denying that it is authentic cannot be generally discussed here. For a convincing argument that the “burden of proof” is on the one denying authenticity, see Stewart C. Goetz and Craig Blomberg, “The Burden of Proof,” JSNT 11 (1981): 39-63; cf. also Peter Stuhlmacher, Grundlegung: Von Jesus zu Paulus, vol. 1 of Biblische Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2 1997), 45: “[es] ist methodisch nicht von ihrer [i.e., the Gospel’s] geschichtlichen Unglaubwürdigkeit, sondern von ihrer Glaubwürdigkeit auszugehen.” That, as a basic principle, inauthenticity has to be made plausible, has been argued by Hengel, Geschichtsschreibung, 29; cf. earlier the well-known German historian Johann Gustav Droysen, Historik: Vorlesungen über Enzyklopädie und Methodologie der Geschichte (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 3 1958), 99-100: “Zum vollen Beweis der Unechtheit gehört, daß der wirkliche Ursprung des Gefälschten, die Zeit, der Zweck der Fälschung nachgewiesen wird.” 38 On the difficulty of making such judgments, cf. Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 67: “It is probably impossible in advance to describe which kinds of harmonizations of apparently discrepant texts are plausible and which are not.” 39 Baum, “Authentizität der synoptischen Worte Jesu,” 172. Cf. also the methodological insights of Bernheim, Lehrbuch, 542-49. 393 Johannine authenticity has naturally grown out of the guiding focus in the main part of this study. But it is obvious that in this regard the criterion of multiple attestation, i.e., a comparison between John and the Synoptics, cannot stand alone in providing appropriate evidence for an overall assessment of the Johannine discourses. As multiple attestation does not necessarily guarantee authenticity, 40 further factors that impact a general historical judgment on Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel need to be considered. 41 8.2 The Historical Trustworthiness of the Fourth Gospel outside the Discourse Material Having reflected upon the significance of the synoptic parallels, it is further essential for the historian striving for an overall assessment of the authenticity of Johannine speech material to broaden his focus and to estimate whether or not the Fourth Gospel’s account outside the discourse material is historically dependable. In light of the information conveyed in the general narrative, should the author of the Fourth Gospel be considered as a historian in any meaningful sense of the term? In other words, do we have reason to assume that the Fourth Evangelist was indeed concerned with giving credible historical information from the ministry of Jesus? If we give a negative answer, consequently our expectation to find authentic speech material in the Fourth Gospel will significantly decrease. That the Fourth Gospel has been widely dismissed as a historical source for the life of Jesus has been continually mentioned and hardly needs repeating. As Francis J. Moloney states, “In the ‘quest for the historical Jesus’ it has become axiomatic that the Fourth Gospel, with a few notable exceptions (…), has little to offer attempts to trace the person and activity of the pre-Easter Jesus.” 42 However, as we have noted early in this study (2.1), the Johannine Gospel itself indicates that it wants to be perceived as a work of historical credibility. Both the explicit claim to eyewitness testimo- 40 In this respect, Evans, Jesus and His Contemporaries, 15-16, has rightly argued that the criterion of multiple attestation can only show that material is primitive, not necessarily authentic. Yet, he concedes that “multiply attested material should be given careful consideration. As it so happens, much of what is multiply attested has often been regarded as authentic, not only because it is multiply attested, but because it often enjoys the support of other criteria.” 41 On the correlation of different factors within a proper historical method, see Howell and Prevenier, Reliable Sources, 70-71. 42 Francis J. Moloney in the summary of his article “The Fourth Gospel and the Jesus of History,” NTS 46 (2000): 42. Likewise, Frank Schleritt speaks of a long-standing consensus within New Testament scholarship that “the Fourth Gospel has already left far behind what Jesus really said and did” (in Lüdemann, Jesus after 2000 Years, 614). From what we already observed in our introduction, this consensus, if it ever existed, might be a melting one. 394 ny in John 19: 35 as well as the confirmation of the author’s trustworthiness in John 21: 24 suggest the historical intention of the Fourth Gospel as we have it. Thus, in keeping with this Johannine self-conception, Tom Thatcher has maintained in his introduction to the second published volume of the Society of Biblical Literature John, Jesus, and History Study Group that everyone concerned with Johannine matters “must reckon with the fact that the Gospel of John (...) is driven by a deeply historical consciousness.” 43 Historical intention is, however, not tantamount to historical authenticity. Yet, together with the observation that the early church considered the Fourth Gospel as a historically authentic source for their knowledge of the works and words of Jesus (1.1.1 and 1.1.2), the apparent historical awareness should cast at least preliminary doubt on judgments such as that “John was so strikingly unconcerned (...) with factual [i.e., historical] accuracy.” 44 With a “hermeneutical lens” that makes the Fourth Gospel look like a mere theological reflection with no concern for historical credibility, there is little anticipation to find in it at least the accurate content of Jesus’ teaching. With this in mind, it is hardly surprising that from among the most skeptical scholars regarding the authenticity of the words of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel neither the members of the Jesus Seminar nor Maurice Casey are particularly confident about the trustworthiness of the Johannine non-discourse material. In the Jesus Seminar’s Gospel edition evaluating the authenticity of the acts of Jesus, most of the Fourth Gospel’s narrative is printed in black (meaning that the information is “largely or entirely fictive”), with only several passages given in gray (indicating that the information is “possible but unreliable”). According to the Fellows of the Seminar only some core information pertaining to Jesus’ crucifixion (such as the reference to Caiaphas, the high priest, or the fact that Pilate turned Jesus over to be crucified) is probably or certainly reliable (printed in pink or red). 45 Maurice Casey is not more optimistic. He is convinced that the Gospel of John consists mostly of substantially rewritten accounts (e.g., of John 43 Tom Thatcher, “Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel: Phase Two of the John, Jesus, and History Project,” in John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel, eds. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, Early Christianity and Its Literature 2 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2009), 2. 44 Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, 427. Cf. also, among others, Hanson, Prophetic Gospel, 318, who states that “[the author of the Fourth Gospel] has therefore not provided us with a reliable historical account of Jesus. Could he have understood what we mean by ‘a reliable account,’ he would probably repudiated [sic! ] the suggestion that this is what he was giving us in his Gospel.” 45 Robert W. Funk and the Jesus Seminar, eds., The Acts of Jesus: The Search for the Authentic Deeds of Jesus (San Francisco: Harper, 1998), 36 (on the meaning of the colors), 365-440. 395 the Baptist or the crucifixion) and inaccurate stories. 46 That John’s chronology is historically unreliable can be seen, according to Casey, in his verifiably wrong presentations of the temple cleansing and the Last Supper. 47 In addition to these two rather negative assessments of the historical trustworthiness of the Johannine narrative accounts, the symbolic character of much of John’s topographical or chronological references has been repeatedly acknowledged. Yet, granted that the use of topographical or chronological details may carry symbolic meaning, it needs to be kept in mind that this does not necessarily mean that these details are unhistorical. 48 At the other end of the spectrum, scholars have declared that, despite the Fourth Gospel being an interpreted theological text, there are enough indications that render as likely the truthfulness of the Johannine narrative. 49 Regarding geographical locations mentioned in the Fourth Gospel, Stephen Smalley has noted that archeological excavation has vindicated Johannine accuracy in several instances, a fact that ought to diminish doubts concerning the general reliability of Johannine narrative accounts. 50 However, Smalley rightly concedes that ascertaining the trustworthiness of certain sites and localities within the Fourth Gospel does not guarantee in and of itself the historical authenticity of the events placed there by the Fourth Evangelist. It does, however, suggest that “John is not being purely fanciful in his narrative information when he refers to locations for it which can be verified.” 51 More recently, Richard Bauckham, probably the most 46 Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , passim. 47 Ibid., 4-29. Cf. Lincoln, John, 39-50, who argues that especially those events unique to John (e.g., the wedding at Cana or the raising of Lazarus) bear very little historical credibility. 48 Cf., e.g., Brodie, John, 27, who in his commentary repeatedly refers to the theologicalsymbolic significance of Johannine passages; and Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), 8: “We can discern symbolic significance in images, events, or persons without undercutting their claims to historicity, and we can recognize that certain images, events, and people are historical without diminishing their symbolic value.” 49 For an overview of several recent works in favor of the historicity of diverse details and passages in the Gospel of John, see Craig L. Blomberg, “John and Jesus,” in The Face of New Testament Studies: A Survey of Recent Research, ed. Scot McKnight and Grant R. Osborne (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004), 218-20. Cf. also Thomas D. Lea, “The Reliability of History in John’s Gospel,” JETS 38.3 (1995): 387-402. Several articles affirming the historicity of various aspects in John can now also be found in Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher, eds., John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel, Early Christianity and Its Literature 2 (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature Press, 2009). 50 Smalley, John, 37-41. Cf. W. F. Albright, “Recent Discoveries in Palestine and the Gospel of St John,” in The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology. In Honour of Charles Harold Dodd, ed. W.D. Davies and D. Daube (Cambridge: University Press, 1956), 153-71. 51 Smalley, John, 40. 396 optimistic of the moderate-skeptical scholars reviewed, has argued that the Gospel of John would have looked, to competent contemporary readers, as a work of historiography. This again is a matter of historical intention, not necessarily of historical quality. But Bauckham is not primarily asking the authenticity question. Rather, he is mainly interested in knowing whether the Fourth Gospel’s narrative reads “as though it is well informed” about topographical and chronological issues. 52 He answers in the affirmative but then even goes as far to say that “the case for regarding his [i.e. John’s] as the most geographically reliable of the Gospels has been persuasively made.” 53 Elsewhere, Bauckham himself accumulates evidence for the historical verisimilitude of several persons and events in the Fourth Gospel such as Nicodemus as a dialogue partner of Jesus, the account of the Bethany family in John 11-12, and the footwashing pericope in John 13. 54 Further support for the credibility of John’s narrative, especially the passages found only in the Fourth Gospel, has recently come from Paul Barnett. He offers an extensive list of credible geographical, topographical, and religious-cultural details that argue for a general historical awareness on the part of the Fourth Evangelist. According to Barnett, among the singly attested persons and events in John that “are dotted with extensive, authentic-sounding detail” are the wedding in Cana, the encounter with Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman, the invalid at the pool of Bethzatha, the blind man at the Siloam Pool, and the raising of Lazarus. 55 According to Barnett, it is unlikely that these events and the characters that appear in them are fictitious since first, the author would lay himself open to criticism by informed readers with the potential to discredit his information, second, none of the characters appears to be solely a theological symbol, and finally, “the amount of accompanying detail that finds considerable independent verification bears its own testimony to the likely truthfulness 52 Bauckham, “Historiographical Characteristics,” 19-27, here 20. [italics his] 53 Ibid. Bauckham mentions a list of scholars who have come to the conclusion that the topographical references of John are “accurate in general and in detail,” e.g., Hengel, Johannine Question, 110-11;; Ingo Broer, “Knowledge of Palestine in the Fourth Gospel? ” in Jesus in Johannine Tradition, ed. Robert T. Fortna and Tom Thatcher (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 83-90; Brown, Introduction to the Gospel of John, 92. Margaret Davies, Rhetoric and Reference in the Fourth Gospel, JSNTSup 69 (Sheffield: Academic Press, 1992), 276-85, finds all except one of the topographical informations in John to be reliable. 54 Richard Bauckham, “Nicodemus and the Gurion Family,” 137-72;; “The Bethany Family in John 11-12: History or Fiction? ,” 173-89;; “Did Jesus Wash His Disciples’ Feet? ,” 191-206, all in The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple. For the likelihood of the footwashing in John 13 being an authentic episode from the ministry of Jesus, cf. John Christopher Thomas, Footwashing in John 13 and the Johannine Community, JSNTSup 61 (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1991). 55 Paul Barnett, Finding the Historical Christ, vol. 3 of After Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), 155-63. 397 of the narratives overall.” 56 Finally, Craig Blomberg, among the moderateoptimistic scholars introduced in our opening chapter, has mounted the most comprehensive case for the reliability of the Johannine narrative. In his verse-by-verse commentary he seeks to establish by different means the verisimilitude of John’s recording of events during the ministry of Jesus, also referring to “[a]rcheological and topographical studies [that] have confirmed John’s consistent accuracy concerning the geography of Palestine overall as well as specific sites.” 57 And even regarding the chronology of the temple cleansing and the Last Supper, two especially difficult passages being considered by Casey as demonstrating the unhistorical and theologically tainted nature of the Johannine accounts, Blomberg offers a reasonable interpretation in line with his overall conviction of a general historical trustworthiness of the events recorded in the Fourth Gospel. 58 Regarding chronology in general, it is obvious that the Fourth Evangelist is interested in a detailed timing of events, and in several instances (e.g., with respect to the day of Jesus’ death), he is even perceived to be more chronologically precise than the Synoptics. 59 Indeed, the assessment of the historicity of the narrative material is no less complex than that of the Johannine discourses. The point to be made here in light of this short overview of perspectives is simply that even a tentative judgment regarding the one will certainly condition the other. Strong skepticism regarding the historical trustworthiness of the Johannine non-discourse material goes hand in hand with a negative evaluation of the Fourth Gospel’s speech material (as in the case of the Jesus Seminar or Casey), while a more positive stance toward the authenticity of the Johannine discourses is accompanied by greater confidence in the accuracy of the narrative context (as in the case of Bauckham or Blomberg). Thus again, whoever significantly questions that the Fourth Gospel is indeed concerned with historical accuracy and thus has more or less strong doubts about the basic reliability of John’s narrative framework will not expect to find in the Johannine discourses more than a few scattered statements that actually do go back to the historical Jesus. If one does not reckon with a careful account of events in the life of Jesus but with a non-factual display of theology in narrative guise, there is no reason to assume that the renderings of Jesus’ words are less theologically charged and thus more trustworthy historical- 56 Ibid., 162-63. Barnett adds: “If the details we can check prove to be authentic, it enhances the likelihood that information we can’t check is also reliable.” 57 Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, passim, quotation from 285. 58 Ibid., 87-9, 186ff. Cf. also Barry D. Smith, “The Chronology of the Last Supper,” WTJ 53 (1991): 29-45. 59 Cf., e.g., Blomberg, Historical Reliability of the Gospels, 179-80; Bauckham, “Historiographical Characteristics,” 24-25: “It remains the case that this Gospel dates all the events much more precisely than any of the Synoptics date any events other than those at the beginning.” 398 ly. However, scholars who approach the teaching of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel based on the assumption that the Fourth Evangelist has verifiably given us a generally reliable report of Jesus’ ministry will consequently anticipate in the Johannine discourses (not least with their differences and similarities to the Synoptic Gospels) a considerable amount of authentic Jesus tradition. 8.3 The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel In order to answer the question whether the Fourth Gospel has authentically reproduced the teaching of Jesus, it is essential to know whether its author actually had the ability to do so. The ability to report historical truth is closely related to the identity of the author. Generally speaking, for the historian, the reliability of a source increases based on the amount of direct access to the events he reports. 60 In its closing remarks, the Fourth Gospel claims to be based on the testimony of one of Jesus’ early followers, the so-called “beloved disciple” (John 21: 20-24). This assertion is reinforced by the earliest patristic evidence regarding the authorship of the Fourth Gospel with its almost unanimous acceptance of this Gospel as the work of an eyewitness. At the end of the second century, Irenaeus refers to “John, the disciple of the Lord” as the one who published the Gospel, 61 a tradition that he traced back to the earlier witness of Polycarp and Papias and that he apparently understood as referring to John, the son of Zebedee, i.e., one of the Twelve. The tradition of John the apostle as author of the Fourth Gospel is further sustained by a significant number of early acknowledgements of its (apostolic) authority (see our overview in chapter 1.1). 62 However, the historical value of the patristic data has been assessed quite differently. While a good number of scholars still uphold its credibility, 63 many have, for a multitude of reasons, 60 Baum, “Authentizität der synoptischen Worte Jesu,” 160. For the importance of such questions of “outer source criticism,” cf. Bernheim, Lehrbuch, 391-410, esp. 400-10; Howell and Prevenier, Reliable Sources, 65-68. 61 Irenaeus, Haer. III.1.1. 62 It has also been argued that the superscription euvagge, lion kata. VIwa,nnhn was indeed part of the original Gospel rather than being a secondary addition; cf. Martin Hengel, Die Evangelienüberschriften, SHAW 3 (Heidelberg: Winter, 1984); also idem., The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collections and Origin of the Canonical Gospels (London: SCM, 2000), 48-56; pace Theobald, Johannes, 88. If that is the case, it would confirm the general patristic evidence even though the superscription itself does not unambiguously point to John the apostle as author; a different John may be in view, as Hengel himself maintains (see footnote 70 below). 63 E.g., Fritz Neugebauer, Die Entstehung des Johannesevangeliums: Altes und Neues zur Frage seines historischen Ursprungs, AzTh 36 (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1968), 28-39 (without direct application to the question of authorship); Hans-Joachim Schulz, Die 399 cast doubt on this earliest evidence. 64 Today, there is no consensus on the identity and function of the beloved disciple on whose witness the Fourth Gospel purports to rest. Apart from those who follow the traditional view in claiming that the beloved disciple is both John the apostle and the Fourth Evangelist, 65 the suggestions regarding authorship are endless. It has been proposed that the beloved disciple is a literary and symbolic figure (“the ideal disciple”) antedated into the time of Jesus, 66 an unknown disciple of Jesus somehow standing behind the tradition of the Fourth Gospel, 67 or a more specific character from among the earliest followers. 68 Others have argued that the author of the Gospel is an unknown teacher within the Johannine community. 69 Among the more specific options is the thesis based on Eusebius’ reference to the testimony of Papias that there were actually two Johns. 70 According to this line of reasoning, it was not John the apostle but the second of the two, the so-called John the elder (supposedly an eyewitness of Jesus’ ministry), who authored at least most of the Fourth Gospel. 71 apostolische Herkunft der Evangelien, QD 145 (Freiburg: Herder, 1993), 34-70; E. Earle Ellis, The Making of the New Testament Documents, BIntS 39 (Leiden: Brill, 1999), 143-46; Moisés Silva, “Approaching the Fourth Gospel,” CTR 3 (1988): 18-19. 64 E.g., Barrett, John, 83-114; Schnelle, Einleitung, 505-08. 65 See the classic defense of apostolic authorship by Westcott, John, ix-lxvii; also, e.g., Donald A. Carson and Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2 2005), 229-46; Guthrie, Introduction, 252-83; Köstenberger, John, 6-7; as well as Keener, John, 1: 82-115 (with extensive discussion) and Smalley, John, 89 (both allowing for some redaction regarding the finished Gospel). 66 Thus, apparently, Lindars, Gospel of John, 34; also Kügler, “Johannesevangelium,” 216. Yet, cf. Bauckham, “Ideal Author,” who argues that the beloved disciple is not an unhistorical ideal disciple, but is rather portrayed as the “ideal witness” to Jesus. Theobald, Johannes, 89-92, has now suggested that behind the figure of the beloved disciple stands a possibly unknown disciple from Jerusalem, yet who is not identical with the author of the Gospel. In this case we would be dealing with a pseudepigraphal attribution to a supposed eyewitness in order to strengthen the authority of the gospel writing. 67 E.g., Beasley-Murray, John, lxvi-lxxv (designating the beloved disciple as the witness behind the Fourth Gospel, not as its author). 68 For an extensive survey of views, see James Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John (Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1995), 127-224. Charlesworth himself opts for Thomas as the most likely candidate to identify with the beloved disciple. 69 E.g., Petr Pokorný and Ulrich Heckel, Einleitung in das Neue Testament: Seine Literatur und Theologie im Überblick (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 578-80; also Lincoln, John, 22; Schnelle, Einleitung, 507-08. 70 Eusebius, Hist. 3.39.4-5. 71 Cf., e.g., the argument by Hengel, Johannine Question, 130-32 (equating John the elder with the beloved disciple); also Reinhard Nordsieck, Johannes: Zur Frage nach Verfasser und Entstehung des vierten Evangeliums. Ein neuer Versuch. (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 400 It is not our goal in these concluding reflections to add substantially to the discussion of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel. Indeed, a complete survey of Johannine origins would require additional comments on Johannine sources and development theories. 72 All this brief layout of scholarly perspectives can do is to serve as a reminder of the importance of these issues as we interpret the results of our comparison between the Johannine discourses and the Synoptics. We do agree with Robert Stein and Craig Keener, that the question of authorship is not necessarily decisive for substantial historical reliability. 73 First-hand knowledge of an eyewitness does not guarantee the accuracy of any given account. Thus, it seems that the overall assessment of authenticity will be less swayed by one’s judgment on authorship than is occasionally assumed. Yet, we have to maintain that our convictions regarding the origin of the Fourth Gospel will ultimately affect any appraisal of authenticity we attempt to give. 74 Whoever ascribes the account of the Johannine discourses to someone who had first-hand knowledge of Jesus will generally tend to estimate the historical value higher than the one who traces these discourses back to an anonymous author (or a group of authors), who used sources for which the origin and trustworthiness cannot be readily determined. More specifically, whoever attributes the words of Jesus in John to an eyewitness in general or a close disciple in particular, will evaluate differently the significance of synoptic relations for Johannine authenticity than someone who regards the discourses in the Fourth Gospel as going back to an unknown teacher of the early church who probably never personally encountered Jesus and who was temporally far removed from him and the events of his ministry. That there is indeed a certain degree of coherence between introductory matters (such as authorship) and one’s judgment on Johannine authenticity seems to be suggested even as we take another look at the scholarly perspectives outlined in chapter one. None of the scholars classified as 1998), 19-24; cf. Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 16-17. Smith, John, 26-27, calls this view a “reasonable conjecture.” 72 For a brief overview of these issues in light of the question of authenticity, see Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 16-25. For our purposes, the question of provenance is only of secondary importance. The most likely place of composition is still Ephesus in Asia Minor, thus again recently Ulrich B. Müller, “Die Heimat des Johannesevangeliums,” ZNW 97 (2006): 44-63. 73 Keener, John, 1: 83; Stein, “‘Criteria’ for Authenticity,” 226: “It does not of necessity follow that eyewitness accounts of historical events are a priori accurate historical accounts! ” 74 See, e.g., Howell and Prevenier, Reliable Sources, 66, who state on the one hand that “it is no guarantee of ‘accuracy ’ or ‘fullness’ to obtain the firsthand account.” On the other hand, they insist that “the historian will prefer the source with the most ‘authority’ - i.e., the source created by the expert or the eyewitness” (ibid., 70). Cf. also Headlam, Fourth Gospel, 71: “The answer [to the question of authenticity] must depend in part at least upon what is held about the authorship of the Gospel (…).” 401 taking a skeptical view on Johannine authenticity would consider the Fourth Gospel as the work of an eyeand earwitness of the ministry of Jesus. This is true for Rudolf Bultmann, the members of the Jesus Seminar, as well as Maurice Casey, or Michael Theobald, to name just a few. 75 On the other hand, most of the scholars holding a moderate-optimistic or optimistic view on the authenticity of the Johannine discourses would maintain that there is nothing to prevent us from assuming that the author of the Fourth Gospel had first-hand knowledge of the events surrounding Jesus’ ministry. With Leon Morris, Donald Carson, Craig Blomberg, or Peter Ensor their confidence in the historical trustworthiness of the Johannine accounts is grounded in the general conviction of eyewitness testimony or even apostolic authorship. 76 The ranks of those with a moderate-skeptical perspective are divided. While apparently Barnabas Lindars or James Dunn do not reckon with direct eyewitness information, Raymond Brown and Rudolf Schnackenburg at least assume that the author or final editor might have had first-hand testimony at his disposal. 77 Richard Bauckham, as already noted, is generally more optimistic than most in this group when it comes to the degree of supposed authenticity of the Johannine teaching tradition; not surprisingly, Bauckham ascribes the Fourth Gospel to an eyewitness of Jesus. 78 Therefore, it seems adequate to conclude that the question of authorship is still a considerable factor in determining the overall historical trustworthiness of a document. Conversely, of course, other judgments on issues concerning authenticity will certainly impact 75 Bultmann, “Johannesevangelium,” 848-49; Funk and Hoover, Five Gospels, 16; Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 140-77; similarly to Theobald, Johannes, 89-92 (see footnote 65 above), who has designated the Fourth Gospel as a pseudepigraphal work ascribed to the symbolic figure of the beloved disciple. According to Casey, the traditional attribution of the Gospel to John, son of Zebedee, is due to “the continuing need to legitimate its authority.” 76 In his Studies in the Fourth Gospel, Morris takes a two step approach, first arguing that the testimony of an eyewitness underlies the Gospel of John (chapter 3: “Was the Author of the Fourth Gospel an ‘Eyewitness;;’” 139-214), then maintaining that John the apostle is responsible for the Fourth Gospel (chapter 4: “The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel;;” 215-92). See also idem., John, 4-25; Carson, John, 68-81; Blomberg, Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel, 22-41. Ensor, Jesus and His Works, 5-13, abstains from a specific identification of the author of the Fourth Gospel, yet maintains both that the beloved disciple is the author of at least most of the Gospel and an eyewitness. 77 Lindars, Gospel of John, 28-34, 54; Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 31-34; Schnackenburg, John, 3: 449-64. Both Brown and Schnackenburg have changed their views on Johannine authorship after having argued for John, son of Zebedee, as author of the Fourth Gospel in earlier publications. 78 Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 358-471. Bauckham has generally made a strong case for a significant role of eyewitnesses in the formation of the Gospels. With Martin Hengel, Bauckham identifies John the elder, a disciple of the apostle John and eyewitness of the life of Jesus as author of the Fourth Gospel. 402 one’s position on authorship. More importantly still is the thought that if, in his function as an eyeand earwitness of Jesus’ teaching, the author of the Fourth Gospel had indeed the ability to report accurately the things he had heard, then it remains a viable option that he actually did so. If, however, the Fourth Evangelist lacks the credentials of a first-hand witness to the words of Jesus, it reduces the historian’s amount of trust in the accuracy of what he reports. 79 8.4 Early Christian Prophecy and the Origin of Johannine Speech Tradition The last of the more historical implications that could be mentioned concerns the ultimate provenance of the speech material in John’s Gospel. In order to come to an overall evaluation of Johannine authenticity, we have to give ourselves an account not only of the author’s competence to report truthfully but also of his willingness to do so. 80 Thus, in our case, it is important to know whether it was a major concern of the Fourth Evangelist (and the community of which he was part) to testify accurately to the words of the historical Jesus, because conclusions drawn here largely determine the degree of authenticity we expect in the Johannine discourses. Thus, in addressing this issue, we are actually asking the question whether the dominical sayings reported in the Fourth Gospel can be traced back to other sources besides the actual discourses of the historical Jesus. 81 Regarding Jesus’ teaching material in the canonical Gospels in general, parts of New Testament scholarship have advocated, for quite some time now, the influential view according to which the early church felt a considerable freedom to coin new sayings which were then ascribed to Jesus. It was especially the form-critical analysis of Rudolf Bultmann that gave authority to the thesis that attributed to early Christian prophets a creative role in producing sayings that subsequently found their way into the gospel tradition as dominical utterances. 82 Initially, according to Bultmann, such sayings would have been regarded as utterances of the Spirit in the church only to gradually gain acceptance as words of the historical Jesus. Ultimately, the church “drew no distinction between such utterances by Christian prophets and the sayings of Jesus in the tradition, for the reason that even the dominical sayings in the tradition were not the pronouncements 79 Cf., e.g., Lindars, Gospel of John, 34, who explicitly states that what follows his denial of John as eyewitness testimony is that “the Fourth Gospel can lay no claim to special historical reliability.” 80 Howell and Prevenier, Reliable Sources, 68. 81 Baum, “Authentizität der synoptischen Worte Jesu,” 162. 82 Bultmann, Synoptic Tradition, 127-28. 403 of a past authority, but sayings of the risen Lord who is always a contemporary for the Church.” 83 Such a view that reckoned with the creativity of early Christian prophets as a prominent source of dominical speech material became widespread among those concerned with the origins of the teaching tradition of Jesus. In Germany it was especially Ernst Käsemann 84 who advanced Bultmann’s thesis;; Norman Perrin 85 and later M. Eugene Boring 86 are among those who have contributed in particular to its prevalence among English speaking scholars. Today, for the Jesus Seminar, the willingness of the evangelists to attribute their own statements (or those of their community) to Jesus is one of the “assured” results underlying their search for authentic words within the gospel tradition. 87 Affirmations of this kind, however, have not remained uncontested. Already Martin Dibelius has observed that in light of Paul’s differentiation between commands of the Lord and his own judgment in 1Cor 7: 10-12, 25, it has to be assumed that at least one wing within the early church was willing and able to distinguish between genuine words of Jesus and other forms of Christian exhortation. 88 In addition, others have repeatedly insisted that it is difficult, if not impossible, to find substantial indication for the existence of prophets ready to produce dominical sayings that had little to do with what Jesus had actually taught. 89 Nor do we seem to have evidence from among the early Christian community that would suggest the transformation of Spiritinspired words of the risen into words of the pre-Easter Jesus. 90 The fact that the New Testament does not put forward sayings of Jesus in answer to 83 Ibid. 84 See esp. Ernst Käsemann, “Sentences of Holy Law in the New Testament,” in New Testament Questions of Today, trans. W. J. Montague (London: SCM, 1969), 66-81. 85 Perrin, Rediscovering, e.g., 15, 22-23, 27. 86 M. Eugene Boring, Sayings of the Risen Jesus. Christian Prophecy in the Synoptic Tradition (Cambridge: University Press, 1982);; also idem., “Christian Prophecy and the Sayings of Jesus: The State of the Question,” NTS 28 (1983): 104-12. 87 Funk and Hoover, Five Gospels, 22-23: “The followers of Jesus borrowed freely from common wisdom and coined their own sayings and parables, which they then attributed to Jesus.” 88 Martin Dibelius, From Tradition to Gospel, trans. Bertram Lee Woolf (London: James Clarke, 1971), 242; yet, cf. Boring, Sayings, 74-75. 89 E.g., David E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), 245, who concludes: “In spite of the theological attractiveness of the theory, however, the historical evidence in support of the theory lies largely in the creative imagination of scholars.” 90 See esp. David Hill, New Testament Prophecy, Marshalls Theological Library (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1979), 160-85 (chapter 7: “Christian Prophets and the Sayings of Jesus”). The most detailed criticism of Bultmann’s thesis in German is probably Fritz Neugebauer, “Geistsprüche und Jesuslogien. Erwägungen zu der von der formgeschichtlichen Betrachtungsweise R. Bultmanns angenommenen grundsätzlichen Möglichkeit einer Identität von prophetischen Geistsprüchen mit Logien des irdischen Jesus,” ZNW 53 (1962): 218-28. 404 several major problems that the early church encountered (such as the question of circumcision) further militates against the view of a repeated, deliberate creation of dominical teaching. 91 When it comes, more specifically, to the origin of the Johannine speech tradition, we have repeatedly noted that a particular interpretation of the so-called Paraclete sayings in the Farewell Discourse has served as an inner-Johannine endorsement of the general picture of inauthentic Jesus tradition supplied by prophetic leaders of the Christian community. This is to say that the Johannine Paraclete-sayings do not necessarily serve as an argumentative starting point for the creative prophecy hypothesis but are adduced as an additional explanation of the psychological processes behind such a practice. Thus, the promise of the “Advocate, the Holy Spirit (...) [who] will teach you everything, and will cause you to remember everything I said to you” (John 14: 26) has been considered to be the legitimation for an ongoing, Spirit-enabled production of dominical sayings in accordance with the current challenges of the community. 92 In this sense, the process of “remembering” becomes a process of “creative remembrance.” 93 The assumed extent of such creativity is not always clearly reflected upon and generally difficult to define. 94 Exegetically speaking, an interpretation that assumes a 91 Stein, “‘Criteria’ for Authenticity,” 227. 92 So, e.g., Hoegen-Rohls, Der nachösterliche Johannes, 1-6, 308-12. Cf. also the pertinent references in our summary of the authenticity of the Farewell Discourse in Johannine research in 5.1.1. Christian Dietzfelbinger, “Paraklet und Theologischer Anspruch im Johannesevangelium,” ZThK 82 (1985): 403-05, who states in conclusion of his programmtic study of the Paraclete-sayings and the relation between proclamation and tradition in John: “Johannes läßt Jesus zu Wort kommen (…) im Schaffen eines neuen Jesuswortes. (…) Die Christusreden des Johannesevangeliums, aufs Ganze gesehen auf den Evangelisten zurückzuführen, sind Reden, in denen Christus ständig sein »Ich« ausspricht. (…) Denn der Paraklet ist es, kraft dessen das Wort des Evangelisten, des Verkündigers, zum Jesuswort, zum heute verpflichtenden Jesuswort wird.” 93 See François Vouga, “Erinnerung an Jesus im Johannesevangelium,” ZNT 20 (2007): 33: “Die Erinnerung ist vielmehr eine kreative Erinnerung.” Cf. also again Dettwiler, Die Gegenwart des Erhöhten, 206; Schnelle, “Theologie als kreative Sinnbildung,” 135- 36; as well as Jean Zumstein, “Die Logien Jesu der ersten Abschiedsrede und die joh Schule,” in Kreative Erinnerung: Relecture und Auslegung im Johannesevangelium, ATANT 84 (Zürich: TVZ, 2 2004), 177-87 et al. 94 In this regard, cf., e.g., the comments of Frey, “Das vierte Evangelium,” 108-09, who supposes that this legitimizing process probably sparked off a controversial discussion among the Johannine churches. According to Frey, the question would have certainly arisen whether such an understanding of the Spirit’s role was too “progressive” and whether it was indeed legitimate to overhaul the Jesus tradition in such a way. He then goes on to say: “Nur auf diesem Hintergrund ist zu verstehen, wenn das Parakletwort Joh 16,13-15 eindringlich insistierend jede ‚Eigenmächtigkeit‘ des Geistes verwirft und die Rückbindung dieser Lehre an Christus behauptet: (…) Ob diese Beteuerung in der johanneischen Traditionslinie genügte, um angesichts der ‚weiterführenden‘ Tendenz der Interpretation die Rückbindung an den Anfang zu sichern, ist eine offene Frage, die sich historisch nur noch schwer beantworten lässt.” 405 more conservative process of spiritual recollection in relation to Jesus’ actual words seems preferred to that which assumes the free production of new revelation. Since John 14: 26 speaks about “remembering” and not about “creating” the words of Jesus, it unlikely means the free invention of dominical sayings. 95 In any case, the examples of Maurice Casey and Michael Theobald (from among the scholars reviewed in chapter one) show quite plainly that a historical perspective that principally allows for a willingness among the early church to creatively produce sayings of Jesus while claiming the legitimating inspiration of the Holy Spirit is naturally accompanied by a skeptical view in matters of authenticity regarding the Johannine discourses. 96 On the other hand, James Dunn’s reluctance to regard the Johannine discourses as too far removed from historical tradition and thus, generally, his only moderate-skeptical view on Johannine authenticity are certainly related to his rejection of the thesis that early Christian prophecy habitually turned into utterances of the earthly Jesus. 97 More specifically, the assessment of our comparative results will certainly be affected by one’s stance toward the probable origin of Johannine speech tradition in general. Whoever assumes that the early church guilelessly put into the mouth of Jesus words that actually originated in the experience of Spirit-filled prophets, will evaluate differently Johannine-Synoptic parallels than the one who supposes a basic interest within the early church to carefully preserve valuable 95 Cf. the brief comments in chapter 5 footnote 119 and the scholars cited there. Even M. Eugene Boring, “The Influence of Christian Prophecy on the Johannine Portrayal of the Paraclete and Jesus,” NTS 25 (1979): 117, himself a prominent champion of the Christian prophecy hypothesis (see above) writes concerning the Paraclete’s testimony referred to in John 14: 26: “He [i.e., the Spirit] does not speak ex nihilo;; he cannot deliver just any content with the claim that it is the word of the exalted Lord. Even though the exalted Christ and the historical Jesus blend into each other in John’s portrayal, the earthly Jesus and his word are never simply replaced by the word of the exalted Christ, so that John does not sacrifice history to mythology.” [italics his] Cf. also the comments of Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 253: “Thus the Spirit is seen as a source of continuing revelation for the disciples, but that revelation is seen as ultimately going back to the exalted Jesus and is not confused with the role of reminding the disciples what Jesus had said during his earthly ministry. The words of the exalted Jesus are basically not conveyed in the farewell discourses, they are only promised as something the Spirit will bring when the Spirit comes to the disciples.” [italics his] 96 Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 152; Theobald, Herrenworte, 611 (for more details including explicit quotes from these scholars see above 1.2.1 and 5.1.1). From among the ranks of those classified as holding a skeptical view of Johannine authenticity, especially Mussner, Historical Jesus, has maintained the impossibility to distinguish within the Johannine discourses between words of the historical Jesus and those of the risen Christ communicated and legitimated by the Spirit-Paraclete; cf. (as a moderate skeptic) also Lindars, “Tradition,” 121. 97 See, e.g., Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 186-92. 406 Jesus tradition. 98 For if the basic Sitz im Leben of the speech material in the Fourth Gospel is displaced from the ministry of the historical Jesus to the creative crucible of the Johannine community, then the scholar has to reckon with the invention of dominical words that are at least to a certain degree compatible with those synoptic sayings he rates as authentic. 99 Therefore, an a priori denial of the early church’s willingness to preserve accurately the teaching tradition that can be traced back to the actual discourses of Jesus will significantly alter the ultimate appraisal of the results gained in the main part of this study. 98 The significant formative role of the Johannine community not only in producing dominical sayings but in the transmission process has been emphasized by, e.g., the Jesus Seminar in Funk and Hoover, Five Gospels, 16-34; Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? , 98-139; Theobald, Herrenworte, passim. Even advocates of the moderate skeptical view of Johannine authenticity assume (some to a lesser, some to a greater degree) that those sayings of Jesus that are supposedly rooted in authentic tradition are, for the most part, not primarily reliable reminiscences of dominical speech but rather have been subject to substantial theological transformation. A more positive perspective regarding the commitment to remember and preserve Jesus tradition has recently been put forward by Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses, 240-318 and Dunn, Jesus Remembered, 173-254. Both argue for a controlled transmission that is able to take us back to the heart of the earliest reminiscences of the teaching of Jesus; yet, while for Dunn “tradition-forming is a communal process,” i.e., anonymous and informal, Bauckham suggests a formal transmission in that “the traditions were originated and formulated by named eyewitnesses, in whose name they were transmitted and who remained the living and active guarantors of the traditions.” Cf. now also Michael F. Bird, “The Purpose and Preservation of the Jesus Tradition: Moderate Evidence for a Conserving Force in Its Transmission,” BBR 15.2 (2005): 161-85 (and literature cited there). That the early disciples were prepared and equipped to commit to memory utterances of a teacher they held in high regard has been most poignantly argued against the form-critical camp by the so-called “Scandinavian School;;” cf., e.g., Harald Riesenfeld, The Gospel Tradition and its Beginnings: A Study in the Limits of ‘Formgeschichte’ (London: Mowbray, 1957); the groundbreaking study by Gerhardsson, Memory and Manuscript; as well as idem. The Reliability of the Gospel Tradition (Peabody: Hendrickson, 2001); cf. also Rainer Riesner, Jesus als Lehrer, 37-70, 392-404. 99 Cf. Baum, “Authentizität der synoptischen Worte,” 173. 407 Summary The main subject of this present study is the correlation between the alleged relationship of the Johannine discourses with the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics on the one hand and the assessment of the authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel on the other. Generally speaking, the Johannine discourses have received comparatively little attention as reliable and thus valuable sources for the teaching of the historical Jesus, not least due to the fact that even a cursory glance at John and the Synoptic Gospels reveals obvious differences between how Jesus’ words are presented. These differences have been frequently perceived as too great to accept the Johannine discourses as authentic representations of Jesus’ teaching, especially when placed alongside Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Until the present, a meticulous comparison between the portrait of Jesus’ teaching in John and the Synoptics that would offer ample evidence for such a verdict on the question of Johannine authenticity has been a desideratum. Thus, this study constitutes a necessary supplement within Johannine scholarship by providing a more comprehensive picture of Johannine- Synoptic relations than has previously been attempted. At the risk of some redundancy (cf. also our initial conclusions in chapter 6), the main findings may be summarized as follows. Initially, we provided a critical review of the literature regarding the question of the authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel. Johannine authenticity was widely accepted among the church fathers, though both the orthodox community and non-orthodox critics increasingly viewed the differences between John and the Synoptics as a critical problem (1.1). Further, a detailed representation of the history of modern research brought more clearly into focus the causality between Johannine- Synoptic relations and the scholarly judgment about the authenticity of the Johannine discourses (1.2). It could be observed that especially those scholars holding a more or less skeptical view of Johannine authenticity frequently based their conviction on an assumed incoherence between how John and the Synoptics present the teaching of Jesus. Yet, even though the relationship between John and the Synoptics seems to be one of the key issues in assessing the authenticity of the Johannine discourses, no sustainable attempt to either support or falsify such an argument based on a thorough investigation of the data has been (to our knowledge) put forward in the literature. Thus the primary purpose of this study was to examine 409 through a detailed comparison whether a negative judgment concerning the authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel can be significantly substantiated by the differences between the two major strands of canonical gospel tradition (1.3). Since the Fourth Gospel itself claims a historical intent, we argued that the authenticity of the Johannine discourses should be evaluated in light of the standards that existed in ancient historiography (2.1). An investigation of the authenticity of direct speech in Greco-Roman and Hebrew historiography yielded the following results (2.2): when presenting direct speech, both Greco-Roman as well as ancient Jewish historians made a clear distinction between form and content. From their perspective, it was utterly legitimate to change the wording of any given statement as long as the content was faithfully preserved. Thus, we concluded that, according to contemporary standards, the Johannine discourses should be considered as historically authentic as long as they reliably reproduce the basic substance of the words of Jesus. The methodological insight that differences in wording are not sufficient to argue reasonably for the inauthenticity of the Johannine discourses meant that the comparative approach we needed to employ for this study had to function not only on a semantical level but also include a rigorous comparison of the conceptual content of Jesus’ teaching between John and the Synoptics. Keeping this in mind, we made use of a comparative method able to distinguish between the two parameters of similarity in wording and similarity in content (2.3). Both parameters measured three levels of closeness, with level 0 indicating no similarity in either wording or content, level 1 some similarity and level 2 close similarity. With this approach we were able to assign to any given Johannine proposition a level of similarity in wording as well as content when compared with particular dominical sayings in the Synoptic Gospels. E.g., in a Johannine-Synoptic relation designated as [0/ 2], the numbers in brackets indicate that the given propositions contain no verbal agreement (level [0/ ] similarity of wording) but have a close conceptual similarity (level [/ 2] similarity of content). This methodological tool in hand made it possible to determine in the remainder of the study the levels of closeness to synoptic teaching of selected Johannine discourses. With regard to the results of our comparative approach, we noted that if it could be shown that a significant amount of Jesus’ words as represented in the Fourth Gospel were similar in either wording or content to the Synoptics (i.e., featuring a level 1 or level 2 type of closeness), then it would be difficult to uphold a negative judgment concerning the authenticity of any given discourse based upon the differences between John and the Synoptics. On the other hand, if large portions of the Johannine discourses were to show very little agreement with the reported teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics not only in wording but also in basic content (i.e., featuring a 410 level 0 or at best level 1 type of closeness), then the Fourth Gospel’s representation of Jesus’ words would have to be considered as essentially different from the Synoptics - something that could potentially serve as an argument against the authenticity of John. We then studied the two extensive Johannine dialogues with individuals, namely, Jesus’ dialogue with Nicodemus in John 3: 1-21 (3.1) and his dialogue with the Samaritan woman in John 4: 1-30 (3.2). Regarding the former, though our results revealed only a limited degree of verbal conformity with Jesus’ synoptic teaching, we found significant coherence in meaning and conceptual substance between what Jesus said to Nicodemus and his teaching in the Synoptics. Especially noteworthy were the similarities with reference to the key concepts such as the imperative of new birth (John 3: 3, 5 par. Matt 18: 3 and Mark 10: 15), the importance of personal faith in Jesus (John 3: 14-15 par. Matt 19: 28 pars.), and the emphasis on Jesus as the savior who gives eternal life to those who believe (John 3: 16-18 par. Matt 19: 28 pars.;; Luke 19: 10). Similarly, Jesus’ dialogue with the Samaritan woman, though stated in uniquely Johannine language, had a good amount of Jesus’ teaching at its conceptual core that resembled his reported words in the Synoptic Gospels. Central motifs inherent in John 4 as well as in the Synoptics included the emphasis on Jesus’ identity as the true source of salvation (John 4: 10, 13-14, 26 par. Matt 9: 6 pars., 19: 28-29 pars.; Mark 14: 62 pars.), the foundational role of Judaism in salvation history (John 4: 22 par. Matt 5: 14, 8: 11-12), and the inauguration of a new salvific age in the person and ministry of Jesus (John 4: 23 par. Matt 11: 4-5; 12: 6; Mark 13: 2 pars.). In sum, we found that the Johannine-Synoptic correlations in both dialogues with individuals seem to counter any negative historical argument based on assumed differences between John and the Synoptics. In the following chapter we examined two Johannine discourses addressed to the Jewish public. The results of our comparative study of the Bread of Life Discourse in John 6: 22-59 (4.1) did not support the scholarly claim of staggering dissimilarities between this Johannine discourse and Jesus’ teaching in the Synoptics. Once again, the Bread of Life Discourse showed no close semantic proximity to Jesus’ words in the other three canonical Gospels. Yet at the same time it became obvious that, even though very few Johannine propositions had no conceptual parallel in the Synoptics, the main teachings of the discourse are not idiosyncratic to the Fourth Gospel. Among the elements that fit well with synoptic material were the unique role of the Son in the work of salvation (6: 27b, 27c, 40 par. Matt 16: 27 et al.), the envoy-Christology (6: 29b, 33, 35b, 37b, 40, 47, 50-51, 53-56, 58 par. Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 et al.), and the Father as the ultimate source of redemption (6: 32b, 37a, 44a, 45c par. Matt 10: 26-27; Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22; Luke 12: 32 et al.). The findings of our comparison between the Light of the World Discourse in John 8: 12-59 and Jesus’ teach- 411 ing in the Synoptics (4.2) were also not in agreement with the perceived gap between the Johannine and the Synoptic Jesus. At a conceptual level the evidence hardly supports claims of significant differences as the major themes of this discourse are paralleled in the Synoptic Gospels, such as Jesus’ invitation to follow the truth and to thereby receive eternal life (8: 12, 24, 31, 32, 51 par. Matt 19: 28-29 pars.; Matt 11: 29; Luke 8: 8, 15 et al.) and the identity of Jesus as the sent one who truly knows and obeys the Father (8: 14a-c, 16a-b, 18b, 23b, 28a-c, 29a-b, 38a, 40b, 42b, 55b par. Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22; Matt 26: 39, 42 pars. et al.). In addition, even certain motifs that have been frequently designated as secondary developments of the Johannine community, like Jesus’ preexistence or the portrayal of his severe clash with the Jewish public, are echoed in John’s synoptic counterparts. Contrary then to many scholarly voices, we argued that the overall teaching of these two discourses is not essentially different in content from the Synoptics, thus casting doubt on any suggestion of their inauthenticity based on Johannine- Synoptic non-correlations. Eventually, we investigated the first unit of Jesus’ Farewell Discourse addressed to his disciples in John 14: 1-31 (5.1), followed by an examination of his post-resurrection words in John 20: 11-29 (5.2). The comparison with Jesus’ synoptic teaching yielded results scarcely different from what was encountered in the two preceding chapters. Though many consider the content of the Farewell Discourse as being ultimately rooted not in the teaching of Jesus but rather in the theology of the Johannine community because of supposed inconsistencies between John and the Synoptics, our findings do not seem to support such a claim. Once again, we found that, while the verbal agreement between John 14: 1-31 and Jesus’ synoptic teaching is certainly not very remarkable, the observable overlap in content make the supposed differences between Jesus’ words of farewell and synoptic speech material difficult to substantiate. None of the Johannine utterances appear to contradict the synoptic teaching of Jesus, rather the most important theological themes permeating this first unit of the Farewell Discourse find parallels in Matthew, Mark, or Luke, e.g., Jesus’ announcement to go away in order to provide access to the Father (14: 2-3, 4, 6, 25, 29 par. Matt 20: 23 par. Mark 10: 40; Mark 13: 23; 14: 21 pars.; Luke 24: 44 et al.), the possibility of encountering the Father in the person and ministry of Jesus (14: 7 [also 9a-b, 10a-b] par. Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22), the challenge to pray expectantly (14: 13a, 14 par. Matt 7: 7 par. Luke 11: 9; Mark 11: 24 par. Matt 21: 22), and not least the promise of the Spirit-Paraclete (14: 16, 26 par. Luke 24: 49; Mark 13: 9-11 pars.). Finally, a survey of Jesus’ words spoken to the disciples after the resurrection in John 20: 11-29 served to corroborate the comparative results gained in regard to the larger Johannine discourses we studied. The significant correlations in conceptual content (and in parts even in wording) provided further evidence for a substantial coherence 412 between the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John and those attributed to him in the Synoptic Gospels. In sum, the overall picture of Johannine-Synoptic relations seems to answer positively the guiding question of our research, i.e., whether John did accurately render the words of Jesus, when compared to the three Synoptic Gospels (6.). While the general wording of the discourses is unique in the Fourth Gospel, showing the obvious differences as to how the Fourth Evangelist handled his speech material, it seems difficult to avoid the conclusion that the basic thrust of Jesus’ teaching in John has a significant correlation with the synoptic strand of gospel tradition. At least as far as the discourses examined in this study are concerned, on the basis of a detailed comparison with the Synoptics no strong evidence can be found to justify the denial of the Johannine discourses as authentic representations of the actual content of Jesus’ words. Drawing on the results of our detailed comparison, a more specific characterization of the nature of the differences and similarities encountered between how John and the Synoptics render the words of Jesus can be offered. In order to grasp important regularities and distinctives in the way the Fourth Gospel has employed Jesus’ teaching material when compared to the Synoptics, one has to take a closer look at both literary (7.1) and theological features (7.2) of the Johannine treatment of dominical speech tradition. When juxtaposed against the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics, Johannine discourses seem to be especially characterized by three peculiar literary traits: significant repetition as a means to communicate the message, a semantically reduced presentation of dominical doctrine through a stronger concentration on particular keywords, and a noticeable tendency for abstraction, which includes frequent generalizations, the reduction of particulars to key concepts and the omission of vivid detail. Further, with regard to theological content, the development undergone by the Johannine discourses in comparison with the teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics can be (most importantly but not exclusively) described along four lines: the Johannine discourses are more explicit regarding Jesus’ christological identity, they focus more clearly on Jesus as the essential object of faith, they put greater emphasis on life as a present soteriological reality, and they contain a dualistic emphasis that shows certain differences with the synoptic outlook. Finally, it needs to be noted that the approach employed in this study does not have the potential to demonstrate positively the historical reliability of the Fourth Gospel’s discourses. Rather, the comparative results merely question the argument against Johannine authenticity based on vast differences between Jesus’ teaching in John and the Synoptics. Broadening somewhat our perspective, the findings of our study have to be related to other historical ques- 413 tions, answers to which figure largely in determining the value of these findings for a general verdict on the authenticity of the Johannine discourses. Thus, an overall assessment of the value of Johannine-Synoptic relations is strongly dependent on the degree of authenticity ascribed to the synoptic sayings used as parallels for the Johannine discourses we examined (8.1). Further, our confidence in the authenticity of the Johannine discourses increases, if we estimate positively the historical reliability of the non-discourse material in the Fourth Gospel (8.2), if we consider the author of the Fourth Gospel as an eyeand earwitness of Jesus’ teaching who had indeed the ability to report accurately (8.3), and if we reckon with a general willingness among the earliest Christians to preserve reliably dominical teaching tradition rather than creatively produce sayings of Jesus (8.4). In contrast, if we are skeptical regarding the ability and willingness of the Fourth Evangelist (and his community) to report historical truth, we will have little anticipation to find in the Johannine discourses a significant amount of authentic Jesus tradition. In short, the main thesis of this study is that a negative judgment concerning the authenticity of Jesus’ words in the Fourth Gospel cannot be sustained by assumed differences between the two major strands of canonical gospel tradition. Distinguishing between wording and content, we found that, while much of Jesus’ teaching in the Fourth Gospel is expressed in uniquely Johannine considerable part of it has a more or less close conceptual parallel in the Synoptics. Thus, at least for the discourses covered in this study (i.e., John 3: 1-21; 4: 1-30; 6: 22-59; 8: 12-59; 14: 1- 31), the significant correlations with the words of the Synoptic Jesus show that the theological content of Jesus’ teaching is consistently reproduced between John and Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In and of itself this does not demonstrate the general authenticity of the Johannine discourses, but the comparative results of this study seem to suggest a more positive evaluation of the historical credibility of the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John. 414 Appendix The Johannine Discourses and the Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics: An Overview of Parallels John 3: 1-21: Jesus’ Dialogue with Nicodemus John 3: 1-21 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 3: 1-2 3: 3 [1/ 2] Matt 18: 3 / Mark 10: 15 par. Luke 18: 17 [1/ 1] Matt 7: 21 / Mark 1: 15 3: 4 3: 5 [1/ 2] Matt 18: 3 / Mark 10: 15 par. Luke 18: 17 3: 6 [1/ 1] Matt 26: 41 par. Mark 14: 38 3: 7 [0/ 2] Matt 18: 3 / Mark 10: 15 par. Luke 18: 17 3: 8 [0/ 1] Mark 4: 27 / Mark 10: 26-27 par. Luke 18: 27 3: 9 3: 10 [0/ 1] Matt 15: 14 / Matt 22: 29 3: 11 [0/ 2] Luke 22: 67-68 / Matt 13: 14-15 pars. [0/ 1] Matt 8: 10 pars. / Matt 11: 18-19 pars. 3: 12 [1/ 2] Luke 22: 67-68 [1/ 1] Matt 17: 17 pars. / Matt 21: 32 pars. 3: 13 [1/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 3: 14a [0/ 0] 3: 14b [1/ 2] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. 3: 15 [1/ 1] Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 [1/ 2] Luke 7: 50 3: 16a [0/ 1] Luke 6: 35 3: 16b [1/ 1] Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 / Matt 21: 37 pars. 3: 16c [1/ 2] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. / Luke 7: 50 [1/ 1] Matt 18: 14 415 Cont’d: John 3: 1-21: Jesus’ Dialogue with Nicodemus John 4: 1-30: Jesus’ Dialogue with the Samaritan Woman John 3: 1-21 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 3: 16c [0/ 1] Luke 19: 10 3: 17 [1/ 2] Luke 19: 10 [1/ 1] Matt 10: 40 pars. / Matt 21: 37 pars. [0/ 1] Mark 2: 17 3: 18a [1/ 2] Luke 7: 50 3: 18b [0/ 1] Luke 13: 3, 5 3: 19a [1/ 1] Matt 12: 41-42 par. Luke 11: 31-32 3: 19b-20 [1/ 1] Matt 23: 3, 28, 37 [0/ 1] Mark 12: 6-9 3: 21a [0/ 0] 3: 21b [1/ 1] Matt 5: 16 [0/ 1] Matt 7: 16 pars. John 4: 1-30 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 4: 1-7a 4: 7b [0/ 0] 4: 8-9 Luke 9: 13 pars. / Luke 17: 16-18 4: 10 [1/ 1] Matt 7: 7 / Luke 11: 13 par. Matt 7: 11 [0/ 1] Matt 9: 6 pars. / Matt 19: 28-29 pars. 4: 11-12 4: 13 [0/ 1] Luke 4: 4 par. Matt 4: 4 / Luke 6: 25 [0/ 1] Luke 12: 32 4: 14 [1/ 1] Matt 5: 6 / Matt 19: 28-29 pars. / Matt 25: 46 4: 15 4: 16 [0/ 0] 4: 17a 4: 17b [0/ 0] 4: 18 [0/ 0] 4: 19-20 416 Cont’d: John 4: 1-30: Jesus’ Dialogue with the Samaritan Woman John 5: 31-47: The Discourse about the Divine Son - Part II 1 1 A detailed examination of this particular discourse section is not included in the main body of this work. For more details see Bartholomä, “John 5,31-47 and the Teaching of Jesus in the Synoptics,” 367-91. John 4: 1-30 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 4: 21 [0/ 1] Mark 13: 2 pars. 4: 22 [0/ 1] Matt 5: 14 / Matt 8: 11-12 / Mark 7: 27 4: 23 [0/ 1] Matt 11: 4-5 / Mark 1: 15 / Matt 12: 6 / Mark 13: 2 pars. / Matt 15: 6-9 par. Mark 7: 6-9 4: 24 [0/ 1] Matt 6: 5-7 / Matt 16: 17 4: 25 4: 26 [1/ 2] Mark 14: 61-62 pars. 4: 27-30 Matt 19: 13-14 / Mark 2: 8 par. Luke 5: 22 / Luke 3: 15 John 5: 31-47 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 5: 31 [1/ 1] Matt 18: 16 5: 32 [0/ 1] Matt 12: 28 par. Luke 11: 20 5: 33a [0/ 0] 5: 33b [0/ 1] Matt 11: 9 par. Luke 7: 26 5: 34 [1/ 2] Luke 19: 10 par. Matt 18: 11 5: 35 [0/ 1] Mark 11: 30, 32 pars. [0/ 2] Matt 11: 7-11 par. Luke 7: 24-28 5: 36ab [0/ 1] Matt 11: 4-5 par. Luke 7: 22-23 / Matt 12: 28 par. Luke 11: 20 / Matt 9: 6a pars. 5: 36c, 37a [0/ 2] Matt 10: 40 / Luke 10: 16 5: 37b [0/ 1] Matt 11: 27a par. Luke 10: 22a 5: 37c [0/ 1] Matt 11: 27c par. Luke 10: 22c [1/ 1] Matt 13: 13-15 pars. 417 Cont’d: John 5: 31-47: The Discourse about the Divine Son - Part II John 6: 22-59: The Bread of Life Discourse John 5: 31-47 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 5: 38a [1/ 2] Mark 4: 16-17 pars. 5: 38b [1/ 1] Matt 17: 17 pars. 5: 39 [0/ 2] Luke 18: 31 / Luke 24: 44 5: 40 [1/ 2] Matt 23: 37 par. Luke 13: 34 / Luke 15: 28 5: 41 [0/ 1] Luke 4: 24 pars. 5: 42 [1/ 2] Luke 11: 42 5: 43a [1/ 1] Matt 11: 27a par. Luke 10 : 22a / Matt 23: 39 par. Luke 13: 35 5: 43b [0/ 1] Matt 17: 17 pars. 5: 43c [1/ 2] Matt 24: 5, 24 pars. 5: 44 [0/ 2] Matt 6: 1-2, 5, 16 / Matt 23: 5-7 5: 45a [0/ 0] 5: 45b [0/ 1] Mark 7: 6-13 par. Matt 15: 3-9 5: 46 [0/ 2] Matt 5: 17 [1/ 2] Luke 24: 44 5: 47 [1/ 2] Luke 16: 31 John 6: 22-59 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 6: 22-25 6: 26 [0/ 0] 6: 27a [0/ 2] Matt 6: 19 6: 27b [0/ 2] Matt 6: 20 / Luke 12: 33 6: 27c [1/ 2] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. / Matt 16: 27 6: 27d [1/ 1] Matt 9: 6 pars. / Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 6: 28 Matt 19: 16 pars. / Luke 3: 10, 12 6: 29a [0/ 0] 6: 29b [1/ 2] Matt 18: 6 par. Mark 9: 42 / Matt 10: 40 pars. / Luke 10: 16 418 Cont’d: John 6: 22-59: The Bread of Life Discourse John 6: 22-59 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 6: 29b [1/ 1] Mark 1: 15 / Mark 5: 36 6: 30-31 Matt 12: 38 / Matt 16: 1 / Luke 23: 8 / Mark 15: 32 6: 32a [0/ 0] 6: 32b [1/ 2] Luke 12: 32 [1/ 1] Matt 6: 11 / Matt 7: 11 6: 33a [0/ 1] Matt 5: 17 / Luke 12: 49 6: 33b [1/ 2] Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 6: 34 6: 35a [1/ 1] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. [0/ 1] Mark 6: 50 par. Matt 14: 27 6: 35b [0/ 2] Matt 11: 28 6: 36 [1/ 1] Matt 17: 17 pars. / Matt 21: 32 pars. [0/ 1] Matt 13: 14-15 pars. 6: 37a [1/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 6: 37b [1/ 1] Matt 11: 28-29 [0/ 1] Matt 12: 20 6: 38a [0/ 1] Matt 5: 17 / Luke 12: 49 6: 38b [1/ 2] Matt 26: 39, 42 pars. / Mark 3: 35 pars. / Matt 6: 10 6: 39a [1/ 2] Matt 18: 14 [1/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 6: 39b [1/ 2] Matt 10: 15 / Matt 24: 36 [1/ 1] Mark 12: 25 pars. / Luke 16: 31 6: 40a [1/ 2] Matt 26: 39, 42 pars. / Mark 3: 35 pars. / Matt 6: 10 6: 40b [1/ 2] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. / Matt 18: 6 par. Mark 9: 42 / Matt 10: 40 pars. / Luke 10: 16 [1/ 1] Matt 7: 21 / Mark 1: 15 / Mark 5: 36 6: 40c [1/ 2] Matt 10: 15 / Matt 24: 36 [1/ 1] Mark 12: 25 pars. / Luke 16: 31 6: 41-42 Matt 13: 55 pars. 6: 43 [0/ 0] 6: 44a [1/ 1] Luke 12: 32 [0/ 1] Mark 10: 26-27 419 Cont’d: John 6: 22-59: The Bread of Life Discourse John 6: 22-59 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 6: 44b [1/ 2] [1/ 1] Matt 10: 15 / Matt 24: 36 Mark 12: 25 pars. / Luke 16: 31 6: 45a [2/ 2] Luke 20: 17 [et al.] 6: 45b [0/ 0] 6: 45c [1/ 1] Matt 11: 28-29 6: 46 [1/ 2] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 6: 47 [1/ 2] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. 6: 48 [1/ 1] [0/ 1] Mark 6: 50 par. Matt 14: 27 Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 6: 49 [0/ 0] 6: 50a, 51a [0/ 1] Matt 5: 17 / Luke 12: 49 / Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 6: 50b, 51b [1/ 2] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. [1/ 1] Luke 20: 36 / Matt 26: 26-28 par. Mark 14: 22-24 6: 51c [1/ 2] Mark 10: 45 par. Matt 20: 28 [1/ 1] Luke 22: 19 6: 52 6: 53 [1/ 1] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. / Matt 26: 26-28 pars. 6: 54a [1/ 1] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. / Matt 26: 26-28 pars. 6: 54b [1/ 2] Matt 10: 15 / Matt 24: 36 [1/ 1] Mark 12: 25 pars. / Luke 16: 31 6: 55 [1/ 1] Matt 26: 26-28 pars. 6: 56a [1/ 1] Matt 19: 28-19 pars. / Matt 26: 26-28 pars. 6: 56b [0/ 0] 6: 56c [0/ 1] Matt 28: 20 6: 57a [1/ 2] Matt 10: 40 pars. / Luke 10: 16 6: 57b [0/ 0] 6: 57c [1/ 1] Matt 19: 28-19 pars. / Matt 26: 26-28 pars. 6: 58a [0/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 6: 58b [0/ 0] 6: 58c [1/ 1] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. / Matt 26: 26-28 pars. 6: 59 Mark 1: 21 420 John 8: 12-59: The Light of the World Discourse John 8: 12-59 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 8: 12a [1/ 1] Matt 5: 14 8: 12b [1/ 2] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. [1/ 1] Matt 8: 12 8: 12c [1/ 2] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. [1/ 1] Luke 11: 33-36 8: 13 8: 14a [0/ 1] Matt 24: 35 par. Mark 13: 31 8: 14b [0/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 / Matt 10: 40 pars. 8: 14c [1/ 2] Matt 26: 24 pars. [0/ 2] Mark 14: 62 pars. 8: 14d [0/ 0] 8: 15a [0/ 1] Matt 23: 25-28 par. Luke 11: 37-39, 44 8: 15b [0/ 0] 8: 16a [0/ 1] Luke 18: 7-8 / Matt 25: 31-32 8: 16b [1/ 2] Matt 16: 27 [0/ 1] Matt 22: 44 / Mark 14: 62 pars. 8: 17 [1/ 2] Matt 18: 16 8: 18a [0/ 1] Matt 11: 4-5 par. Luke 7: 22 8: 18b [0/ 1] Luke 11: 19-20 pars. 8: 19a 8: 19b [1/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 8: 20 Mark 12: 41 / Mark 14: 41 par. Matt 26: 45 8: 21a [1/ 2] Matt 26: 24 pars. [0/ 1] Matt 9: 15 pars. / Matt 23: 39 par. Luke 13: 35 8: 21b [0/ 1] Matt 23: 28, 33 8: 21c [1/ 1] [0/ 1] Matt 5: 20 Luke 10: 16 8: 22 8: 23a [0/ 1] Matt 23: 15 8: 23b [0/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 8: 24 [1/ 2] [0/ 2] [0/ 1] [Mark 14: 62 pars.] Luke 13: 3, 5 Matt 23: 28, 33 / [Matt 19: 28-29 pars.] 8: 25a 421 Cont’d: John 8: 12-59: The Light of the World Discourse John 8: 12-59 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 8: 25b [0/ 0] 8: 26a [0/ 2] [0/ 1] Matt 16: 27 Matt 25: 31-32 / Mark 14: 62 pars. 8: 26b [0/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 8: 26c [0/ 1] Luke 4: 18 / Luke 4: 43 8: 27 8: 28a [1/ 2] Mark 9: 31 [1/ 1] Matt 19: 28 pars. 8: 28b [1/ 2] Mark 14: 62 pars. 8: 28c [0/ 2] [0/ 1] Matt 26: 39, 42 pars.; Matt 6: 10; Mark 3: 35 pars. Luke 4: 16 / Luke 4: 43 8: 29a [0/ 1] Matt 26: 53 8: 29b [0/ 2] Matt 26: 39, 42 pars. / Mark 3: 35 pars. / Matt 6: 10 8: 30 8: 31 [0/ 2] Matt 24: 13 / Luke 8: 8, 15 pars. 8: 32 [0/ 2] Matt 11: 29 [0/ 1] Luke 4: 18 / Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47- 48 8: 33 Matt 3: 9 par. Luke 3: 8 8: 34 [0/ 1] Matt 12: 33-35 8: 35a [1/ 1] Matt 18: 23-35 / Matt 24: 45-51 / Matt 25: 14-30 [0/ 1] Matt 8: 11-12 8: 35b [1/ 1] Matt 17: 26 [0/ 1] Luke 15: 31 8: 36 [0/ 1] Luke 13: 16 / Matt 11: 29 / Matt 9: 2, 6 pars. / Matt 26: 28 / Luke 7: 47-48 / Luke 24: 47 8: 37a [1/ 2] Luke 19: 9 / Luke 13: 16 [1/ 1] Matt 8: 11-12 8: 37b [1/ 2] Mark 9: 31 pars. 8: 37c [1/ 1] Matt 19: 11 / Luke 8: 12 pars. 8: 38a [1/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 8: 38b [0/ 1] Matt 6: 10 / Mark 3: 35 422 Cont’d: John 8: 12-59: The Light of the World Discourse John 8: 12-59 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 8: 39a Matt 3: 9 par. Luke 3: 8 8: 39b [1/ 1] Matt 5: 16 / Matt 23: 3 8: 40a [1/ 2] Mark 9: 31 pars. 8: 40b [0/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 / Luke 4: 43 8: 40c [0/ 0] 8: 41a [1/ 1] Matt 23: 3, 15, 31 [0/ 1] Matt 13: 38 / Luke 16: 8 8: 41b Cf. on John 8: 33 and 8: 39a. 8: 42a [1/ 1] Luke 6: 35 par. Matt 5: 44-45 8: 42b [1/ 1] [0/ 1] Matt 5: 17 Luke 12: 51 par. Matt 10: 34 8: 42c [1/ 2] Matt 10: 40 pars. [Cf. also on John 8: 26c, 8: 28c and 8: 29 above.] 8: 43 [1/ 1] [0/ 1] Matt 19: 11 / Luke 8: 12-13 pars. Matt 15: 14 8: 44a [1/ 1] Matt 13: 38-39a [0/ 1] Luke 16: 8 8: 44b [1/ 1] Matt 23: 3, 15 8: 44c [0/ 1] Luke 8: 12 pars. 8: 45 [1/ 2] Luke 22: 67 pars. [1/ 1] Luke 8: 12 pars. 8: 46a [0/ 0] 8: 46b [1/ 2] Luke 22: 67 pars. [1/ 1] Luke 8: 12 pars. 8: 47 [1/ 1] Luke 8: 12 pars. 8: 48 Mark 3: 22 pars. 8: 49a [1/ 2] Matt 12: 25-28 8: 49b [1/ 1] Matt 26: 39, 42 [0/ 1] Matt 11: 25 8: 49c [1/ 1] Matt 13: 57 [0/ 1] Matt 12: 30 / Luke 7: 34 8: 50a [0/ 1] Matt 10: 40 pars. / Luke 10: 16 8: 50b [0/ 1] Mark 12: 9 8: 51 [1/ 2] Mark 9: 1 pars. / Matt 19: 28-29 pars. / Luke 11: 28 423 Cont’d: John 8: 12-59: The Light of the World Discourse John 14: 1-31: The Farewell Discourse - Unit 1 John 8: 12-59 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 8: 51 [1/ 1] Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48 8: 52-53 Mark 3: 22 pars. / Matt 12: 39-42 par. Luke 11: 29-32 8: 54a [0/ 1] Matt 10: 40 pars. / Luke 10: 16 8: 54b [1/ 1] Mark 8: 38 par. Luke 9: 26 / Matt 19: 28 8: 54c-55a [1/ 1] Matt 7: 21 8: 55b [0/ 2] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 / Mark 3: 35 pars. 8: 56 [1/ 1] Matt 13: 17 par. Luke 10: 24 8: 57 8: 58 [1/ 2] Mark 14: 62 pars. 8: 59 Luke 4: 29-30 John 14: 1-31 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 14: 1a [1/ 2] Luke 24: 38 [0/ 2] Matt 10: 31 14: 1b [1/ 2] Matt 18: 6 par. Mark 9: 42 [1/ 1] Mark 1: 15 / Mark 5: 36 par. Luke 8: 50 14: 2a, 2c, 3b [1/ 1] Matt 20: 23 par. Mark 10: 40 / Matt 25: 34 [0/ 1] Mark 14: 25 pars. 14: 2b, 3a [0/ 2] Mark 14: 21 pars. 14: 3c [1/ 1] Matt 16: 27 pars. 14: 3d [1/ 1] Luke 17: 34-35 par. Matt 24: 40-41 [0/ 1] Matt 16: 27 pars. 14: 3e [0/ 2] Matt 18: 20 / Matt 28: 20 14: 4 [1/ 1] Mark 14: 21 pars. [0/ 1] Matt 20: 18-19 pars. 14: 5 424 Cont’d: John 14: 1-31: The Farewell Discourse - Unit 1 John 14: 1-31 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 14: 6a [1/ 1] Matt 7: 13-14 par. Luke 13: 23-27 / Matt 10: 32-33 par. Luke 12: 8-9 14: 6b [1/ 2] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 14: 7 [1/ 2] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 [0/ 1] Luke 10: 23-24 par. Matt 13: 16-17 14: 8 14: 9a [1/ 1] Matt 17: 17 pars. [0/ 1] Mark 8: 21 14: 9b [1/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 14: 10a [1/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 14: 10b [0/ 1] Luke 4: 18 / Matt 26: 39, 42 14: 10c [0/ 1] Matt 12: 28 par. Luke 11: 20 14: 11a [1/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 14: 11b [0/ 1] Matt 11: 4-6 par. Luke 7: 18-23 / Matt 11: 20-24 par. Luke 10: 12-15 / Mark 2: 10 14: 12 [1/ 1] Matt 11: 11 / Mark 11: 22-24 par. Matt 21: 21 14: 13a [1/ 2] Matt 7: 7 par. Luke 11: 9 / Mark 11: 24 par. Matt 21: 22 14: 13b [0/ 0] 14: 14 [1/ 2] Matt 7: 7 par. Luke 11: 9 / Mark 11: 24 par. Matt 21: 22 14: 15 [1/ 1] Matt 5: 19 / Matt 22: 35-40 pars. [0/ 1] Luke 8: 21 pars. / Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48 14: 16 [0/ 2] [1/ 1] Luke 24: 49 Luke 11: 13 14: 17a [0/ 0] 14: 17b [0/ 1] Mark 13: 11 14: 18a [0/ 1] Matt 28: 20 14: 18b [0/ 1] Mark 10: 34 pars. / Mark 9: 31 par. Matt 17: 22-23 14: 19a [0/ 2] Matt 23: 39 [0/ 1] Matt 9: 15 pars. 14: 19b [0/ 2] Matt 28: 10 par. Mark 14: 28 14: 19c [0/ 1] Mark 9: 31 par. Matt 17: 23 425 Cont’d: John 14: 1-31: The Farewell Discourse - Unit 1 John 14: 1-31 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 14: 19d [1/ 1] Matt 19: 28-29 pars. 14: 20a [1/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 14: 20b [0/ 0] 14: 20c [1/ 1] Matt 28: 20 14: 21a [1/ 1] Matt 5: 19 pars. / Matt 22: 35-40 pars. [0/ 1] Luke 8: 21 pars. / Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48 14: 21b [0/ 1] Matt 10: 40 pars. / Matt 10: 37 14: 22 Luke 6: 16 14: 23 [1/ 1] Matt 5: 19 pars. / Matt 22: 35-40 pars. [0/ 1] Luke 8: 21 pars. / Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48 / Matt 28: 20 14: 24a [1/ 1] Matt 5: 19 pars. / Matt 22: 35-40 pars. [0/ 1] Luke 8: 21 pars. / Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48 / Matt 28: 20 14: 24b [1/ 1] Matt 24: 35 [0/ 1] Luke 4: 18 14: 25 [1/ 2] Luke 24: 44 [0/ 2] Mark 13: 23 14: 26 [1/ 2] Mark 13: 11 pars. [0/ 1] Luke 8: 21 pars. / Matt 7: 24-25 par. Luke 6: 47-48 14: 27a [1/ 1] Luke 24: 36 14: 27b [1/ 2] Luke 24: 38 [0/ 2] Matt 10: 31 14: 28a [1/ 2] Matt 26: 24 pars. [0/ 1] Matt 9: 15 pars. 14: 28b [1/ 2] Matt 16: 27 [0/ 1] Matt 9: 31 pars. 14: 28c [0/ 0] 14: 28d [1/ 1] Matt 20: 23 par. Mark 10: 40 / Mark 13: 32 par. Matt 24: 36 / Matt 26: 39, 42 pars. / Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 14: 29 [1/ 2] Mark 13: 23, 29 14: 30 [0/ 2] Mark 14: 41-42 par. Matt 26: 45-46 / Luke 22: 53 426 Cont’d: John 14: 1-31: The Farewell Discourse - Unit 1 John 20: 11-29: Jesus’ Post-Resurrection Words to his Disciples John 14: 1-31 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 14: 31a [0/ 0] 14: 31b [0/ 2] Mark 14: 36 pars. 14: 31c [2/ 2] Mark 14: 42 pars. John 20: 11-29 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 20: 11-14 Luke 24: 4 / Luke 24: 16 / Mark 16: 12 20: 15a [1/ 1] Luke 7: 13 / Luke 8: 52 20: 15b [0/ 0] 20: 15c 20: 16a [0/ 0] 20: 16b 20: 17a [0/ 0] 20: 17b [0/ 1] Luke 24: 26 20: 17c [1/ 1] Matt 28: 9-10 20: 17d [1/ 1] Matt 11: 27 par. Luke 10: 22 [0/ 1] Matt 26: 24 pars. 20: 18 20: 19a 20: 19b [2/ 2] Luke 24: 36 20: 20 Luke 24: 37-41 20: 21 [2/ 2] Luke 24: 36 [0/ 2] Matt 28: 18-20 [0/ 1] Matt 10: 40 pars. 20: 22 [1/ 1] Mark 13: 11 [0/ 1] Luke 24: 49 20: 23 [0/ 2] Matt 18: 18 par. Matt 16: 19 [1/ 1] Luke 24: 47 20: 24-26a Matt 28: 17 / Luke 24: 11, 37 427 Cont’d: John 20: 11-29: Jesus’ Post-Resurrection Words to his Disciples John 20: 11-29 Levels of Closeness Parallels in the Synoptics 20: 26b [2/ 2] Luke 24: 36 20: 27a [1/ 2] Luke 24: 39 20: 27b [1/ 1] Mark 5: 36 20: 28 20: 29 [1/ 1] Matt 13: 16 par. Luke 10: 23 428 Abbreviations Abbreviations are generally taken from The SBL Handbook of Style, supplemented by the Theologische Realenzyklopädie. Additionally, the following abbreviations are used: Ancient Writers and Works 1 Athenagoras, Leg. Athenagoras, Legatio pro christianis Augustine, De Cons. Augustine, De consensu evangelistarum Cont. Faust. Contra Faustum Manichaeum Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. Clement of Alexandria, Quis dives salvetur Strom. Stromateis Ep. Apost. Epistula Apostolorum Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History FGrH Fragmente der griechischen Historiker Gosp. Thom. Gospel of Thomas Irenaeus, Haer. Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. Justin Martyr, First Apology Dial. Dialogue with Trypho Lucian, Hist. Conscr. Lucian, Historia conscribenda LXX Septuagint Origen, Comm. Joh. Origen, Commentary on John Cont. Cels. Contra Celsum Tertullian, De Praescr. Tertullian, De praescriptione haereticorum De Bapt. De baptismo Philo, Vit. Mos. Philo, De vita Mosis Polybius, Hist. Polybius, The Histories Thucydides, Hist. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 1 With a few exceptions these abbreviations are taken from either Simon Hornblower and Anthony Spawforth, eds., The Oxford Classical Dictionary (Oxford: University Press, 3 1996) or Craig A. Evans and Stanley E. Porter, eds., Dictionary of New Testament Background (Leicester: InterVarsity Press, 2000). 429 Bible Translations ESV English Standard Version HCSB Holman Christian Standard Bible RSV Revised Standard Version NAB New American Bible NASB New American Standard Bible NET New English Translation NIV New International Version NKJV New King James Version NLT New Living Translation NRSV New Revised Standard Version 430 Bibliography 1. Ancient Sources Athenagoras. Legatio and De Resurrectione. Translated by William R. Schoedel. OECT. Oxford: Clarendon, 1972. Augustine. “Harmony of the Gospels.” Translated by S. D. F. Salmon. In Saint Augustine: Sermon on the Mount, Harmony of the Gospels, Homilies on the Gospels. Vol. 6 of NPNF. Edited by Philip Schaff. 65-236. Reprint, Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995. _______. Answer to Faustus, a Manichean. Translated by Roland Teske. Vol. I.20 of The Works of Saint Augustine: A Translation for the 21st Century. New York: New City Press, 2007. Clement of Alexandria. Stromateis - Books One to Three. Translated by John Ferguson. The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation. Washington: Catholic University Press, 1991. _______. “The Rich Man’s Salvation.” In Clement of Alexandria. Translated by G.W. Butterworth. LCL. 265-367. Reprint, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960. “Epistula Apostolorum.” Translated by C. Detlef G. Muller. In Vol. 1 of New Testament Apocrypha. Edited by Wilhelm Schneemelcher. Translated by R. M. Wilson. 252-84. Louisville: John Knox, 1991. Eusebius. Ecclesiastical History. New Updated Edition. Translated by C. F. Cruse. Peabody: Hendrickson, 1998. Irenaeus. “Against Heresies.” In The Apostolic Fathers with Justin Martyr and Irenaeus. Vol. 1 of ANF. Edited and introduced by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. 307-567. Reprint, Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995. Jacoby, Felix, ed. Spezialgeschichten, Autobiographien und Memoiren. Zeittafeln. Vol. 2B of Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1929. Justin Martyr. Dialogue with Trypho. Translated by Thomas B. Falls. Selections from the Fathers of the Church 3. Washington: Catholic University Press, 2003. _______. The First and Second Apologies. Translated by Leslie William Barnard. ACW 56. New York: Paulist Press, 1997. 431 Lucian. “How to Write History.” In Vol. 6 of Lucian in Eight Volumes. Translated by K. Kilburn. LCL 430. Reprint, London: Heinemann, 1968. Origen. Commentary on the Gospel According to John - Books 1-10. Translated by Ronald E. Heine. The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation. Washington: University of America Press, 1989. _______. Contra Celsum. Translated by Henry Chadwick. 3rd ed. Cambridge: University Press, 1980. Philo. “De Vita Mosis.” In Vol. 6 of Philo in Eleven Volumes. Translated by F. H. Colson. LCL. 273-609. Reprint, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950. Polybius. The Histories, Books 1-2. Vol.1 of The Histories in 4 Volumes. Translated by W. R. Paton. LCL 128. Reprint, London: Heinemann, 2000. _______. The Histories, Books 9-15. Vol. 4 of Polybius in Six Volumes. Translated by W. R. Paton. LCL. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1960. Porphyry. Against the Christians. Translated and introduced by Robert M. Berchman. Ancient Mediterranean and Medieval Texts and Contexts. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Tertullian. “On Baptism.” In Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian. Vol. 3 of ANF Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. 243-67. Reprint, Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995. _______. “The Prescription Against Heretics.” In Latin Christianity: Its Founder, Tertullian. Vol. 3 of ANF. Edited by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson. 669-79. Reprint, Peabody: Hendrickson, 1995. Thucydides. History of the Peloponnesian War, Books I and II. Vol. 1 of Thucydides in Four Volumes. Translated by Charles Forster Smith. LCL 108. Reprint, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999. 2. Reference Works Aune, David E. The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament and Early Christian Literature and Rhetoric. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. Danker, Frederick William, ed. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature. Based on Walter Bauer’s Griechisch-deutsches Wörterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments und der frühchristlichen Literatur, 6th ed., ed. Kurt Aland and Barbara Aland, with Victor Reichmann and on previous English editions by W. F. Arndt, F. W. Gingrich, and F. W. Danker. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 3 2000. Evans, Craig A. and Stanley E. Porter, eds. Dictionary of New Testament Background. Leicester: InterVarsity, 2000. 432 Hoffmann, Ernst G., and Heinrich von Siebenthal. Griechische Grammatik zum Neuen Testament. Riehen: Immanuel, 2 2007. Hornblower, Simon, and Anthony Spawforth, eds. The Oxford Classical Dictionary. Oxford: University Press, 3 1996. Liddell, Henry George, and Robert Scott. A Greek-English Lexicon. Revised by Sir Henry Stuart Jones, with Roderick McKenzie et al. With a Revised Supplement. Oxford: Clarendon, 1996. Metzger, Bruce M. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2 2001. Morgenthaler, Robert. Statistik des neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes. Zürich: Gotthelf, 3 1982. Murfin, Ross and Supryia M. Ray, eds. The Bedford Glossary of Critical and Literary Terms. New York: Bedford, 2 2004. New English Translation/ Novum Testamentum Graece New Testament. Diglot Edition. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2004. Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum: Locis parallelis evangeliorum apocryphorum et patrum adhibitis edidit Kurt Aland. Edited by Kurt Aland. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 15 2005. Wallace, Daniel B. Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996. 3. Commentaries Barrett, Charles K. The Gospel According to St. John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 2 1978. Beasley-Murray, George R. John. WBC 36. Nashville: Nelson, 1999. Becker, Jürgen. Kapitel 11-21. Vol. 2 of Das Evangelium nach Johannes. ÖTK 4. Gütersloh: Mohn, 3 1991. Bernard, J. H. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint John. 2 vols. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1928. Blomberg, Craig L. Matthew. NAC 22. Nashville: Broadman, 1992. Bock, Darrell L. Luke 1: 1-9: 50. BECNT. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994. _______. Luke 9: 51-24: 53. BECNT. Grand Rapids: Baker, 1996. Boring, M. Eugene. Mark: A Commentary. NTL. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2006. Bovon, François. Lk 9,51-14: 35. Vol. 2 of Das Evangelium nach Lukas. EKK 3/ 2. Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1996. _______. Lk 19,28-24,53. Vol. 4 of Das Evangelium nach Lukas. EKK 3/ 4. Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 2009. Brodie, Thomas L. The Gospel According to John: A Literary and Theological Commentary. Oxford: University Press, 1993. 433 Brown, Raymond E. The Gospel According to John (i-xii). Introduction, Translation, and Notes. AB 29. New York: Doubleday, 1966. _______. The Gospel According to John (xiii-xxi). Introduction, Translation, and Notes. AB 29A. New York: Doubleday, 1971. Bultmann, Rudolf. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Translated by G. R. Beasley-Murray. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971. [Originally published as Das Evangelium des Johannes. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964 ( 1 1941).] Burge, Gary M. John. NIVAC. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000. Carson, Donald A. “Matthew.” In Matthew, Mark, Luke. EBC 8, edited by Frank E. Gaebelein, 1-599. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984. _______. The Gospel According to John. PNTC. Leicester: Apollos, 1991. Davies, W. D., and Dale C. Allison. Introduction and Commentary on Matthew I - VII. Vol. 1of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1988. _______. Commentary on Matthew VIII - XVIII. Vol. 2 of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1991. _______. Commentary on Matthew XIX - XXVIII. Vol. 3 of A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. ICC. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1997. Dietzfelbinger, Christian. Teilband 1: Johannes 1-12. Vol. 1 of Das Evangelium nach Johannes. ZBK 4. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 2001. _______. Teilband 2: Johannes 13-21. Vol. 2 of Das Evangelium nach Johannes. ZBK 4. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag, 2001. Eckey, Wilfried. Lukas 11,1-24,53. Vol. 2 of Das Lukasevangelium unter Berücksichtigung seiner Parallelen. Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 2004. _______. Das Markusevangelium: Orientierung am Weg Jesu. Ein Kommentar. Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 2 2008. Evans, Craig A. Mark 8: 27 - 16: 20. WBC 34B. Nashville: Nelson, 2001. Fitzmyer, Joseph A. The Gospel According to Luke (x-xxiv). Introduction, Translation, and Notes. AB 28A. New York: Doubleday, 1985. France, R. T. The Gospel of Mark: A Commentary on the Greek Text. NIGTC. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002. Gnilka, Joachim. Mk 1 - 8,26. Vol. 1 of Das Evangelium nach Markus. EKK 2/ 1. Zürich: Benziger, 1978. _______. Mk 8,27 - 16,20. Vol. 2 of Das Evangelium nach Markus. EKK 2/ 2. Zürich: Benziger, 1979. _______. Kommentar zu Kap. 1,1-13,58. Vol. 1 of Das Matthäusevangelium. HTKNT 1/ 1. Freiburg: Herder, 3 1993. _______. Kommentar zu Kap. 14,1-28,20 und Einleitungsfragen. Vol. 2 of Das Matthäusevangelium. HTKNT 1/ 2. Freiburg: Herder, 2 1992. 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Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008, 103- 26. 469 Index of Scriptures and Other Ancient Writings Old and New Testament Gen 3: 17 78 Gen 18: 3-8 231 Gen 20: 5 78 Gen 22 246 Gen 24: 1-27 78-79 Gen 24: 10-61 134 Gen 24: 34-49 78-79 Gen 26: 9 78 Gen 29: 1-20 134 Gen 31: 11-13 78 Gen 38: 22 78 Gen 39: 7 77 Gen 42: 34 78 Gen 44: 23 78 Gen 44: 25 78 Gen 44: 26 78 Gen 47: 29-49: 33 252 Ex 3: 14 247 Ex 16: 4-15 171 Ex 20: 1 80 Ex 32: 8 78 Num 21: 8-9 123 Deut 19: 15 202 Deut 31-33 252 Jos 17: 20 77 Judg 18: 4 77 1Sam 17: 27 77 1Sam 21: 12 78 1Sam 29: 5 78 2Sam 17: 15 77 1Kgs 7-10 79 1Kgs 18: 11 78 1Kgs 18: 14 78 2Chr 4-9 79 Ps 27: 1 199 Ps 44: 3 199 Ps 78: 24 171 Ps 110: 1 202 Isa 12: 3 142 Isa 36-39 79 Isa 42: 6 199 Isa 43: 10 212, 247 Isa 43: 25 247 Isa 44: 3 142 Isa 49: 6 199 Isa 49: 10 142 Isa 52: 13 213 Isa 54: 13 181 [New Testament Scriptures listed in the Appendix are not included in this index] Matt 3: 8 100 Matt 3: 8-9 97, 226-27, 232 Matt 3: 9 216, 221, 226, 231 Matt 3: 10 100 Matt 3: 17 211 Matt 4: 4 140, 142 Matt 4: 16 131 Matt 4: 17 127 Matt 5: 6 96, 140, 142 2Kgs 18-20 79 471 Matt 5: 11 101 Matt 5: 13 98 Matt 5: 13-14 136 Matt 5: 13-16 128 Matt 5: 14 97, 145, 149, 153, 194, Matt 6: 1-18 207, 213 Matt 6: 2 160, 166, 178, 183, 216 Matt 6: 5-7 147, 151 Matt 6: 9 98, 102, 163 Matt 6: 10 169-70, 175, 208-09, 214, 219, 225, 275 Matt 6: 11 96, 158, 166, 172 Matt 6: 13 102 Matt 6: 19 161 Matt 6: 19-20 162-63 Matt 6: 20 161 Matt 6: 23 131 Matt 7: 7 100, 102, 142, 266-67, 277, 412 Matt 7: 7-8 257 Matt 7: 11 142, 166, 172 Matt 7: 13-14 262, 271 Matt 7: 14 272 Matt 7: 16 128, 132 Matt 7: 17-18 217, 221 Matt 7: 18 95 Matt 7: 21 112, 115, 171, 175, 240, 245, 279, 284 Matt 7: 22 92, 174, 282, 290 Matt 7: 22-23 94 Matt 7: 23 210 Matt 7: 24-25 216, 221, 239, 244, 279, 282-84, 290 Matt 8: 4 123 Matt 8: 5-13 62 Matt 8: 10 118, 120, 223 Matt 8: 11-12 146, 149, 153, 217-18, 222-23, 240, 250, 411 Matt 8: 12 169, 174, 194, 200 Matt 8: 13 165 Matt 8: 22 93 Matt 8: 30 240 Matt 8: 43 174 Matt 9: 2 218, 223 Matt 9: 2ff. 92 Matt 9: 6 94-95, 141, 143, 153, 161, 163, 218, 223, 411 Matt 9: 8 267, 278 Matt 9: 9-11 175 Matt 9: 10-13 135 Matt 9: 15 204, 209, 281, 289 Matt 9: 22 141 Matt 9: 28 165 Matt 9: 37-38 94 Matt 9: 39 94 Matt 10: 1 92 Matt 10: 5-6 135, 150 Matt 10: 15 170-71, 175, 177, 184 Matt 10: 19 100 Matt 10: 20 287 Matt 10: 21 101 Matt 10: 22 101 Matt 10: 23 122 Matt 10: 24-25 99 Matt 10: 25 101, 269 Matt 10: 26 260, 267, 411 Matt 10: 28 21 Matt 10: 31 260, 267 Matt 10: 32 268 Matt 10: 32-33 122, 172, 228, 263, 272 Matt 10: 34 167, 172, 205, 211, 228, 233 Matt 10: 35 167, 172, 205, 211, 228 Matt 10: 37 282 Matt 10: 39 46, 92, 98, 167 Matt 10: 40 46, 95, 98-99, 125, 128, 164-65, 169, 184, 195, 198, 201-02, 207-08, 199, 200 Matt 5: 16 128, 132, 164-65, 226, 228, 232 Matt 5: 17 22, 98, 167, 169, 172, 205, 211, 228, 233 Matt 5: 19 278, 282-84 Matt 5: 20 115, 205, 210 Matt 5: 21-22 131 Matt 5: 21-48 172 Matt 5: 27-31 144-45 Matt 5: 44-45 228, 233 472 213, 228, 233, 239, 240, 243, 245, 248, 282, 412 Matt 11: 2-6 95 Matt 11: 4-5 146, 150, 153, 198, 202, 411 Matt 11: 4-6 265, 275 Matt 11: 6 96, 101 Matt 11: 7-11 95 Matt 11: 9 174 Matt 11: 11 266, 276 Matt 11: 17 126 Matt 11: 18-19 118, 121 Matt 11: 20 127 Matt 11: 20-24 265, 275 Matt 11: 25 96-97, 117, 237, 242 Matt 11: 27 87, 92, 94, 96-97, 100, 102, 119, 122, 130, 161, 163, 168, 170, 172, 174-75, 178, 180-81, 184-85, 189-90, 195, 199, 201, 203, 205, 207, 211, 213, 219, 224, 226, 232, 241, 246, 248, 250, 263-65, 272-74, 287, 290, 411 Matt 11: 28 96, 168, 173 Matt 11: 28-29 168, 174, 178, 181 Matt 11: 29 215, 218, 220, 223, 250, 412 Matt 12: 5 96 Matt 12: 6 146-47, 150-51, 153, 411 Matt 12: 7 172 Matt 12: 8 122 Matt 12: 20 169, 174 Matt 12: 23 148 Matt 12: 25-28 242 Matt 12: 28 95, 265, 275 Matt 12: 30 238, 243 Matt 12: 33-35 217, 221 Matt 12: 34 97, 234 Matt 12: 36 131 Matt 12: 38 166, 171, 174 Matt 12: 39-42 62, 239, 244 Matt 12: 41-42 126, 130, 142 Matt 12: 45 211, 233 Matt 12: 49-50 101 Matt 12: 50 101, 228 Matt 13: 13-15 97, 178, 181 Matt 13: 14-15 118, 120, 168, 174 Matt 13: 15 217, 221 Matt 13: 16 103 Matt 13: 16-17 263, 273 Matt 13: 17 97, 241 Matt 13: 27 269 Matt 13: 33 167, 173, 179 Matt 13: 38 227, 233 Matt 13: 38-39a 229, 231, 235, 250 Matt 13: 41 93 Matt 13: 41-42 197 Matt 13: 41-43 62 Matt 13: 55 176, 180 Matt 13: 55-56 196 Matt 13: 57 57, 28, 243, 250 Matt 14: 13-21 158, 160 Matt 14: 22-33 158 Matt 14: 27 57, 151, 167, 173, 176 Matt 14: 34-36 158 Matt 15: 6-9 147, 151 Matt 15: 7 143-44 Matt 15: 13 100 Matt 15: 14 117, 120, 229, 234 Matt 15: 21-28 136 Matt 15: 24 125, 128, 150, 165 Matt 15: 31 267, 278 Matt 16: 1 166, 171 Matt 16: 2-3 121 Matt 16: 9 103 Matt 16: 10 188 Matt 16: 13-17 144 Matt 16: 16 188 Matt 16: 17 113, 116, 148, 151 Matt 16: 20 148, 152 Matt 16: 21 224, 232, 262, 271 Matt 16: 24 98 Matt 16: 25 92, 98 Matt 16: 27 161-63, 190, 197, 202-03, 207, 213, 261, 270, 288, 411 Matt 16: 28 257 473 Matt 17: 5 178, 181, 211 Matt 17: 9 281, 289 Matt 17: 15 235 Matt 17: 17 100, 119, 121, 168, 173, 264, 273 Matt 17: 20 276 Matt 17: 22-23 119, 208, 280, 289 Matt 17: 23 281, 289 Matt 17: 25 97 Matt 17: 26 218, 222-23 Matt 18: 3 93, 112-13, 115, 117, 133, 411 Matt 18: 6 164-65, 170, 260, 267 Matt 18: 12-13 97 Matt 18: 14 96, 125, 128, 169, 175 Matt 18: 16 97, 198, 202-03 Matt 18: 18 87-88, 103 Matt 18: 19-20 267, 277 Matt 18: 20 93, 262, 270, 286 Matt 18: 23-25 217, 222 Matt 19: 4-9 144-45 Matt 19: 8 123 Matt 19: 11 219, 224, 229, 234 Matt 19: 13-14 148, 152 Matt 19: 16 164-65 Matt 19: 28 124, 128, 132-33, 200, 208, 211, 214, 240, 245, 411 Matt 19: 28-29 119, 123, 125, 140-43, 153, 161-63, 167, 170, 173, 175, 178-79, 181- 85, 188, 190, 194-95, 200, 203, 206, 239, 244, 250, 281, 289, 411-12 Matt 19: 29 269 Matt 20: 11 180 Matt 20: 18-19 119, 208, 262, 271 Matt 20: 23 260, 269, 412 Matt 20: 28 93, 119, 124, 126, 128, 167, 172, 178, 180, 182, 190, 411 Matt 21: 10 196, 201 Matt 21: 21 276 Matt 21: 21-22 259, 266 Matt 21: 22 102, 266, 277, 412 Matt 21: 32 119, 121, 168, 173 Matt 21: 37 124-25, 128, 165, 228, 233 Matt 21: 37 ff. 93 Matt 21: 38-39 219, 224, 232 Matt 22: 11-14 105, 211 Matt 22: 13 174 Matt 22: 16 227 Matt 22: 29 117, 120 Matt 22: 33 181 Matt 22: 35-40 279, 282-84, 290 Matt 22: 44 197, 202 Matt 22: 45 93 Matt 23 207, 213, 232 Matt 23: 2-39 147, 151 Matt 23: 3 126, 165, 226-27, 230, 232, 235, 250 Matt 23: 5 165 Matt 23: 5-7 95 Matt 23: 8 99 Matt 23: 10 99 Matt 23: 13 230, 235 Matt 23: 14 115 Matt 23: 15 205, 211, 227, 230, 235, 250 Matt 23: 25-28 196, 201, 230, 235 Matt 23: 28 127, 204, 206, 210-11 Matt 23: 30 130, 182, 185, 189 Matt 23: 31 201, 227, 230, 235 Matt 23: 32 130, 182, 185, 189 Matt 23: 33 204, 206, 210-11, 238, 243 Matt 23: 37 95, 127 Matt 23: 39 204, 210, 281, 289 Matt 24: 5 95, 151 Matt 24: 9 101-02 Matt 24: 10-11 101 Matt 24: 13 215, 220 Matt 24: 23-24 204 Matt 24: 25 99 Matt 24: 35 195, 201, 283 Matt 24: 36 145, 149, 170-71, 176-77, 184, 282, 290 Matt 24: 40-41 270 474 Matt 24: 44 145, 149 Matt 24: 45-51 217, 222, 269 Matt 24: 46 99 Matt 24: 50 145, 149 Matt 25: 11-13 205, 211 Matt 25: 14-30 217, 222 Matt 25: 30 174 Matt 25: 31 93 Matt 25: 31-32 197, 202, 207, 213 Matt 25: 34 260, 269 Matt 25: 35 173 Matt 25: 37 173 Matt 25: 42 173 Matt 25: 44 173 Matt 25: 46 95, 140, 143 Matt 26: 3 102 Matt 26: 6-13 141 Matt 26: 10 164-65 Matt 26: 10-11 57 Matt 26: 10-13 135 Matt 26: 11 21, 46, 86-87, 98 Matt 26: 21 99 Matt 26: 24 195, 201, 203-04, 209 Matt 26: 26-28 96, 179, 183-85, 187 Matt 26: 28 93, 218, 223 Matt 26: 38 98 Matt 26: 39 21, 169-70, 175, 190, 208-09, 214, 231, 236-37, 250, 264, 275, 412 Matt 26: 41 113, 116 Matt 26: 42 102, 169-70, 175, 190, 208-09, 214, 237, 241-42, 246, 250, 264, 275, 412 Matt 26: 45 199, 203 Matt 26: 46 100 Matt 26: 52 102 Matt 26: 53 102, 122, 172, 208 Matt 26: 55 102 Matt 26: 61 45, 93, 150 Matt 26: 63 188 Matt 27: 4 231, 236 Matt 27: 19 231, 236 Matt 27: 40 150 Matt 28: 10 281, 289 Matt 28: 18 92, 102 Matt 28: 19 124, 126, 128, 130, 286 Matt 28: 20 21, 93, 100, 184, 188, 262, 270, 280, 282, 288, 290 Mark 1: 11 366 Mark 1: 15 96, 113, 146, 150, 164-65, 171, 260, 267, 332, 375 Mark 1: 21 185 Mark 2: 8 148, 152 Mark 2: 9 94 Mark 2: 10 62, 266, 276 Mark 2: 11-12 94 Mark 2: 15 141 Mark 2: 16 197, 201 Mark 2: 17 94, 126, 129, 167, 172, 205, 211, 233, 349 Mark 2: 19 94 Mark 3: 22 174, 237, 239, 242, 244 Mark 3: 24 98 Mark 3: 28 160, 166, 178, 183, 216 Mark 3: 29 210 Mark 3: 34-35 322 Mark 3: 35 101, 169-70, 175, 208-09, 214, 220, 225, 231, 236, 241, 246, 296, 303 Mark 4: 1-34 159 Mark 4: 16-29 102 Mark 4: 21-25 102 Mark 4: 26 116 Mark 4: 27 93, 114, 116 Mark 4: 40 330 Mark 5: 16-17 174 Mark 5: 36 164-65, 171, 260, 267, 330, 332, 369 Mark 6: 3 196, 201 Mark 6: 4 57, 94, 152 Mark 6: 32-44 158, 160 Mark 6: 45-52 158 Mark 6: 50 57, 95, 151, 167, 173, 178, 247 475 Mark 6: 52 160 Mark 6: 53-56 158 Mark 7: 1-23 159 Mark 7: 6-9 147, 151 Mark 7: 9 143-44 Mark 7: 24-30 136 Mark 7: 27 146, 149 Mark 8: 11-12 96, 291 Mark 8: 11-21 158, 159 Mark 8: 14-21 159 Mark 8: 17-21 274 Mark 8: 17 274 Mark 8: 18 178, 181 Mark 8: 20 274 Mark 8: 21 264 Mark 8: 29 96 Mark 8: 31 93, 119, 123, 176, 208, 224, 232, 281, 289 Mark 8: 35 92, 98, 374 Mark 8: 38 240, 245, 257, 367 Mark 9: 1 102, 115, 239, 243 Mark 9: 7 366 Mark 9: 9 176 Mark 9: 19 100 Mark 9: 22 235 Mark 9: 31 119, 122-23, 207, 214, 219, 224, 226, 232, 250, 262, 271, 280-81, 289, 294, 300 Mark 9: 37 98, 228, 233, 248, 365-66 Mark 9: 42 164-65, 171, 260, 267, 371 Mark 9: 43-45 373 Mark 9: 43-47 372 Mark 9: 43 349 Mark 9: 45 349 Mark 9: 47 349 Mark 10: 2 144 Mark 10: 5-12 144-45 Mark 10: 15 93, 112-13, 115, 117, 133, 334, 379, 412 Mark 10: 17 373 Mark 10: 17-27 62 Mark 10: 23-25 349 Mark 10: 26-27 114, 116, 177, 180 Mark 10: 27 180 Mark 10: 30 377 Mark 10: 33 119, 123, 208, 214 Mark 10: 34 280-81, 289, 294, 306 Mark 10: 35-45 388 Mark 10: 37-40 390 Mark 10: 40 260, 269, 295, 300, 306, 412 Mark 10: 45 99, 101, 119, 124, 126, 129, 167, 172, 178-80, 182, 337, 386-87, 389, 391 Mark 10: 51 320 Mark 11: 2-3 144-45 Mark 11: 22-24 259, 266 Mark 11: 23 276 Mark 11: 24 100-102, 257, 267, 277, 306, 338 Mark 11: 27-33 62 Mark 12: 1-11 356 Mark 12: 6-9 127, 131-32 Mark 12: 9 238, 243 Mark 12: 14 272 Mark 12: 18-27 246 Mark 12: 25 170-71, 176-77, 184 Mark 12: 26 123 Mark 12: 30 303 Mark 12: 40 238, 243 Mark 12: 41 199, 203 Mark 13 252, 344 Mark 13: 1-37 259 Mark 13: 2 145-47, 149, 151, 153, 412 Mark 13: 6 173, 247 Mark 13: 9-11 298, 306, 338, 412 Mark 13: 11 280, 287, 293, 297-98, 324, 327 Mark 13: 12-13 101 Mark 13: 13 101 Mark 13: 23 293, 295, 297, 306, 338 Mark 13: 26f. 257 Mark 13: 27 270 Mark 13: 29 295, 302 Mark 13: 31 195, 201, 248 Mark 13: 32 100, 126, 130, 145, 149, 281, 290, 295, 476 301-02, 366 Mark 13: 34 269 Mark 13: 35 269 Mark 14: 6-8 57, 98 Mark 14: 12-15 144-45 Mark 14: 12-16 270 Mark 14: 15 325 Mark 14: 17-25 259 Mark 14: 17-31 259 Mark 14: 18 99 Mark 14: 21 261-62, 270-71, 306, 338 Mark 14: 22-24 179, 183 Mark 14: 24 96, 102 Mark 14: 25 261, 269 Mark 14: 27 102 Mark 14: 28 281, 289, 306 Mark 14: 30 100 Mark 14: 34 98 Mark 14: 35 199, 203 Mark 14: 36 102, 296, 303, 306, 367 Mark 14: 38 113, 116, 380 Mark 14: 41 199, 203 Mark 14: 41-42 296, 302, 306 Mark 14: 42 100, 296, 302-03 Mark 14: 55-65 389 Mark 14: 58 45, 93 Mark 14: 61-62 148, 152, 206, 208, 366 Mark 14: 61-64 390 Mark 14: 62 93, 123, 151, 153, 173, 195, 198, 202, 207, 212-14, 241, 247-48, 250, 334, 386, 388-89, 391, 412 Mark 15: 2 102 Mark 15: 29 93 Mark 15: 32 166, 171, 371 Mark 15: 39 332 Mark 16: 1-4 308 Mark 16: 6 319 Mark 16: 9 291, 307 Mark 16: 9-11 316 Mark 16: 9-20 307 Mark 16: 11 329, 331 Mark 16: 12 317-18 Mark 16: 12-13 307 Mark 16: 13-14 329, 331 Mark 16: 14 291, 323 Mark 16: 14-19 307 Mark 16: 15 128 Mark 16: 16 94, 115, 124, 130, 211, 332, 349, 355, 370 Mark 16: 17-18 277 Luke 2: 32 131 Luke 2: 49 367 Luke 3: 8 216, 221, 226, 231 Luke 3: 10 164-65 Luke 3: 12 164-65 Luke 3: 15 148, 152 Luke 4: 4 140, 142 Luke 4: 8 221 Luke 4: 18 208, 213, 216, 264, 275, 283, 292, 365 Luke 4: 21 177, 181 Luke 4: 24 94, 160, 166, 178, 183, 216 Luke 4: 29-30 241, 248 Luke 4: 41 366 Luke 4: 42 160 Luke 4: 43 125, 129, 165, 207-08, 213, 226, 232, 275, 365 Luke 5: 10 260, 267, 294, 299 Luke 5: 20-21 212 Luke 5: 21 196, 201 Luke 5: 22 148 Luke 5: 30 180 Luke 5: 35 101 Luke 6 344 Luke 6: 5 172 Luke 6: 16 283, 291 Luke 6: 21 102 Luke 6: 22 101 Luke 6: 25 140, 142 Luke 6: 26 143-44 Luke 6: 35 124, 128, 228, 233 Luke 6: 40 99 Luke 6: 47 285, 370 Luke 6: 47-48 178, 181, 216, 221, 239, 244, 279, 282-84, 290 Luke 7: 9 178, 181 477 Luke 7: 13 317, 320, 334 Luke 7: 16 267, 278 Luke 7: 18-23 265, 275, 359 Luke 7: 22 198, 201, 359 Luke 7: 34 238, 243 Luke 7: 37-50 135 Luke 7: 39 197, 201 Luke 7: 47-48 218, 223 Luke 7: 50 119, 124-26, 129-30, 132 Luke 8: 5-15 356 Luke 8: 8 215, 220, 224, 250, 337, 412 Luke 8: 12 219, 224, 230-31, 235-36 Luke 8: 12-13 229, 234, 370 Luke 8: 15 215, 220, 224, 250, 337, 412 Luke 8: 21 278, 282-84, 290, 306 Luke 8: 50 260, 267, 294, 299 Luke 8: 52 317, 320, 334 Luke 9: 10b-17 158, 160 Luke 9: 13 138, 141 Luke 9: 18 201 Luke 9: 18-20 196 Luke 9: 24 92, 374 Luke 9: 25 162 Luke 9: 26 122, 219, 224, 240, 245 Luke 9: 27 115 Luke 9: 40 174 Luke 9: 41 178, 181 Luke 9: 48 98, 365 Luke 9: 52 136 Luke 9: 56 99 Luke 10: 2 94 Luke 10: 12-15 265, 275 Luke 10: 14 131, 238 Luke 10: 16 95, 99, 101, 125, 129, 164-65, 169-70, 184, 188, 198, 201, 204, 207-08, 210, 213, 238, 240, 243, 245, 248, 292, 365, 368 Luke 10: 18 98 Luke 10: 22 87, 94, 96-97, 119, 122, 126, 130, 162, 168, 170, 172, 174, 178, 180-81, 184-85, 189-90, 195, 199, 201, 203, 205, 207, 211, 213, 219, 224, 226, 228, 232, 241, 246, 250, 263-65, 272-75, 282, 284, 287, 295, 301, 306, 319, 323, 337, 355, 363, 366-68, 411-12 Luke 10: 23 330, 334 Luke 10: 23-24 263, 273 Luke 10: 24 241 Luke 10: 25 373 Luke 10: 30-37 135 Luke 10: 32 333 Luke 10: 40 243 Luke 10: 41 318, 320 Luke 11: 2 367 Luke 11: 3 158 Luke 11: 5-8 167, 173, 179 Luke 11: 9-10 257 Luke 11: 9-12 286 Luke 11: 9 266-67, 277, 306, 338, 412 Luke 11: 13 139, 142, 172, 279-80, 286, 367 Luke 11: 17-20 203 Luke 11: 19-20 198 Luke 11: 20 265, 375 Luke 11: 21-22 102 Luke 11: 23 243 Luke 11: 28 99, 239, 244, 279 Luke 11: 29 211, 233 Luke 11: 29-32 239, 244 Luke 11: 31-32 126, 130, 349 Luke 11: 33-36 194, 200 Luke 11: 34-36 379 Luke 11: 37-39 196, 201, 357 Luke 11: 42 95 Luke 11: 44 196, 201, 357 Luke 11: 47 179, 182, 185, 189 Luke 11: 48 233 Luke 12: 4 101 Luke 12: 8 197, 267, 371 Luke 12: 8-9 263, 272 478 Luke 12: 11-12 100, 298 Luke 12: 12 293 Luke 12: 15 162 Luke 12: 26 272 Luke 12: 32 140, 143, 166, 172, 177, 180, 190, 337, 411 Luke 12: 33 161-62 Luke 12: 35-38 269 Luke 12: 40 145, 149 Luke 12: 42-46 332 Luke 12: 46 197 Luke 12: 49 167, 169, 172, 179, 363 Luke 12: 51 167, 172, 205, 211, 228, 233, 363 Luke 12: 54-56 174 Luke 12: 70 173 Luke 13: 2-5 97 Luke 13: 3 126, 130, 206, 211, 355 Luke 13: 5 126, 130, 206, 211, 355 Luke 13: 10-17 223 Luke 13: 16 217-18, 222-23 Luke 13: 23-27 262, 271 Luke 13: 25 269 Luke 13: 28 174, 241 Luke 13: 35 204, 210, 300 Luke 14: 17 365 Luke 14: 21 269 Luke 14: 27 215, 220 Luke 15: 2 180, 197, 201 Luke 15: 4-7 129 Luke 15: 11-32 217 Luke 15: 20-24 261, 269 Luke 15: 31 218, 222 Luke 16: 1-8 217 Luke 16: 8 98, 227, 229, 233, 235, 379 Luke 16: 10 99 Luke 16: 17 98 Luke 16: 31 95, 168, 170-71, 174, 176-77, 184 Luke 17: 6 276 Luke 17: 11 136 Luke 17: 16 136 Luke 17: 16-18 138, 141 Luke 17: 21 375 Luke 17: 22 97 Luke 17: 31 282, 290 Luke 17: 33 98, 374 Luke 17: 34-35 257, 261, 270 Luke 18: 7-8 197, 201 Lukas 18: 13-14 175 Luke 18: 15-30 111 Luke 18: 17 111-13, 115, 117, 379 Luke 18: 25 115 Luke 18: 27 114, 116 Luke 18: 31 95 Luke 18: 53 176 Luke 19: 5-7 141 Luke 19: 7 180 Luke 19: 8 218 Luke 19: 9 223 Luke 19: 10 94, 125, 129, 132-33, 334, 411 Luke 20: 17 177, 181 Luke 20: 36 179, 182 Luke 21 344 Luke 21: 8 151 Luke 21: 12 101 Luke 21: 15 93, 287 Luke 22: 12 325 Luke 22: 14-38 252, 259 Luke 22: 19-20 183, 187 Luke 22: 19 180 Luke 22: 22 99 Luke 22: 24-27 388 Luke 22: 27 99 Luke 22: 28-30 390 Luke 22: 29 240, 245, 367 Luke 22: 31 318, 320 Luke 22: 42 86, 95-96, 98 Luke 22: 44 95 Luke 22: 53 131, 199, 203, 296, 302 Luke 22: 67 93, 97, 196, 201, 230-31, 236, 250 Luke 22: 67-68 111-18, 120-21, 124, 334, 369 Luke 22: 69-70 388 Luke 22: 70-71 196, 201 Luke 23: 4 231, 236 Luke 23: 8 166, 171 479 Luke 23: 14 231, 236 Luke 23: 34 367 Luke 23: 46 367 Luke 23: 47 231, 236 Luke 24: 1-3 308 Luke 24: 4 317, 319 Luke 24: 5 319 Luke 24: 7 176 Luke 24: 9-11 323 Luke 24: 10-11 316 Luke 24: 11 329, 331 Luke 24: 12 309 Luke 24: 15-31 307 Luke 24: 16 317-18 Luke 24: 26 318, 321 Luke 24: 31 291 Luke 24: 34 307 Luke 24: 36 291, 293, 306, 323-24, 329, 331 Luke 24: 36-42 298, 325 Luke 24: 36-43 316, 331 Luke 24: 36-49 315 Luke 24: 36-50 307 Luke 24: 37 329, 331 Luke 24: 37-38 331 Luke 24: 37-41 323, 326 Luke 24: 38 260, 267, 293, 299, 306 Luke 24: 39 330-31, 334 Luke 24: 41 331 Luke 24: 44 177, 181, 293, 297, 306, 338, 412 Luke 24: 46 176, 334 Luke 24: 47 218, 223, 325, 329 Luke 24: 47-49 326 Luke 24: 48f. 286 Luke 24: 49 93, 100-101, 280, 286, 299, 306, 324, 327, 334, 338, 367, 412 Luke 24: 51 318 John 1: 1-18 114 John 1: 43 93 John 1: 51 93 John 2: 1-12 67 John 2: 7-10 134 John 2: 23 214 John 2: 23-25 107 John 2: 19 18, 45, 93 [Scripture references from John 3 in chapter 3.1 are not included in this index] John 3: 1-21 2, 103, 107, 411 John 3: 3 13, 93, 221, 247, 411 John 3: 4 13 John 3: 5 13, 93, 221, 247, 411 John 3: 5-8 285 John 3: 8 93 John 3: 11 93, 103, 221, 247 John 3: 13 172, 274 John 3: 14 213 John 3: 14-15 93, 411 John 3: 16 141 John 3: 16-18 411 John 3: 17 94 John 3: 18 94 John 3: 29 94, 134 John 3: 31-32 284 John 3: 32 274 John 3: 34 285 John 3: 35 94 [Scripture references from John 4 in chapter 3.2 are not included in this index] John 4: 1-42 2, 103 John 4: 1-30 107, 411 John 4: 8 109 John 4: 10 411 John 4: 13-14 411 John 4: 14 17 John 4: 21 163 John 4: 22 411 John 4: 23 163, 411 John 4: 23-24 285 John 4: 26 411 John 4: 31-34 94 John 4: 34 57 480 John 4: 35 57 John 4: 35-38 94 John 4: 37 94 John 4: 44 57, 94 John 5: 8 94 John 5: 17 57 John 5: 19 18 John 5: 19-20a 57, 94 John 5: 19-30 62 John 5: 19-47 2, 103, 193 John 5: 20 275 John 5: 21 289 John 5: 22 62, 94 John 5: 23 95 John 5: 23-24 275 John 5: 26 289 John 5: 27 62 John 5: 29 95 John 5: 30 86, 95 John 5: 31-47 104 John 5: 35 95 John 5: 36 95, 103, 275 John 5: 39 17, 95 John 5: 40 95, 103 John 5: 41 95 John 5: 43 95 John 5: 44 95 John 5: 47 95 [Scripture references from John 6 in chapter 4.1 are not included in this index] John 6: 20 57, 95 John 6: 22-59 2, 411 John 6: 22-65 103 John 6: 26 96, 221, 247 John 6: 27 16, 411 John 6: 29 202, 411 John 6: 30-31 273 John 6: 32 221, 247, 411 John 6: 33 96, 122, 411 John 6: 35 96, 289, 411 John 6: 37 96, 174, 411 John 6: 38 122, 242 John 6: 39 174, 202 John 6: 40 243, 411 John 6: 44 411 John 6: 45 411 John 6: 46 96, 273 John 6: 47 96, 221, 247, 411 John 6: 50-51 122, 411 John 6: 51 96 John 6: 53-56 411 John 6: 53 22, 221, 247 John 6: 54 96 John 6: 57 202, 289 John 6: 58 411 John 6: 60 220 John 6: 61 96 John 6: 63 289 John 6: 64 109 John 6: 69 96 John 7: 1-52 2 John 7: 8 96 John 7: 14-39 191 John 7: 14-44 103 John 7: 20 242, 244 John 7: 22 96 John 7: 29 96 John 7: 31 214 John 7: 37 96, 175 John 7: 37-38 17 John 7: 37-39 141 John 7: 39 285 John 7: 53-8: 11 191 [Scripture references from John 8 in chapter 4.2 are not included in this index] John 8: 12-59 2, 103, 411 John 8: 12 97, 173, 412 John 8: 14 412 John 8: 16 412 John 8: 17 97 John 8: 18 275 John 8: 19 97, 273, 287 John 8: 21 122 John 8: 23 172, 412 481 John 8: 24 412 John 8: 28 123, 271, 275, 412 John 8: 28-29 242 John 8: 29 412 John 8: 31 412 John 8: 31-35 97 John 8: 32 286, 412 John 8: 34 16 John 8: 35 268 John 8: 38 87, 273, 275, 412 John 8: 40 286, 412 John 8: 42 172, 412 John 8: 43 97 John 8: 45 97 John 8: 45-46 286 John 8: 47 275 John 8: 51 284, 412 John 8: 54-55 287 John 8: 55 412 John 8: 56 16, 97 John 9: 3 97 John 9: 3b-4 57, 275 John 9: 5 173 John 9: 39 97 John 10: 1-42 2, 103 John 10: 1-5 97 John 10: 7 173 John 10: 9 173 John 10: 11 173 John 10: 14 97, 173 John 10: 15 92, 97 John 10: 20 242, 244 John 10: 25 275 John 10: 29 174 John 10: 30 12 John 10: 32 275 John 10: 35 98 John 10: 37-38 275 John 10: 38 12, 14 John 10: 42 214 John 11: 9-10 98 John 11: 16 271 John 11: 24 175 John 11: 25 98, 173 John 11: 25-26 289 John 11: 45 214 John 12: 7 98 John 12: 7-8 57 John 12: 8 46, 86-87, 98 John 12: 23-25 271 John 12: 23-50 2-3, 103 John 12: 24 57, 98, 276 John 12: 25 46, 92, 98 John 12: 26 98 John 12: 27 98 John 12: 28 98 John 12: 31 98, 211 John 12: 32 180 John 12: 32-33 271 John 12: 32-34 123 John 12: 36 98 John 12: 44 98 John 12: 47 99 John 12: 47-49 284 John 12: 48 99, 175 John 12: 49 275 John 13 252 John 13: 1 251 John 13: 1-30 251-52 John 13: 11 109 John 13: 12-14 99 John 13: 13 99 John 13: 16 99 John 13: 17 99 John 13: 19 99 John 13: 20 46, 99 John 13: 21 99 John 13: 31-38 252 John 13: 31-14: 31 253, 258 John 13: 31-16: 33 2-3, 103, 251 John 13: 33 270 John 13: 36-38 100 John 13: 38 100 [Scripture references from John 14 in chapter 5.1 are not included in this index] John 14: 1-31 412 John 14: 1-16: 33 252 482 John 14: 2-3 412 John 14: 4 412 John 14: 6 100, 173, 412 John 14: 7 412 John 14: 9 100, 412 John 14: 10 12, 14, 412 John 14: 11 12 John 14: 12-14 100 John 14: 13 412 John 14: 14 412 John 14: 16 100, 412 John 14: 18 100 John 14: 20 14 John 14: 23 100 John 14: 25 412 John 14: 26 100, 412 John 14: 28 100 John 14: 29 412 John 14: 31 100 John 15: 1 100, 173 John 15: 1-16: 4a 258 John 15: 2 100 John 15: 4-6 220 John 15: 5 173 John 15: 6 101 John 15: 7 101, 277 John 15: 12 101 John 15: 13 101, 276 John 15: 14 101 John 15: 18 101 John 15: 20 101 John 15: 21 101, 287 John 15: 23 101 John 15: 26 286 John 15: 26-27 285 John 16: 1 101 John 16: 2 12, 101 John 16: 3 287 John 16: 4b-33 258 John 16: 7 101, 286 John 16: 7-11 285-86 John 16: 11 211 John 16: 12-15 285 John 16: 13 17 John 16: 16 210 John 16: 20 101 John 16: 21 102 John 16: 23-24 102, 277 John 16: 26-27 102 John 16: 32 102 John 16: 33 102 John 17: 1-26 1, 251 John 17: 2 92, 102, 174 John 17: 6 174, 284 John 17: 11 102 John 17: 15 102 John 17: 19 102 John 17: 21 12, 14 John 17: 22 18 John 17: 25 102, 287 John 18: 9 174 John 18: 10 180 John 18: 11 102 John 18: 20 102 John 18: 33-38 2 John 18: 36-37 102 John 18: 37 102, 286 John 19: 9-11 2 John 19: 30 276 John 19: 31-37 65 John 19: 35 65-66 [Scripture references from John 20 in chapter 5.2 are not included in this index] John 20: 11-29 412 John 20: 19 102 John 20: 23 87-88, 103 John 20: 29 103 John 20: 30-31 65, 67 John 21: 1-23 65 John 21: 6 180 John 21: 11 180 John 21: 22 103 John 21: 22-23 103 John 21: 24 65-66 John 21: 25 65 Acts 1: 13 291, 325 483 Acts 2 327 Acts 10: 36 298 Acts 10: 41 291 Acts 16: 19 180 Acts 20: 18-35 252 Acts 21: 30 180 Rom 1: 7 298 Rom 5: 1 298 Rom 14: 20 165 1Cor 7: 10-12 404 1Cor 7: 25 404 1Cor 15: 5-6 311 1Thess 4: 15-17 270 Heb 11: 13 246 Jas 2: 6 180 1Pet 1: 8 333 1John 1: 1 66 1John 1: 3 66 1John 1: 6 132 Rev 4: 11 332 Early Christian Literature (Except New Testament) Athenagoras Leg. 10.2 12 Augustine Cons. I.1 18 Cons. I.2-4 18 Cons. I.4.7 18, 19 Cons. I.5.8 19 Cons. II.12.29 19 Cons. II.24.55 19 Cons. II.14.31 19 Cons. IV.10.12 18 Cons. IV.10.11 19 Cons. IV.10.19 18 Faust. 17.1 22 Faust. 32.2 22, 23 Faust. 32.16 23 Faust. 33.3 23 Clement of Alexandria Quis div. 8 16 Quis div. 42 16 Strom. I.1.7. 16 Epistula Apostolorum 1 14 17.4 14 18.5 14 19.18 14 25.3 14 36.12 14 39.15 14 Eusebius Hist. Eccl. 3.39.3. 20 Hist. Eccl. 5.1.15. 12 Hist. Eccl. 6.14.7. 16 Gospel of Thomas 1 243 17 331 19 247 24 160 43 212 65 365 77 199 108 142 114 181 Irenaeus Haer. II.22.6. 16 Haer. III.1.1. 15 Haer. III.8.1 16 Haer. III.11.8. 15 Haer. III.11.9. 15 484 Justin Martyr 1Apol. 67.3 13 1Apol. 61.4 13 1Apol. 61.4-5 13 Dial. 103.8 13 Origen Comm. Jo. I.29 17 Comm. Jo. II.105 17 Comm. Jo. X.10 18 Comm. Jo. X.19 18 Cels. 2.26 21 Tertullian Praescr. 8 17 Bapt. 9 17 Greco-Roman Literature Lucian Hist. Conscr. 39 75 Hist. Conscr. 47 75 Hist. Conscr. 58 75 Philo Vit. Mos. II.38 80 Polybius Hist. II.56.10-12 73 Hist. XII.25.a.3-5 73 Hist. XII.25.b.1.4 73 Porphyry Christ. 61 21 Christ. 62 21 Thucydides Hist. I.22.1 71 485 Index of Authors Abbott, E.A. 38, 200, 344-46, 348-49, 352, 366 Albrigth, W.F. 396 Allison, D.C. 121, 149-150, 174-175, 210, 222-23, 272, 274, 284, 301, 304, 328, 365, 387, 390 Alsup, J.E. 316 Alter, R. 75-77, 80, 89, 187, 315, 337, 345 Anderson, P.N. 5-6, 24, 123, 136, 156-59, 187, 257, 331, 364, 395-96 Appold, M.L. 274, 368 Ashton, J. 7, 29, 36, 395 Askwith, E.H. 48 Aune, D.E. 67, 71, 73, 84, 93, 346, 378, 404 Baird, W. 26 Ball, D.M. 173, 212 Bar-Efrat, S. 77 Barnett, P. 397-98 Barrett, C.K. 5, 38, 253, 300, 308, 400 Bartholomä, Ph.F. 104, 417 Bauckham, R. 6, 43-44, 65-68, 70, 308, 363, 378, 396-98, 400, 402, 407 Bauer, W. 14 Baum, A.D. 19-22, 65, 69, 71-72, 74-79, 90, 393, 399, 403, 407 Baur, F.C. 27, 28, 46 Beasley-Murray, G.R. 29, 107-08, 115-16, 121, 123, 141, 149, 162, 171, 175, 199, 210-12, 214, 220, 225, 233-34, 243, 246-47, 252-53, 259, 268, 274-76, 284-86, 288-89, 297-98, 302, 319, 321-22, 327-28, 332, 400 Becker, J. 110, 253, 255, 268, 277, 308, 313, 325, 335 Bellinzoni, A.J. 12-13 Berger, K. 385 Bernard, J.H. 108, 201 Bernheim, E. 392-93, 399 Beutler, J. 3, 66, 156, 253-55, 287, 299, 275, 302, 304 Bieringer, R. 234-35, 288, 322, 325, 376 Bird, M.F. 65, 314, 384, 407 Black, M. 32, 51, 163, 200, 344 Bleek, F. 46 Blinzler, J. 92-103 Blomberg, C.L. 3, 53-56, 61-62, 108-09, 136, 141, 145, 150, 152, 162, 172-73, 186, 200, 220-22, 231, 234, 236, 244, 247, 254, 268-69, 272-73, 276-77, 284-85, 289-90, 302, 308-10, 320-21, 325, 327-28, 333, 365, 384, 393, 396, 398, 402 Bock, D.L. 5, 56, 128, 174, 200, 210, 247-48, 269, 271, 285, 288, 298, 302, 315, 322, 365, 385, 390 Boer, M.C. de 209 Boers, H. 134 Boismard, M.-É. 345, 360 Bonney, W. 330, 332-33 Borg, M. 4, 30 Borgen, P. 156, 158, 171, 186, 378 Boring, M.E. 248, 301, 385, 404, 406 Botha, J.E. 141, 149 Bovon, F. 210, 286, 302, 365 Braumann, G. 285-87 Bretschneider, K.G. 26-27, 44-46 Brodie, T.L. 116, 141, 246, 308, 396 Broer, I. 397 Brouwer, W. 255 Brown, R.E. 38-39, 68, 111, 116, 122, 135-37, 142, 144, 150, 157-59, 174, 181, 185-86, 193, 199-200, 210, 212, 214, 220-21, 225, 233-35, 242, 246-47, 252-254, 257-59, 268-69, 272-73, 275-77, 284-86, 288, 290-91, 297, 302-04, 308, 313, 321-22, 327, 331, 336, 352, 372, 376, 380, 389-90, 397, 402 Bruce, F.F. 49, 327 Buber, M. 345 Buchhold, J. 56, 372 Bultmann, R. 29, 35, 157, 186, 268, 303, 275, 402-04 Burge, G.M. 141, 327 487 Burkett, D. 122-123, 163, 188, 212 Burridge, R.A. 66-67 Busse, U. 347 Byrne, B. 309 Byrskog, S. 66, 75 Cancik, H. 74, 76 Cantwell, L. 144 Caragounis, C.C. 372, 375 Carson, D.A. 51-54, 63, 66, 109, 114-15, 120, 123, 128, 131, 141-42, 144, 149-50, 162, 171, 174-75, 180, 187, 199, 210-12, 214, 220-22, 225, 233-34, 242, 244-47, 252, 254, 268, 274, 276, 284, 286, 288, 290-91, 298, 300, 302-03, 308, 320-23, 325-28, 332, 361, 400, 402 Carter, W. 24 Casey, M. 32-33, 50, 53, 110-11, 157-58, 163, 186, 188, 192, 235, 255-56, 259, 271, 299, 312, 332, 335-38, 384, 387-88, 391, 395-96, 398, 402, 406-07 Chang, P.S.C. 350 Charlesworth, J. 400 Chilton, B. 385 Claudel, G. 328 Cogan, M. 72 Copan, P. 314 Coulmas, F. 69 Craig, W.L. 311, 314 Crossan, J.D. 83-84, 115, 187, 200, 243, 277, 298, 311 Culpepper, R.A. 41, 66, 156-57, 163, 187, 353, 376 Davies, M. 397 Davies W.D. 121, 149-50, 174-75, 222-23, 274, 284, 301, 304, 328, 387, 390, 396 Denaux, A. 111, 122, 158, 173-75, 272, 274, 325, 343, 365, 372 Dettwiler, A. 253, 256, 303, 405 Dibelius, M. 404 Dietzfelbinger, C. 115, 162, 242, 253, 269, 302, 405 Dodd, C.H. 3, 36-38, 40-41, 50-51, 61-62, 92-103, 193, 221-22, 245, 258, 268, 303, 313, 316, 325, 328, 331-33, 339, 357, 363, 368, 374, 396 Dreyer, B. 74 Droysen, J.G. 393 Dschulnigg, P. 66, 345, 359-60, 365, 369-70, 373, 375 Dunn, J.D.G. 5, 41-43, 55, 92-103, 172, 186-87, 308-10, 316, 363, 388, 402, 406-07 Eckey, W. 180, 200, 212, 298 Egermann, F. 72 Ehrman, B.D. 191 Ellis, E.E. 400 Ellis, P.F. 308 Emerton, J.A. 328 Ensor, P.W. 56-58, 81-82, 84-85, 275, 346, 359, 364, 384, 401-02 Evans, C.A. 6, 33, 158, 212, 378, 385-86, 390, 394 Evans, C.S. 6 Evanson, E. 25 Fee, G.D. 361 Fischer, G. 268 Fitzmyer, J.A. 365 Fornara, C.W. 70, 72-73, 75 France, R.T. 51, 55, 63, 301, 309, 314, 388 Frey, J. 5-7, 35, 63, 68, 152, 256, 268, 344, 347, 351, 371-78, 389, 405 Frickenschmidt, D. 66-67 Funk, R.W. 30-31, 81, 84, 135, 214, 387, 389, 395, 402, 404, 407 Garcia, J.P. 331 Gärtner, B.E. 159 Gathercole, S.J. 129, 165, 172, 175, 233, 363, 365 Geiger, G. 173 Gempf, C. 70, 72, 74-75 Gerhardsson, B. 345, 407 Gnilka, J. 116, 150, 210, 222, 301, 368 Goetz, S.C. 392 Grant, M. 69, 70-71 Graß, H. 311 Green, J.B. 285 Gundry, R.H. 269 Guthrie, D. 116, 366, 376, 400 Haenchen, E. 135, 214, 220, 225, Hagner, D.A. 4, 149, 151, 174, 284-85, 328 Hahn, F. 361, 369-70, 373-74 Hakola, R. 110 Hampel, V. 387-88 Hanson, A.T. 31, 395 Harnack, A. von 20-21 488 Harris, M.J. 314, 332 Headlam, A.C. 48, 401 Heckel, U. 400 Hengel, M. 14, 65-68, 351, 393, 397, 399-400, 402 Higgins, A.J.B. 38 Hill, C.E. 12-17 Hill, D. 404 Hoegen-Rohls, C. 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6, 114-16, 120-21, 123, 130-31, 134-35, 141-42, 144, 149, 151, 156, 163, 171-72, 174, 181, 186-87, 200, 203, 210-11, 220-21, 232-33, 236, 242, 244-47, 252, 254, 268-69, 271, 273, 275-76, 285-86, 288, 290-91, 298, 300-03, 320, 326-27, 329-30, 332-33, 361, 364, 367, 377, 400 Kreplin, M. 5 Kügler, J. 308, 400 Kümmel, W.G. 26-27, 369, 371 Kysar, R. 7, 23, 156 Ladd, G.E. 4, 150, 316, 361, 366-67, 370-73, 375, 377, 379-80 Lagrange, M.-J. 48, 111 Lamouille, A. 345, 360 Lane, W.L. 212, 311, 314 Lang, M. 24, 137, 242, 268, 328 Larsen, K.B. 307, 319, 321, 331 Lattke, M. 308 Lawlor, H.J. 13 Lea, T.D. 395 Leidig, E. 134 Lincoln, A.T. 108-09, 111, 115, 120-23, 128, 130-32, 134-35, 141-42, 144, 149, 151, 155, 158, 162-63, 171, 174, 187, 192-93, 199, 210-14, 220, 225, 231, 233-34, 242-43, 245, 247, 252-53, 259, 268, 270, 274, 276-77, 284-87, 289-90, 298, 303, 308, 320, 322, 326, 329, 332, 336, 374, 396, 400 Lindars, B. 38, 40-42, 55, 93, 111, 115, 135-36, 141, 158, 172, 174-75, 193, 199-200, 211, 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320 Zahn, T. 47, 109 Zeilinger, F. 185 Ziegler, K. 73 Zimmermann, R. 346, 364 Zingg, E. 367 Zumstein, J. 35, 270, 277, 288, 290, 303, 325, 347, 405 Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH+Co. KG • Dischingerweg 5 • D-72070 Tübingen Tel. +49 (07071) 9797-0 • Fax +49 (07071) 97 97-11 • info@francke.de • www.francke.de NEUERSCHEINUNG MAI 2012 JETZT BESTELLEN! Matthias Klinghardt Hal Taussig (Hrsg.) Mahl und religiöse Identität im frühen Christentum Meals and Religious Identity in Early Christianity Texte und Arbeiten zum neutestamentlichen Zeitalter, 56 2012, 372 Seiten €[D] 78,00/ SFr 105,00 ISBN 978-3-7720-8446-1 Das gemeinsame Essen und Trinken prägte wesentlich die Identität antiker Gemeinschaften: Soziales und religiöses Selbstverständnis, Zugehörigkeit und innere Struktur sowie die Abgrenzung von anderen Gruppen waren in hohem Maße durch das gemeinsame Mahl bestimmt. Unter diesem Paradigma behandeln die Beiträge des vorliegenden Bandes frühchristliche Gemeinschaftsmähler in ihrem kulturellen und religionsgeschichtlichen Kontext. Sie untersuchen die rituelle Mahlpraxis und den Diskurs über Mähler vom klassischen Athen über Qumran, die neutestamentlichen Schriften und die Kirchenväter bis hin zu den ältesten Klosterregeln. Narr Francke Attempto Verlag GmbH+Co. KG • Dischingerweg 5 • D-72070 Tübingen Tel. +49 (07071) 9797-0 • Fax +49 (07071) 97 97-11 • info@francke.de • www.francke.de NEUERSCHEINUNG DEZEMBER 2011 JETZT BESTELLEN! Soham Al-Suadi Essen als Christusgläubige Ritualtheoretische Exegese paulinischer Texte Texte und Arbeiten zum Neutestamentlichen Zeitalter, Band 55 2011, 347 Seiten €[D] 68,00/ SFr 91,00 ISBN 978-3-7720-8421-8 Die Studie leistet einen wichtigen Beitrag zur Grundlagenforschung zum Thema frühchristlicher Identitätsausbildung. Es wird erörtert, wie Paulus zum einen das hochkomplexe Gemeinschaftsmahl und zum anderen die Identität der Mahlgemeinschaft „kommentiert“. Da es bei Paulus nicht bei der Kommentierung bleibt, wird mit sozialgeschichtlichen, exegetischen und ritualtheoretischen Methoden herausgearbeitet, wie er auf die Mahlgemeinschaften Einfluss nimmt. Durch diese detaillierte Analyse wird die Pluralität sowohl der antiken Mahlpraxis als auch der frühchristlichen Identitäten gewürdigt.