Jesus as Mirrored in John: The Genius in the New Testament 9780567681553, 9780567681577, 9780567681560

Table of contents :
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Preface
1 Five well-known characteristics of the Gospel of John
2 Nine new insights and challenges
3 Conclusion
Notes
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Abbreviations
Ancient works
Biblical works
Non-biblical works
Other ancient authors
Modern works
Introduction: The Genius in the New Testament
Forty-five areas for future explorations
Notes
Part One: Origin, Evolution, and Settings of the Gospel of John
Chapter 1: Paradigm Shifts in Johannine Studies1
1 Judaism
2 The Gospel of John
3 Jesus
4 The advent of “Christianity”
Notes
Chapter 2: The Priority of John1
1 The shift in the consensus regarding the Gospel of John
2 From consensus to discussion to proposal: Eight questions and eight discoveries
3 Can John be a source for pre-70 CE Judaism?
4 Further historical speculation
5 Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 3: The Beloved Disciple: Criteria and Observations1
1 The authorship of the Fourth Gospel: The identity of the beloved disciple
2 Introduction to the exegesis of texts that mention “the Beloved Disciple”
3 What is the meaning of Jn 21:24?
4 Could Thomas be the Beloved Disciple?
Notes
Chapter 4: The Historical and Social Setting of the Gospel of John in Light of the Essenes1
1 The Gospel of John as a second century composition: An earlier consensus in historical criticism
2 A new consensus: The Gospel of John as a first century composition and its Jewish influences
3 The date and provenience of the Gospel of John
4 The historicity of the Gospel of John
5 Dualism and Qumran theology
6 The Jewishness of the Johannine group
7 The Gospel of John and sociology
8 Translating Ioudaioi in the Gospel of John today
9 Summary and reconstruction123
10 Summary and additional reflections
11 Reconstruction
12 Conclusion
Notes
Part Two: John and the Historical Jesus
Chapter 5: John: A Neglected Source1
1 A dated paradigm: Ignore John
2 A new paradigm: Do not ignore any data, especially not John
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 6: Archaeological Discoveries Supporting the Historicity of John’s Traditions1
A glimpse of the beginnings of “Biblical Archaeology”: The nineteenth century
Biblical archaeology: The twentieth century
The new age: A sketch
The Jesus of history and the topography of the Holy Land99
Pre-70 CE synagogues: Kiryat Sepher, Modein, Migdal, Jericho [possibly], Herodium, Masada, and Tel Rakesh
The text of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint
Two pools near the Temple and Jesus
1 Bethzatha: The upper pools of Jerusalem
2 New insights: Archaeology and the book of John
3 Summary
4 Conclusion: Symbolism based on history
Notes
Part Three: The Gospel of John and Other Sacred Literature
John and the Dead Sea Scrolls
Chapter 7: The Dualism of Qumran and the “Dualism” of John1
1 The dualism in 1QS 3.13–4.263
2 Johannine “dualism”
3 A comparison of the “dualism” in the Gospel of John and that in 1QS 3.13–4.26
4 Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 8: An Overview of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a Revolutionary New Perspective1
Notes
Chapter 9: John and Qumran: Almost Seventy Years of Research1
1 General remarks
2 Specific questions concerning John and Qumran
3 New avenues for potential exploration
4 Has a focus on Qumran been missing in recent Johannine research?
5 Summary
6 Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 10: John’s Indebtedness to Judaism and the Self-Glorification Hymn
The composite text of the Self-Glorification Hymn
The major questions
Conclusion
Notes
John and Enoch
Chapter 11: Did the Fourth Evangelist Know the Enoch Tradition?1
1 Prefatory remarks
2 Selected parallels
3 Conclusion
Notes
John and the Odes of Solomon
Chapter 12: The Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John1
1 Examination of the evidence
2 Summary of scholarly conclusions
3 Conclusions
Notes
Chapter 13: Qumran, John, and the Odes of Solomon
1 Analyses
2 Comparisons
3 Conclusion
Notes
Part Four: Symbolic Language in the Gospel of John
Chapter 14:Jewish Purity Laws and the Identity of the Beloved Disciple1
1 The purpose of the present chapter
2 Is the “Beloved Disciple” a literary týpos?
3 Eight reasons for reopening the search for the beloved disciple
4 Questions and first insights
5 The collapse of the original thesis
6 Confirmation and verification
7 Narrative and history
8 A comparison
9 A fresh approach
Notes
Chapter 15: Symbolism of the Serpent in John1
The symbolism of the serpent in the Gospel of John
Notes
Chapter 16: Symbology in Johannine Christology1
Son of Man traditions in John
Symbology in Johannine theology
Summary
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 17: Is It Conceivable that Jesus Married Mary Magdalene?: Searching for Evidence in Johannine Traditions
Introduction
Conclusion
Notes
Chapter 18: Whence the Title ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ: “According to John”?
Notes
Conclusion
Notes
Advances in the Study of the Fourth Gospel: A Selected Bibliography
Subject Index
Author Index
Ancient Index

Citation preview

Jesus as Mirrored in John

ii

Jesus as Mirrored in John The Genius in the New Testament James H. Charlesworth

T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2019 Copyright © James H. Charlesworth, 2019 James H. Charlesworth has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgments on p. xvi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover image: PRISMA ARCHIVO / Alamy Stock Photo All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-0-5676-8155-3 ePDF: 978-0-5676-8156-0 eBook: 978-0-5676-8158-4 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Dedicated to Peder Borgen, John Painter, and in memory of Ray Brown and Moody Smith.

vi

Contents Preface Acknowledgments Foreword Abbreviations Introduction: The Genius in the New Testament

ix xvi xvii xviii 1

Part One  Origin, Evolution, and Settings of the Gospel of John

 1  2  3  4

Paradigm Shifts in Johannine Studies 19 The Priority of John 40 The Beloved Disciple: Criteria and Observations 61 The Historical and Social Setting of the Gospel of John in Light of the Essenes 78

Part Two  John and the Historical Jesus

 5 John: A Neglected Source  6 Archaeological Discoveries Supporting the Historicity of

131

John’s Traditions 164 Part Three  The Gospel of John and Other Sacred Literature John and the Dead Sea Scrolls  7 The Dualism of Qumran and the “Dualism” of John 213  8 An Overview of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a Revolutionary New Perspective 247  9 John and Qumran: Almost Seventy Years of Research 259 10 John’s Indebtedness to Judaism and the Self-Glorification Hymn 284 John and Enoch 11 Did the Fourth Evangelist Know the Enoch Tradition? 295 John and the Odes of Solomon 12 The Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John 315 13 Qumran, John, and the Odes of Solomon 340

viii Contents Part Four  Symbolic Language in the Gospel of John

14 15 16 17

Jewish Purity Laws and the Identity of the Beloved Disciple 375 Symbolism of the Serpent in John 399 Symbology in Johannine Christology 434 Is It Conceivable that Jesus Married Mary Magdalene?: Searching for Evidence in Johannine Traditions 460 18 Whence the Title ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ: “According to John”? 517 Conclusion Advances in the Study of the Fourth Gospel: A Selected Bibliography  Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski Subject Index Author Index Ancient Index

535 542 556 566 580

Preface In order to introduce this book and to help clarify the symbolic rhetoric and origins of John, I shall focus on five widely accepted features of the Gospel of John and nine new insights and challenges before us.1 Many of the latter are ramifications of archaeological discoveries and research. These fourteen features and insights help illustrate why more and more scholars are recognizing that the Gospel According to John not only rings with sophisticated symbolic language but is also historically complex and challenging. While John is replete with developed Christology, it also discloses two historical horizons. One is a Jewish background that preserves impressive evidence of reliable historical data concerning pre-70 CE Palestinian Judaism in Galilee and Judea. Pre70 CE Palestinian Judaism was sociologically catastrophic, with Essenes condemning other Jews (especially those who ruled the Temple cult) to damnation and alienation, Samaritans killing Galilean Jews on the way to worship in Jerusalem, Diasporic Jews (with the apparent approval of the high priest) stoning Steven (Acts 7), the constant persecution of Paul and other followers of Jesus, and eventually the fratricide when John of Gischala and Simon ben Giori burned each other’s granaries in Jerusalem, causing a famine so severe that at least one woman cooked and ate her baby boy (Josephus, War 6.91–92). The other horizon is the post-70 CE world in which nonbelieving-Jews begin, with more unity, to part ways from those Jews who claim Jesus is divine and the Messiah.2 Given that there is virtually no consensus on the composition of many biblical books, the burgeoning consensus of today—at least among most scholars—concerning the origin and character of John would have been astounding to New Testament experts fifty years ago.

1  Five well-known characteristics of the Gospel of John 1. Within the creative world of Jesus’ followers in the first century, John mirrors a

special social group—a group or sect; perhaps we should talk about the Johannine community or even a Johannine School. The numerous striking parallels with the Qumran Community (Yaḥad) are compelling.3 2. While some professors who teach the Bible are traditionalists and like to imagine John is a work composed by John, the son of Zebedee, most Johannine specialists now conclude that the Fourth Gospel has been edited more than once and that conceivably multiple authors and editors inherited a Signs Source that took shape within Second Temple Judaism. The final edition of John indicates a devastating schism caused by Christological differences (1Jn 2:18–25; 4:1–5). Perhaps chapters 15–17 were added to exhort those within the Johannine community to remain united. The Prologue was prefaced to the work to emphasize that Jesus was the

x Preface origin of creation and also a human of flesh and blood (1:14). Chapter 21 is an appendix, perhaps to bring the story of Jesus closer to the one familiar to many believers from one of the Synoptic traditions, to include “the sons of Zebedee,” and to present Peter with more respect and authority. 3. John contains a surprising amount of precise information about architecture and topography in Jerusalem. He knew the city very well, referring to large mikvaot (Jewish ritual baths) not described by Josephus, the location of Caiaphas’ house (18:28),4 and massive stone pavements, probably in Herod’s palace or praetorium in the Upper City (Λιθόστρωτον and Γαββαθα in 19:13). Many of these details have been discovered through the years due to archaeological research.5 4. The noun aposunagōgos (ἀποσυνάγωγος) uniquely indicates that the Johannine community was shaped by a tension between Jews who worshipped in the synagogue and those who appear to have been banned from synagogue worship due to their Christology. The technical term ἀποσυνάγωγος appears only in Jn 9:22, 12:42, and 16:2; it seems not only to indicate a rift within Judaism but also implies that some believers in the Johannine community wished to continue worshipping in the synagogue.6 5. Though not a solid consensus, Essene influences on the Gospel of John are widely and wisely recognized. Some scholars imagine that the author of John was an Essene (Ruckstuhl, Ashton).7 Others surmise that the impressive influence from Qumran (= Essene) should be described as indirect (Brown)8 or direct (Charlesworth).9 We need to explore the probability that Essenes joined the Johannine community.10 To summarize, if there is a consensus today regarding the character and origin of the Gospel of John, it might be that this masterful work was composed within Judaism and with Jewish concerns in focus. Thirty years ago we referred to “Jews” and “Christians” mirrored in John, now it is more representative to refer to “synagogal Jews” or “non-believing Jews” versus “believing Jews” with both groups identifying themselves as Jewish.11

2  Nine new insights and challenges 1. Stone vessels have been found in the main locales claiming to be Cana: Khirbet

Qana and Kafar Kanna.12 The reference to “six stone jars for the Jewish rites of purification” (2:6) is unique to the Fourth Evangelist. No other evangelist refers to the importance of stone vessels or seems to know their spiritual function. Obviously, the Gospel of John requires a new look in light of recent excavations in Judea and Galilee,13 which now is proved to be linked with the Judaism of Judea.14 Not only stone vessels but mikvaot appear in strata contemporaneous with Jesus in both Judea and Galilee. In Jericho, there are dozens of mikvaot west of the swimming pool in which Herod had a high priest drowned, and in Migdal at least four mikvaot were found near the pre-70 CE synagogue. 2. Too many experts assumed that the Fourth Evangelist created the descriptions of the Pool of Bethzatha out of his imagination and his own unique Christology.

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Proving the historical veracity of the Fourth Evangelist’s report, archaeologists have found this pool precisely where it was located in John.15 It is near the Sheep Gate, has five porticoes, and is a mikveh. John knows Jerusalem extremely well: why? In searching for answers to this question, it has become certain that concerns for ritual purity were exceptional in the Holy City. Jews did not enter the Temple until they had immersed themselves in a mikveh. According to Jn 5:14, Jesus and the man healed at Bethzatha meet in the Temple. That tradition implies that each one had entered a mikveh to purify themselves.16 3. Before 1967, when scholars began intensively to excavate in and around Jerusalem, and before 2005, when a Herodian pool was accidentally found, experts thought the Fourth Evangelist only imagined the Pool of Siloam, using it to make a Christological point—namely, that Jesus alone can heal because he is the One “sent into the world” (in 9:7 siloam means “sent”). The Pool of Siloam was discovered during repairs of a sewer main. It is perhaps the largest mikveh found from Second Temple Judaism, and it is connected to the Temple, which is above and to the north, by a monumental stairway. Pre-70 CE Jews, especially pilgrims from areas as far away as Adiabene and Rome, needed to be ritually pure to enter the Temple precincts. Before entering the Temple, many of them first immersed themselves in this large mikveh and then ascended by the stairway to the Temple. The only other massive mikveh, that was for the immersion of masses so they could enter the Temple, is Bethzatha. Only the Fourth Evangelists knows and describes accurately both mikvaot. 4. Scholars have debated the time of Jesus’ Last Supper and the historicity of his alleged trial. Is the chronology in Mark or John more historical? Both cannot be historically accurate. Pre-70 CE Jewish concerns over purity may help us adjudicate between Mark’s and John’s account of Jesus’ Last Supper. Only the Fourth Evangelist meets the requirements of Jewish jurisprudence. Caiaphas would have needed to be in seclusion lest he become impure and not be able to officiate in the Temple as high priest during Pesach (Passover). According to Mark, Jesus is taken to “the high priest.” Was that Annas or Caiaphas? Only the latter was the officiating high priest. Annas had served as high priest from 6 to 15 CE. His son-in-law, Joseph Caiaphas was high priest from 18 to 36 (or 37) CE. According to Mt 26:57, Jesus is led to Caiaphas. According to the Fourth Evangelist, Jesus is led to a high priest. John’s account seems garbled, and one might imagine that an editor has caused confusion with the narrative, until one notes that Annas, who had been high priest, is the one in the house of the high priest. Caiaphas is not present; he must be sequestered in the Temple for purification reasons. His father-in-law, Annas, interrogates Jesus; thus the Evangelist in 18:24 states that Annas finally sends Jesus to Caiaphas, indicating Caiaphas had not been present. The confusion is not in John; it is in the regnant exegesis. “Caiaphas’ house” is most likely where not only Caiaphas but also Annas lived (18:13). A study of the architecture of pre-70 CE Jerusalem and Jewish jurisprudence tips the scales toward a perception of considerable historicity in John. 5. John reflects a keen cognizance of debates within Judaism. According to the tradition preserved in the Septuagint, God completed all his work before the

xii Preface Sabbath and rested all that day: “And God finished on the sixth day his works which he made, and he ceased on the seventh day from all his works which he made” (Gen 2:2; LXX).17 Many Jews believed that God completed his acts of creation before the Sabbath. According to the Hebrew text of Gen 2:2, however, God finished his work on the seventh day: “On the seventh day God finished the work that he had been doing, and he ceased on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” Some erudite Jews, contemporaneous with Jesus, apparently interpreted this verse to mean that God worked on the seventh day, the Shabbat, and subsequently rested. The biblical texts indicate why early Jews debated when God completed all his works. Did God work on Shabbat? Such debates over Torah interpretation are mirrored only in John among the New Testament documents. Note Jn 5:16–17: “And this was why the Judeans persecuted Jesus, because he did this on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working still, and I am working.’” 6. John shows a fondness for Samaritans. According to the Fourth Evangelist, some Judeans charged Jesus with being a Samaritan (8:48). Following R. E. Brown’s suggestion that Samaritans may have been in the Johannine community,18 K. Matsunaga concludes that Samaritans probably joined the Johannine community.19 Recent discoveries indicate that Judean Jews after John Hyrcanus’ destruction of the Samaritan altar (not temple) may have changed a passage in Deuteronomy and that, conceivably, the original reading is now preserved in a Dead Sea Scroll fragment of Deuteronomy, in an Old Greek manuscript, in an Old Latin text, and in the Samaritan Pentateuch.20 Would non-edited readings, preserved sometimes in the Samaritan Pentateuch, have influenced Jesus’ fondness for Samaritans? 7. Scholars have long recognized that according to John, Jesus celebrates Hanukkah in Jerusalem. To many pre-70 CE Jews, such a celebration would indicate that Jesus revered the Hasmoneans (the celebration concerns their purification of the Temple). The Hasmoneans were the enemies whom Herod sought to annihilate (the “Herodians” do not appear in John; cf. Mk 3:6 and 12:13 [Mt 22:16]). What does John reveal about pre-70 CE history by 10:22–23: “It was the feast of the Dedication among the Jerusalemites; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in Solomon’s portico”? Those behind John the Baptizer’s death and Jesus’ crucifixion were in the Herodian dynasty. How historically reliable are the numerous reports that some around Herod and his sons and grandsons imagined that “the Messiah,” or “the Christ,” denoted Herod or his descendants,21 and how does messianism (or Christology) help us explain the hatred from those in the Herodian dynasty against Jesus and any who would claim he was “the Messiah”? Do traditions in John help us realize that sometimes the Fourth Evangelist, as in 7:1 and 11:54, intends Ἰουδαῖοι to denote “Judean leaders” (who were under the rule of Rome and their quislings, the Herodian dynasty) as the ones who wished to kill Jesus?22 8. While most scholars recognize that John has been edited and reedited, they usually are concerned only with the date of the final edition. What about the first edition? What is the date and provenience of the first edition? How do we explain the fact that the Essene parallels and precise descriptions of Jerusalem are in the first edition? What evidence has been overlooked and does it help us imagine that the first edition of John was composed within Jerusalem?23

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9. Many experts devoted to the study of the historical Jesus ignore John. Is this wise? Does scientific historiography not demand looking at all pertinent evidence? The Society of Biblical Literature has featured a major group focused on John and history, and the proceedings are available in numerous volumes.24 Are we observing the beginning of a paradigm shift to include John in Jesus research?25

In summary, pre-70 CE Jewish concerns for ritual purity are obvious among many groups and sects of Jews. Purity issues appear heightened and developed beyond the rules in Leviticus in Second Temple Judaism. We may date these increased requirements for purification by the mikvaot appearing for the first time in Hasmonean settings in Galilee and Judea by at least 100 BCE. The literary evidence for increased ritual purification can be dated to about 90 BCE—for example, they are obvious in the Temple Scroll, col. 50. Purity concerns, especially stone vessels and mikvaot, loom into central focus as we excavate ancient sites frequented by Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee and Judea. These concerns appear as we polish exegetical methods for comprehending our Scriptures and as we improve Jesus Research.

3  Conclusion The Jewish background of John is confirmed by intensive archaeological work and exegesis of one of the greatest compositions in world literature. Are we to imagine the first edition of John taking shape within Jerusalem before 70 CE and then later expanded in Ephesus? If purity was such a dominant factor of Jewish life in Palestine before 70 CE, then why does only the Fourth Evangelist reflect such a concern for ritual purity in mentioning stone vessels in passing and describing the two large mikvaot near the Temple? Is not this Johannine emphasis historical and supported by Mark’s claim that opposition to Jesus was about “new” purity laws and emanated from the Temple (cf. esp. Mk 7:1–13)? How are we to improve exegesis and hermeneutics with what is being learned from archaeological discoveries and research? What was considered settled and established as scholarly conclusions are being challenged with fresh exciting discoveries, insights, and reflections.

Notes 1 The following notes draw attention to publications that supply methods and data to my brief comments. 2 See Charlesworth’s reflections in “Did They Ever Part?” in Partings: How Judaism and Christianity Became Two, edited by Hershel Shanks (Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2013) pp. 281–300, 363–7. 3 For bibliographical data, see the introduction; for more discussion on many of these points, see the following chapters. 4 Shimon Gibson is working on the realia from what he identifies as the praetorium and Caiaphas’ House; the finds are in the Armenian Museum in the Old City. I am most grateful to him for allowing me to see what he is examining. Frescoes similar to those in Pompeii are extant, though fragmentary.

xiv Preface 5 Further information is provided in the chapters focused on John and archaeology; also, see the introduction. 6 For the latest publications, see the introduction. 7 E. Ruckstuhl, Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgart: Verlag Kataholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), p. 393. J. Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), p. 237. Ashton does not make this claim in the new edition of his book, but he told me, viva voce, that he has not changed his mind. 8 Raymond E. Brown, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament,” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by J. H. Charlesworth (New York: Crossroad, 1991), pp. 1–8, especially p. 2. 9 James H. Charlesworth, “A Critical Comparison of the Dualism in 1QS 3:13–4:26 and the ‘Dualism’ Contained in the Gospel of John,” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, edited by Charlesworth (New York: Crossroad, 1991), pp. 76–106. 10 See James H. Charlesworth, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel According to John,” in Exploring the Gospel of John in Honor of D. Moody Smith, edited by R. A. Culpepper and C. Black (Louisville: Westminster, 1996), pp. 65–97. 11 For the latest publications, see the introduction. 12 See especially, P. Richardson, “Khirbet Qana (and Other Villages) as a Context for Jesus,” in Jesus and Archaeology, edited by Charlesworth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 120–44. 13 See especially Charlesworth with M. Aviam, “Überlegungen zur Erforschung Galiläas im ersten Jahrhundert,” in Jesus und die Archäologie Galiläas, edited by C. Claussen and J. Frey (B-TS 87; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2008), pp. 93–127. 14 See James H. Charlesworth, review of Uzi Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee, in JSHJ 8 (2010): 281–84. 15 For images and a discussion, see James H. Charlesworth, “The Tale of Two Pools: Archaeology and the Book of John,” NEASB 56 (2011): 1–14. 16 Many mikvaot have been discovered near the gates to the Temple; many of them are in areas west of the Temple Mount but not yet opened to the public. I am indebted to Dan Bahat for showing these to me. 17 While no Dead Sea Scroll preserves this passage of Genesis, it is clear that often the Septuagint preserves a tradition present in early Hebrew manuscripts. Hence, the reading may not be unique to the Greek. 18 R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist, 1979). 19 K. Matsunaga, “The Galileans in the Fourth Gospel,” AJBI 2 (1976): 135–58. 20 See Charlesworth, “What is a Variant? Announcing a Dead Sea Scroll Fragment of Deuteronomy,” Maarav 16, no. 2 (2009): 201–12, plates IX and X. Also see Charlesworth, “An Unknown Dead Sea Scroll and Speculations Focused on the Vorlage of Deuteronomy 27:4,” in Jesus, Paulus und die Texte von Qumran [H-W Kuhn Festschrift], edited by J. Frey and E. E. Popkes (WUNT 2.390; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014): 393–414. 21 The texts are presented and discussed by Charlesworth in “Who Claimed Herod was ‘the Christ’?” in Eretz-Israel: Archaeological, Historical and Geographical Studies [Ehud Netzer Festschrift], edited by Zeev Weiss, et al. (Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society and the Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2015) vol. 31; pp. 29–39. 22 Jason J. Ripley focuses on Jn 16:2 and 8:31–59 and shows that the Evangelist seeks to curb so-called pious violence by drawing attention to Jesus’ crucifixion as the type of martyrdom to inculcate. See J. J. Ripley, “Killing as Piety? Exploring Ideological Contexts Shaping the Gospel of John,” JBL 134, no. 3 (2015): 605–35.

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23 James H. Charlesworth, “The Priority of John? Reflections on the Essenes and the First Edition of John,” in Für und wider die Priorität des Johannesevangeliums, edited by P. Hofrichter (Hildesheim: George Olms Verlag, 2002), pp. 73–114. In The Community of the Beloved Disciple, Brown judged that “some of the tradition” in John, notably the “accurate references to Palestinian places and customs, and the Samaritan recollections,” were “formed” before the Revolt of 66–74. 24 See P. N. Anderson, et al., eds., John, Jesus, and History (3 vols.; Atlanta: SBL, 2007–16). 25 I have sought to show the answer is “yes”; see “The Historical Jesus in the Fourth Gospel: A Paradigm Shift?” JSHJ 8 (2010): 3–46. Also, see the chapters in this volume.

Acknowledgments I am deeply appreciative to all who have helped me polish these chapters for publication, among them are George Parsenios, Paul Anderson, Lee McDonald, Blake Jurgens, Mitchell Esswein, Shane Gormley, and especially Jolyon Glenn Rivoir Pruszinski. I am indebted to Dominic Mattos who helped me publish this book through Bloomsbury. Images appear more frequently as the volume develops. They are necessary because of the nature of the subject being discussed—for example, without images archaeological discoveries cannot be fruitfully imagined. Most are my own photographs and were made possible through trips to many museums and sites, thanks to the support from the Foundation on Judaism and Christian Origins. I appreciate my relationship with Dr. Mikhail Piotrovsky, director of the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; he allowed me to photograph and publish the images in this book that are displayed in the Hermitage. Some confidants—John Hoffman, James Joyner, George Makrauer, and Lee McDonald—helped me during the last few months as I was completing this work, seeking to reach more than Johannine experts. I am most grateful for their keen eye, insightful suggestions, and emotional support as I ventured deep into unchartered waters to explore some novel questions.

Foreword Some clarification of forms may help the reader. “Qumran Community” is in all capitals because the term refers to the Yaḥad, a closed, sociologically predestined group of pre70 CE Jews who were focused on “Oneness” or Common-ality. Only those born “Sons of Light” and who passed all physical, mental, and spiritual examinations, over a morethan-two-year period, were allowed “to cross” over into the New Covenant. The Johannine community is not in all capitals; it was distinguishable from the Qumran Community in many ways. Unlike Qumran’s Yaḥad, the Johannine community was open to all who believed, and those in the community invited all to join by believing in Jesus—in particular by believing that “He” was from above and was the Messiah, the Son of Man. The Johannine School appears in all capitals; it is a terminus technicus (and in my perspective, similar to Qumran’s Yaḥad as a writing group focused on fulfillment hermeneutics). Some names are intentionally presented in full form—that is, the given names are supplied. That method highlights those of international significance and helps the reader find publications if just entering the field of research. Also, some distinguished colleagues are known only by their initials, notably W. D. Davis (my former colleague), or were christened with initials, as S. T. Kimbrough, Jr. I have tried to be consistent, although few readers will comprehend the method. Some critics might claim that the work seems repetitious. Actually, repetition is the price of success, as I was taught. Repeating main points, and developing them further, is necessary as humans often do not hear new insights the first time. Old positions are deeply entrenched in many minds and need to be broken loose from the age-old moorings. Two case examples must suffice. First: we all “know” that the Beloved Disciple is the Apostle John (that was assumed by Rudolf Schnackenburg and Ray Brown but upon examination each concluded it was unlikely, even impossible). Second: the Fourth Gospel is called the Gospel According to John because the Apostle John wrote it, as Irenaeus and Tertullian stated. Academy dogmatics are as detrimental to investigative research as Ecclesiastical Hegemony. Thus, some insights need to be repeated, since too many scholars interested in John are myopically focused on the Greek text and its rhetoric. Repetition, as the thought evolves, is necessary to keep the flow developing and to enable each chapter to be meaningful as an assigned reading. JHC Princeton

Abbreviations Ancient works Biblical works Old Testament Gen Genesis Exod Exodus Lev Leviticus Num Numbers Deut Deuteronomy Josh Joshua Judg Judges Ruth Ruth 1Sam 1 Samuel 2Sam 2 Samuel 1Kgs 1 Kings 2Kgs 2 Kings 1Chr 1 Chronicles 2Chr 2 Chronicles Ezra Ezra Neh Nehemiah Esth Esther Job Job Ps(s) Psalms Prov Proverbs Eccl (Qoh) Ecclesiastes Song Song of Songs Isa Isaiah Jer Jeremiah Lam Lamentations Ezek Ezekiel Dan Daniel Hos Hosea Joel Joel Amos Amos Obad Obadiah

Jonah Jonah Micah Micah Nah Nahum Hab Habakkuk Zeph Zephaniah Hag Haggai Zech Zechariah Mal Malachi New Testament Mt Matthew Mk Mark Lk Luke Jn John Acts Acts Rom Romans 1Cor 1 Corinthians 2Cor 2 Corinthians Gal Galatians Eph Ephesians Phil Philippians Col Colossians 1Thes 1 Thessalonians 2Thes 2 Thessalonians 1Tim 1 Timothy 2Tim 2 Timothy Tit Titus Phlm Philemon Heb Hebrews Jas James 1Pet 1 Peter 2Pet 2 Peter

Abbreviations

xix

1Jn 1 John 2Jn 2 John 3Jn 3 John Jude Jude Rev Revelation

Non-biblical works Pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls 11QPsa Psalms Scroll 11QTemplea Temple Scroll 1QH The Hodayot 1QM The War Scroll 1QpHab The Habbakuk Pesher 1QS The Community Rule 1QSa The Rule of the Congregation CD The Damascus Document 4QFlor Floreligium 1En 1 Enoch 2En 2 Enoch 3En 3 Enoch 2Bar 2 Baruch 1Mac 1 Maccabees 2Mac 2 Maccabees

3Mac 3 Maccabees 4Mac 4 Maccabees ApocAb Apocalypse of Abraham Jud Judith LadJac Ladder of Jacob LivPro Lives of the Prophets PssSol Psalms of Solomon Sir Sirach TAsh Testament of Asher TBenj Testament of Benjamin TDan Testament of Dan TJos Testament of Joseph TLevi Testament of Levi TNaph Testament of Naphtali Tob Tobit Wis Wisdom of Solomon

Other ancient authors Justin Martyr Eusebius Irenaeus Tertullian Ignatius Josephus Philo

Apol Dialogue EH AdvHaer AdvMarc Smyr Apion Ant War AllegInt SpecLeg

Apology Dialogue with Trypho Ecclesiastical History Against Heresies Against Marcion Epistle to the Smyrnaeans Against Apion Antiquities of the Jews War of the Jews Allegorical Interpretation of Genesis Special Laws

xx Abbreviations

Modern works ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary ABRL Anchor Bible Reference Library AGJU Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums AGSU Arbeiten zur Geschichte des Spätjudentums und Urchristentums AJBI Annual of the Japanese Biblical Institute ALUOS Annual of Leeds University Oriental School ANRW Aufstieg und Niedergang der Römischen Welt ATANT Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments ATR Anglican Theological Review AVTRW Aufsätze und Vorträge zur Theologie und Religionswissenschaft BA Biblical Archaeologist BAR Biblical Archaeology Review BBB Bonner Biblische Beiträge BETL Bibliotheca ephemeridum theologicarum lovaniensium BHT Beiträge zur historischen Theologie BJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester BR Biblical Research B-TS Biblisch-Theologische Studien BZNW Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly CBQMS Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series DJD Discoveries in the Judean Desert EB Echter Bibel ECC Encyclopedia of Early Christianity EBib Études bibliques EncJud Encyclopedia Judaica (1971) ETL Ephemerides theologicae Lovanienses EvT Evangelische Theologie ExpT Expository Times FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments HNT Handbuch zum Neuen Testament HR History of Religions HSS Harvard Semitic Series HTR Harvard Theological Review JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JJS Journal of Jewish Studies JQR Jewish Quarterly Review JSHJ Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus JSJ  Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods

Abbreviations JSJSup JSNT JSNTSup JSOT JSOTSup JSP JSPSup JSS JTS LCL LSTS NEASB NovT NovTSup NTL NTOA NTS NTTS OBO OTP PEQ PIBA PrOC PTSDSSP PVTG RechBib RB RevQ RGG RSR RTh RocT SANT SBLDS SBJEJL SBLMS SBLSCS SE SNTSMS SNTU STDJ SVTP SUNT TLZ TRE

Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the New Testament Journal for the Study of the New Testament: Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha: Supplement Series Journal of Semitic Studies Journal of Theological Studies Loeb Classical Library Library of Second Temple Studies Near Eastern Archaeological Society Bulletin Novum Testamentum Supplements to Novum Testamentum New Testament Library Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus New Testament Studies New Testament Tools and Studies Orbis biblicus et orientalis Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Palestine Exploration Quarterly Proceedings of the Irish Biblical Association Proche-Orient Chretien Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project Pseudepigrapha Veteris Testamenti Graece Recherches bibliques Revue biblique Revue de Qumran Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart Recherches de science religieuse Revue theologique Roczniki teologiczne Studien zum Alten und Neuen Testaments Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series Society of Biblical Literature Early Judaism and its Literature Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series Society of Biblical Literature Septuagint and Cognate Studies Studia evangelica Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series Studien zum Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha Studien zur Umwelt des Neuen Testaments Theologische Literaturzeitung Theologische Realenzyklopädie

xxi

xxii Abbreviations TS Theological Studies TSAJ Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum TUGAL Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur VC Vigiliae Christianae VT Vetus Testamentum VTSup Supplements to Vetus Testamentum WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament ZNW  Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche ZTK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

Introduction: The Genius in the New Testament The Gospel According to John began to take a central place in my life during the third grade, at Jacksonville Beach Elementary School. The ocean was always nearby and before the invention of air-conditioning we could smell, and even feel, the salt sea air pouring through an open window. The teacher would begin the day by asking us to read from John, on the assumption that learning to read good English would stimulate a love of reading and improve abilities to read, write, and speak. The year was 1948—those days of long ago—and long before the appearance of the Revised Standard Version of the Bible. It seems to me now that Elizabethan English was an odd key for mastering contemporary language, and yet, that experience opened my eyes to the beauty of John’s sublime poetic expressions. Almost seventy years later, I still remember how I became fond of John. During my time at Duke University (1962–1984) and here in Princeton (1984–) I was not pleased that John was being relegated to secondary status by Johannine experts. It was judged to be a late composition and based on Mark, Matthew, or Luke (the three Gospels considered Synoptics, because they see Jesus’ life synoptically [that is, with the same focus]). I heard how some scholars were judging John to be quasi-Docetic and therefore close to heresy. Many scholars judged John to be tainted with Gnosticism. Too many were being fed views that John may be heretical and did not belong in our canon. Finally, scholars in institutions of advanced learning in many countries expressed their opinion that John is tainted with passages that are anti-Jewish and even anti-Semitic. I learned from all these debates but found problems with all the scientific, historical, and theological arguments. While teaching courses on the Gospel of John, I had primarily focused my research on Early Judaism and Christian Origins—the period from about 300 BCE (when Alexander’s generals began to unite the Mediterranean world) to about 200 CE when the Mishnah (the first rabbinic document) began to take final shape. I excavated in many places in the Holy Land and edited the first full edition of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (1983–1985). Since 1986, I have been editing the international edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls (the Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project). During these years, my appreciation of the many types of Judaism that appeared before 70 CE (when the Temple was destroyed and the history of ancient Israel ended) increased. I was astonished at the creative ideas and spectacular discoveries evident in ancient Jewish documents and scrolls (such as the evidence that early Jews clearly knew the moon received its light from the sun, and the possibility that they knew the heart pumped blood through the body). At the same time, I concentrated on the life

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

and times of Jesus from Nazareth with special attention to the evidence in the oftenmaligned Gospel of John. I slowly began to disagree with what seemed to be regnant in many institutions of higher learning. The chapters in this volume explain my own discoveries. First, John is not a late composition, even though its final editing is later than Mark, Matthew, and Luke. In fact, the form in which most Christians know John is with 7:53–8:11; but this passage about the woman caught in the act of adultery was not part of the first edition or the edition of John that was known about 100 CE. The later interpolation is not in many early copies of John; it seems to have been added to John in the late second century CE. Scholars tend to agree that John reflects an author and numerous editors. The question for me is when was the first edition composed? I am convinced that the earliest edition of John—the first edition—may antedate 70 CE. Why? It is because the author knew Jerusalem intimately, providing many architectural details which only thirty years ago we imagined were literary inventions provided to make Christological or theological points. Additional insight can be gleaned from the apparent Essene influence found in the sections designated as the first edition of John. Arguments for a pre-70 CE date for the first edition are provided in the pages that follow. My reflections are supported by more recent work on the use of “signs” in the New Testament. Sēmeion, the Greek word for “signs,” appears more times in John (seventeen) than in any other New Testament document. It also appears thirteen times in Matthew and Acts (and eleven times in Luke). The author of Acts portrays the Apostles Peter and John preaching in Jerusalem and performing a “sign of healing.” The time would antedate 66 CE and the person named “John” is the apostle from whom the Johannine tradition originates according to almost all scholars. Note the passage: Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and realized that they were uneducated and ordinary men, they were amazed and recognized them as companions of Jesus. 14 When they saw the man who had been cured standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. 15 So they ordered them to leave the council while they discussed the matter with one another. 16 They said, “What will we do with them? For it is obvious to all who live in Jerusalem that a notable sign (σημεῖον) has been done through them; we cannot deny it. 17 But to keep it from spreading further among the people, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name.” 18 So they called them and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John answered them, “Whether it is right in God’s sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; 20 for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard.” 21  After threatening them again, they let them go, finding no way to punish them because of the people, for all of them praised God for what had happened. 22 For the man on whom this sign of healing (τὸ σημεῖον τοῦτο τῆς ἰάσεως) had been performed was more than forty years old. (Acts 4:13–22; NRSV)

Paul N. Anderson focuses on this section of Acts, and notes that verses 19–20 are overlooked and are most likely a neglected clue to Luke’s dependence upon the



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Johannine tradition.1 He insightfully demonstrates that the Gospel of John, though evolving into a final form about 100 CE, did not originate late. Acts 4 demonstrates that Luke seems to have known the early traditions that eventually appear in the Gospel of John. Along with many other scholars, notably D. M. Smith, F. Lamar Cribbs, Mark A. Matson, and Barbara Shellard,2 Anderson demurs with those who have assumed John knew Luke. In particular, Anderson notes that at least six dozen times Luke departs from Mark and sides with John and that the Fourth Evangelist shows no knowledge of the special Lucan emphases (esp. the Lucan unique features in Luke 1–2 and 10–19). Anderson has helped open a new vista for exploring the early origins of the first edition of John. We scholars must reassess the conclusion that John knew Luke. A new appraisal and focus on primary sources may indicate that Luke knew the Johannine traditions as they were taking shape. Second, I learned that John was not dependant on any of the Synoptics.3 Recently, in John’s Use of Matthew,4 James Barker attempts to prove that the Fourth Evangelist knew Matthew and interacted with his presentation of Jesus’ life, contending that the Evangelist’s position on forgiving and retaining sins is a reaction against Matthew’s binding and loosing logion. Moreover, according to Barker, the Fourth Evangelist depends on Matthew’s use of Zechariah in the Good Friday depiction and includes Samaritans in contrast to Matthew’s rejection of them. If Barker is correct that the Gospel of John shows some influence from Matthew, it would be to the final edition of the Gospel of John, but not necessarily with the insertion of 7:53–8:11. If John was dependent on Mark, Matthew, or Luke why would he have left out the account of the Transfiguration (Mt 17:1–9; Mk 9:2–10; Lk 9:28–36)? Did the Fourth Evangelist seemingly have no knowledge of the Transfiguration, and yet report a similar tradition, indicating that a voice came from heaven blessing Jesus (Jn 12:28– 30)? Was not John’s Christology defined by the claim that Jesus was from above? Would including the Transfiguration not have helped John to make his major point that Jesus is from above and existed before Moses and Elijah? If John was dependent on Matthew or Luke, why did he not include a birth narrative? If John depended on Mark’s chronology, why does his differ from and is presupposed by Mark’s tendentious pericopes that are without contextuality and flow? If John knows Mark, Matthew, or Luke, why is his passion narrative so markedly different, not only theologically, but also chronologically and topographically within the city walls? Chapters in this collection will seek to prove the point that John may have known Mark but was not dependent on it. Virtually all New Testament scholars agree that John is unique and creative; for me, that may imply he was not working from Mark or one of the Synoptics. Third, John went through many editions, covering maybe fifty years. The first one may have been naively docetic (the denial that Jesus had been a fleshly human male). However, the final edition that took definitive shape before 100 CE was not docetic. It contains passages in which Jesus collapses from exhaustion and thirst by Jacob’s Well in Samaria and cries at the death of Lazarus. A devastating blow to any form of Docetism is Jn 1:14, “And the Word flesh became and tented among us.” This claim, and the depiction of the Eucharist as chewing Jesus’ flesh and drinking his blood (6:52–59)5 may have been added to clarify and emphasize that Jesus was a fully human being with

4

Jesus as Mirrored in John

flesh and bones and to distance the “Johannine School” from those who left it because of their Docetism: Children, it is the last hour! As you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. From this we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not belong to us; for if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us. But by going out they made it plain that none of them belongs to us. But you have been anointed by the Holy One, and all of you have knowledge. (1Jn 2:18–20; NRSV) Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. And this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming; and now it is already in the world. (1Jn 4:1–3; NRSV)

Fourth, John is not a Gnostic text.6 The author repeatedly chooses the verb “to know” but never mentions “knowledge” (gnosis). That emphasis on “knowing” may derive from, and is certainly evident in many Qumran compositions, notably the Rule of the Community.7 No Qumran composition is gnostic. Possibly, John may be seen as an example of Proto-Gnosticism, as with the Hymn of the Pearl and the Odes of Solomon; but scholars must improve their definitions of “Gnosticism” and “Proto-Gnosticism.” The prevalence of “knowledge” in an ancient text is no evidence of Gnosticism; that emphasis antedates the first century CE by a millennium. Fifth, John is not anti-Jewish. It is most likely our most Jewish Gospel. When we agree that some members of the Johannine community or School are being barred from celebrating in the synagogue, it means members of this Community were Jews who wanted to continue to worship in a synagogue. They were thus devout Jews who on Shabbat and especially on the high holidays desired to worship in a synagogue as they had all their lives. Recall the account of how the parents of the man born blind answered “the Pharisees” and other Judean leaders: ἀπεκρίθησαν οὖν οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ καὶ εἶπαν, Οἴδαμεν ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ υἱὸς ἡμῶν καὶ ὅτι τυφλὸς ἐγεννήθη·πῶς δὲ νῦν βλέπει οὐκ οἴδαμεν, ἢ τίς ἤνοιξεν αὐτοῦ τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἡμεῖς οὐκ οἴδαμεν· αὐτὸν ἐρωτήσατε, ἡλικίαν ἔχει, αὐτὸς περὶ ἑαυτοῦ λαλήσει. ταῦτα εἶπαν οἱ γονεῖς αὐτοῦ ὅτι ἐφοβοῦντο τοὺς Ἰουδαίους· ἤδη γὰρ συνετέθειντο οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι ἵνα ἐάν τις αὐτὸν ὁμολογήσῃ Χριστόν, ἀποσυνάγωγος γένηται. Therefore, his parents answered, “We know that this is our son, and that he was born blind; but how it is that now he sees we do not know, nor who opened his eyes we do not know. Ask him; he is of age. He will speak for himself.” These things his parents said because they feared (many) Judean leaders; for (some) Judean leaders had already agreed that anyone who confessed Jesus to be the Messiah would be thrown out of the synagogue.8 (Jn 9:20–22)



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Note how this fear that is shaping the Johannine community reappears: Ταῦτα λελάληκα ὑμῖν ἵνα μὴ σκανδαλισθῆτε. 2 ἀποσυναγώγους ποιήσουσιν ὑμᾶς· ἀλλʼ ἔρχεται ὥρα ἵνα πᾶς ὁ ἀποκτείνας ὑμᾶς δόξῃ λατρείαν προσφέρειν τῷ θεῷ. These things I have said to you to keep you from being scandalized. They will cast you out of the synagogues.9 Indeed, an hour is coming when all who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. (Jn 16:1–2)

What is the social setting?10 Jews were barred from synagogues because unbelieving Jews rejected believing Jews; that is, the Judean hierarchy convinced many Jews that those believing that Jesus was the Messiah, or even God, deserved to be cast out of synagogues. Some, like Stephen, Peter, Paul, and James were killed (but James was not banished from synagogue or Temple). We do not see anti-Judaism; rather, we perceive dissensions within Judaism. And this “fratricide” is to be comprehended in light of how Essenes at Qumran judged the ministering priests in Jerusalem’s Temple cult: they were born “Sons of Darkness” and were destined to hell and eventual annihilation (1QS 4). Often Ioudaioi in John should not be translated “Jews.” It should be translated “Judeans” or “some Judean leaders.” This point is illustrated in more than one of the following chapters. For now, the following example must suffice: Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Jews, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness; and he remained there with the disciples. (Jn 11:54; NRSV)

The “Jews” based in Jerusalem plotted to kill Jesus because Jews were hearing and believing that he had raised Lazarus. The NRSV translation portrays Jesus and his disciples as non-Jews, since they flee “the Jews” and go to a Gentile town called “Ephraim.” The historical facts are, however, that Jesus and his disciples were Jewish and Ephraim is a Jewish town. The better rendering of τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις is “Judean leaders.” That makes eminent sense in terms of John’s rhetoric and in light of what we know about the villages on the northwestern shores of the Sea of Galilee—the location of Bethsaida, Capernaum, and Corazin. Here is the Greek and my own translation: Ὁ οὖν Ἰησοῦς οὐκέτι παρρησίᾳ περιεπάτει ἐν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις, ἀλλὰ ἀπῆλθεν ἐκεῖθεν εἰς τὴν χώραν ἐγγὺς τῆς ἐρήμου, εἰς Ἐφραὶμ λεγομένην πόλιν, κἀκεῖ ἔμεινεν μετὰ τῶν μαθητῶν. Jesus therefore no longer walked about openly among the Judean leaders, but went from there to a town called Ephraim in the region near the wilderness; and he remained there with the disciples. (Jn 11:54)

Any doubt about this rendering should be dismissed when one notes that “from there” (ἐκεῖθεν) is an adverb denoting place; hence, the origin of Jesus’ opposition is Jerusalem in Judea. Jesus went from “there” (Judea) which defines the preceding τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις, “the Judean leaders.”

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

If believing Jews argued that Jesus was God and were no longer monotheists but ditheists, I can understand why non-believing Jews judged they were idolaters and did not acknowledge and confess the one and ONLY GOD so dear to the historical Jesus (Deut 6:4). I am persuaded that the author and editors of John were monotheists; certainly the author inherited the profound monotheism that shaped Early Judaism,11 beginning with pellucid clarity in Second Isaiah (Isa 40–55)12 and still vibrant despite the appearance of concepts like the Holy Spirit, who is from God and not of God, and the elevation of individuals as in the Self-Glorification Hymn.13 The author and editors of John believed Jesus should be identified with God but not simply identical with God so as to undermine monotheism. Recall the following illuminating poetic composition: ἐξῆλθον παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ ἐλήλυθα εἰς τὸν κόσμον· πάλιν ἀφίημι τὸν κόσμον καὶ πορεύομαι πρὸς τὸν πατέρα. I came from the Father, And have come into the world. Again, I leave the world, And proceed to the Father. (Jn 16:28)

I interpret this passage to declare Jesus’ uniqueness and yet also his intimate relationship with God as one who was sent by the Father into the world. As I developed as a specialist on John, I saw meanings I had never formerly imagined. I now share these exciting and challenging vistas with those who read these chapters, as some of these discoveries are presented in the following chapters. Too often Christians in the Western Hemisphere are myopic; they see only Paul and the emphasis that Jesus died for our sins. I am persuaded by John’s perspective. He portrays Jesus as a Jew who is faithful to Jewish traditions in the Hebrew Bible, who sought to obey God’s will, and was obedient until he died, screaming from the cross west of Jerusalem’s walls, “It is finished.”14 Those words may be from John’s pen and not from Jesus’ mouth, but they encapsulate the thought that Jesus was a faithful Jew who heard God, obeyed God, and finished all he imagined God had intended him to do. So, for me the genius in the New Testament is the first author of the Gospel of John, followed by his students; since he was the first to explore deeply how and in what ways Jesus should be perceived as more than human and divine. John also showed that the best way to comprehend the incomprehensible is to juxtapose opposites, as evidenced by the clash between stating that Jesus could not do anything on his own authority (5:19, 30; 8:28; 12:44–50; 14:28) and that Jesus and God are one (1:1).15 The oneness that unites Jesus and God is often portrayed in John as oneness in glory, will, and mission. This same oneness is offered by Jesus to his disciples and all who believe: Οὐ περὶ τούτων δὲ ἐρωτῶ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ τῶν πιστευόντων διὰ τοῦ λόγου αὐτῶν εἰς ἐμέ, ἵνα πάντες ἓν ὦσιν, καθὼς σύ, πάτερ, ἐν ἐμοὶ κἀγὼ ἐν σοί, ἵνα καὶ



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αὐτοὶ ἐν ἡμῖν ὦσιν, ἵνα ὁ κόσμος πιστεύῃ ὅτι σύ με ἀπέστειλας. κἀγὼ τὴν δόξαν ἣν δέδωκάς μοι δέδωκα αὐτοῖς, ἵνα ὦσιν ἓν καθὼς ἡμεῖς ἕν·ἐγὼ ἐν αὐτοῖς καὶ σὺ ἐν ἐμοί, ἵνα ὦσιν τετελειωμένοι εἰς ἕν, ἵνα γινώσκῃ ὁ κόσμος ὅτι σύ με ἀπέστειλας καὶ ἠγάπησας αὐτοὺς καθὼς ἐμὲ ἠγάπησας. Πάτερ, ὃ δέδωκάς μοι, θέλω ἵνα ὅπου εἰμὶ ἐγὼ κἀκεῖνοι ὦσιν μετʼ ἐμοῦ, ἵνα θεωρῶσιν τὴν δόξαν τὴν ἐμήν, ἣν δέδωκάς μοι ὅτι ἠγάπησάς με πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου. I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. Father, I desire that those also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory, which you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. (Jn 17:20–24; NRSV)

I must confess that I find these words challenging, yet pregnant with meaning and efficacious as we contemplate the original context and eternal message of John. As I studied and taught the Gospel of John, I have benefited deeply from the following selected commentaries and publications: M.-J. Lagrange, Évangile selon Saint Jean (1925) J. H. Bernard, Gospel According to St. John (1928) R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John (1941, 1964 [German], 1971) F.-M. Braun, Jean le Théologien (1959 [dans l’église ancienne] and 1972 [sa théologie]) C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (1960)16 R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St John (1965 [German], 1968 [1st. vol.] ) C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St John (1965) R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (1966) R. A. Culpepper, The Johannine School (1975) S. S. Smalley, John: Evangelist and Interpreter (1978, 1998 [rev. ed.]) R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (1979) R. A. Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia, 1983) E. Haenchen, John (1980 [German], 1984) M.-É. Boismard, Moses or Jesus: An Essay in Johannine Christology (1988 [French], 1993) J. Painter, The Quest for the Messiah (1991, 1993 [2nd ed.]) D. M. Smith, The Theology of the Gospel of John (1995) P. N. Anderson, The Christology of the Fourth Gospel (1996, 2010) D. M. Smith, John (1999) C. S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 2 vols. (2003) G. L. Parsenios, Departure and Consolation: The Johannine Farewell Discourses in Light of Greco-Roman Literature (2005) G. L. Parsenios, Rhetoric and Drama in the Johannine Lawsuit Motif (2010) U. C. von Wahlde, The Gospel and Letters of John, 3 vols. (2010) P. Borgen, The Gospel of John: More Light from Philo, Paul and Archaeology (2014)

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

Taking each of these volumes down from the shelves that surround my desk, holding it, and checking the title and date of the work creates an emotional nostalgia. Most of these authors have been my friends, interlocutors, colleagues, and fellow travelers on our common via often supplying viaticum (i.e., nourishment for the way of living).

Forty-five areas for future explorations The following chapters are publications, often slightly revised, that cover 1969 to the present. Cumulatively, they raise numerous questions that may guide further research. As we move beyond issues of status quaestionis,17 among the areas now vying for discussions are the following:18 First, issues regarding improved presuppositions, perceptions, and methodologies:

1. If John 1–21 is assumed to be one unified composition, perhaps composed by

John the Apostle, what problems are overlooked and what insights are lost by the presupposition? 2. If John is perceived to be the work of more than one author, what power and perception is lost? 3. Scholars have devised ways for explaining the relation between the Gospel of John and such documents as 1 John, the Odes of Solomon, and the Hymn of the Pearl, but they have not allowed for the complex composition history of John. Is it possible that the author of the Odes of Solomon, for example, knew the first edition of John and then influenced the final form of John?19 4. How has scholars’ penchant for disagreeing and the fact that a publication must present something “new” affected the development or perception of a consensus on the origin and meaning of the Gospel of John? Second, questions focused on historical origins, notably these:

5. What is the relation of John, the son of Zebedee, to the Gospel of John? 6. How and in what ways have Qumran’s unique terminology, paradigms, and

expressions entered the world of the Johannine School; was the author a converted Essene, was the influence “direct” or “indirect,” and how do we know that?20 7. Did the author of John, the redactors, or members of the Johannine community know the Self-Glorification Hymn, evident in four Qumran Scrolls? Did any of them interpret its language, especially “who is like me,” “no one can enter (or go) [with me],” and no one can compare “to my [glo]ry” as they portrayed Jesus?21 Are the Fourth Evangelist’s portrayal of Jesus as incomparable, and passages as Jn 16:17, 28 (Jesus’ ascent to the Father), 13:33, 36 (no one may go or enter with Jesus), 13:31 (Jesus’ glorification) echoes of this Hymn, and if so what does that insight tell us? Did the obvious anonymity of this Hymn enrich specific Christological statements and claims? 8. How did Jewish factionalism and fratricide affect the thoughts in John?



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9

9. How does John’s Christology reflect the numerous superhuman or divine figures

portrayed in early Jewish texts, including Philo and Josephus,22 and is John the New Testament composition least influenced by Jewish apocalyptic thought?23 10. Is it possible that the “I am” language of John mirrors Jesus’ language or is it a development that postdates Jesus and is only shaped by Easter faith? 11. Has John influenced the Hermetica, gnostic documents, and Mandeanism or is it conceivable that the adumbrations of these texts and philosophical groups may have influenced Johannine thought? Third, questions regarding insights from archaeology:

12. How have the collapse of the Albrightian Synthesis and the absurd claims

of pseudo-archaeologists caused jaundice among Johannine scholars about archaeological discoveries? 13. What are the disastrous results if Johannine scholars continue to ignore the massive advances in the fields of archaeology and Early Judaism? 14. How do we explain the vast amount of precise architectural and topographical information in John that is not found, for example, in Josephus but is now proved by numerous archaeological explorations of pre-70 CE strata in and near Jerusalem?24 15. Does that fact shift the pendulum so that we should acknowledge the earliest stratum in John must be from an eyewitness that knew these details intimately? Fourth, questions focused on the composition history of John:

16. What now is the evidence for or against a “Signs Source” in John and if a “Signs 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Source” is evident should it be recognized as “a gospel”?25 Are Bultmann’s composition history and Anderson’s phenomenological linguistic observations for the conflicting Christological claims in John mutually exclusive?26 What is the origin of 7:53–8:11, the pericope of the woman caught in the act of adultery? Could it have been in Papias’ works? And when was the passage added to John and why? Why was chapter 21 appended to John?27 What does it say about the emergence of Christianity? How do we explain the linguistic unity of John in light of a consensus regarding expansions and redactions of John? Is the Johannine Prologue a “Hymn” chanted in services or a poem, and what is the implication of this claim?

Fifth, questions raised by context and sociology; most importantly these:

22. Should we imagine a Johannine School, a Johannine community, or a

Johannine Circle, and how should each of these sociological models be defined and distinguished?28

Jesus as Mirrored in John

10

23. How do we develop a better methodology for moving from text to context? 24. How should the concept of sect and sectarian language be modified and applied to the “Johannine community”?29 25. How did polemics with other Jewish and competing “Christian” groups shape John, and how did it help craft “a new commandment” (Jn 13:34; 15:12)? 26. How do we explain the ophidian Christology in John and why was it mutated? Does John mirror an early Christology that emphasized the serpent as a Savior figure who symbolizes life, as in the Asclepian cult, or did John influence such developments as the Ophites?30 27. What passages in John would have been horrific to non-believing Jews who were strict monotheists, and how do such explorations help us comprehend the phenomenon of “being cast out of the synagogue”?

Sixth, questions dealing with canon, rhetoric, thought, expression, and symbolic language, especially these:

28. What were the most important sacred texts for the author and redactors of John 29. 30. 31. 32.

33. 34. 35. 36. 37.

and how did they change or interpret prophecies; for example, was Isaiah for them the most important document in sacra scriptura?31 How does John reflect an emerging, but not yet closed, canon; and why do the author and editors cite only what was later canonized?32 Who is the Beloved Disciple and is the construct from “the disciple whom Jesus loved” only a rhetorical device created by the Fourth Evangelist or a glimpse of a historical person?33 How historically insightful are the different portrayals of Judas in John? How do we explain the intentional anonymity of John with the rhetoric of anonymity so obvious in many Qumran Scrolls and in the Self-Glorification Hymn?34 Why did John portray as anonymous Jesus’ mother and the Beloved Disciple, but provide the name of “Malchus” (Jn 18:10)? What is the explanation of the use of Jewish feasts and festivals in John?35 Why did the author of John choose to stress protology and creation motifs?36 Was the author of John only interested in a cosmic and timeless “Christ” and “Son” and how and in what ways did he possibly undermine monotheism?37 How did Johannine Christology recast and rewrite Jesus’ history? How are Greek thought and the Tragedies reflected in John?38

Seventh, how does the reception of John help us understand the masterpiece; notably:

38. How and when did the Fourth Gospel become identified as “the Gospel of John”?

39. How should we evaluate the comments of the early scholars of the church (the

Patristics) as we imagine and try to reconstruct the origin and purpose of John?39 40. Where should John be positioned in the evolutionary thought of “PreGnosticism,” “Proto-Gnosticism,” and “Gnosticism,” and how do we define and recognize such constructs?



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Eighth: Alia

41. John preserves unique stories of women:40 Otherwise unknown accounts of

42.

43. 44.

45.

Jesus’ mother (especially at the wedding at Cana), the Samaritan woman, Mary and Martha; John also describes how Mary Magdalene is the first to encounter the risen Lord. How are these accounts important for feminist hermeneutics, windows into the Johannine community, and precious data that disclose the life of the one from Nazareth? In the past scholars did not use John in Jesus Research.41 Now, some leading Johannine experts see a paradigm shift so that, focusing, inter alia, on socialmemory theory, orality, and performance,42 John becomes fundamental in recreating the life of Jesus;43 hence, which passages in John have a better, or equal, chance of preserving traditions that accurately represent Jesus’ life?44 How do we explain Caiaphas’ soteriological claim in John?45 Is it history, narrative, interpolation, irony, or ambiguity? What is the historical basis for Paul, Mark, and John’s claim that “Jesus is the Christ” and that the eschaton (the end of time) has arrived?46 If Peter’s confession was “on the way” to Caesarea Philippi, then maybe the Augusteum is not in Caesarea Philippi but at Horvat Omrit.47 Could the blinding light from the pure white marble help us understand Paul’s conversion, since an ancient road to Damascus proceeds west and the around to the north of Horvat Omrit? What historical sources were known to the Fourth Evangelist and what did he know but omit (see Jn 21:25)? Luke claims that he knew about “many” (πολλοί) who composed a narrative (διήγησιν) about Jesus. If Luke used Q (the putative sayings source of Jesus that is known only from passages in Matthew and Luke), that would not count; it is not a narrative. Luke used Mark; that counts; but then we have only “one” narrative. The Greek adjective for “many” denotes at least three and implies many more; what narratives did Luke know and use? Did he know and benefit from the first edition of John?48 If so does that help explain the often surprising passages or interests shared only by Luke and John? Ἐπειδήπερ πολλοὶ ἐπεχείρησαν ἀνατάξασθαι διήγησιν περὶ τῶν πεπληροφορημένων ἐν ἡμῖν πραγμάτων, καθὼς παρέδοσαν ἡμῖν οἱ ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς αὐτόπται καὶ ὑπηρέται γενόμενοι τοῦ λόγου, ἔδοξε κἀμοὶ παρηκολουθηκότι ἄνωθεν πᾶσιν ἀκριβῶς καθεξῆς σοι γράψαι, κράτιστε Θεόφιλε, ἵνα ἐπιγνῷς περὶ ὧν κατηχήθης λόγων τὴν ἀσφάλειαν. Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things which have been accomplished among us, just as they were delivered to us by those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word, it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, that you may know the truth concerning the things of which you have been informed. (Lk 1:1–4; NRSV)

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

Finally, three caveats. First, we should perceive that the above categories are only heuristic devices, and that many more questions may flow beyond the borders of the ones mentioned above (borders in this case connect rather than separate). Second, let us find ways to avoid assuming that answers must be clear and mutually exclusive. Third, we should agree that we must avoid historical positivism and the focus on answers, when questions may be the closest we come to the truth and the perception of Awe and Wonder in contemplating divine truths. As the following chapters attest, I find the Gospel of John full of fascinating insights and symbolic language that demand deep meditation and reflection. What did Jesus mean, according to John, when he said: “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” (Jn 14:2; NRSV). Where does the Fourth Evangelist imagine Jesus has gone to be with the Father?

Notes 1 Paul N. Anderson, “Acts 4:19–20—An Overlooked First Century Clue to Johannine Authorship and Luke’s Dependence Upon the Johannine Tradition,” Bible and Interpretation (2010). Also see Anderson, The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus (London: T & T Clark, 2006), p. 102. 2 Lamar Cribbs, “A Study of the Contacts That Exist Between St. Luke and St. John,” in Society of Biblical Literature 1973 Seminar Papers (ed. George MacRae; Cambridge: SBL, 1973) vol. 2, pp. 1–93. Mark A. Matson, In Dialogue with Another Gospel? (Atlanta: SBL, 2001). Barbara Shellard, New Light on Luke (London: T & T Clark, 2004). 3 The definitive study is by Dwight Moody Smith, John among the Gospels (2nd ed.; Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2001). 4 James Barker, John’s Use of Matthew (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015). 5 In Jn 6:54–58 the verb “to chew” appears four times. Τρώγω means “to bite” or “to chew.” It appears in the TJob 12:2. The verb does not appear in the LXX, Epistle of Aristeas, Philo, or Josephus. In Polybius, the verb is chosen to denote close companionship: ὁ τρώγων μου τὸν ἄρτον (Histories 31.23 9). I am convinced the verb was chosen in John not only to declare oneness with Jesus but also to claim that the Eucharist was intended by Jesus to celebrate his whole life and not just his death as appears to be the case in Paul. The apparent vulgar use of the verb is to remove any Docetic leanings and to harmonize with 1:14. 6 See Urban C. von Wahlde, Gnosticism, Docetism, and the Judaisms of the First Century: The Search for the Wider Context of Johannine Literature and Why it Matters (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). 7 Extremely helpful are the contributions to John, Qumran, and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Sixty Years of Discovery and Debate (ed. M. L. Coloe and T. Thatcher; SBL Early Judaism and Its Literature 32; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011). 8 Perhaps, more literally, “be an outcast from a synagogue.” 9 Perhaps, more literally, “be made (an outcast) from synagogues.” With these more literal renderings, the social setting of being a Jew who is an outcast among Jews, in Palestine and the Diaspora, is more than apparent.



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10 For decades, as the discussions in the following chapters prove, scholars have argued, following J. L. Martyn and R. E. Brown, that the expulsion from the synagogue (aposynagōgos in Jn 9:22; 12:42; and 16:2) occurred in the late first century CE. I have wondered why Jesus’ expulsion from the Nazareth synagogue and Stephen’s stoning by members of a synagogue in the early thirties could not be possible social settings. Now, Jonathan Bernier has made a convincing case that my speculation is warranted in the sense that “being cast out of the synagogue” does not begin only after 70 CE and that Jesus and Paul were also cast out of a synagogue for their claims. See Bernier, Aposynagōgos and the Historical Jesus in John: Rethinking the Historicity of the Johannine Expulsion Passages (Biblical Interpretation Series 122; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013). 11 See especially the arguments by Wendy E. S. North, A Journey Round John: Tradition and Context in the Fourth Gospel (Library of New Testament Studies; London: Bloomsbury and T & T Clark, 2015). 12 See James H. Charlesworth, “The Unperceived Continuity of Isaiah,” in The Continuity of Isaiah: Proceedings of a Jerusalem Congress (forthcoming). 13 See James H. Charlesworth, “Apocalypticism and Mysticism in the Self-Glorification Hymn or Poem and in the Hymn According to Philippians 2:6–11,” in the Proceedings of the Congress in Gazzada, Italy (June 21–26, 2015). 14 On the portrayal of Jesus’ crucifixion in John, see J. Frey, Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten: Studien zu den Johanneischen Schriften I (ed. J. Schlegel; WUNT 307; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013). 15 Carlos Raúl Sosa Siliezar adds that creation motifs in John help to portray Jesus’ relationship with the Father, to emphasize Jesus’ superiority over all other biblical saints, and to declare the source of salvation and revelation. Silieazar, Creation Imagery in the Gospel of John (Library of New Testament Studies 272; London: Bloomsbury and T & T Clark, 2015). My own thought on the conflicting Christological statements in John is influenced by Paul N. Anderson, Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Its Unity and Disunity in the Light of John 6 (Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2010). This revised edition has a new introduction and epilogue. 16 See especially, Engaging with C.H. Dodd on the Gospel of John: Sixty Years of Tradition and Interpretation (ed. T. Thatcher and C. H. Williams; Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 17 Helpful in learning about the status quaestionis on John, see New Currents Through John: A Global Perspective (ed. F. Lozada, Jr. and T. Thatcher; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2006); see also Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present, and Futures of the Fourth Gospel as Literature (ed. T. Thatcher and S. D. Moore; Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2008). Also consult Communities in Dispute: Current Scholarship on the Johannine Epistles (ed. R. A. Culpepper and P. N. Anderson; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014). 18 Admittedly, this report is not from a committee; it is based on my own impressions that certainly need input from other specialists dedicated to the Gospel of John. 19 See Charlesworth’s reflections in Critical Reflections on the Odes of Solomon: Volume 1—Literary Setting, Textual Studies, Gnosticism, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel of John (JSPSup 22; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998). 20 See especially Charlesworth, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel According to John,” in Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith (ed. R. A. Culpepper and C. C. Black; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996), pp. 65–97.

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

21 For a poetic rendering of the Self-Glorification Hymn and some comments about its connection to John, see Charlesworth, The Qumran Psalter: ‫ לאל הדעות ברכות‬The Thanksgiving Hymns Among the Dead Sea Scrolls (Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade, 2014), pp. 135–48. 22 See the insights of Harold W. Attridge in Essays on John and Hebrews (WUNT 264; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010). 23 John’s use of revelation and cosmology, as well as the depiction of Jesus as one sent from above, shows influence from Jewish apocalyptic thought. This point is illustrated in John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic (ed. C. H. Williams and C. Rowland; London: Bloomsbury, 2013). 24 For example, see James H. Charlesworth, “The Tale of Two Pools: Archaeology and the Book of John,” NEASB 56 (2011): 1–14. Also, see Charlesworth, “Jesus Research and Archaeology,” in The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts (ed. Joel B. Green and Lee M. McDonald; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), pp. 439–66 [with images]. 25 For a critical evaluation of scholarship on the Signs Source, though now dated, see Gilbert van Belle’s The Signs Source in the Fourth Gospel: Historical Survey and Critical Evaluation of the Semeia Hypothesis, translated by Peter J. Judge (BETL 116; Leuven: Leuven University Press, Uitgeverij Peeters, 1994). Folker Siegert seeks to present Jesus’ biography based on the Signs Source and other pre-Johannine traditions so as to explain the events from spring 29 to Passover in 30 (14th of Nisan or 7 April). F. Siegert, Das Leben Jesu: Eine Biographie aufgrund der vorkanonischen Überlieferungen (Göttingen and Oakville, Conn.: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010). 26 See especially D. Moody Smith, The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965). Smith explains and critiques Bultmann’s composition hypothesis. Also see Paul N. Anderson, Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Its Unity and Disunity in the Light of John 6 (2nd ed.; Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2010) This edition contains a new introduction, outline, and epilogue. 27 See Beverly Gaventa’s chapter in Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith. 28 See R. Alan Culpepper, The Johannine School: An Evaluation of the Johannine-School Hypothesis Based on an Investigation of the Nature of Ancient Schools (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1975). 29 David A. Lamb argues that modern sociolinguistic theory raises serious questions regarding the conclusion that John reflects a closed-knit sectarian group. See his Text, Context and the Johannine Community: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Johannine Writings (Library of New Testament Studies 477; London: Bloomsbury, 2014). His focus, however, is only upon some passages in John and 1 John. See the helpful review by Wendy E. S. North in Review of Biblical Literature (July 26, 2015). 30 See Charlesworth’s reflections in The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized (AYBRL; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010). 31 The collection called sacra scriptura included many works not canonized in the West but the “excluded Scriptures” were influential for many early Jews and Christians. See the discussions in Sacra scriptura: How “Non-canonical” Texts Functioned in Early Judaism and Early Christianity, edited by J. H. Charlesworth and L. M. McDonald with B. A. Jurgens (London and New York: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2014). 32 On the emerging canon, see L. M. McDonald, The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2007). McDonald, The Origin of the Bible: A Guide for the Perplexed (London: New York: T & T Clark International, 2011).



Introduction: The Genius in the New Testament

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33 See Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist Press, 1979). James H. Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1995). Maarten J. J. Menken argues that the Beloved Disciple is the perfect believer and the one who guarantees the authoritative truth in John. See his work in Paul, John, and Apocalyptic Eschatology: Studies in Honour of Martinus C. de Boer (NovTSup 149; Leiden: Brill, 2013). 34 See the discussion of the use of the rhetoric of anonymity by the Fourth Evangelist in Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent. Also see T. Thatcher, Jesus the Riddler: The Power of Ambiguity in the Gospels (Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006). 35 See Michael A. Daise, Feasts in John: Jewish Festivals and Jesus’ “Hour” in the Fourth Gospel (Tübingen : Mohr Siebeck, 2007). 36 Note especially Carlos Raúl Sosa Siliezar, Creation Imagery in the Gospel of John. 37 The most recent publication is by Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis, Jesus Monotheism, Volume 1: Christological Origins: The Emerging Consensus and Beyond (Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2015). 38 See George L. Parsenios, Departure and Consolation: The Johannine Farewell Discourses in Light of Greco-Roman Literature (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005), and Parsenios, Rhetoric and Drama in the Johannine Lawsuit Motif (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010). 39 Adele Reinhartz is convinced that the Gospel of John was addressed to Jews, Gentiles, and Samaritan believers in the attempt to create a new faith-based community. See her chapter in Paul, John, and Apocalyptic Eschatology: Studies in Honour of Martinus C. de Boer (NovTSup 149; Leiden: Brill, 2013). 40 See Ben Witherington, Women in the Ministry of Jesus: A Study of Jesus’ Attitudes to Women and Their Roles as Reflected in his Earthly Life (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984). Also see Henri Froment-Meurice, Les femmes et Jésus (Paris: Cerf, 2007). 41 See: Jesus in Johannine Tradition, edited by R. T. Fortna and T. Thatcher (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001). The SBL has sponsored a group to explore the evidence of history in the Gospel; see John, Jesus, and History, Vol. 1, edited by Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher (SBLSS 44; Atlanta: SBL, 2007). After the present book was finished, I found a publication that should be mentioned now. Adesola Joan Akala has focused on the symbolism in John. She insightfully argues that “the symbolic network of the Gospel of John” (p. xv) concerns the relationship between Jesus and God. Jesus is the only son of the Father and this intimate relationship shapes the Johannine narrative. See Akala, The Son-Father Relationship and Christological Symbolism in the Gospel of John (Library of New Testament Studies 505; London: Bloomsbury, 2014). 42 See the debates between Stanley E. Porter and Hughson T. Ong (who rightly are in favor of using these methodologies in Jesus Research) and Paul Foster (who claims they are “dead-ends”). Foster, “Memory, Orality, and the Fourth Gospel: Three Dead-Ends in Historical Jesus Research,” JSHJ 10 (2012): 191–227; Porter and Ong, “Memory, Orality, and the Fourth Gospel: A Response to Paul Foster with Further Comments for Further Discussion,” JSHJ 12 (2014): 143–64; and Foster, “Memory, Orality, and the Fourth Gospel: An Ongoing Conversation with Stan Porter and Hughson T. Ong,” JSHJ 12 (2014): 165–83. 43 See James H. Charlesworth, “The Historical Jesus in the Fourth Gospel: A Paradigm Shift?” Journal for the Historical Jesus 8 (2010): 3–46; and Paul N. Anderson,

16

44

45

46

47

48

Jesus as Mirrored in John The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered (London: New York: T & T Clark, 2006). For general background on perceptions and methodology, see James H. Charlesworth, The Historical Jesus: An Essential Guide (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008), Dale C. Allison, Jr., Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2010), and James H. Charlesworth, edited with Brian Rhea and Petr Pokorný, Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions: The Second Princeton Symposium on Jesus Research (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). Consult T. Thatcher, Greater than Caesar: Christology and Empire in the Fourth Gospel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009). For the historical period, see the magisterial James VanderKam monograph From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests After the Exile (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004). On eschatology, see J. Frey, Die johanneische Eschatologie, 3 vols. (WUNT 96, 110, 117; Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1997–). Also see Frey and other scholars reflections on “time” in the biblical and apocryphal books in Zeit, edited by M. Ebner, et al. (Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie 28; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Theologie, 2014). See the astounding and challenging discoveries and discussions in the volumes focused on Horvat Omrit, notably: The Temple Complex at Horvat Omrit, edited by J. A. Overman, D. N. Schowalter, and M. C. Nelson (The Brill Reference Library of Judaism 45; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015). In a 1998 PhD dissertation at Duke University, under Professor D. Moody Smith, Mark A. Matson argued that Luke most likely knew John. To me that would mean Luke knew an early version of John. See now, Matson, In Dialogue with Another Gospel?: The Influence of the Fourth Gospel on the Passion Narrative of the Gospel of Luke (SBLDS 178; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001). The work is extensive, comprising 479 pages. Also, see Matson, John (Interpretation Bible Studies; Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002).

Part One

Origin, Evolution, and Settings of the Gospel of John

18

1

Paradigm Shifts in Johannine Studies1

The twenty-first century begins with a worldwide recognition of some paradigm shifts in biblical research. Unfortunately, too many students and scholars miss such shifts as they tend to use commentaries and scholarly monographs without noting their date of publication. In the process, their own work and insight too often suffer from failing to perceive that more advances have been achieved in biblical research over the past fifty years than in the preceding 200 years. One cannot use scholarly works published from the nineteenth century to the present assuming naïvely that scholars are examining the same texts with similar methodology, sophistication, and perception. The texts have changed so that we now have almost thirty editions of the Greek New Testament—due to the discovery of early manuscripts—and more sophisticated methodology for discerning so-called variants. These new and better text editions of the Old Testament, the New Testament, other early sacra scriptura once labeled “pseudepigraphical” (as by Fabricius), evolve along with more scientific methodologies that are enriched by sociology, numismatics, and especially archaeology, and by a perception of how Confessionalism and unexamined theological presuppositions, such as latent anti-Semitism, misled the search for better answers.2 On the one hand, virtually all disciplines in the humanities are now employed in biblical research, including historiography, sociology, anthropology, numismatics, topography, archaeology, geology, statistics, psychology, psycho-biology, redaction criticism, the history of literary forms, rhetoric, Christology, and theology.3 On the other hand, there have been major advances not only in how texts that were not canonized in the West are judged, but in the establishment of a larger data bank, expanded by the recovery of inscriptions, archaeological shards with comments and names familiar from the Bible, tombs full of data, the discovery of thousands of papyri, manuscripts hidden beneath palimpsests, and the numerous manuscripts found in caves along the shores of the Dead Sea. Suffice it to report, I side with the experts who are convinced that the pure literary approach to Early Judaism and Earliest Christianity is unscientific and distorted. Today, some of our earliest evidence of Solomon or his time antedates the earliest extant biblical manuscript of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament) by 700 years;4 moreover, the earliest evidence for Jesus’ life predates the earliest portion of a New Testament document by more than a century.5 Since 1968, the evidence of pre70 CE Jewish life where Jesus lived has been astounding and unprecedented.

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

At least five significant factors distinguish recent research from previous publications. First, we are much more sensitive to the distortions caused by the intrusion of inappropriate philosophy. In the nineteenth century, Ferdinand Christian Bauer and David F. Strauss shaped their studies by following Hegelianism. In the twentieth century, Rudolf Bultmann, his school, and even the “New Quest for the Historical Jesus” were marred by viewing ancient texts through the presuppositions of existentialism. These two examples are focused and limited to research that began in Germany. What we learn from the masterful biblical experts just named is that we must be aware of our presuppositions and methodologies; hence, we may become more accurate historians of Early Judaism, Early Christianity, and cultures influential in shaping ancient Palestinian thought and life.6 Second, we have observed that prejudices blind us to what we are yearning to see. Consider, for instance, how confessionalism and anti-Semitism (along with supersessionism) have distorted the re-creations of first century phenomena, and especially the presentation of the historical Jesus. Too many biblical interpreters are unperceptive of how they have been influenced, not only by René Descartes’ division of all science into only metaphysics, physics, medicine, mechanics, and ethics as well as his false mind-body dichotomy, but also by Kant and Spinoza, both of whom tended to imagine Second Temple Judaism as corrupt. Clearly, scholars are cognizant of how Descartes, Kant, and Spinoza have shaped intellectual discussions in our culture, but many are not aware that phenomenologists have proved that the subject-object dichotomy is fallacious.7 They also seem reticent to affirm that the earliest followers of Jesus, including Paul and all who claimed God had raised Jesus from the dead, were not the “first Christians”; they were deeply and fully Jewish.8 We bring numerous unexamined assumptions to any text. Too many readers miss the fact that, according to Mk 9:1, Jesus, at least at times, thought the eschaton and the dynamic eruption of God’s Rule (the Kingdom of God) would occur in his own lifetime or, at least in the lifetime of those who heard him. Likewise, a perception of the meaning of Genesis 3 and John 3 is often distorted, because of a hatred of snakes and a refusal to explore the meaning of ophidian symbology.9 The first blindness has been pointed out by G. Theissen and D. Winter in their Quest for the Plausible Jesus.10 The second myopia is demonstrated in my The Good & Evil Serpent.11 Third, slowly we have grown to realize the tendencies (Tendenzen) and anachronisms of what were once our main literary sources: the intra-canonical gospels, as well as Philo,12 Josephus,13 early Rabbinics,14 and the Targumim.15 Those seeking to recreate Second Temple Judaism and Jesus’ environment before 1945 were consigned to work on documents and books that were biased and provided an ex–post facto mirror of pre-70 CE Judaism. Fourth, today we have hundreds of pre-70 CE Jewish documents that are not edited by Christian scribes—and many of them were unknown before 1947—when the Qumran Scrolls were discovered. No one should doubt that recent research has been enriched by the exploration and comprehension of a flood of previously unknown sources or documents once deemed “false” and medieval: the sixty-five Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, the Old Testament Apocrypha, the Jewish magical papyri, the inscriptions, the Greek, Coptic and Semitic papyri, the Nag Hammadi Codices, and the more than 1,000 Qumran Scrolls.



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Fifth, the recovery of archaeological data that is Jewish and clearly pre-70 CE has changed the landscape of historical Jesus studies. As the contributors to Jesus and Archaeology demonstrate,16 archaeology will not only be significant but fundamental in recreating both the cultural and sociological setting of Jesus and also his own life and message.17 At this point in our discussion, I wish to express two confessions. First, I sometimes grasp how little I know and how much we all need to know to reassess and recreate Jesus’ century that was so well known to the Fourth Evangelist. Specialists in fields once considered outside biblical studies have helped me understand the supreme importance for historical research on John’s Jesus of a multitude of previously daunting termini technici such as AMS-C14, ancient art and architecture, DNA, forensic anthropology, geochemistry, ground-penetrating radar, noninvasive explorations, palaeography, papyrology, pottery chronology, psychobiography, stratigraphy, thermoluminescence, thermoplastics, and various forms of typology (from realia to rhetoric). We biblical scholars lose our way and mislead those who follow us if we do not learn from all relevant scientific disciplines. Scholars no longer have the luxury of being an island unto themselves. Albert Schweitzer wisely stated that we scholars must work alone for long and lonely years in our research office or laboratory, but we need also to emerge and share what we have learned and learn from all who respond to us. Second, teamwork is the primary function of the organizations I frequent, namely the American Academy of Religion, the Society of Biblical Literature, the American Schools of Oriental Research, and the Studiorum Novi Testamenti. Hence, I am convinced that advances in biblical research demand teams of scholars (Jews, Christians, and secular scholars) working together, including biblical scholars, theologians, topographers, numismatists, geologists, stratigraphers, historians, sociologists, symbologists, and especially archaeologists. Hence, I have organized symposia to refine my methodologies and perceptions, to clarify how to improve research focused on Early Judaism and Earliest Christianity, and especially to better perceive the origin and rhetorical symbolism of the Gospel According to John. Note the proceedings of the following selected congresses and symposia (the dates given denote the year the proceedings were published): Jews and Christians: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future (1990)18 Jesus’ Jewishness: Exploring the Place of Jesus within Early Judaism (1991)19 What Has Archaeology to Do with Faith? (1992)20 The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity (1992)21 The Old and New Testaments: Their Relationship and the “Intertestamental Literature” (1993)22 Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (1995)23 Qumran Questions (1995)24 Hillel and Jesus (1997)25 Caves of Enlightenment: Proceedings of the American Schools of Oriental Research Dead Sea Scrolls Jubilee Symposium [1947-1997] (1998)26 Qumran-Messianism (1998)27 Light in a Spotless Mirror: Reflections on Wisdom Tradition in Judaism and Christianity (2003)28

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Jesus as Mirrored in John Jesus and Archaeology (2006)29 Resurrection: The Origin and Future of a Biblical Doctrine (2006)30 The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 3 vols. (2006)31 Jesus and Archaeology (2006)32 Jesus Research: An International Perspective (2009)33 Jewish and Christian Scriptures (2010)34 “Non-Canonical” Religious Texts in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (2012)35 The Tomb of Jesus and His Family? Exploring Ancient Jewish Tombs Near Jerusalem’s Walls (2013)36 Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift (2013)37 Jesus and Temple (2014)38

Other symposia and their proceedings deserve mentioning, such as the proceedings of Archéologie, art et histoire de la Palestine: Colloque du centenaire de la Section des Sciences religieuses, École pratique des hautes études, septembre 1986.39 Another important symposium is the Proceedings of the 1st Kültepe International Meeting, Kültepe, 19-23 September 2013,40 mainly since it is not wise to focus only on John or ancient Palestine as excavations elsewhere could be important for methodologies and insights. As all scholars will easily recognize, these diverse colloquia are mentioned to make two points: Symposia are fundamental in advancing biblical research, and archaeology is a sine qua non. We scholars learn from each other through listening and debating major data and insights. This helps overcome the isolation and myopic focus found in too many monographs. These few comments indicate that works published after 1980 are often significantly improved from those issued in the preceding 1,900 years. Too many scholars mislead too many students by using scholarly works published over the past century, as if the early ones are not seriously dated by old perceptions and dependence on a paucity of primary sources that are tendentious. Works published before 1980, and the emergence of Jesus Research, must not be confused with more recent informed research. A synchronic malaise obscures not only the development of research but the re-creation of first century Palestine. To demonstrate the fundamental nature of this transformation in Jesus Research and Johannine Studies, we shall examine several specific paradigm shifts in selected areas. It should now be clear that a new and more informed approach to historical questions regarding John’s Jesus is operative in many recent publications.

1  Judaism Old Paradigm. For centuries, scholars assumed that Second Temple Judaism was orthodox, monolithic, cut off from other cultures (especially the Greeks and Romans), and defined by four sects: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots. New Paradigm. Modern scholars are more critical of inherited assumptions. It is certain that Josephus gave the impression that Jewish thought was shaped by four sects. Most likely, the most important influential groups were the conservative Sadducees; the



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more liberal, politically influential Pharisees41; the diverse and learned Essenes; and the pugnacious Zealots, who may have appeared only at the beginning of the First Jewish Revolt (66–70/74 CE). A historian can now perceive over twenty groups, subgroups, and sects. Obviously, the Samaritans also claimed to be “Israelites” or Jews, with a Pentateuch almost identical to that preserved in the Tanakh. One must also include the Baptist groups, the Enoch groups, and many other religious movements, including the Palestinian Jesus Movement. Some scholars have categorized Jewish thought before 70 CE as chaotic, but chaos broke out in 66 CE. Other scholars see disunity and talk about “Judaisms.” A few scholars are still too influenced by post–second century rabbinic texts and imagine a basically unified Judaism or “covenantal nomism.” Such a term is not found in ­pre70 CE Jewish texts, and one might wonder if it is a modern construct that, at least partially, miscasts the vibrant world of Second Temple Judaism. Moreover, “covenant” and “nomism” (which are not clear to me and may misrepresent Torah) functioned ideologically and socially like the Temple cult, often signaling, and causing, not only unity but also disunity among pre-70 CE Jews. Certainly, there was a powerful and influential ruling party within Jerusalem, but it was mixed and ruling dynasties were not permanent. The ruling Jews were composed of Pharisees, Sadducees, and most likely other types of Jews; for example, the Boethusians were intermittently powerful. Ethnicity, the “Land,” repeated recitation of the Shema, the Psalter, and worship in the Temple, in my opinion, helped to check the centripetal forces that eventually produced the ill-conceived Revolt. Beginning in 66 CE, Palestinian Jews revolted against the Roman Empire without an army and in the midst of what might be labeled a civil war. This picture of Second Temple Judaism derives from being involved with archaeological excavations and studying written sources unknown or unexamined by our predecessors. They examined Philo, the New Testament, Josephus, and especially Rabbinics. These are now exposed as “historical” sources needing to be used with caution in light of their Tendenzen to portray pre-70 CE Jewish history, social realities, and thought from later (post-70 CE) social and intellectual times when Jerusalem and the Temple lay in ruins. For most scholars today, the primary sources are clearly pre-70 CE Jewish documents only recently unearthed, and therefore unedited by later Jews or Christians. These documents include the Qumran Scrolls; the corpus is now voluminous. If sixtysix books define the Christian Bible, more than 1,000 manuscripts are now known to be preserved, usually in fragmentary form, within the Qumran corpus. To be included, of course, are the additional literary and non-literary manuscripts found in other caves along the western littoral of the Dead Sea. These antedate the Second Revolt of 132–136 CE. In light of these clearly Jewish works, we can examine with new sensitivity and conviction many of the sixty-five documents in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. The Septuagint is now perceived to preserve ancient Hebrew and Aramaic text types, as well as translation additions and revisions. Studying all these sources helps place pieces together in the massive attempt to recreate a historical jigsaw puzzle that the author of John would have recognized.

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

2  The Gospel of John Old Paradigm. For hundreds of years, experts approached the Gospel of John with the presupposition that this Gospel was a supplement to the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, Luke). New Testament experts tended also to assume John was not a Jewish composition and should be studied in light of non-Jewish cultures and religion. Clement of Alexandria, sometime before 216 CE according to Eusebius (HE 6.14.7), claimed that “John, perceiving that the external facts had been explained in the (Synoptic) Gospels . . . being carried along by God in the Spirit . . . composed a spiritual gospel.” St. Augustine found the Fourth Gospel attractive. The Evangelist portrayed Jesus weeping (Jn 11:35), and this verse disclosed to Augustine the truth that “the Word assumed soul and flesh” (Tractates on the Gospel of John 49.18–19). Luther highlighted the Fourth Gospel because of the elevated discourses, and Schleiermacher preferred this Gospel over the Synoptics because it best revealed Jesus’ utter dependence on God. Yet, the tide was turning against and undermining the force of the Fourth Gospel. In 1835 and in subsequent years, in his influential tomes on Jesus’ life, David F. Strauss not only denied the apostolic authority of the Fourth Gospel, but set up a false paradigm still plaguing some publications; that is, Strauss postulated an orthodox Judaism in Jesus’ time, and it clearly separated “Christianity” from Judaism.42 In 1853, Ferdinand C. Baur, Strauss’ teacher, interpreted the Christology of John in a way requiring a “complete disengagement” from any forms of Judaism.43 Subsequently, in 1913 in Kyrios Christos, Willhelm Bousset led the way in seeking the origin and understanding of the Fourth Gospel within Greek and Roman religions.44 The stage had been set for Rudolf Bultmann to claim, in numerous influential publications, the existence of a non-Jewish source, the Offenbarungsreden (Revelatory Source), which represented Oriental Gnosticism and which definitively shaped the Christology of the Fourth Gospel.45 In fact, Bultmann thought the gnostic source behind the Fourth Gospel was anti-Jewish. Bultmann’s student, Ernst Käsemann, who characteristically distinguished himself from his teacher, continued the overwhelming tendency of contextualizing the Fourth Gospel in non-Jewish sources and settings. In his 1966 work, Jesu letzer Wille nach Johannes 17, Käsemann chose a historical approach to the Fourth Gospel, but the context was perceived to be a Christian intra-church conflict.46 New Paradigm. Against this contextualizing of the Fourth Gospel in anything but a Jewish setting, a new position is rapidly becoming a near consensus. Most leading scholars around the world agree that John is a very Jewish work. They claim that this Gospel should be studied within Judaism.47 To this new paradigm, I now choose to emphasize one point intimated in the previous pages: The Fourth Evangelist is an exception among the four evangelists for his knowledge of pre-70 CE Jewish religious customs and especially of the topography and architecture of Jerusalem. Such elements in his narrative appear intermittently without relevance for the narrative or rhetoric of persuasion. In the past these details were either overlooked or explained away as theological reflections that were not grounded in historical observation. Space precludes exhaustive treatment; thus I have chosen to focus only on Jerusalem and limit my



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comments to five seemingly irrelevant architectural topographical details. These cumulatively disclose that the Fourth Evangelist is not ignorant of Jerusalem, as many commentators have assumed. He is amazingly cognizant of Jerusalem before 70 CE; most of what he assumes is common knowledge ceased to exist when Jerusalem was destroyed and burned by Roman soldiers in September of 70 CE. The first example of the Fourth Evangelist’s knowledge of Jerusalem concerns the Pool of Bethzatha (or Bethesda) with its “five porticoes” (Jn 5:2): After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate there is a pool, called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk (Jn 5:1–9; NRSV).

Earlier interpreters, focusing only on Johannine theology, claimed that Josephus and others acquainted with Jerusalem never mention such a major pool; hence, it did not exist. These thinkers, who often have their eyes focused on dogmatics, report that in antiquity no architect constructed a pentagon which could have five porticoes; hence, they conclude that John could not have known Jerusalem. What then is the meaning of Jn 5:1–9? They tended to argue or claim that the Evangelist must mean that the five porticoes in which the sick man wished to be healed denote the Pentateuch. The teaching in it failed to help the man. Jesus thus provides what was lacking. The man is healed, takes up “his pallet and walked.” Usually, this interpretation appears in sermons or is assumed in a publication. This is problematic and reveals a lack of attention to Johannine theology. There is no tension between Moses and Jesus in this Gospel.48 The history of salvation is “grace upon grace”; the Fourth Evangelist emphasizes that the Law was “given through Moses” and “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (1:16–17). While some theologians imagine an adversative connective between the protasis and apodosis, the two parts of the sentence in 1:17 are an example of asyndetic contiguity, whereby the connection is immediate and not separated by an otiose conjunctive; moreover, the passage is an example of synonymous parallelismus membrorum: The Law through Moses was given, grace and truth through Jesus Christ came. (Jn 1:17)

As the appositional genitive denotes identity—as in Bath Zion denoting “Daughter Zion”—so asyndetic contiguity (the lack of any connective) usually denotes similarity; thus, God has revealed through Moses (God’s will) the Law (Torah), grace, and truth through Jesus. The Fourth Evangelist presents no antithesis between Moses (or the

26

Jesus as Mirrored in John

Pentateuch and Torah) and Jesus (or the Good News about the incarnation of God’s Son). Hence, the five porticoes cannot be a metaphorical reference to the Pentateuch. In fact, the Pool of Bethzatha does exist, although only the Fourth Evangelist mentions it. Archaeologists have unearthed portions of this pool; the earliest stratum is clearly Hellenistic (there are remains of shrines on the eastern border).49 It is situated precisely where the Evangelist states: north of the Temple Mount and inside the Sheep Gate (5:2). It has five porticoes because there are two pools, one situated north of the other so as to collect the rainwater that runs from the hills to the northwest. The four porticoes are on the north, east, south, and west; the fifth portico separates the two pools. There is only one spring in or near Jerusalem; it is the Gihon Spring and it flows into the Pool of Siloam that is south of the Temple. To the north of the Temple is the Pool of Bethzatha; it receives water from rain that flows down from the north and northwest. It pours into the northern pool, and when it is full, the water flows into the southern pool. We have found the lower overflow opening.50 Some texts of John contain an addition to verse 3 and verse “4” (viz., manuscripts Ac C3 D syp.h, and others); verse “4” is missing in many translations (e.g., NRSV). The alleged addition reports the accurate historical data (with the addition of an angel to explain the unusual) that the water in the lower pool is disturbed and the “invalids, blind, lame, paralyzed” were “waiting for the moving of the water, for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water; whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.”51 With this first example, we begin to perceive that saluting the Fourth Evangelist as a brilliant theologian does not mean that he is a misinformed historian. The second example of the Fourth Evangelist’s exceptional knowledge of Jerusalem concerns the Pool of Siloam and mikvaot52 (Jn 9:1–12). Archaeologists have rightly pointed out that the Pool of Siloam, honored by the Byzantines as the place where Jesus healed the man born blind, is not Herodian. It does not date from Jesus’ time. What has been called “the Pool of Siloam” is among the ruins of a Byzantine church built, perhaps by Empress Eudocia, but destroyed by the Persians in 614 CE. The ruins are located where the water from Hezekiah’s Tunnel pours out, about 50 m to the westnorthwest of the Herodian Pool. Dismissing this “Pool of Siloam” as Byzantine and not Herodian, theologians and New Testament scholars tended to point out the deep theological profundities of John 9. The man has been in darkness since his birth, but Jesus proclaims that he is “the light of the world” (9:5). Jesus then spat on the ground, made clay from the spittle, and anointed the man’s eyes with the clay. Surely, they claimed, here is an allusion to Jesus being the Anointed One. There is more: Jesus tells the blind man with Jesus’ spittle on his eyes, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam.” Then, the Evangelist provides all the meaning one needs: “which means Sent” (9:7). This is the meaning of the pericope: since Jesus is one sent from God, Christology is perceived to define the Pool of Siloam, “which means Sent.” Such theological reflection may be insightful, but it presumes we are reading only a Christological story. The Fourth Evangelist would not be pleased, since he has stressed the incarnation (1:14) and depicts Jesus as very human. Jesus sits on a well because he is exhausted. Jesus requests water from a woman because he is thirsty. Jesus weeps



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because Lazarus, whom he loved, has died. Is there no Pool of Siloam from Jesus’ time? Are we left with theologoumena devoid of historical reality? No. The Pool of Siloam from Jesus’ time was discovered in 2004. An attempt to repair a large sewer pipe demanded the removal of soil. Beneath the soil was revealed a pool with a series of steps and then a platform; the architecture is identical to the mikveh at Bethzatha. The arrangement allowed Jews to immerse fully when the water was high and then do the same when the water receded. The pool is south of the Temple area, where Jesus met the man born blind (Jn 9:1), and it seems to be the largest mikveh discovered in ancient Palestine, or anywhere for that matter. Ronnie Reich and Eli Shukran showed me the pool and stressed that the construction is clearly Herodian, meets the requirements of a mikveh, and would have been used only when the Temple cult was active.53 Pilgrims stopped here to purify themselves so that they could enter the Temple to worship; recall the Fourth Evangelist’s report: “many went up from the country to Jerusalem . . . to purify themselves” (Jn 11:55). The destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE buried Siloam’s ancient mikveh. The pool John reports was unknown to those living nearby until it was exposed during the repairs of a sewer pipe. A third example of the Fourth Evangelist’s precise knowledge of Jerusalem concerns Herod’s expanded Temple area and oxen within it. The following account is full of details found only in the Fourth Gospel: “In the Temple he [Jesus] found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the Temple” (Jn 2:14–15). This account may seem fanciful and legendary, until one learns that Herod the Great expanded the Temple Mount especially to the south. The action depicted here occurred in the southern section of the Temple Mount. The extended area was part of the Temple Mount, but not part of the sacred space within it. If the Hanuth (market), with its sheep and oxen, had been moved from the Mount of Olives to the lower southern extended area of the Temple Mount, and some think this occurred just before 30 CE,54 then the corridor leading from the so-called Solomon’s Stable to the steps inside the Hulda Gate would be where Jesus saw these large animals (and their droppings) and could have fashioned a “whip” out of the “cords” used to tether the large animals. Perhaps, the author of the Gospel of John knew that large animals were inside the portion of the Temple that was extended southward by Herod the Great and that there one could make a whip from the material associated with oxen and bulls. A fourth example demonstrating the Fourth Evangelist’s exceptional knowledge of Jerusalem pertains to the different locales in which Jesus is interrogated after his “arrest” in the Garden of Gethsemane. The author independently, but accurately, refers to Gethsemane as a garden “across the Kidron Valley” (Jn 18:1). The band of soldiers and the officers of the Judean authorities (Ἰουδαίων) take Jesus first to Annas (18:12– 13). Apparently Annas, the father-in-law of the reigning high priest Caiaphas, was living in the house of the high priest. The description of “the court of the high priest” (18:15) is detailed, disclosing intimate knowledge of the area (18:15–18, 25–27). Annas subsequently sends Jesus to Caiaphas. The author assumes Caiaphas is nearby, perhaps in the Temple so he could remain purified to lead services for Passover, but the oblique references are frankly obscure and give the impression that the Evangelist may be working from his own memory of the topography and architecture of pre-70 CE Jerusalem.

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

Next, Jesus is led from “the house of Caiaphas” to “the praetorium” (18:28). The author provides the irrelevant temporal detail that “it was early,” without any aside to the Johannine light-darkness paradigm, and then adds that the Judean leaders “did not enter the praetorium, so that they might not be defiled, but might eat the Passover.” Hence, Pilate was forced to go out to them. Pilate returns to the praetorium and talks with Jesus (18:33–38). As most commentators have seen, it is difficult to ascertain the source of this dialog, since no follower of Jesus is described as present. Then Pilate goes out again to the Judean authorities, informing them he can find no fault in Jesus. Finally, Pilate acquiesces to the Judean authorities (which for the Evangelist includes “the chief priests and the officers,” 19:6), orders the soldiers to scourge Jesus; then, the soldiers mock him. How should the historian assess such remarkable—and inconsequential—details, and why are they relevant for his Christological composition? The Fourth Evangelist seems to know how to get around Jerusalem, the location of the high priest’s house and its topographical relation to Pilate’s praetorium. And he provides “an eyewitness” view of “the court of the high priest.” Was the Evangelist an eyewitness of these events; if not him, who provided what appears to be an eyewitness account? Was he informed by an eyewitness (perhaps the Beloved Disciple)? We are confronted with a narrative replete with surprising architectural and topographical details. However we may answer such questions, we should admit that the Fourth Evangelist (and not only his sources) knows Jerusalem intimately, and he assumes his readers can fill in what he has only outlined. Reading and re-reading chapters 18 and 19 provides the impression that the author assumes his readers share with him a rather intimate knowledge of Jerusalem. We all may hear asides or assumptions that startle and excite historical reflections; for example, when the author describes the “court of the high priest,” he seems to mention “the maid,” as if the reader already knew that she “kept the door” (18:16). Likewise, the irrelevant detail that the servants and officers had “made a charcoal fire” (18:18) suggests the reader might know, surmise, or remember that “it was cold” that evening (18:18). How should a historian and a New Testament exegete evaluate and explain such clearly superfluous details for John’s kerygma? Many scholars would deem it special pleading to dismiss such irrelevant details as serving Johannine rhetoric. The Fourth Evangelist seeks to demonstrate that Jesus is from above (ἄνωθεν) and is returning to “the Father” who has sent him into the cosmos. Rather than created solely to serve rhetoric, the topographical and architectural details we have examined may indicate a keen memory and reliable knowledge of Jerusalem. The Evangelist seems to assume his implied readers are familiar with a great amount of historical detail. To what extent are we confronted with reliable oral traditions and eyewitness accounts?55 As we all seek to comprehend and answer this question, we may now admit that we are beginning to perceive that many architectural details can be verified archaeologically. The fifth and final example I would highlight concerns Pilate’s judgment seat. Alone among the evangelists, the Fourth Evangelist in 19:13 refers to this public area as Lithostrōton in Greek (Λιθόστρωτον) and Gabbatha in Semitics (Γαββαθα, the Hebrew or Aramaic, ‫)גבתא‬. The Greek designates a large paved area or “mosaic.” The Hebrew is not a translation of the Greek; it means an elevated place. The Evangelist seems to have exceptional and precise knowledge of the place in which Jesus was brought before Pilate who had taken his authoritative chair or “judgment seat” (19:13) Massive



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stones have been disclosed in and near the area of Herod’s palace, Pilate’s praetorium and judgment seat. Apparently, the Fourth Evangelist, or his sources, knew intimately this area of Jerusalem. It has become obvious that the Fourth Evangelist knows the architecture of Jerusalem as it was before it was demolished by the Roman army in 70 CE. He mentions the stone or marble area (19:13) in Pilate’s palace or praetorium (18:28, 33; 19:9). John’s Jesus was in Jerusalem for many months before his crucifixion; he focused his teaching in the Temple. Jesus and his disciples would probably have seen the stunning and astronomically large stone in the western retaining wall of the Temple; according to Mk 13:1, one of Jesus’ disciples, accustomed to the stones in Capernaum that weigh less than a ton, marveled: “Teacher, what wonderful stones.” The megalith in Herod’s retaining wall weighs about 470 tons. This number seems exaggerated until one learns that archaeologists, under the supervision of Dr. Abdul Massih Jeanine,56 representing the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, discovered in the summer of 2014 a stone in the quarry of Baalbek (or Heliopolis, “the City of the Sun”) in the Beqaa Valley (53 miles northeast of Beirut and 47 miles northwest of Damascus). The stone was found in situ in a quarry about a quarter of a mile from the Roman temple complex and remains partly buried. It measures 19.60 m [64 ft.] long, 6 m [19.6 ft.] wide, and approximately 5.5 m [18 ft.] high, and weighs an astonishing 1,650 tons.57 It is approximately the same date as that given to Herod’s megalith. The stone in Lebanon was intended by the Romans for podiums of temples; megaliths are visible in the temple to Jupiter (three megaliths at its base weigh about 1,000 tons each); Herod situated his megalith at the base of the western mount of the Temple. It would have been seen by virtually all who purified themselves for worship: “Now the Passover of the Jews was near, and many went up from the country to Jerusalem before the Passover, to purify themselves” (Jn 11:55) in the Pools of Bethzatha and Siloam. These five examples must now suffice, although it is tempting to add others,58 for readers to obtain the point that John contains considerable historical and architectural details, and they have been sometimes proved by modern archaeological explorations and research. Archaeologists have repeatedly demonstrated that the Fourth Evangelist reflects an intimate knowledge of the Jerusalem of Jesus’ day.59 The evidence now indicates that the Fourth Gospel must be understood within its Jewish context and that the author of the first edition of John had unique personal knowledge of Jerusalem.

3  Jesus As is well known, the scientific study of Jesus of Nazareth has gone through many phases. Over the past forty years scholars have generally come to comprehend that Jesus must not be understood over against Judaism, nor should we talk about “Jesus and Judaism.” Jesus is to be studied within Judaism, as I tried to show in a book by that title.60 There is an exception that should be noted. The Jesus Seminar in the United States has consistently portrayed Jesus without the prerequisite sensitivity to his context

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within Second Temple Judaism. While the members of the Seminar should be praised for their attempts to form a team of research scholars who intend to communicate frequently with all media, they have concluded that Jesus was a Cynic, a Mediterranean peasant, and a man whose teachings were not eschatological.61 I have heard critics label such publications as remnants of anti-Judaism. I would prefer to contend that the members of the Jesus Seminar have not adequately included archaeological methods and discoveries nor immersed themselves within Jewish texts, like the Pseudepigrapha and the Qumran Scrolls;62 hence, they missed the point of how fundamentally Jewish were Jesus and all his earliest followers. Jesus was a very devout Jew. The claim that Jesus broke the commandments and did not honor Shabbat is misinformed. Jesus knew that according to Gen 2:2, God continued creating on Shabbat, and then rested: “On the seventh day God completed the work that he had been doing, and he ceased (or rested) on the seventh day from all the work that he had done.” Perceiving the Torah’s concept of God working on Shabbat informs Jesus’ comment that he is working on the Shabbat to heal the sick, just as the Father worked on Shabbat completing the creation. The meaning of Jn 5:16–18 takes on deeper meaning, and perhaps for the first time the context is theologically and sociologically clear: “And this was why the Judean leaders persecuted Jesus, because he did this on Shabbat. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working still, and I am working.’ This, therefore, was why the Judean leaders sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the Shabbat but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” The author of Jn 5:16–18 portrayed Jesus as knowing the Hebrew of Gen 2:2, On the seventh day God finished the work that He had been doing, And He ceased on the seventh day from all the work that He had done. (Tanakh)

The verse implies that many early Jews thought that God continued working on the seventh day, Shabbat, and then rested. The author of Jn 5:16–18 indicates that Jesus knew these debates and made it clear that as God worked on Shabbat so should the Son. The translator of the Septuagint makes it clear that God ceased working on the sixth day: “And God finished on the sixth day his works which he had made.” Again, we see that Palestinian Judaism is the foreground of Jesus Research. John’s Jesus, as in the Synoptic portraits, is a Jew who rejects the crippling impositions for increased purity and legislation that were being put on the average Jew by leaders in Judea. The historical dimensions of this increased legislation are so widely known and accepted that it needs no further demonstration. Jesus’ deep Jewish devotion is also evident in his worship. During his last week alive, Jesus was in Jerusalem. Why? He had ascended to the Holy City to celebrate Passover, as required by Torah. During this week, Jesus taught in the Temple and declared it “my Father’s house.” His followers James and John (Acts 3:1) and later Paul (cf. Acts 21:26; 22:17) continued to worship in the Temple.63 Thus, Jesus should not be placarded or imagined as “the first Christian.” He was a very devout Jew. It is conceivable that the reference to the fringe of his garment (Mk 6:56; Lk 8:44; Mt 9:20, cf. 23:5) may indicate that he wore the religious garment of a conservative Jew with its “fringes,” the ṣiṣiot.64



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Jesus’ words sometimes make sense only when understood in light of newly discovered Jewish traditions. His comments make best sense within the hermeneutic of pre-70 CE Judaism and the vastly different interpretations of Torah during his time. Jesus affirmed Torah as the revelation of God’s will that must be followed accurately and perceptively. Thus, Jesus differed from the interpretations of Shabbat that he knew were against God’s will. For instance, Jesus’ comment about leaving an animal in a pit on Shabbat (Mt 12:11) makes no sense to persons with a religious sensitivity. But now Jesus’ comment becomes clear, because the Cairo Damascus Document legislates that one must not help a struggling animal out of a pit on Shabbat. Likewise, Jesus’ aside that the hairs of one’s head are numbered (Mt 10:30; Lk 12:7) seems meaningless, even absurd. But its meaning now becomes clear, since the Cairo Damascus Document contains instructions stating that one with a skin disease on his head must see a priest and have the hairs of his head counted.65 These two examples provide proof of how sometimes Jesus’ intended meaning, once unknown and confusing, obtains clarification and importance in light of archaeological discoveries. At other times, familiar terms—like the Son of Man, the Messiah, and God’s Kingdom—now obtain fuller meaning. The obscure sometimes becomes known, and the known frequently becomes clarified. Scholars for nearly 2,000 years have largely portrayed Jesus only within “emerging Christianity.” Jesus was imagined to be partially Jewish and comprehended with Judaism as a background or even a foil. Now, more and more experts acknowledge that Jesus was a very devout Jew whose life and message must be comprehended within Second Temple Judaism.

4  The advent of “Christianity” False Presuppositions. For almost 2,000 years, Christian savants have tended to assume that the greatest theological and Christological masterpiece in the New Testament must be dated late. Such a late date presumably shows the development of thought and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. This penchant must be exposed as absurd. Such reasoning would mean that Jesus, Paul, and the earliest thinkers in the Palestinian Jesus Movement were not advanced and that we need to wait for decades for brilliance. Many scholars, including myself, have tried to demonstrate that Second Temple Judaism was one of the most advanced symbolic and theologically sophisticated cultures in the ancient Mediterranean world. Jewish thought was not only indigenous to Palestine, developing in line with an improved interpretation of Torah, God’s will; it was also enriched by Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Persian and other cultures.66 Stories, myths, concepts, and terms borrowed from these other cultures were re-thought and re-minted in light of Torah, as witnessed by the vast amount of parabiblical works and compositions that expanded or developed stories, concepts, and dreams embedded within the Tanakh or the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament). The five or more books composed, perhaps in Galilee, from 300 BCE to 70 CE under the name of Enoch are so advanced theologically that with the advent of the Messiah, the Son of Man, no more development in theological vocabulary was requisite.67 It was

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necessary instead to explore how to transfer to Jesus of Nazareth the terms for “the Coming One” developed within Second Temple Judaism, and to search for how and in what ways prophecy, canonized in Torah, proved Jesus was the Messiah. This task was performed before Paul and indeed by Paul and the evangelists.68 The Qumran Pesharim provide a paradigm for assisting scholars to discern the ways early Jews not in the Palestinian Jesus Movement understood sacra scriptura.69 Scripture had been composed not for the past; it was recorded (sometimes without proper insight or comprehension) for the present Qumran Community. The hermeneutic of fulfillment was defined by the special revelation and knowledge given by God only to the Righteous Teacher (1QpHab 7). God’s promises were trustworthy; indeed members of the Qumran Community could see in their own history how God has mysteriously proved trustworthy. Such interpretation was aided by the Holy Spirit from God and was comprehended and communicated in light of the conviction that the present was the latter days. These had been spoken about by the prophets, especially Isaiah and Habakkuk, even though God had not fully disclosed to the early prophets the meaning of the words they recorded. Hence, it was even possible to correct their records; that is, scripture could be corrected in the scriptorium. Thus, exegesis of scripture at Qumran was pneumatic, eschatological, and an example of fulfillment hermeneutics. This Jewish Community at Qumran, which antedates Jesus and his group by at least 100 years, helps us comprehend the exegetical moves and hermeneutical norms of the earliest members of the Palestinian Jesus Movement. Two noted differences appear as we compare the Pesharim with the Gospels and Paul’s earliest letters.70 First, while messianism is found at Qumran, it does not shape the Pesharim. Only in the Palestinian Jesus Movement can one adequately talk about messianic exegesis. The perspective that the Messiah has come and all promises are fulfilled in him distinguished Jesus’ group from all others. Secondly, while the life of the Righteous Teacher was not paradigmatically central for the Qumran Essenes, the followers of Jesus tended to explain time and the future in light of what was remembered about Jesus’ life and thought. For them, Jesus’ life and resurrection were paradigmatically unparalleled; they constituted the Good News or “Gospel.”71 That is why there are no “Gospels” in Judaism. The sources of messianic speculation within the Palestinian Jesus Movement were, to a certain extent, the ancient prophecies and the concepts of the Messiah found, for example, in the Scriptures, including the Psalms of Solomon; but the fundamental source of the messianic understanding of Jesus’ followers was Jesus himself. Thus, while an exegesis of Isaiah’s suffering servant passages is not present in Jewish messianic thought prior to Jesus and his group, such an interpretation defined his group, and the source of the reflection is primarily a focus on the man from Nazareth. Likewise, while Jews did not expect the Messiah to perform healing miracles,72 such undisputed aspects of Jesus’ ministry defined messianism for Jesus’ followers. In summation, the source of thought for Jesus’ earliest followers was a vast source of written and oral traditions, all deemed revelatory and infallible, but the fundamental source of Christological thought within the Jesus Movement was the one who originated, founded, and defined the Movement: Jesus from Nazareth. These widely recognized perceptions and articulations represent a new consensus emerging among historians and archaeologists devoted to recreating first century



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Palestinian social and religious phenomena; yet we have not encountered the term “Christian” or the concept “Church,” as we did so repeatedly when the Bultmannian School was regnant. These two nouns are clearly anachronistic within first century phenomena. In order to represent ancient social organizations without confusing them with modern concepts, we ought to transfer to our task of translating New Testament Greek what we learned from translating the papyri. That is, we usually translate sunagōgos (συναγωγός) as “assembly” in pre-70 CE papyri; hence, we should translate hē ekklēsia (ἡ ἐκκλησία) as “the assembly,” in Acts 19:32 and 19:39 in the NRSV. It should now be clear that what was once called “earliest Christianity” is now perceived to be a social group within Early Judaism. Almost all of the authors of documents in the New Testament were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. The Palestinian Jesus Movement should probably be categorized as a Jewish sect. It was recognized as distinct and persecuted by dominant Judaism that was centralized in Jerusalem. It certainly originated among, and continued before 70 CE to be defined by, concepts and movements in Palestine.73 It originated with Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus’ Movement was unlike Qumran; the latter disappeared under the flames ignited by Vespasian’s troops in 68 CE and the Qumran Essenes fled primarily south to Masada and to Jerusalem, probably despondent that “the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel” had not appeared. Jesus’ group became a movement that survived beyond 70 CE, buoyed forward both by memories of his life and teachings and the contagious expectation that he would return soon, since those in Jesus’ group were convinced that God had raised him from the dead and appeared to many who had known him and at least one who formerly despised him and his sect.74 Henceforth to be more accurate historically and scientifically, terms like “Christianity” and “Church” should be replaced, when describing the early life of Jesus’ followers, by the “Palestinian Jesus Movement.” It should now be obvious, that the term “Christianity”—which is too often understood as an antithesis to Judaism—is misleading in describing first century religious phenomena. The disciples of Jesus were labeled by some at Antioch as “Christians” (Acts 11:26), but they would have been as pleased with that label as the early Methodists were with the surrogate, “Bible Moths.” In Acts, Paul refers to the followers of Jesus as a Jewish “sect” known as the “Way” (Acts 9:2; 22:4; 24:14, 22; cf. 24:5), and that brings into focus a concept and term well known from the Qumran Scrolls. The Qumranites, under the influence of Isa 40:3, portrayed themselves as members of the Way. As we refine the terms by which we portray first century social groups, we might do well to use the terms and concepts they themselves coined, inherited, and used. Thirty years ago, I used the term “Johannine Christians” to describe those within the Johannine Circle (or School). Now, I prefer to refer to a struggle within Judaism between synagogal Jews and Johannine Jews or between “non-believing Jews” and “believing Jews.” Unbelief and belief were focused on Jesus from Nazareth. As I state elsewhere in this book, the term aposunagōgos (ἀποσυνάγωγος appears only in John in 9:22; 12:42; 16:2), which denotes being cast out of the synagogue, discloses not only that some in the Johannine Circle were being thrown out of the synagogue but also that others wanted to attend synagogal services.75 These followers of Jesus are thus clearly proud Jews who wanted to frequent the synagogue, especially during the Jewish festivals.

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One may argue that this new perspective is anachronistic, because it reads back into the first century the definition that a Jew is one who has a Jewish mother. Such a claim misses my point.76 This is not my method nor intention. As far as I know, early Jews did not call others who were born Jews “non-Jews.” A case study is provided by the polemics in the Pesharim. Those ministering in the Temple were “Sons of Darkness,” but the Qumranites did not claim that they were not Jews. Many early Jewish texts, like Some Works of the Torah, clarify that one whom Jews considered suspect was a mamzer; but this charge usually comes from the top-down. That is, it was a way of exerting pressure and authority. The real question among Jews was an interpretation of Lev 19:18: “Who is my neighbour?” that should not be consumed by “Who is a Jew?” My point now is simply to claim that when we talk about “Christians” in the first century we are using a term that is anachronistic; it distorts our attempts at reconstructing first century Palestinian society.77 The new emerging consensus, in my judgment, moves away from calling “Christians” those who believed that Jesus had been raised by God. Those who made that claim in the first century continued to affirm that they were Jews (e.g., Paul and Peter [according to Acts]). These brief reflections help clarify most of the new perspectives of Judaism, the Gospel of John, Jesus, and the advent of “Christianity.” Not only are these new methodologies and perspectives more attuned to Jesus and his Judaism, but both open avenues of communication with Jews who have been miscast, castigated, and even murdered because of poor biblical exegesis and hermeneutics. Perhaps with renewed honesty in biblical research and a living out of the command of love, as evidence in the man from Nazareth, those who are abandoning the institution called “the church” for religious and spiritual reasons, may hear the echo of quo vadis.

Notes 1 This chapter is a revised and expanded version of “From Old to New: Paradigm Shifts concerning Judaism, the Gospel of John, Jesus, and the Advent of ‘Christianity,’” in Jesus Research: An International Perspective (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and P. Pokorný; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 56–72. 2 For more on the history of pseudepigraphic texts, see Annette Yoshiko Reed, “The Modern Invention of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha,” JTS 60 (2009): 403–36. 3 See especially the contributions to Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions. The Second Princeton Symposium on Jesus Research, edited by James H. Charlesworth, with Brian Rhea and Petr Pokorný (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). The massive collection fills 1,053 pages. 4 See Michele Chabin, “Khirbet Qeiyafa Excavations Find Evidence of Solomon’s Temple, Archaeologists Say,” Religion: Huff Post (September 30, 2015). The official reports will be published by Yosef Garfinkel. See Garfinkel and S. Ganor, “Cult in Khirbet Qeiyafa from the Iron Age IIa—Cult Rooms and Shrine Models: New Studies in Archaeology of Jerusalem and its Regions,” Academia 6 (2012): 50–65 [in Hebrew]. Gabi Barkai has also shown me realia from Solomon’s Temple. 5 See J. H. Charlesworth, “Jesus Research and Near Eastern Archaeology: Reflections on Recent Developments,” in Neotestamentica et Philonica: Studies in Honor of Peder Borgen (ed. D. E. Aune, T. Seland, and J. H. Ulrichsen; NovTSup 106; Leiden:



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6 7

8

9 10 11 12 13

14

15 16 17 18 19

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Brill, 2003), pp. 37–70. Consult the many contributions in Jesus and Archaeology, edited by J. H. Charlesworth (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2006). See also J. H. Charlesworth, “The Tale of Two Pools: Archaeology and the Book of John,” NEASB 56 (2011): 1–14. As is well known, Bultmann, in many publications, urged all scholars to examine and improve their presuppositions and assumptions. See J. H. Charlesworth, “Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenological Description of ‘Word,’” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 30 (1970): 609–13. Also see J. H. Charlesworth, “Polyani, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, and the Foundation of Biblical Hermeneutics,” in Interpretation of the Bible [1996 International Symposium on the Interpretation of the Bible] (ed. J. Krašovec; Ljubljana, Slovenia: Narodna in univerzitetna knjižnica and Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1968), pp. 1531–56. I tried to make these points clear in Jesus within Judaism: New Light from ­Exciting Archaeological Discoveries (ABRL 1; New York: Doubleday, 1998); See also, J. H. Charlesworth, “The Prayer of Manasseh: The Classic Jewish Penitential Prayer,” Explorations 2.1 (1988): 2. See Chapters 16 and 17 of this volume for more on the symbolism of the serpent in John. Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (trans. M. Boring; Louisville: Westminster, 2002). James H. Charlesworth, The Good & Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized (ABRL; New Haven: Doubleday, 2010). See especially Peder Borgen, Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time (NovTSup 86; Leiden: Brill, 1997) and Borgen, The Gospel of John: More Light from Philo, Paul and Archaeology (NovTSup 154; Leiden: Brill, 2014). See especially Josephus and Jewish History in Flavian Rome and Beyond (ed. J. Sievers and G. Lembi; JSJSup 104; Leiden: Brill, 2005) and S. Mason, Josephus and the New Testament (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson Publishers, 2003). See also J. H. Charlesworth, “Jesus Research and Archaeology,” in The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts (ed. Joel B. Green and Lee M. McDonald; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), pp. 439–66 [with images]. Jacob Neusner has been the pioneer in showing the tendencies that prohibit the use of Rabbinics as reliable history while seeking to demonstrate why scholars must include Rabbincs in historical research. See especially the following: J. Neusner, Chapters in the Formative History of Judaism: Current Questions and Enduring Answers (­Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2006), J. Neusner, Contours of Coherence in ­Rabbinic Judaism (JSJSup 97; Leiden: Brill, 2005), and J. Neusner, Building Blocks of Rabbinic Tradition: The Documentary Approach to the Study of Formative Judaism (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2008). See Martin McNamara, Targum and New Testament: Collected Essays (WUNT 279; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011). See J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006). For more, see J. H. Charlesworth with M. Aviam, “Überlegungen zur Erforschung Galiläas im ersten Jahrhundert,” in Jesus und die Archäologie Galiläas (ed. C. Claussen and J. Frey; B-TS 87; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2008) pp. 93–127. J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Jews and Christians: Exploring the Past, Present, and Future (Shared Ground Among Jews and Christians 1; New York: Crossroad, 1990). J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus’ Jewishness: Exploring the Place of Jesus within Early Judaism (Shared Ground Among Jews and Christians 2; New York: American Interfaith Institute, Crossroad, 1991).

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20 J. H. Charlesworth with W. P. Weaver, eds., What Has Archaeology to Do with Faith? (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992). 21 J. H. Charlesworth, with J. Brownson, M. T. Davis, S. J. Kraftchick, and A. F. Segal, eds., The Messiah: Developments in Earliest Judaism and Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). 22 J. H. Charlesworth, with W. P. Weaver, eds., The Old and New Testaments: Their Relationship and the “Intertestamental Literature,” (Faith and Scholarship Colloquies; Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1993). 23 J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1995). 24 J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Qumran Questions (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995). 25 J. H. Charlesworth with L. L. Johns, eds., Hillel and Jesus: Comparisons of Two Major Religious Leaders (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997). 26 J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Caves of Enlightenment: Proceedings of the American Schools of Oriental Research Dead Sea Scrolls Jubilee Symposium [1947-1997] (North Richland Hills, TX: BIBAL Press, 1998). 27 J. H. Charlesworth, with H. Lichtenberger and G. S. Oegema, eds., Qumran-Messianism: Studies on the Messianic Expectations in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998). 28 J. H. Charlesworth, with M. Daise, eds., Light in a Spotless Mirror: Reflections on Wisdom Tradition in Judaism and Christianity (Faith and Scholarship Colloquies; Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2003). 29 J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006). 30 J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Resurrection: The Origin and Future of a Biblical Doctrine (Faith and Scholarship Colloquies Series; New York and London: T & T Clark, 2006). 31 J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 3 vols. (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2006). 32 Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Archaeology. 33 J. H. Charlesworth with P. Pokorný, eds., Jesus Research: An International Perspective [The First Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research, Prague 2005] (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2009). 34 J. H. Charlesworth with L. M. McDonald, eds., Jewish and Christian Scriptures: The Function of “Canonical and “Non-Canonical” Religious Texts (T & T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts Series 7; London, New York: T & T Clark, 2010). 35 J. H. Charlesworth and L. M. McDonald, eds., “Non-Canonical” Religious Texts in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (T & T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies 14; London and New York: T & T Clark, 2012). 36 J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Tomb of Jesus and His Family? Exploring Ancient Jewish Tombs Near Jerusalem’s Walls [The Fourth Princeton Symposium on Judaism and Christian Origins] (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). 37 J. H. Charlesworth and D. L. Bock, eds., Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift (London: T & T Clark, 2013). 38 J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Temple (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014). 39 N. Avigad, et al., eds., Archéologie, art et histoire de la Palestine (Etudes annexes de la Bible de Jérusalem; Paris : Editions du Cerf, 1988). 40 Proceedings of the 1st Kültepe International Meeting, Kültepe, 19-23 September 2013: Studies dedicated to Kutlu Emre, edited by Fikri Kulakogˇ lu and Cécile Michel (Subartu 35, Kültepe International Meetings 1;Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2015). 41 The Pharisees were astoundingly latitudinous with Hillel usually disagreeing with Shammai. See J. H. Charlesworth with L. L. Johns, eds., Hillel and Jesus: Comparisons



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of Two Major Religious Leaders. Also see my comments in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha & The New Testament: Prolegomena for the Study of Christian Origins (Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1998). 42 David Friedrich Strauss, Das Leben Jesu (Tübingen: C. F. Osiander, 1836). 43 Ferdinand Christian Baur, Das Christenthum und die christliche Kirche der drei ersten Jahrhunderte (Tübingen: L. F. Fues, 1853). 44 Willhelm Bousset, Kyrios Christos: Geschichte des Christusglaubens von den Anfängen des Christentums bis Irenaeus (Göttingen: Vandenboeck & Ruprecht, 1913). 45 This claim first appeared in Bultmann's Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenboeck & Ruprecht, 1941). 46 Ernst Käsemann, Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1966). For the English, see Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in the Light of Chapter 17 (ed. Gerhard Krodel; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968). 47 See, for example, Carsten Claussen, “Turning Water to Wine: Re-reading the Miracle at the Wedding in Cana,” in Jesus Research, An International Perspective: The First Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and P. Pokorný; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), pp. 73–97. 48 I am impressed by the brilliant exegesis of M. É. Boismard, Moses or Jesus: An Essay in Johannine Christology (ed. B. T. Viviano; Leuven: Leuven University Press: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1993). 49 The pool is much larger than is exposed and extends considerably southward toward the Temple. 50 I have worked in the ruins and explored the area for over forty years; but it was Shimon Gibson who pointed out to me the lower “door” that allows water from the upper pool to “explode” into the lower pool, making it seem to those in the first century that an angel caused the disturbance. Then, no one could see the lower door at the bottom of the water. 51 See Nestle-Aland, ad loc. 52 A mikveh (plural mikvaot) was a Jewish pool for ritual cleansing. A number of mikvaot have been discovered, especially at Modein, Qumran, Masada, and outside the Temple Mount. 53 Thomas H. Maugh, “Biblical Pool Uncovered in Jerusalem,” Los Angeles Times (August 9, 2005). For images and discussion, see J. H. Charlesworth, “The Tale of Two Pools: Archaeology and the Book of John,” NEASB 56 (2011): 1–14; also see Jerome MurphyO’Connor, The Holy Land: An Oxford Archaeological Guide from Earliest Times to 1700 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) ad loc. 54 See especially David Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988); D. Flusser, Judaism and Christianity (Jerusalem: Academon, 1971); D. Flusser with R. Steven Notley, The Sage from Galilee: Rediscovering Jesus’ Genius, with an introduction by J. H. Charlesworth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007). 55 On the question of eyewitness accounts within and behind the canonical Gospels, see Richard Bauckham, The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Cambridge: Grove Books, 2008). Also see R. Bauckham, “Gospel Traditions: Anonymous Community Traditions or Eyewitness Testimony? In Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions, pp. 483–99. 56 Dr. Jeanine represents the Lebanese University and the Baalbek Project of the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute; they work in cooperation with the Lebanese Council of Antiquities. 57 See Archaeologia Online and “Largest Ancient Stone Block Discovered in Baalbek,” News Network Archaeology (both dated to November 24, 2014). See also “Research

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59 60 61

62

63 64 65

66

67

68

Jesus as Mirrored in John Team Discover the World’s Largest Ancient Stone Block in Baabek,” HeritageDaily (December 2, 2014) and Rossella Lorenzi, “Largest Stone Block From Antiquity Found,” Archaeology: Discovery News (December 1, 2014). “‘Biggest Boulder’ Unearthed in Lebanon,” Archaeology: A Publication of the Archaeological Institute of America (December 2, 2014). Announcements often do not have a “by-line.” Each announcement includes images. For instance, Bethany (which Jerome in his Onomasticon defines as domus adflictions or “house of affliction”) was a place for a sick person, especially a leper, which is precisely the area designated for lepers according to the traditions in the Temple Scroll. Perhaps Lazarus of Bethany (Jn 11:1) had suffered from leprosy. See, for example, R. T. Fortna, “Jesus Tradition in the Signs Gospel,” in Jesus in Johannine Tradition (ed. R. T. Fortna and T. Thatcher; Louisville: Westminster, 2001), p. 203. Also see J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (New York: Doubleday, 1994) vol. 2, pp.798–832; these two volumes present impressive methodologies for discerning tradition behind the Fourth Evangelist’s superbly suspenseful narratives. Clearly, Lazarus’ illness is to reveal God’s glory, but the historian will note that Lazarus is ill in Bethany (11:1), precisely where Jerome and the early Jewish authors of the Temple Scroll locate lepers and presumably other sick persons. J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006). J. H. Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism: New Light from Exciting Archaeological ­Discoveries (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1988). I certainly prefer the method and conclusion of my colleague, Dale C. Allison Jr.; see his The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate (ed. D. C. Allison. Jr. and R. J. Miller; Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge Press, 2001) and D. C. Allison, Jr., Constructing Jesus : Memory, Imagination, and History (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010). See the contributions to The Pseudepigrapha and Christian Origins: Essays from the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and G. S. Oegema; Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies 4; New York and London: T & T Clark, 2008). See the contributions in J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Temple. Amy-Jill Levine and I have discussed this interpretation for decades. These fragments from Qumran are now published in James H. Charlesworth, et al., eds., Damascus Document II, Some Works of the Torah, and Related Documents:The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, Vol. 3. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006). See J. H. Charlesworth, “Greek, Persian, Roman, Syrian and Egyptian Influences in Early Jewish Theology: A Study of the History of the Rechabites,” in Hellenica et Judaica: Hommage A Valentin Nikiprowetzky (A. Caquot, et al.; Leuven: Peeters, 1986), pp. 219–43. See especially J. H. Charlesworth and D. Bock, eds., Parables of Enoch. Also see J. H. Charlesworth, “Did the Fourth Evangelist Know the Enoch Tradition?” in ­Testimony and Interpretation: Early Christology and Its Judeo-Hellenistic Milieu, Studies in Honor of Petr Pokorný (ed. J. Mrázek and J. Roskovec; London and New York: T & T Clark, 2004), pp. 223–39. For more reflections, see J. H. Charlesworth, “Paul, the Jewish Apocalypses, and Apocalyptic Eschatology,” in Paul the Jew, edited by Carlos Segovia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2016) and J. H. Charlesworth, “The Influence of Isaiah on Paul and the Evangelists,” in The Unperceived Continuity of Isaiah (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; ­forthcoming).



Paradigm Shifts in Johannine Studies

39

69 J. H. Charlesworth, The Pesharim and Qumran History: Chaos or Consensus? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). 70 See the contributions to Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. Murphy-O’Connor and J. H. Charlesworth; Christian Origins Library; New York: Crossroad, 1990). See also J. Sébastian Rey, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls and Pauline Literature (STDJ 102; Leiden: Brill, 2013). 71 J. H. Charlesworth, “Résurrection Individuelle et Immortalité de l’Âme,” in Histoire du Christianisme: Anamnèsis (ed. J. M. Mayer et al. ; Paris: Desclëe, 2001) vol. 14, pp. 505–51. 72 J. H. Charlesworth, “Solomon and Jesus: The Son of David in the Ante-Markan Traditions (Mk 10:47),” in Biblical and Humane: A Festschrift for John H. Priest (ed. L. B. Elder, D. L. Barr, and E. S. Malbon; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), pp. 125–51. 73 Gk. Παλαιστίνη; Lat. Palestina, from Heb. ‫פלשת‬. This term antedates the first century CE. It was Herodotus’ term for the land of “the Philistines.” “Philistia” is the land of the Philistines, the coastal plain of ancient Israel. 74 See the contributions to Resurrection: The Origin and Future of a Biblical Doctrine (Faith and Scholarship Colloquies Series; New York and London: T & T Clark International, 2006). Also see, J. H. Charlesworth “Prolegomenous Reflections Towards a Taxonomy of Resurrection Texts (1QH, 1 Enoch, 4Q521, Paul, Luke, the Fourth Gospel, and Psalm 30),” in The Changing Face of Judaism, Christianity, and Other Greco-Roman Religions in Antiquity (ed. I. H. Henderson and G. S. Oegema; Studien zu den Jüdischen Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit 2; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2006), pp. 237–64. 75 According to Acts 18:8, Crispus, who is the ἀρχισυνάγωγος of a synagogue, “believed in the Lord.” I have profited from conversations on this text with C. Claussen. 76 This question was raised by a member of the Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research in Prague, 2005. 77 According to Phil 3:20, followers of Jesus perceived that their πολίτευμα was in heaven.

2

The Priority of John1

This chapter is the first attempt to imagine a conceivable date and provenience for the first edition of the Gospel of John. Those who have published on the “Gospel of Signs,” especially Rudolf Bultmann and Robert T. Fortna, isolated a putative source for the Fourth Evangelist, but they did not explain the origin of the first edition.2 Ray Brown intimated that “the first edition of John is to be dated to the same general period as the composition of Matthew and Luke.”3 For Brown this meant sometime “between 75 and 85” CE. The following speculation for the origin of the first edition is only about five years earlier. Most specialists on the Gospel of John are convinced that the “extant” gospel represents many editions; but they are not certain about the shape of “the first edition.” We should not expect there to be a consensus regarding the shape, let alone the date and provenience, of this first edition. In the area of Johannine research it is unwise to worry about a consensus on any issue. I am convinced that the following scenario makes sense in light of the convergence of five specific developments in research, as outlined below. I shall argue a speculative reconstruction of history with some confidence so that a reasonable case may ground the speculation. The only way this hypothesis can adequately be exposed as improbable is to offer a better scenario that includes all the data amassed below.

1  The shift in the consensus regarding the Gospel of John Over the last fifty years we have observed the influences of numerous disciplines on John, most important among them are sociology, rhetoric, archaeology, early Jewish documents, and Redaktionsgechichtliche Methode. Examining the date of John demands the involvement of the Johannine scholar in (1) a social description of first century Jewish phenomena, (2) the rhetorical narrative of John, (3) archaeology, (4) Jewish documents including the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and Dead Sea Scrolls, and (5) a perception of the multiple strata, and probably more than two editions, of John. This chapter begins by examining the reasons why the dating of John to 95 CE is no longer persuasive to many experts, and then offers a novel and challenging suggestion about the date and setting of the first edition of John. Before proceeding to the main argument of this essay, it will be useful to set it in the context of the consensus to which it offers supplementation. A consensus is not a



The Priority of John

41

unanimous agreement among scholars. Scholars are trained to disagree and debate, hopefully to correct past perceptions or articulations, and to move forward to a better assessment of what is being studied. A consensus is a large group of leading experts agreeing on a basic position or principle. Until recently there was a strong consensus that John reached its final and present form (without 7:53–8:11) sometime between 90 CE and 100 CE. The following points articulate the basic foundations of this consensus.

1. The leading New Testament scholars concur that authors who had not known

Jesus of Nazareth personally composed the canonical gospels in Greek. These authors had access to oral and written traditions,4 not only in Greek but also in Aramaic or Hebrew, and that these traditions were often composed by those who had known, heard, and seen Jesus. 2. Scholars agree that no manuscripts of any gospel exist that can be dated to the first century CE. Hence, scholars must work on copies that sometimes date from the sixth century and even later. 3. Scholars also agree that over a dozen gospels exist that can be dated to the first three centuries CE, but, with the exception of the Gospel of Thomas, only the intracanonical gospels clearly emanate from the first century CE. 4. Scholars tend to agree that the Beloved Disciple, mentioned only in John, may well be an eyewitness to the events described in the Fourth Gospel.5 No other gospel claims to be based on an eyewitness. It should not be overlooked that Luke clarifies that he has sought to learn from those who were eyewitnesses (Lk 1:2). That admission seems to imply that Luke was not an eyewitness. He and Matthew also depend on Mark whom most scholars agree was not an eyewitness to Jesus’ life and teachings. Of course, though not eyewitnesses, the evangelists used traditions from eyewitnesses.6 5. While many scholars during the twentieth century agreed that John is late, dependent on the Synoptics, and took shape in the last decade of the first century CE, a consensus has appeared that each of these points is either inaccurate or in need of reconsideration. Thus scholars have come together to assess the possibility of the priority of at least some verses in John.7 6. During the twentieth century many leading Johannine experts concluded that the extant form of John is characterized by numerous insertions or additions. One such insertion considerably postdates 150 CE (7:53–811). It is clearly a later addition to John as it is not found in the early manuscripts of John. Other additions were made to a first edition, and these date sometime before 100 CE (e.g., 1:1–18, minus the verses about John the Baptizer; 4:2; 15–17; 21).8 In 1966 Brown posited five stages in the composition of John.9 In 1977 M.-É. Boismard and A. Lamouille distinguished four successive levels of redaction.10 For the purposes of this chapter I am assuming the broadest consensus, which is less radical and speculative. After a period of oral history in which the Jesus tradition began to develop a Johannine shape (independent of the Synoptics), there were at least two editions of John, each in Greek and possibly produced by the same person. Such statements as those above have evolved from over 200 years of research and constitute what is meant by a consensus among leading experts on the Gospels.

42

Jesus as Mirrored in John

2  From consensus to discussion to proposal: Eight questions and eight discoveries 2.1  Why have scholars dated John late in the first century CE? There are eight major reasons given by leading Johannine experts. First, some scholars think that John is late because the earliest manuscript evidence of the Fourth Gospel is the Rylands Papyrus 457 (P 52) and it may date as late as 150 CE. This is a weak argument. Most biblical books are recognized to be considerably older than the earliest extant copy. For example, the earliest manuscript evidence of Isaiah may be the great Isaiah scroll found in Qumran Cave I. It dates from the second century BCE, but that is not an indication of the date of composition or editing of Isaiah. Portions of Isa 1–39 antedate 700 BCE. Moreover, the date of P52 would be only the terminus ad quem for dating John; it is not the date of composition. We must allow for John to be composed, edited, and copied and finally make its way to the rubbish heaps in the Fayum far south of present-day Cairo. Second, scholars have argued that because John is dependent on the Synoptics it must be late. The list of experts is impressive and stretches from the beginning of critical research11 to the present.12 These experts point out that Matthew and Luke took shape around 85 CE, and therefore John would have been written, at the earliest, about a decade later (c. 95 CE). Ferdinand Christian Baur (1792–1860) concluded that John was composed about 170 CE,13 and Alfred Firmin Loisy (1857–1940), who concluded that John contained no reliable history concerning Jesus and was only “the personal conceptions of the author,” contended that it was written sometime after 150 CE.14 The reader should be aware that no reputable scholar today agrees with the dating proposed by Baur and Loisy. This argument is the oldest. It assumes that John was written to supplement and correct the Synoptics. Well known is the ancient conclusion that the Fourth Evangelist wrote last, under the influence of the Synoptics, and that he composed “a spiritual gospel” (Clement of Alexandria, quoted in Eusebius, HE 6.14.7). By the 1940s this position had become an aspect of “critical orthodoxy” among scholars. More and more scholars are finding that John, at least in its first edition, was composed independently of the Synoptics. The list is impressive, including P. GardnerSmith,15 R. Bultmann,16 C. H. Dodd,17 B. Noack,18 E. Haenchen,19 R. E. Brown,20 and S. S. Smalley.21 P. Benoit came to the conclusion that in some places it seems that John knew Matthew and in others that Matthew borrowed from John.22 The  intriguing agreements between Luke and John against Matthew and Mark led F. L. Cribbs to conclude that Luke seems to have known “some of the developing Johannine tradition” or was even familiar “with an early draft of the original Gospel of John.”23 P. L. Hofrichter has presented his observation that all three Synoptics depend on the pre-redactional Gospel of John. For Hofrichter Matthew and Luke depend on Mark and the lost Q-source, but all three depend on John in its earliest stage.24 It is clear that there is no consensus on John’s relation to the Synoptics, as has been clarified by D. M. Smith in his erudite John among the Gospels.25 One can no longer point to a consensus that John depends upon the Synoptics, and therefore claim that John was composed after them.



The Priority of John

43

Moreover, too many scholars refer to the “Gospel of John” without specifying what that means. Does it mean with 7:53–8:11 which may have been inserted into John from Papias whose lost work included five volumes and whom Irenaeus claimed had heard the Apostle John (Exposition IV)? John reflects editorial activity, and some of the additions indicate that the redactor is bringing the text in line with the Synoptic accounts. The additions, such as 4:2 and chapter 21, often move in the direction of the Synoptics, whether they were made by the author himself (as Boismard concluded) or by another editor (as Bultmann and Brown concluded). Third, some scholars, like Baur and Loisy, have been convinced that the Fourth Gospel was composed far from ancient Palestine, and that the author was ignorant of Jerusalem and its buildings. These scholars contend that John thinks only symbolically and preserves no early traditions. I shall demonstrate that this position is now not only impossible but preposterous, thanks to unexpected archaeological discoveries. In 1963 C. H. Dodd, one of the most influential scholars of his day, argued that John was full of primitive traditions that were historically reliable.26 In 1993, I attempted to summarize the data that indicate how archaeological studies have revolutionized our understanding of John.27 Archaeological research proves that the author of the first edition of John, and (in my opinion) not one of his sources, had been in Jerusalem and knew it well. In fact, the author himself knows much about Jerusalem. In the course of his narrative he inadvertently reveals that he knew Jerusalem. His comments seem grounded in history, not simply rhetorical play.28 Fourth, some Johannine scholars think that the use of the technical term ἀποσθνάγωγος, which is found only in John (9:22; 12:42; 16:2), suggests that the decree attributed to Samuel the Small (c. 85–90 CE), a Palestinian Tanna, caused the Johannine Jews to be “cast out of the synagogue.” John must, in this case, date sometime after 90 CE. New Testament scholars, however, assume too much about the historical setting of the Birkath ha-Minim, presupposing one or more of the following:

a. We have a record of what transpired at Yavneh (Jamnia). b. We can reliably ascribe to Samuel the Small the creation of the curse on the Minim (heretics).

c. Minim denote the followers of Jesus. d. This curse demanded expulsion from the synagogue. e. The decision at Yavneh, whatever it was, had authority everywhere in the Levant and Mediterranean areas.

f. The Johannine ἀποσυνάγωγος indicated a new and unprecedented phenomenon in the history of Jesus’ followers.

g. The Birkath ha-Minim explains the appearance of ἀποσυνάγωγος in John. It will be useful to treat each of these presuppositions in turn. Regarding (a), we do not have a record of what happened at Yavneh, and it is misleading to call it a council, as if it were Nicaea (325 CE). Regarding (b), it is true that the rabbinic records do attribute the creation of the curse to Samuel the Small, but these are not primarily historical records. The curse on the Minim, in some form,

44

Jesus as Mirrored in John

antedates 70 CE. The Amida (18 Benedictions), of which the Birkath ha-Minim is a part, took final form after 70 CE, but antedates 70 CE by decades and perhaps more. The exact number may have been set in the first century, but the words changed over time. Regarding (c), nowhere in Rabbinics do Minim unequivocally denote “Christians.”29 It is wise to remember it meant deviant Jews, and it is not even so clear as to what that means. As M. Goodman points out, Minim seems to be an intentionally vague way the Tannaim referred to “heretics.”30 There are numerous versions of the Birkath ha-Minim, and the Old Palestinian rite, found in The Cairo Geniza, has the following version: May there be no hope for the apostates, And speedily uproot the kingdom of arrogance in our day. May the Nazarenes and the minim [sectarians] perish in an instant. May they be blotted out of the book of the living. And not be written with the righteous. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who subdues the arrogant.31

Note that this Twelfth Benediction is a curse on Jews who are deviant from those in power and that the Minim probably did not include followers of Jesus. “The Nazarenes” was added to this ancient version of the Amida, so that the text included both Minim and the Nazarenes, ‫והנצרים והמינים‬. It was also possible that the text presupposes a pre70 CE setting when Judea was ruled indirectly as Herod’s kingdom (“the kingdom of arrogance”). After Herod the Great there was no king and therefore no “kingdom” in the land. It seems evident that there was an earlier form of the Amida that did not contain “the Nazarenes.” In fact, such a form is present in most versions of this malediction. Regarding (d), the curse is never tied to expulsion from the synagogue. As J. A. T. Robinson pointed out, the Amida does not demand or even indicate expulsion from a synagogue.32 Regarding (e), we do not know how influential the decision at Yavneh was, but it is unlikely that it would be universally authoritative. It does not seem to correspond to Jn 9:22. We have learned not to confuse what is going on in one setting with what is operative in another, as well as to be sensitive to the fact that what was operative in a place at one time may not be the case at another time. Regarding (f), expulsion from the synagogue was a phenomenon that considerably antedates John and is typical of Jesus’ and Paul’s life. Regarding (g), it is conceivable that the Birkath ha-Minim helps explain the appearance of ἀποσυνάγωγος in John, but it is far from clear that this is indeed the case. Any dating based on the Birkath ha-Minim is too speculative. E. E. Urbach and R. Kimelman, leading experts on the Amida, have argued that the malediction does not clearly include “Christians.” 33 There is no obvious connection between John and the Amida.34 Therefore, while ἀποσυνάγωγος is a terminus technicus, and is only found in John, it may not indicate a post-85 CE date for John. It essentially denotes expulsion from the synagogue, but is not necessarily a proof mirroring sociology and history. Expulsion from a Jewish assembly or synagogue is not a sufficient datum upon which to date John. Expulsion from a Jewish center of worship dates back at least to 150 BCE and the origins of the Qumranites (1QS 5.18; 6.24–7.25). In contrast to an influential viewpoint, usually associated with the brilliant suggestions made by R. E. Brown and



The Priority of John

45

J. L. Martyn,35 I wish to point out that if one viewed only ἀποσυνάγωγος in John, one might suggest that John was written long before 70 CE. Paul was expelled from and violently thrown out of synagogues. The concept of synagogue expulsion may also be taken back into the life of Jesus, since Luke reports that in Nazareth, after Jesus’ “midrash” on Isaiah 61 and 58, “all in the synagogue . . . rose up and put him out of the city” (Lk 4:28–29). It is important to observe that none of the references to “being thrown out of the synagogue” occur in the editorial expansions or additions to John and therefore seem to belong to the first edition of John.36 Fifth, returning to possible reasons for assuming a date after 90 CE for John, within the nineteenth and early twentieth century many experts on John concluded that since the Fourth Gospel is a Greek philosophical work, it must have been composed in the second century CE. Many even thought that it was composed late in the second century. They pointed to the use of λογός in Heraclitus and the Stoics and contended that this is the source of such Johannine thought. In the last few decades of research, this position has been almost totally abandoned. First, as Hengel has shown in his famous Judentum und Hellenismus, Greek influence had already penetrated deep into Jewish thought long before the first century CE, and therefore Greek influence on John is not indicative of a non-Jewish setting for the book. Greek influence in Palestinian Jewish thought, moreover, antedates the conquest of Alexander the Great in the late fourth century BCE. We know this for certain since the Samaritan papyri, which antedate Alexander’s entrance into Palestine, contain Hellenistic motifs on the bullae. The λογός concept in John is linked more with wisdom-motifs in the Old Testament, and Early Judaism (including Philo)37 than with Logos Greek philosophical thought. Many experts now rightly consider John as one of the most Jewish of the canonical gospels. Sixth, many Johannine experts have been persuaded that John is too advanced theologically to have been composed before 90 CE. These scholars point to the theology and Christology of John, arguing that Johannine thought is highly developed and advanced. They conclude that John must be late, providing time for such advanced theological development. Obviously John does contain advanced theological and Christological ideas. But “advanced” does not necessarily mean or indicate “late.” New Testament theology cannot be shown to have developed chronologically from a putative primitive core to a sophisticated evolution. As Smalley states, “a linear development of New Testament theology is . . . impossible to trace.”38 Some of the most advanced thoughts are found in strata scientifically attributed to Jesus or Paul. It is nothing less than anti-Jewish to claim that advanced thoughts are possible only when “Christianity” begins in the latter decades of the first century CE. Some of the most advanced theological thoughts are found deep within Judaism. Some are preserved, for example, in the Rule of the Community (See 1QS 3–4), the Thanksgiving Hymns, the Psalms of Solomon, Sirach, the Prayer of Manasseh, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Self-Glorification Hymn, and Pirke Abot. As I have stressed since the 1970s, what was needed was not more development of thought. What was required was only the transference of thought from an ambiguous eschatological figure to Jesus Christ. It does not follow that the author of the first

46

Jesus as Mirrored in John

edition of John could portray Jesus as declaring that God is “the Father who sent me” (8:18) only long after 70 CE. John emphasizes the plural collective, “the Jews” or “the Judeans,” to denote Palestinians. John does not describe the numerous groups and sects we know to have been active before 70 CE and not after it. These facts neither prove nor necessarily suggest that John is post-70 CE. After 70 CE, Judaism seems to be characterized by two competing groups: The Pharisees (followers of Hillel and Shammai) and Jews who followed Jesus. Even if this assessment is accurate, we need to admit that we know too little about Judaism prior to 70 CE and even far less about Judaism between 70 and 136 CE. To translate Ioudaioi (Ἰουδαῖοι) everywhere in John as “Jews” is poor lexicography, historiography, narrative or rhetorical exegesis, and theology. Such a translation methodologically ignores the narrative setting of each occurrence of the plural noun. Attention to the narrative setting of each occurrence of Ἰουδαῖοι reveals that many times it is quite likely that John is referring to Judean Jews and Jerusalem leaders. 39 The use of Ἰουδαῖοι in John is complex. This plural noun should not be used as definitive proof that John is late. It is certainly conceivable that the final redactor brought out the perspective of Judaism that was evident after 70 CE. It is also conceivable that John, before 70 CE, wanted to stress Jesus’ problems with Judeans and the leaders in Jerusalem and that he used the collective Ἰουδαῖοι polemically. John’s penchant for dualism would make that move understandable. On the one side is the Galilean Jesus and on the other are some hostile Judeans. This move also makes sense within a gospel that gives prominence to Jesus’ Judean ministry. Moreover, the use of Ἰουδαῖοι to denote Judeans but also “Jews” was prevalent in Judaism long before 70 CE. This dual meaning antedates not only 70 CE, but even the end of the second century BCE. Nowhere does John state that Essenes, Sadducees, Zealots, and other Jewish groups that were influential before 70 CE ceased to exist. In fact he, almost alone among the authors of the New Testament documents, is a valuable witness to Baptist groups active along the Jordan River before 30 CE. We know about these Baptist groups of Jews from the study of the Apocalypse of Adam and Sibylline Oracle 4. Seventh, some scholars contend that John is late because the earliest evidence that authors knew John was around the middle of the second century CE. It was only then that the authors of Egerton Papyrus 2, the Gospel of Peter, and the Gospel of Truth clarified that John was being quoted, commented on, or influential. The earliest known example of an exegetical commentary on John was by the Valentinian Heracleon (c. 160–180 CE) who was followed by Ptolemy.40 About the same time, Tatian used John as the basis for his harmony. The Naasenes, Ophites, and Paratae used John almost exclusively among the Gospels. This is a specious argument. The date that we can discern when an author is quoted by another author depends on numerous factors, and only one of them concerns the date of the composition of the book under examination. First, we have to be able to demonstrate that an author has clearly quoted from the book whose date is being discerned. Many authors do not quote a source, although they may have known and used such a composition. Second, we have very little knowledge of what writings



The Priority of John

47

were available in the early second century CE. Third, we have to be convinced that a document was available and known in areas far removed from where it was composed. In addition, there is evidence that John was known to authors in the early second century CE and would therefore have been composed decades earlier. There are some excellent scholars who contend that Ignatius of Antioch (c. 50 CE to perhaps 98 CE or 117 CE) knew the Gospel of John,41 and that would place the composition of the Fourth Gospel before 100 CE. It is conceivable, as Roman Catholics affirm following especially Eusebius (HE 3.36),42 that Ignatius knew the Apostle John. Finally, eighth, Irenaeus reported that the author of John lived at Ephesus until the time of Trajan (98–117 CE). Some Johannine experts contend that this indicates that John was composed sometime around or after 100 CE. Scholars are rightly dubious of Irenaeus’ historical knowledge. This influential early Christian thinker was a theologian; he was not a historian. He was concerned about the authority of John and used the argument of apostolicity to strengthen his case that John the Apostle was its author. One can scarcely claim that he had scientifically examined the evidence for the authorship and date of John. Irenaeus was also in the West and under the influence of Rome, while John had been written in the East (Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, Upper Galilee, or even Alexandria). We also need to remember that what would be called orthodoxy was not always the first evidence of Christianity in the major cities.43 Irenaeus is an important witness, but he can be unscientific, unhistorical, and biased. Even if Irenaeus is correct that John took its final shape around 100 CE, this only indicates a possible date for the Fourth Gospel’s final form (without 7:53–8:11). Discovery One: All the reasons that require a late date for the Gospel of John (sometime after 90 CE) have vanished. There is no longer a consensus regarding the date of John. The dates of the composition of the first and second editions of John are now open for discussion.

2.2  What is the probable date of the present shape of John? We need to keep in mind the date of the final form of John as we inquire into the date of its earliest edition. Recognizing that the final editor may have known Mark suggests a date for the first edition of John to be between 64 and 80 CE. Even in the second chapter’s comparison of Jesus and the Temple, the author of John shows no knowledge of the burning of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. This failure to note or echo any perception in John of the greatest event in the history of Judaism from the Maccabean rebellion to the Bar Kokhba revolt is surprising if all of John is post-70 CE. The composition of John makes best sense if the definitive form, the first edition, was composed before 70 CE. Numerous observations lead to the speculation that John was composed before 70 CE. John contains none of the late termini technici, such as ἐκκλησία. John is incredibly knowledgeable of places in Jerusalem. He stresses that Jesus was a Jew, and the Jewish festivals feature prominently. Jesus is reputed to have said that when the hour comes, the true worshipers would worship neither in Jerusalem nor on Mount Gerizim (4:21), a prophecy that makes better sense before 70 CE, when worship was active in both places, whereas after 70 CE Jews (i.e., Samaritans) continued worshiping only on

48

Jesus as Mirrored in John

Mount Gerizim. After 70 CE some opponents of John could point out that Jesus was a false prophet, because he did not realize that worship would continue on Mount Gerizim. It has been notoriously difficult to isolate John’s sources, and it is not easy to attribute all of them to post-70 CE oral or written sources. Discovery Two: In its present form, John may date from anytime between 60 CE and 100 CE.

2.3  What would prove that John is the earliest gospel? It is difficult to think of what would convince all, or most, Johannine scholars, that John is the earliest gospel. If I were to find a fragment that could be dated to 80 CE, what would that mean? I completed work on an unknown fragment of Joshua that may have once been in Qumran Cave IV. After studying it paleographically I came to the conclusion that the ink was placed on the leather sometime in the early portions of the first century CE, probably between 20 CE and 50 CE. I sent a small sample to Professor D. J. Donahue at the NSF Arizona AMS Facility for carbon-14 dating, and the report was encouraging. According to this analysis it is 95 percent certain that the animal whose skin was used for copying this fragment of Joshua died sometime between 118 BCE and 73 CE. If this fragment were the only evidence of Joshua, the scientific analysis would only prove that the scroll is ancient and that the terminus ad quem for composition would be 73 CE. It is clear, consequently, that if I were to find a fragment of John that could paleographically date to 80 CE, some scholars would still conclude that John could be dated from the late nineties, while others could claim that it dates from the sixties. Paleography and AMS C-14 dating will not prove that a hitherto unknown fragment of John must antedate 70 CE, because a dating of 70 CE makes it conceivable to date such an imaginary fragment within decades before and after 70 CE. Items from the past do not come already interpreted. Archaeologists disagree, sometimes markedly, on the date and importance of an item. Our best method for assessing the date of John is the extant text of John, looking within the text to find evidence of redaction, editing, and expansion. Discovery Three: All dating demands interpretation, and the discovery of a fragment, let alone a manuscript, of the Gospel of John from about 100 CE would not convince scholars that portions of John antedate 70 CE.

2.4  Is it obvious that John in its present form, has been shaped by insertions, expansions, and editing? All specialists on John know that 7:53–8:11 (at the earliest) is a late second century addition to John. Some scholars contend that John is a unity and does not contain later additions.44 Most experts, however, contend that John was expanded with a preface (1:1–18) and an epilogue (ch. 21). Chapters 15–17 seem to break the narrative and thought from the end of chapter 14 and the beginning of chapter 18. Since 3:22, 3:26, and 4:1 state clearly that Jesus baptized those who came to him to be baptized, 4:2 seems redactional in its claim that only Jesus’ disciples baptized. These redactions can



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be explained by the redactor’s desire to harmonize John with the Synoptics, or even by crises within the Johannine Circle after the first edition had been composed. Discovery Four: Scholars have discovered that John is a composite work. It is expanded and edited.

2.5  What is the date of the first edition of John? Obviously, the first edition antedates the second, the latter is dated between 90 CE and 100 CE, the former must antedate 90 CE. There is no reason to contend that it must have been composed after 70 CE. It is conceivable that John may have taken shape as a gospel using much earlier written and oral tradition including a “Signs Source,” from the late 60s CE.45 Discovery Five: The early edition of John may antedate 70 CE, but by how many years is unclear. In the following pages, I will attempt to explain why the first edition took shape between June 68 CE and June 70 CE and within Jerusalem.

2.6  What was the purpose of the first edition of John, and does that impinge upon our attempt to date it? The first edition of John, in the judgment of many leading experts, began without the Logos Hymn. The opening verses probably read: It happed a man was being sent from God. The name for him [was] John. This one came to witness in order that he might witness concerning the light, so that all might believe through him. That one was not the light, but [he had been sent] in order to witness concerning the light. (Jn 1:6–8)

The Semitic flavor of these verses is often lost in idiomatic translations. The use of “it happened,” the particles, and the non-verbal sentences are not unattractive Greek; they are Semitic Greek. Note the repetition: “This one came to witness in order that he might witness.” Note also the Semitic quality of the ambiguous pronoun, “him.” Is John a witness to the light, or to someone who is the light? These verses are couched to interest the reader and to compel him or her to read on. Most important is a fact lost when the liturgical affirmation of the Logos Hymn frames these verses. The opening of John in its first edition inspired the readers’ imagination. Questions are stimulated: Who is this man sent from God? Why is his name given only as “John”? Who is this John? Who is his father? Who or what is “the light”? To whom is John to witness? Why did the author feel compelled to claim “that one was not the light”? The use of foreshadowing found in these verses is a rhetorical technique that appears frequently in John. It is as if the author of John is eager for the reader to become involved in the development of the story. He is a gifted thinker and writer, perhaps a genius. The foreshadowing is obvious when one looks at the repetitive Johannine invitation in the following chapters of “come and see” and the paradigmatic use of “to remain.”

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Also evident in these opening verses in John is the narrative use of anonymity. Who is John? Why does he not appear as “John the Baptizer”? Most importantly, who is the light? Should δι᾽ αὐτοῦ be translated “through it” (i.e., one believes in the light) or “through him” (i.e., one believes through John)? The narrative use of anonymity is a major characteristic of John, appearing most clearly in the depiction of Jesus’ mother and the Beloved Disciple.46 The first edition ended with chapter 20. Most experts on John rightly perceive that 20:30–31 is an appropriate ending to the Gospel. Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book. These [things] are written that you may [begin to] believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.

Moreover, the next sentence (21:1) is a non sequitur and begins another conclusion. The climax of the first edition of John is Thomas’ level-headedness and refusal to believe until he has experienced what the other ten disciples have seen and heard. Thomas, confronted by the resurrected Jesus, confesses, “My Lord and my God!” (20:28). The book begins with improper, incomplete confessions of “Rabbi” (1:28) and “King of Israel” (1:49). In the middle of the first edition, a man born blind makes confessions that placard the proper means of confessing. First he offers an honest “I do not know” (9:12). He then admits that Jesus “is a prophet” (9:17), and eventually that he “must be from God” (9:33). Finally, the man is cured of both physical and spiritual blindness, and he offers the proper and sufficient confession. Jesus reveals that he is “the Son of Man,” and the man confesses, “Lord, I believe” (9:38). Thus, the first edition of John is a drama, in which the author continuously reveals what is meant by the assertion that Jesus is from above. Progressively through John, the reader learns the proper confession one must make about Jesus. Thomas is presented as the one who makes the perfect and the final confession. It is not readily apparent how these observations help us in dating the first edition of John. They contrast markedly with Lk 1:1–4, which stresses that the author has done his research by studying the many accounts that have been written about Jesus. The author of John writes as if the reader has never heard about John or Jesus. There is much in the first edition of John to suggest that the purpose was to win converts to Johannine Judaism (Johannine Christianity is anachronistic). Boismard is certainly correct to argue that the earliest portion of John was intended to convert other Jews, but Boismard targets the Samaritans.47 I prefer to think about Samaritan traditions shaping John and Samaritans being active in the Johannine community.48 The relation between the Samaritans and the Qumranites needs to be researched so as to help us explore this aspect of John and the life of the Johannine community more deeply. Perhaps Jn 20:31 did not belong to a Signs Source, but was the original ending of John. These words seem to mirror the missionary zeal of Jesus’ followers, prophets, and evangelists. Most likely, the first edition was primarily a missionary gospel and the final edition was redefined to edify converts.



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Discovery Six: The first edition of John was intended to serve as a missionary document; it was not primarily designed to deepen faith in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. It was intended to lead the reader to ask questions. It was written as if no other gospels had been composed.

2.7  Two further questions regarding the Essene influence on the Gospel of John Over sixty years of research on the Essene scrolls found at Qumran has been fruitful. Most experts concur that a study of the Essenes, at Qumran and elsewhere, has certainly provided both a new and better approach to the origins of what would be called “Christianity.” The Essenes lived throughout Palestine and probably gathered together into somewhat isolated communities on the fringes of villages or cities as Philo and Josephus reported and the Rule of the Community and the Damascus Document mirror. John the Baptizer may have once been at Qumran, but he certainly left it.49 Some Essene influence on the Palestinian Jesus Movement may be attributed to him. Jesus himself seems to have some links with the Essenes, but there is far more evidence that he was anti-Essene than he was an Essene.50 Most of the evidence of Essene influence on the Jesus Movement comes in the second generation with the authors of the New Testament documents. As G. Vermès states: “The main contact occurred, not between the sect and Jesus, a Galilean charismatic for whom a great deal of Essene doctrine would have been repugnant, but between Essenism and Judean Christianity.”51 As many New Testament experts who have been trained in Qumran Research have reported, the most impressive and significant links between the Essenes and the New Testament are found in the Gospel of John, and the most impressive points of similarity are found in comparing their dualisms. While a dualism is found almost everywhere in ancient Mediterranean civilizations, a dualistic paradigm with termini technici eruditely developed is found only in Zurvanism, Qumranism, and John. A dualistic paradigm is a focused and highly developed thought pattern whereby opposites are arranged in two mutually exclusive lists. Such opposites include Light and Darkness, Truth and Falsehood, the Enlightened and the Blind, Grace and Wrath, and more. Each of these terms is complemented by agents (sons, spirits, angels), actions (walk), and other ideas that give flesh to the antitheses (Ways, zeal). The antitheses and these other words provide the paradigm’s termini technici. The exemplification of this dualistic paradigm, especially the antithesis between light and darkness, is found at Qumran in 1QS 3.13–4.25.52 With the exception of Zurvanism, which seems to have influenced the Qumran author of this text, the dualistic paradigm is found nowhere else in Jewish sources. It is not found in Greek or Latin documents. It only casts its light on other compositions. The teaching is at the heart of the Rule of the Community and, in my opinion, had to be memorized by every Essene at Qumran and perhaps elsewhere. The light-darkness paradigm is reflected in other documents closely related to the Essenes (e.g., the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs). When one of these terms appears in a document it is possible, and in the eyes of many experts probable, that the author has been influenced by this particular dualistic paradigm.53

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What is remarkable, and has been celebrated from the beginning of Qumran Research, is the observation that this dualistic paradigm is reflected in John. Not only the paradigm (i.e., the antitheses), but the termini technici also appear in John. There should be no doubt that Essene influence is found in John. Jn 14:16–26 contains ideas that seem to be borrowed from Qumran or the Essenes. The Father will give you another Counselor, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he remains with you, and will be in you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, will teach you all things.54

What is significant are two key terms, both of which were developed at Qumran or in Essene circles; these are “the Spirit of Truth” and “the Holy Spirit.” These Qumranic creations appear here in a passage that is dualistic. In John 12, which belongs to the first edition, appears a passage that would convict one of plagiarism in a modern court; it should be certain that the author is borrowing from the Rule of the Community. In it are termini technici and concepts that appear for the first time in history in a dualistic paradigm in the Rule of the Community. Recall the passage: Jesus said to them: “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.” (12:35–36; NRSV)

To clarify the links with the Essenes, I have italicized terms that reflect Qumran terms and thought. For John, however, believing is the key to eternal life and it is belief in Jesus. As at Qumran, the Johannine community is a closed community that has special knowledge from God. Explicit at Qumran and implicit in the final edition of John is the perception that outside of the Community is a hostile world that is ignorant and beyond salvation. It is also interesting that the author of John has Jesus, probably early in the evening, and in the Temple announce who he is: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (8:12). “Walking in darkness” is most likely a Qumran creation (1QS 3.21). Moreover, “the light of life” is also found in the Rule of the Community (3.7). The appearance of these words in John is not a mere coincidence. It seems, rather, that the author of John knew the ideas and concepts as found in the Rule of the Community, the quintessential teaching among the Essenes. It is possible that the author of John had once memorized this Essene lore, but that does not necessitate that he had been an Essene. It seems more likely that he knew Essenes, most likely ones who were living in the Johannine community, and who influenced the development of Johannine theology with their terms and perspectives. Would there be a better way to honor Essene priests who were joining the Palestinian Jesus Movement than to employ words developed and memorized by these newcomers who were revered as learned scholars within the Judaism of the day?



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The Essene dualistic paradigm and termini technici are found in John 8, 12, and 14, each of which is considered integral to the first edition of John.55 Therefore, it appears that the Essene influences are foundational for the first edition. What does that tell us about the date of the first edition? The most likely scenario is that the influences came from Essenes living near where Jesus celebrated his Last Supper, southwest Jerusalem before June 70 CE. It is also possible that the influences on John from the Essenes occurred after 68 CE when the Qumran Community had been burned by Vespasian and the tenth legion. Subsequently, perhaps, some Essenes, who fled to Jerusalem in 68 CE, joined the Palestinian Jesus Movement. Eventually, some Essenes seem to have joined the Johannine community. In July 69 CE, Vespasian was hailed emperor by his troops in Alexandria and Caesarea Maritima. His eldest son, Titus, then moved from Alexandria to Caesarea, and then approached Jerusalem from the north. According to Josephus, up until the summer of 70 CE Titus urged and allowed great numbers of Jews to flee Jerusalem (War 5.10). Up until shortly after May 30 of that year, when the second wall was most likely breached, Titus even offered “the people” in Jerusalem, those who were not fighters (which would include the followers of Jesus) free escape and even “restoration of their property” (War 5.334). Titus was attacking from north of Jerusalem; if escape was possible, it would have been on the opposite side of the city, perhaps in the southwest where Jesus’ followers were living (according to Acts) and where the Essenes most likely lived (according to archaeological research, as we shall indicate). Essene influence on John, thus, appears in the first edition of John. Perhaps between the flight of Qumran Essenes to Jerusalem in 68 CE and the exodus of Jesus’ followers from Jerusalem by early June 70 CE could be the time when the first edition of John took shape. We might then date the first edition, in the light of Essene influence, between June 68 CE and June 70 CE. The primary catalyst for composing the first edition of John might be the influx of some Essenes who fled Qumran for Jerusalem, and then left the Essene cloister to join the Johannine community, lending continuity to their eschatology, apocalypticism, messianology, and introducing the confession of Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah from above, perhaps reflecting passages in the SelfGlorification Hymn. That is a two-year span, and plenty of time to complete the first edition of John from sources and eyewitnesses. After June of 70 CE, it would not have been possible for the Johannine Jews who believed in Jesus to leave the city. Discoveries Seven and Eight: The Essene influences in John appear almost entirely in what is considered integral to the first edition of John. Only in the passages isolated as parts of the first edition are there significant and profound Essene phrases and termini technici. It is likely that the Essene influences on John antedate May or June 70 CE.

3  Can John be a source for pre-70 CE  Judaism? Another major reason that the first edition of John may be composed prior to 70 CE is the vast amount of evidence it provides regarding Judaism before the destruction. The following comments, some occasionally touched on in the preceding discussion, may be presented in summary form.

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First, after 20 BCE, when Herod the Great began expanding and refurbishing the Temple, the rules for purity were elevated within ancient Palestine. From 20 BCE to the destruction in 70 CE, a little over ninety years, is the time assigned to the production of massive stone jars found at Qumran, Zippori, and the Upper City of Jerusalem, constructed with a large lathe in the stone industry. The only clear literary evidence of this phenomenon is found in John, and it seems to occur as an aside (2:6). The six vessels at Cana held up to a maximum of 180 gallons of water. They were likely used to fill mikvaot. The author of John knew much about such massive stone jars, and they disappear from archaeological findings dated later than 70 CE. Moreover, it seems that they were all manufactured in Jerusalem. Second, Jesus’ movements from Galilee to Jerusalem are aligned with the Jewish festivals. He is in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover and even Hanukkah (Jn 10:22–23). The pilgrimage to Jerusalem at Passover was typical of the annual cycle of a Palestinian Jew’s life up until 70 CE when worship in the Temple ceased. By reading John we are invited to enter the rhythm of the liturgical year in pre-70 CE Judaism. Third, John mirrors the tension between worship on Mount Gerizim and on Mount Zion. The strife appears in John 4. The works seems to antedate 70 CE since after 70 CE worship only continued on Mount Gerizim. While some of these tensions may characterize the budding schism in the Johannine community, it was more typical of religious life in Palestine before 70 CE. Fourth, the portrayal of Nicodemus is typical only of pre-70 CE Judaism. At that time it was not clear what the Judean authorities would conclude about the messianic Jews who followed Jesus. Nicodemus, in the eyes of the implied author, was not a true follower of Jesus. Unlike the man born blind (ch. 9), he did not openly confess his belief in Jesus. He is rather a Pharisee and “a ruler of the Jews” who contended that Jesus was “a teacher sent from God” (3:1–2). As we learn from Acts, other Jews like Gamaliel refused to be caught up in the zealous movement against Jesus’ followers and cautioned understanding, patience, and refusal to judge—as the Torah teaches. After 70 CE there seems to be less contact between Hillelite Jews and Jesus’ followers.

4  Further historical speculation 4.1  The Essenes and the Johannine community in Jerusalem One can speculate that followers of Jesus were living in the southwestern section of Jerusalem. All the Gospels indicate or imply that Jesus’ Last Supper was in the southwestern section. The book of Acts clarifies that some of the earliest followers of Jesus moved to Jerusalem and lived near where Jesus had celebrated his Last Supper. The early patristic evidence preserves a tradition that Jesus’ family moved to Jerusalem after James, Jesus’ brother, was martyred in 62 CE. James had served as bishop of Jerusalem and after his martyrdom Simeon Bar-Kleopha, a cousin of Jesus, became bishop. It is likely that Essenes had been living in the southwestern corner of Jerusalem since the time of Herod the Great, who was himself fond of the Essenes due to one having predicted that he would become “king.” This is not fanciful historiography since



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the War Scroll mentions the Sons of Light who live in Jerusalem, and the Temple Scroll may place a latrine outside the western walls and a little to the north. I am persuaded that this description does not pertain to Qumran but to the “camp” in Jerusalem. Two pre-70 CE mikvaot now southwest of the Zion gate, look very much like the mikvaot at Qumran. While we have no typology of mikvaot that would allow us to conclude conclusively that they belonged to the Essenes, it is the most likely conclusion now. A Herodian gate has been uncovered. It is wide enough for no more than two people to walk through side by side. It is southwest of the two mikvaot. There are, in fact, three layers of gates. One is Byzantine, another from an earlier period, and the lowest is clearly Herodian.56 There is no reason to doubt that this is the Essene Gate mentioned obliquely in the Temple Scroll and by Josephus (τὴν Ἐσσηνῶν πύλην, War 5.145). This pre-70 CE gate is probably the Essene Gate through which Essenes entered Jerusalem and their quarter in the southwestern section of the city. It is wide enough for only two men to pass; it cannot be a normal city gate. The Essenes from Qumran, driven out by Vespasian’s attack on Qumran in 68 CE, or at least some of them, would be disenchanted as they compared the hopes of the War Scroll with the view of seeing Qumran go up in smoke. Many of them would be prime candidates for the message of hope and joy found in the first edition of John. Moreover, the movement of Roman legions marching to Jerusalem from Jericho and from Caesarea Maritima would have been an alarming threat to those in Jerusalem. It would have been a crucial time, and a time to make decisions as those exhorted by the author of the first edition of John. There could not have been a better time to stress that there is a dimension of Jesus’ words and promises that were being realized then and there. One received “living water” and eternal life the moment one believes in Jesus, that he is the One from the Father, sent to save the world. Hope is to be found in him, and the focus is not on “thy kingdom come on earth” as it is on the salvation of the individual. Jesus had been lifted up on the cross, as the serpent Moses had raised in the wilderness,57 and this lifting was not a mistake or a failure; rather it was Jesus’ finest hour. It could then be said that Jesus had fulfilled his mission: “it is finished.” This life and mission offered in the kerygma of Jesus’ followers, communicated to the new coming Essenes, would provide a new figure upon whom they could renew their hope.

4.2  The Essenes and the schism(s) among the Johannine community It is certain that there was a schism within the Johannine community. We know about this schism from the Epistles of John. The most relevant passage is 1Jn 2:19, “They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out, that it might be plain that they all are not of us.” This verse and the exhortations to unity found in the additions of John 15–17 mirror a tension within the Johannine community at the time of their composition. Some members of the Community are causing a schism but have not yet left it,58 neither by excommunication nor of their own volition. Bultmann stated that “the repeated warnings against them show that they constitute a present danger to the congregation,” and at the same time the schismatics “understand themselves as legitimate members

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of the congregation.”59 The main reason for the schism is Christological. Those who left the Community either denied that Jesus was the Christ (1Jn 2:22) or did not acknowledge “that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh” (4:2). The second reason for the schism is the lack of love among those within the community (2:7–11; 3:11). Perhaps there is another dimension to the schism. Some Jews in the Johannine community would not want to flee Jerusalem while others may have been eager to leave. The former would most likely be Jerusalem Jews, the latter could be the Essenes who did not have such a personal connection with the city. Are the stresses on remaining and being one, present in John 15–17 (probably written or inserted post factum in the second edition), indicative of a struggle within the Johannine community between remaining together in Jerusalem and leaving together? Also, is it possible that some Jews in the Community wanted to flee to eastern Jordan and Pella (as Eusebius reports, HE 3.5) while others wanted to flee to the west? If so, there would be a need to stress unity and harmony (cf. 1Jn 2:7–11). These are areas in which we need to speculate and imagine the scenarios that gave rise to the schism reflected in John and the Johannine Epistles. Historical imagination helps us ponder if the first edition of John took shape within the southwestern quarter of Jerusalem. Perhaps the arrival of some Essenes entering the compound, before the Romans had sealed off the city, would be the catalyst for completing the first edition.

4.3  The Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John The reconstruction of the setting for the first edition of John is also enriched by what we have learned from studying the Odes of Solomon, to be dealt with in more detail in Chapters 12 and 13. Here it is only necessary to observe that, like at Qumran, we are able to find remarkable parallels between the Odes and the Gospel of John in its theology and language. The general conclusions that can be reached (and expounded upon later) are that the Odist may be placed near or even within the Johannine community, though there is no evidence that he was dependent on John or vice versa. The Odist may well have been a Jerusalem Essene who became a follower of Jesus and then lived within the Johannine community. Some of the Odes are Jewish, and specifically reflect the type of Judaism represented by the Essenes stressing secret knowledge.

5  Conclusion I have introduced to the academy the hypothesis that the first edition of John took shape near the Essene quarter of Jerusalem sometime between June 68 CE and June 70 CE. The catalyst was twofold. The first part was the influx of Essenes from Qumran to Jerusalem with their hopes disenchanted and themselves disheartened after the destruction of Qumran. These Essenes would be attracted to the Jews in the Johannine community, whose apocalyptic ideas were similar to theirs, but buoyed up by a missionary fervor and an eschatological dream found only among the Johannine Jews.60 Second, Jerusalem was being transformed from a metropolis bustling with



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trade from all corners of the earth to a city under siege. It was now a city under the increasing threat of conquest by the Roman legions, moving unhindered toward her primarily from the east and northwest. Some New Testament scholars who have not followed the developments in research on the Odes, Qumran, and John may find this reconstruction of John’s first edition speculative or even fanciful. For those who have participated in the development of research, this synthesis should be suggestive and perhaps even attractive.

Notes 1 The present chapter is a revised version of “The Priority of John? Reflections on the Essenes and the First Edition of John,” in Für und wider die Priorität des J­ohannesevangeliums: Symposium in Salzburg am 10. März 2000 (ed. P. L.  Hofrichter; ­Theologische Texte und Studien 9; Hildesheim and Zürich: Georg Olms Verlag, 2002), pp. 73–114. 2 See the following discussion. 3 R. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols (New Haven: Yale, 1966–70) 1:lxxxiv. 4 See the discussion in the Introduction between Stanley E. Porter with Hughson T. Ong (who rightly are in favor of using these methodologies in Jesus Research) and Paul Foster (who claims they are “dead-ends”). Paul Foster, “Memory, Orality, and the Fourth Gospel: Three Dead-Ends in Historical Jesus Research,” JSHJ 10 (2012): 191–227; Porter and Ong, “Memory, Orality, and the Fourth Gospel: A Response to Paul Foster with Further Comments for Further Discussion,” JSHJ 12 (2014): 143–64; and Foster, “Memory, Orality, and the Fourth Gospel: An Ongoing Conversation with Stan Porter and Hughson T. Ong,” JSHJ 12 (2014): 165–83. 5 See the insights shared in the next chapter. 6 On the question of eyewitness accounts within and behind the canonical gospels, see Richard Bauckham, The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Cambridge: Grove Books, 2008). Also see Bauckham, “Gospel Traditions: Anonymous Community Traditions or Eyewitness Testimony?” In Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions, pp. 483–99. 7 See the essays contained in Für und wider die Priorität des Johannesevangeliums, to which the original form of this essay contributed. 8 M. Hengel (Die johanneische Frage: Ein Lösungsversuch. Mit einem Beitrag zur Apokalypse [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993]) was convinced that John is not composite, recognizing that vocabulary and style cannot be used to separate words or paragraphs that seem to be insertions. Hengel was persuaded that one and the same author wrote the first and second editions of John. 9 Brown, Gospel According to John, pp. xxiv–xxxix. 10 M.-É. Boismard and A. Lamouille, L’évangile de Jean (Synopse des quartres évangiles en français 3; Paris: Cerf, 1977); and Boismard, Moses or Jesus: An Essay in Johannine Christology (ed. B. Viviano; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993), pp. 127–33. 11 F. C. Baur, A. Loisy, R. H. Lightfoot, E. Hoskyns, W. F. Howard, B. W. Bacon, B. H. Streeter, and H. Windisch.

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12 C. K. Barrett, F. Neirynck, H. Thyen, M. Hengel. 13 F. C. Baur, Der Gegensatz des Katholicismus und Protestantismus nach den Principien und Hauptdogmen der beiden Lehrbegriffe: Mit besonderer Rücksicht auf Herrn Dr. Möhler’s Symbolik (2nd ed.; Tübingen: L. F. Fues, 1836). See the insightful discussion by Hengel, “Bishop Lightfoot and the Tübingen School on the Gospel of John and the Second Century,” in The Lightfoot Centenary Lectures (ed. J. Dunn; Durham: Durham, 1992), pp. 23–51. 14 A. Loisy, La crise de la foi dans le temps présent: Essais d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses, edited by François Laplanche (Turnhout: Brepols, 2010). A. Loisy, The Gospel and the Church (ed. B. Scott; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 30. The original edition dates from 1903. 15 P. Gardner-Smith, Saint John and the Synoptic Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1938). Gardner-Smith concluded not only that John was independent of the Synoptics, but that the Evangelist knew none of them. 16 R. Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1941); The Gospel of John: A Commentary (ed. G. Beasley-Murray, et al.; Louisville: Westminster, 1971). 17 C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge ­University, 1953) and Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: ­Cambridge University, 1965). 18 B. Noack, Zur johanneischen Tradition: Beiträge zur Kritik an der literakritischen ­Analyse des vierten Evangeliums (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1954). 19 E. Haenchen, Das Johannesevangelium: Ein Kommentar (ed. U. Busse; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1980). 20 Brown, The Gospel According to John. 21 S. S. Smalley, John: Evangelist and Interpreter (Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998). 22 P. Benoit, Exégese et théologie (Paris: Cerf, 1986) 3:270–82. 23 F. L. Cribbs, “St Luke and the Johannine Tradition,” JBL 90 (1971): 422–50; see p. 426. 24 P. L. Hofrichter, Modell und Vorlage der Synoptiker: Das vorredaktionelle “Johannesevangelium” (Theologische Texte und Studien 6; Hildesheim: Olms, 1997), pp. 160–61. 25 D. M. Smith, John among the Gospels (Columbia: South Carolina, 2001). 26 Dodd, Historical Tradition. 27 See Chapter 6 of this volume. 28 For more detailed study, see Chapters 6, 7, and 15 of this volume. 29 E. E. Urbach convinced me of that point during numerous private conversations. 30 M. Goodman, “The Function of Minim in Early Rabbinic Judaism,” in Geschichte— Tradition—Reflexion: Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag, 3 vols. (ed. H. Cancik et al.; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996) 1:501–10. 31 See J. Heinemann, Prayer in the Talmud (Studia Judaica 9; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1977), p. 28. 32 J. A. T. Robinson, Redating the New Testament (London: Westminster, 1976), pp. 272–74; J. A. T. Robinson, The Priority of John (ed. J. Coakley; London: Meyer-Stone, 1985), pp. 72–79. 33 E. E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, 2 vols. (trans. I. Abrahams; ­Jerusalem: Magnes, 1979). 34 R. Kimelman, “Birkat Ha-Minim and the Lack of Evidence for an Anti-Christian Jewish Prayer in Late Antiquity,” in Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, 3 vols. (ed. E. Sanders et al.; Philadelphia, Fortress, 1961) 2:226–44.



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35 J. L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003 [3rd ed; the first edition appeared in 1968]). 36 My comments are focused only on dating the earliest edition of John. 37 See note 6 to Chapter 1. 38 Smalley, John, p. 92. 39 See Chapters 3, 4, 6, and 15 in this volume. 40 See E. H. Pagels, The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis (SBLMS 17; Nashville: Abingdon, 1973), pp. 16–19. 41 See especially Virginia Corwin, St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1960). 42 J. B. O’Connor, “St. Ignatius of Antioch,” in The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York; Robert Appleton Co., 1910). This work is now on the web. 43 See the work of Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (trans. R. A. Kraft and G. Krodel; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1971 [the German originally appeared in 1934]). 44 See Hengel, Die johanneische Frage. 45 On the “Signs Source,” see R. T. Fortna, The Gospel of Signs (SNTSMS 11; Cambridge: Cambridge, 1970); Fortna, The Fourth Gospel and its Predecessor (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988); and U. C. von Wahlde, The Earliest Version of John’s Gospel: Recovering the Gospel of Signs (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1989). Also see, G. van Belle, The Signs Source in the Fourth Gospel: Historical Survey and Critical Evaluation of the Semeia Hypothesis (trans. P. J. Judge; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1994). 46 On anonymity, see J. H.Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John? (Valley Forge: Trinity, 1995), pp. xiv–xix, 140–46, 205–10, 384–85; D. R. Beck, The Discipleship Paradigm: Readers and Anonymous Characters in the Fourth Gospel (Biblical Interpretation Series 27; Leiden: Brill, 1997). 47 Boismard, Moses or Jesus, p. 133. 48 R. E. Brown saw that Samaritans were a part of the Johannine community. The ­Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist, 1979), pp. 22–23, 35–40. 49 See J. H. Charlesworth, “John the Baptizer, Jesus, and the Essenes,” in Caves of Enlightenment: Proceedings of the American Schools of Oriental Research Dead Sea Scrolls Jubilee Symposium (1947–1997) (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; North Richland Hills: BIBAL, 1998), pp. 75–103, and Charlesworth, “John the Baptizer and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 3.1–35. 50 See the contributions on Jesus’ relationship with the Essenes in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1992). 51 G. Vermes, An Introduction to the Complete Dead Sea Scrolls (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999), p. 189. 52 See Chapters 7, 8, 9, and 10 of this volume for the contents of this text, a detailed analysis, and a comparative analysis with the Gospel of John. 53 See, for example, D. Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988). 54 The italics highlight the Qumranic termini technici. 55 The author mentions “the Spirit of Truth” in chapters rightly discerned to be redactional and part of the second edition of John. None of these later sections of John, however, have any other Essene terms or concepts, and 15:26 and 16:13, for example, seem derived from previous passages like 14:16–26. 56 See Bargil Pixner, Wege des Messias und Stätten der Urkirche: Jesus und das Judenchristentum im Licht neuer archäologischer Erkenntnisse (Giessen: Brunnen, 1991); and R. Riesner, Essener und Urgemeinde in Jerusalem (Basel: Brunnen, 1998).

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57 See Chapters 16 and 17 in this volume. 58 D. M. Smith, First, Second, and Third John (Louisville: Westminster, 1991), pp. 72–73. 59 R. Bultmann, The Johannine Epistles (trans. R. O’Hara et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1973), p. 36. 60 See Brown, Community, p. 23.

3

The Beloved Disciple: Criteria and Observations1

For centuries, New Testament scholars and those drawn to compelling portraits in the Gospels have sought to identify “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” or “the Beloved Disciple.” This disciple is introduced by the Fourth Evangelist; that is, the Beloved Disciple is found within the New Testament only in the Gospel According to John. Scholars have defended many suggestions for the identity of this anonymous disciple. Some suggestions are fantastic and show lack of attention to details in the Gospel of John. Mary Magdalene has been identified as “the Beloved Disciple,” but from the cross Jesus calls down to his mother: “Woman, behold your son” (Ἰησοῦς οὖν ἰδὼν τὴν μητέρα καὶ τὸν μαθητὴν παρεστῶτα ὃν ἠγάπα, λέγει τῇ μητρί, Γύναι, ἴδε ὁ υἱός σου [Jn 19:26]). The disciple is a male. One of the more popular suggestions is that Lazarus is the Beloved Disciple. Why? It is because the Evangelist offers the aside that Jesus loved him (Jn 11:36). That is a bit startling since the observation is given to Jesus’ enemies. None of those who suggest Lazarus have been able to explain how one whom the narrator describes as stinking could be within days lying on Jesus’ breast at the Last Supper. Judas Iscariot has been nominated to be the Beloved Disciple. That suggestion seems absurd until one realizes that the Evangelist alone reported he was the treasurer of Jesus’ group. Who then added that Judas customarily stole from the common purse? Can the same author report that Judas was treasurer and also a thief? To imagine that a redactor added that Judas stole from the common purse fits with the growing hatred and denigration of Judas after 70 CE. If every person at the Last Supper thought Judas was going to buy food for the Passover meal, or that he was going out to give funds to the poor, then he might be the Beloved Disciple. It does seem obvious from many passages in the Gospel According to John that Judas was a faithful and honorable disciple of Jesus. Was that his portrayal in the first edition of John? Did the author then include that Judas was the treasurer? Whether we side with those who choose Mary Magdalene, Lazarus, Judas, or the many others identified with the Beloved Disciple, it is imperative to develop a set of criteria for defending any claim. In the following pages, I will organize the proper criteria and methodology for seeking the identity of the Beloved Disciple. Why should a scholar search for the identity of a person whom an author had left intentionally anonymous? First, a good scholar is inquisitive and is driven by questions. Second, if the author knew the identity of an anonymous person, why should we not search to see if we can discern it? Third, if the author left hints regarding the identity of

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the Beloved Disciple, as now appears certain to me, then he would want us to discover the identity of that special disciple of Jesus, the one whom the Fourth Evangelist saluted as Jesus’ Beloved Disciple. To discern that identity helps us comprehend what an ideal disciple of Jesus should do. Intensive explorations by scholars in many countries and over at least two centuries have served us well and left us with helpful clues. The most important ones are those left by the Fourth Evangelist. For me they are the following: If the Gospel of John is a drama, then with whom is Jesus in the final scene? Second, if the Gospel of John is about how one should couch a confession faithful to Jesus that is authentic and represents revelation, perhaps the final confession reveals the Beloved Disciple’s identity.

1  The authorship of the Fourth Gospel: The identity of the beloved disciple Why Engage in the Quest? The major reasons for opening what some scholars may assume is a futile issue are paradigmatic improvements in the study of Christian Origins, especially the historical and literary settings of the Johannine traditions. Since the 1970s, at least eight paradigm shifts in methodologies and perceptions warrant a new search for the possible identity of the Beloved Disciple. These shifts tend to disclose that inexact presuppositions and methodologies formerly shaped scholars’ arguments. Now, we need to refocus the search. First, after more than 100 years of research, scholars concurred that the Gospel of John was not composed by the Apostle John, as so many of the early scholars of the church had contended (and as fundamentalists still believe today). This valid insight unfortunately led to the conclusion, by many specialists, that John was not historically reliable. Now, thanks to archaeological discoveries in Israel—particularly in Jerusalem—and topographical references in the Dead Sea Scrolls, we know that the author of John was familiar with Jerusalem during the time of Jesus.2 This insight needs to be added to the issue of whether any part of John might derive, somehow, from an eyewitness to the events of Jesus’ life, and that the Beloved Disciple might be such a person. In the preceding pages, we have demonstrated that the Fourth Evangelist, in the first edition, claimed to have an eyewitness. Second, some influential scholars about 100 years ago contended that the Gospel of John probably postdated 150 CE. Now, however, scholars admit that the author of John wrote before 100 CE and depended upon earlier sources. Although the final edition of this gospel probably dates from about 95 CE, some of its sources surely antedate the burning of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Are any of these sources related in some way to the search for the identity of the Beloved Disciple? Among the Gospels, it is clear that John took its final form near the end of the first century, but it is obvious that behind the composition is an eyewitness to some of Jesus’ activities. I do not think the author’s claim to base his account on a trustworthy eyewitness is merely a narrative device, or an aspect of Christian apologetics. It is far too early in the origins of Christianity to assume the final redactor is simply attempting to establish the apostolicity of the Johannine tradition.



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Third, John was once thought to be a composition influenced significantly by Greek philosophy. Now, however, scholars affirm that it is a very Jewish composition, perhaps the most Jewish of the Gospels in the New Testament.3 Behind John lie Jewish sources, such as the Signs Source, which clearly antedate 70 CE.4 Scholars now recognize that in light of our increased knowledge of the origin of John,5 of Judaism before 135/6 CE (when Bar Kokhba was defeated), and of Judea and Galilee prior to 70 CE (thanks to unexpected and astounding archaeological discoveries),6 it is misrepresentative to brand John as theological speculation and the Synoptics as history. Thus we come to the following question: How is the search for the identity of the Beloved Disciple improved by the significant advances in understanding the cultures of Galilee and Judea during Jesus’ time (prior to 70 CE), and the emergence of rabbinic Judaism after 70 CE?7 It is clear that attribution of thoughts to an ancient person (pseudepigraphy) was an essential means for grounding the truths of new insights within Early Judaism. Pseudepigraphical attribution is surely one of the crucibles of Johannine thought. Such options for writing shaped many early Jewish documents for over three centuries prior to 70 CE, as is clear from the brilliant writings of more than five books, abbreviated into what we call 1 Enoch. To what extent are we confronted with pseudepigraphical attribution in John? That is, does the author of 21:24 pseudepigraphically attribute the composition of John to the Beloved Disciple, and how many redactions are evident in this verse? Anonymity was a major method that had both literary and historical roots. The anonymity of the Righteous Teacher at Qumran and in many of the Dead Sea Scrolls may well be related to the Evangelist’s desire to shroud the Beloved Disciple in the mantle of anonymity, as J. Roloff has suggested.8 The influence from Qumran upon John is certainly not limited to the shared dualism, and the influence from Qumran is probably to be explained neither by indirect influence, as Brown thinks,9 nor by the hypothesis that the author of John was an Essene converted to “Christianity,” as Ashton suggests.10 While each of these suggestions is conceivable, it is evident that converted Essenes joined the Johannine community (and this term itself may indicate the Qumranic concept of Yaḥad). It may well have been a school (as Culpepper contends),11 and has attracted Jewish scholars, including Essenes, the great writers of Early Judaism, as we know from the more than 400 non-biblical documents found in the Qumran Caves.12 From such converted Essenes many Qumranic ideas and concepts may have influenced the composition and shape of John, even if these are only barely discernible.13 Is it not at least conceivable, as E. Ruckstuhl concludes, that the Beloved Disciple was a Johannine Believer who was formerly an Essene who had lived in the Jerusalem Essene Community?14 Could one of these Qumran influences have been anonymity? Fourth, a few decades ago most scholars admitted that it is impossible to recover Jesus’ words and to reconstruct his life. It was said that historically all we know about Jesus is he was crucified. Now, however, most experts admit that we know far more about Jesus than about most pre-70 CE Palestinian Jews, and that some of his sayings and actions are reliably preserved in the Gospels.15 It is lamentable that specialists, who know that historical research can at best provide us with only a probable reconstruction that needs constantly to be improved,

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ignore such a primordial perception and attempt to guide generations of students and scholars in the search for Jesus’ uninterpreted deeds (bruta facta) and to isolate his own voice (ipssisma verba Jesu). That approach is simply positivistic historicism and it breaks all the rules of scientific historiography. As far as our knowledge goes, Jesus did not write anything and relied on oral teachings, as did Socrates and Hillel. His life and teachings were transmitted to the evangelists through oral and sometimes written tracts and shaped by memory that could be stunningly accurate but also selective. Now, scholars wisely seek to discern the meaning of Jesus’ message and, in the jargon of phenomenologists like M. Merleau-Ponty, his authentic intentionality.16 The new study of Jesus within his time and place is distinguishable as “Jesus Research” because it is more attuned and aware of underlying theological agendas. Jesus Research is demonstrated in numerous books, especially E. P. Sanders’ Jesus and Judaism, my own Jesus within Judaism, Dale Allison’s Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History, and J. Meier’s A Marginal Jew.17 How does the impressive shift in the historical study of Jesus help us in the quest for the identity of the Beloved Disciple? What is the meaning of the claim of the redactor of chapter 21 that the Beloved Disciple may be the eyewitness to what is recorded in John (the Beloved Disciple is ὁ μαρτυρῶν according to 21:24)? Fifth, let me repeat points made earlier as repetition is fundamental in shifting paradigms. Decades ago it was affirmed by most New Testament experts that the author of John derived his data from the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Now it is apparent that he did not base his work on them, as D. M. Smith in John among the Gospels lucidly demonstrates.18 Is it not conceivable, therefore, that since John is independent of the Synoptics, it might depend on the eyewitness of a disciple? Is he the Beloved Disciple (one of the Twelve) as chapter 21, in fact, insinuates? Do the author of John and the Johannine believers derive their historical insights into Jesus’ life and teachings from one of the Twelve who was with Jesus? This question allows for the shaping of the traditions, for their symbolical development, and for the grounding of Jesus’ life in a pre-70 CE Palestinian setting, which moves beyond mere verisimilitude to at least occasionally reliable tradition (even history).19 Among the latter I would include the knowledge of Jerusalem (especially the Pool of Bethzatha), the recognition of the significance of stone vessels and the pre-70 CE Jewish preoccupation with purity, Jesus’ three-year ministry, especially in Judea, and Jesus’ frequent visits to Jerusalem, which the Marcan chronology will not allow but seems to presuppose.20 Sixth, the study of Christian Origins, in which the exploration into the identity of the Beloved Disciple is alone possible, has been enriched over the last two decades by insights obtained from anthropologists and especially sociologists. It is clear that three major social crises rocked the Johannine community. First, the Johannine Jews were being expelled from the synagogue, so there was a rift with other Jews. Second, the Johannine community was divided by a schism, which was focused on the claim that Jesus did come in the flesh, and which resulted in some leaving the Community (see 1Jn 2:18–25). Third, the death of the Beloved Disciple (the guarantor of the validity of the tradition in John) was most likely unexpected and traumatic. Obviously, some Johannine believers expected him to remain alive until Jesus came again (Jn 21:20–23),



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but he did not. Would survivors of the Essene sect, who possessed some insights into the traumas caused by the death of the Righteous Teacher, and former followers of John the Baptist who joined Jesus’ group (1:35–42), who lived through the anguish of his martyrdom, have helped the Johannine sectarians to cope with the death of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (their honorific title for one of Jesus’ Twelve)? Throughout the Gospel of John, there is a noticeable tension between the Beloved Disciple and Peter. Chapter 21, which is a unity (as Ruckstuhl has shown),21 first reestablishes Peter as worthy to feed Jesus’ lambs and tend his sheep—which are symbolical and ecclesiastical terms. But he is then made somewhat lower in prestige than “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (which certainly excludes Peter as the disciple beloved by Jesus and may mirror an anti-Petrine polemic). Obviously, by the end of the first century (the time when chapter 21 was probably added) Peter would represent to many “Christians” the church in Rome. John is now rightly, in my opinion, situated in the East, perhaps in western Syria which would include Upper Galilee (a region we now know was distinct from Lower Galilee). Is it conceivable that John reflects some political or sociological rivalry between West and East in earliest Christianity?22 Seventh, Bultmann and many other distinguished critics separated John into strata, redactional layers, and putative sources.23 These publications led to the assumption that John was in disarray and perhaps not in its original order (especially with Chapters 5 and 6). Now it seems that Jn 1:1–20:30 represents a “second” or later edition with the expansion of chapters 1:1–18, chapters 15–17, and some other verses (especially 4:2). Later, the same editor or another writer added chapter 21 as an appendix, and much later a scribe inserted the pericope concerning the adulteress (7:53–8:11). The linguistic unity of the Gospel, however, has been demonstrated by E. Schweitzer and E. Ruckstuhl.24 The new study of John stresses the literary unity and the author’s use of such paradigms as “above” and “below,” the employment of double entendre. The latter allows the reader to perceive “living water” as “fresh water” and “salvific water.” Also, the Greek noun for “again” is employed to denote “above,” and “raised up,” that is, both Jesus’ crucifixion and his exaltation. The author of John, as many have demonstrated, mastered the art of rhetoric. These insights into the coherency of John have helped us understand the beautiful narrative skills of the author of John.25 The Beloved Disciple is not to be categorized or dismissed as another narrative creation. Intensive research demonstrates that the Beloved Disciple is contrasted with Peter as a real historical person who also was accorded powerful symbolical meaning (see John 21 and Matthew 16). Hence, there was a trauma within the Johannine community because a real person died; a symbol does not “die” that way or cause such a crisis. The works of Schnackenburg and Brown illustrate quite conclusively that the Beloved Disciple was a real person who was the bearer of tradition—the eyewitness— for the Johannine community (represented in the pericopes in which “the disciple whom Jesus loved” dominates).26 The Petrine group would become unintelligible if the Beloved Disciple had been only a literary fiction. Eighth, for centuries Christian dogmatics and even systematic theology bracketed, and sometimes dictated, what a biblical scholar would be allowed to conclude. Now,

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however, New Testament experts in the best universities and seminaries are free to explore issues and examine questions with as much freedom as any other scholar. To what extent has the search for the identity of the Beloved Disciple been hindered by the claim that Jesus was born of a virgin and could not have had a biological brother or sister, and certainly not a fraternal twin? To what extent has the Roman Catholic assumption that the Beloved Disciple is John the son of Zebedee stifled creative reflections on focal pericopes? These are eight major paradigm shifts in New Testament research that directly affect the search for the possible identity of the Beloved Disciple. How is this search improved by the recognition that John may preserve reliable historical information, that there are sources in it that are as early as those in the Synoptics, and that Judaism of Jesus’ time and the time of the Fourth Evangelist was not what scholars once thought? How is our investigation aided by the perception that research on the historical Jesus has been surprisingly rewarding, that John is independent of the other gospels, and that one of the social crises confronting the Johannine community was the death of its “eyewitness”? It is evident that the Beloved Disciple was a real person and not a narrative fiction, and that Jesus may well have had (and in my judgment certainly did have) real, not just symbolical, half-brothers and half-sisters or even brothers and sisters. We may now begin an open search for the identity of the Beloved Disciple. Who was he? Why does the author and editor of this literary masterpiece not state clearly who he is? Does the author gradually remove the mask of secrecy which hides the identity of the Beloved Disciple? The following pages begin the inductive search for answers. In order to properly address the identity of the Beloved Disciple, we shall implement these eight criteria as our methodological approach:

1. Love. Who is the one referred to as the “Beloved Disciple”? 2. Anonymity. The Beloved Disciple appears anonymously. 3. Closeness or Authority. Who is the significant disciple who is close to Jesus? 4. Lateness. Why does the clause “the disciple whom Jesus loved” appear for the first time in Chapter 13?

5. Cross. Who is with Jesus when he dies and so clarifies the intimacy? 6. Commendation. Why does the Evangelist (not editor) affirm that the Beloved Disciple has a witness that is true (19:35; 21:24; cf. 5:32)?

7. Fear and death. Why was the Johannine community shaken by the death of the Beloved Disciple?

8. Peter. Why is the Beloved Disciple frequently portrayed as superior to Peter? In the following pages, I will answer all these questions and suggest who is the Beloved Disciple.27 In particular, by exploring the Gospel of John and exegetically analyzing it by means of these questions, I have been led to conclude that the author not only knew the identity of the Beloved Disciple, but intentionally allowed in extremely subtle ways his perceptive readers to discern that identity. Only one requisite seems necessary: to listen without preconceptions to the words of the author and editors in seeking to discern the meaning veiled within the deeply symbolical language.



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2  Introduction to the exegesis of texts that mention “the Beloved Disciple” The person we are seeking to identify, either literarily or historically, is called “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (τὸν μαθητὴν ὃν ἠγάπα ὁ Ἰησοῦς; 21:20). Should we use that expression or employ the idiomatic construction “the Beloved Disciple”?28 In his first volume of The Gospel According to St. John, which appeared in 1965, Schnackenburg suggested we avoid “the expression ‘Beloved Disciple.’”29 He preferred the literal translation, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” However, in his third volume, which was published in 1975 after his monograph on the subject, he wisely changed his mind.30 I shall thus follow the well-established custom of representing the noun and its relative clause with the epithet “the Beloved Disciple.” We must keep in mind, however, that “the Beloved Disciple” is a modern construct and an epithet. The research that follows has convinced me that “the disciple whom Jesus loved” was an honorific designation given to the disciple who was the witness to Jesus’ life for the members of the Johannine community. It was probably given to him by a person (or persons) in the Johannine school.31 I have also learned that it is conceivable that the person who created this clause is the Evangelist. Conceivably, the term can be invented as a literary device by an author (the passages are not editorial). Yet, most scholars rightly judge it to be a historical reference (without judgment on its historical authenticity). We must also remember that the Beloved Disciple appears anonymously. Nowhere does an author or editor of John clearly identify him with a named disciple in John, but it does not follow that his name never appears in John. That assumption is virtually inconceivable in light of the growing worldwide recognition that members of the Johannine community knew him personally and saluted him as their revered teacher and founder of the Johannine “School.”

3  What is the meaning of Jn 21:24? Who is the Beloved Disciple mentioned in John? Many leading commentators on John conclude that this disciple, “the one whom Jesus loved” (21:20), is the one referred to by the claims in 21:24: Οὗτός ἐστιν ὁ μαθητὴς ὁ μαρτυρῶν περὶ τούτων καὶ ὁ γράψας ταῦτα, καὶ οἴδαμεν ὅτι ἀληθὴς αὐτοῦ ἡ μαρτυρία ἐστίν. This is the disciple who has been witnessing to these things, and who has been writing these things; and we know that his witness is true.

E. Haenchen contends that “the narrator of chapter 21 had such interest in this disciple (and his destiny)” because he was, according to this chapter, “the last surviving eyewitness, whose testimony is true, as the ‘we’ which is not more precisely defined knows, has even written this Gospel himself. . . . The beloved disciple is not only the

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witness who has been invoked; he is the author of the Gospel itself.”32 Haenchen appeals to the literal meaning of 21:24. Is this the meaning of the Greek and is the exegesis correct? The verse is bewitchingly simple, but the Greek needs to be studied carefully. The popular rhetorician, Lucian (c. 125–180 CE), who called himself a Syrian, comically refers to claims such as those found in this verse. In satirical words meant to amuse, Lucian contends that his “True Stories” (ΑΛΗΘΩΝ ΔΙΗΓΗΜΑΤΩΝ) are far better than other histories; it has at least one truth: “I shall at least be truthful in saying that I am a liar.”33 The following excerpt has numerous important points that should help us comprehend Johannine thought and the meaning of the penultimate verse in John. “Be it understood, then, that I am writing about things which I have neither seen nor had to do with nor learned from others—which, in fact, do not exist at all and, in the nature of things, cannot exist. Therefore my readers should on no account believe in them.”34 Apropos for our study of Jn 21:24, and indeed of the entire Gospel and its claims, are these points: Lucian is writing about things he has neither seen nor experienced. The Evangelist claims to be writing about things he (or his witness, the Beloved Disciple) has seen and experienced. Lucian did not learn the things he is about to describe from others. The Evangelist gives evidence of using sources which he may well have received from the Beloved Disciple and other eyewitnesses. Lucian claims that what he is about to chronicle did not and cannot exist. The Evangelist contends that what he has written is factual and truthful and that he has described the awesome appearance of the divine into the human. Lucian warns his readers not to believe his account (μηδαμῶς πιστεύειν αὐτοῖς). The Evangelist concludes his final chapter with the exhortation to believe his writings that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God (ταῦτα γέγραπται ἵνα πιστεύ[σ]ητε . . . ἵνα πιστεύοντες; 20:31). Lucian’s assertions, although they postdate John, help us enter into and comprehend the world confronted by the Evangelist. In his endeavor to initiate (or deepen) belief in others, did he base his work on an eyewitness? Should we categorize the Evangelist with Polybius (c. 208–126 BCE), the great historian and historiographer who castigated Timaeus for being unacquainted with what he described and presented (or at least claimed to present) only what he had personally experienced, notably the burning of Carthage in 146 BCE? Certainly the Evangelist would have abhorred Lucian’s desire to entertain by telling lies, but he would have agreed with Polybius, and incidentally with Josephus, who apparently had studied Polybius, that in recounting history we must be accurate, base accounts only on truthful eyewitnesses, and avoid numerous false statements (πολλὰ ἱστορεῖ ψευδῆ).35 Hence, to a certain extent, it seems that Polybius’ historiography would have been attractive to the Evangelist. But was he an eyewitness like Polybius and Josephus, or one who based his writing on an eyewitness? Thus, is 21:24 to be seen as similar to the opening of the Book of Thomas the Contender, which claims that Judas Thomas heard what Jesus said but Mathaias wrote it down? The importance of 21:24 is extreme; but it is not necessary to judge it fraudulent if the Gospel was not composed by an eyewitness like John the Apostle. Much more important is the witness to the tradition. Is this witness an eyewitness? The great scholar of the École Biblique in Jerusalem, M.-J. Lagrange, couching his words contra



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the “extrémistees,” namely Goguel and Loisy, stated that John endeavored to present an eyewitness account (“prétendait être d’un témoin oculaire”) and to ignore that claim would leave us with a gospel devoid of authority, and indeed a fake (“une fraude littéraire”).36 That judgment may not be typical of experts on John today, but it would be phenomenally significant if scientific research could again cast a favorable light on the possibility that the Beloved Disciple was an eyewitness to portions of what was presented in the Fourth Gospel. That is why the search for the authorship of John and the identity of the Beloved Disciple has been the preoccupation of New Testament experts and “the Johannine Question.” Recently, the attention of Johannine experts has been on the sources that the author inherited (especially the so-called semeia source), on the origins of the Gospel, on the “school” or “circle” from which the Gospel arose, on the community that was suffering from a schism and also from being expelled from the synagogue by other Jews, and on the narrative unity of the Gospel. Yet the question of authorship never became a merely peripheral concern. As Ashton explains, this issue has been central in Johannine research because “the credibility” of the author and the Beloved Disciple is virtually synonymous with the reliability of John. If the “witness” is not true, then the credibility of John “must be severely reduced, if not destroyed, completely.”37 Of course, this conclusion would be dismissed by those students of John who think it merely a story, a fictional account of the Jesus who was worshipped in the late first century. Schnackenburg attempted to prove that 21:24 does not mean that the Beloved Disciple composed John. It means, rather, that he is the witness behind it, and that his witness is trustworthy.38 Painter may be correct, however, to point out the prima facie meaning of 21:24 is that the Beloved Disciple is both the author of John and the witness to the tradition.39 He is correct in that the Greek is no problem; 21:24 states that the disciple (identified from verse 20 as the Beloved Disciple) “also was the one writing these things” (καὶ ὁ γράψας ταῦτα). If the author of chapter 21 was closely aligned with the Beloved Disciple, which seems obvious, and the Beloved Disciple was the source—the eyewitness—to some of the events in the Gospel, then it would be understandable for the author of chapter 21 to attribute the Gospel to him. At that time in the history of writing, it was inappropriate to claim authorial rights to what really belonged to another. Hence, in terms of pseudepigraphical composition (known not only in the Johannine School with the Epistles and Revelation, but also in the Pauline School and obviously outside Christianity in Judaism and the literature of the Hellenistic and Roman Age), it is required to think about the meaning of “writing” in antiquity.40 Hence, I agree with F. C. Baur in the sense that John has a “pseudepigraphischen Charakter.”141 We must not assume that the author intended a monovalent meaning, and we should think about the intention of the verse. The thrust of 21:24 is decidedly on the trustworthiness of the witness of the Beloved Disciple. Beasley-Murray made an interesting suggestion on the verse. He argues that when it is written the Beloved Disciple “wrote” these things, it must mean he wrote down his own witness. According to this interpretation, John is based on “the written testimony of the beloved disciple.”42 Much earlier in a note published in The Expository Times, D. G. Rogers wrote, “We know that the beloved disciple wrote some kind of diary or memoir which

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the final editor of the fourth gospel used as his principal source (John 2124).”43 L. Johnson rightly replied to Rogers: “But we really know nothing of the kind.”44 Beasley-Murray’s comment is more nuanced than Rogers’ words. His position is not impossible, but it is equally possible, perhaps probable, that John was written by someone who based it on the witness of the Beloved Disciple. There is no reason to conclude that the Beloved Disciple wrote portions of John (or for that matter anything incorporated into it). D. M. Smith pointed out to me, viva voce, an analogy in John to verse 21:24. According to 19:1 Pilate “scourged” Jesus. That would be rather remarkable. The meaning of ἐμαστίγωσεν is surely that Pilate ordered Jesus to be scourged by someone else. Likewise, according to 19:19 Pilate wrote (ἔγραψεν) a title for the top of Jesus’ cross, but surely he caused this title to be written. The literal meaning of the Greek is that Pilate did these deeds; but like καὶ ὁ γράψας ταῦτα (21:24), we are confronted with a causative meaning of these two verbs.45 Pilate caused Jesus to be scourged and the title to be written. Likewise, I am convinced, the Beloved Disciple caused John to be written; that is, he provided the eyewitness account so John could be written. Barrett correctly advises that “he who is writing these things” (ὁ γράψας ταῦτα) in 21:24 does not mean that the Beloved Disciple is the author of John. He suggests that this expression could be translated, who caused to be written.” His paraphrase of this section is attractive: “We, who are actually publishing the gospel, recognize that the authority and responsibility for it are both to be found in the beloved disciple, who gave us the necessary information, and thus virtually wrote the gospel.”46 In Early Judaism and Early Christianity no clear distinction was made between words attributed to someone and the words uttered by that person. For us to claim that John contains the Evangelist’s editing of Jesus’ words or even hermeneutical expansions of what he intended to say could mean in the early centuries of Christianity that the author of John preserved the meaning of what Jesus actually said. That point would be tantamount to saying that Jesus may as well have written these words down himself. Proof of this insight is Aphrahat’s quotations from John. He wrote neither that the Evangelist recorded Jesus’ sayings nor that he preserved Jesus’ words. Rather, this fourth century Persian sage wrote “as He, our Lord, wrote . . . ” he continued, “Jesus who is called your teacher wrote to you.”47 That this relationship between Jesus and the text of the New Testament dates much earlier, even to the time of John, is demonstrated by a passage in the Didache: “As the Lord commanded in his gospel” (ὡς ἐκέλευσεν ὁ κύριος ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελιίῳ αὐτοῦ; 8:2). For many readers of the Didache this comment meant that Jesus wrote the Gospel. Modern scholars try to distinguish between source, implied author, author, and authorial intent. These were not distinguished in antiquity. In modern narrative methodology we might say that the Beloved Disciple is not the author, but the implied author of John. That is to say, the author of chapter 21 intends to ascribe authorship of John, all twenty-one chapters, to none other than the Beloved Disciple. L. Doohan contends, The beloved disciple, the real founder of the Johannine community, is contrasted with Peter and the mainline churches. He represented the source of the community’s theology. The Fourth Gospel’s editor used the beloved disciple as the implied author, whose position of special stature close to Jesus became adequate defence of the community’s peculiar understanding of the Gospel.48



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Hence, we are to comprehend the composition of John from multiple sources, the oral witness of the Beloved Disciple, the literary work of the Evangelist, and the editing by at least one hand (and perhaps in addition, the one who added the appendix which is chapter 21). The recognition that the Beloved Disciple is the implied author is in harmony with what R. A. Culpepper calls “a consensus among Johannine scholars.” I agree with him that this consensus exists regarding the search for the Beloved Disciple. It can be represented, in his judicious words, as follows: “It is that there was a real person, who may have been an eyewitness to events in Jesus’ ministry, and who was later the authoritative source of tradition for the Johannine community.”49 Finally, it would be inappropriate if someone besides the Beloved Disciple referred to himself with the honorific words “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Hence for the present focus, we shall distinguish three people: the author of John (the Evangelist), the editor who added sections (and if another, the one who added chapter 21), and the eyewitness, the Beloved Disciple, whose account lies behind chapters 1–20.50 Thus the literary parallel to 21:24 is the opening of the Book of Thomas the Contender: “The secret words which the Savior (σωτήρ) spoke to Judas Thomas, the ones which I wrote down, even I, Matthias.”51 The author of the Gospel of John reports, with additions, what the Beloved Disciple had personally witnessed. The significance of this distinction needs to be accentuated. We shall not be seeking to discern who wrote John, but we shall seek to discern who may in fact be the witness behind the writing. Our focal question becomes: Can we identify the Beloved Disciple, the witness behind the composition of John? What is the meaning of “and we know that his witness is true” (21:24)? Scholars have defended four interpretations of this clause, which in the order of lesser to greater probable validity are as follows:

1. The “Presbyters of Ephesus” added it; 2. The author of John used “we” to include readers who concur; 3. The “we” is an editorial “I” by the author of John; 4. The redactor revealed that John was based on this eyewitness. The first interpretation was defended by Westcott, Calmes, Lagrange, and Streeter; it was the exegesis defended when most commentators concurred that the Beloved Disciple was the Apostle John.52 The second interpretation was the view of medieval commentators, namely Euthymius Zigabenus, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas.53 It is no longer defensible because of the evidence that another writer added chapter 21. The third interpretation was defended by Chapman, who claimed that the Evangelist wrote chapter 21 “before publication.”54 This possibility is unlikely since (inter alia) it is contrasted grammatically with the two singular particles that precede it: “the one who is witnessing” (ὁ μαρτυρῶν) and “the one who is writing” (ὁ γράψας). Moreover, these particles are introduced by “This is the disciple . . . .”55 The fourth interpretation is most likely. All manuscripts of John contain the final chapter; hence they belong to a later edition of John. The redactor who added it spoke for those who in the Johannine community believed in Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God because of the truthful testimony of the eyewitness of John, the Beloved Disciple.

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Do the author of chapters 1–20 (in the first edition of John) and the editors provide any clues for the identity of the Beloved Disciple?

4  Could Thomas be the Beloved Disciple? My inductive search led me to an alarming discovery, since I had assumed Thomas was to be categorized as “Doubting Thomas.” I read John with great interest to disprove my hypothesis. Each attempt confirmed my discovery. Thomas doubted any glib confession. He refused to accept the disciples claim that Jesus had been raised from the dead. Like a good disciple, he demanded proof. He demanded to experience what they claimed to have experienced. Thus, I now share twelve insights which are exegetically based. Each indicates that the most likely candidate for the Beloved Disciple is Thomas. The first and most decisive indicates that Thomas must have knowledge possessed only by the Beloved Disciple. According to the narrator, the only male who sees the thrust of the lance is the Beloved Disciple (19:32–35). Yet Thomas, whom the narrator otherwise does not indicate could have known about Jesus’ thoracic wound, demands to see and put his hand into it (20:25). The second pertains to the link between the Beloved Disciple and Judas Iscariot, and these may imply that the former is Thomas. The third concerns martyrdom. Neither Thomas nor the Beloved Disciple were martyred, yet the narrator may imply that the former and the latter were faithful to Jesus unto death, by on the one hand exhorting martyrdom, and on the other being the only disciple with Jesus until the end. The fourth discloses that both the Beloved Disciple passages and the Thomas story in 20:24–29 were added to the developing Gospel by the Evangelist, perhaps in the second edition. The fifth concerns the framing of “the twin” in the narrative of John, which indicates that Thomas and the Beloved Disciple are linked by the way they are introduced in the Gospel. The sixth focuses on the disciples of Jesus, among whom is the Beloved Disciple. The seventh indicates that the repetitions and formulae indicate to the reader that the Beloved Disciple is Thomas. The eighth picks up Minear’s insight regarding the Benjamin motif behind the portrayal of the Beloved Disciple and reveals a little-known fact about Thomas. The ninth brings out the similarities in identity between Thomas and the Beloved Disciple that are apparent narratively in the Book of Glory and the portrayal of each as the ideal student. The tenth is a technical, sequential literary device that through ambiguity, misunderstanding, and clarification gradually reveals that the Beloved Disciple is Thomas. The eleventh is a grand inclusio in which a follower of John the Baptizer witnesses to Jesus, then is disclosed to be the Beloved Disciple, and finally is revealed as none other than Thomas. The twelfth clarifies that the Beloved Disciple, if he is Thomas, follows the Jewish regulations for purification, and thus serves as the ideal disciple for those Johannine believers who wish to continue in observing Jewish rules and customs. The name “Thomas” deserves discussion. From Hebrew and Aramaic-speaking circles prior to 135 CE, there is little evidence that twm (‫)תום‬, which means “twin,” was



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a proper name (nomen proprium). In Syriac-speaking Christianity, of course, it was a well-known name, because of the New Testament texts in Syriac in which Thomas, called Judas Thomas, appears in Semitic form. The old Hebrew translations of the name are ‫תומה‬, ‫תומוס‬, ‫תומאס‬, ‫טומא‬.56 The Greek equivalent, or translation, is Δίδυμος‚ (which appears in Jn 11:16; 20:24; 21:2). This Greek noun was a nomen proprium in Greekspeaking communities. The author of John repeatedly translates the meaning of the name into Greek: “Thomas, who was called Didymus” (Θωμᾶς ὁ λεγόμενος Δίδυμας).57 Unlike the names Lazarus (e.g., Eleazar) and Nathanael, Thomas is not theophoric. It is, however, hypocoristic (a nickname indicating intimacy). Ancient traditions connect Thomas with Jesus (if not his twin in blood then in looks or spirituality). There are abundant early Christian traditions that would lend credence to the conclusion that Thomas is indeed the Beloved Disciple. In conclusion, no solution can be presented as if it is the definitive solution. Only after much exegetical focus on John have I concluded that a very attractive identity is implicitly given to the Beloved Disciple, an identity surprisingly not yet seen by Johannine exegetes. While this chapter has focused primarily on a couple of key passages dealing with the Beloved Disciple, by no means does this conclusively exhaust our research or fully answer the question at hand. While this short study has made a contribution to the discussion, in order to seek out the most suitable and well-thought answers to such questions, we must make the effort to study all of John and not only the passages in which the Beloved Disciple is mentioned. As such, future research will have to test further the proposal presented here. Perhaps the present work will spur much debate and renewed interest in the search for the meaning, function, and especially the identity of the Beloved Disciple. There can be no doubt that the Beloved Disciple serves above all to ground and authenticate Johannine theology and Christology. He is the trustworthy witness to the veracity of the Gospel about the one who has come from above.58

Notes 1 This chapter is a revised version of passages in Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1995). 2 See the Introduction and Chapters 1, 2, and 6 for references to recent publications. 3 See J. H. Charlesworth, “Reinterpreting John: How the Dead Sea Scrolls have Revolutionized our Understanding of the Gospel of John,” BR 9 (1993): 18–25, 54. 4 Among numerous publications, see Robert Fortna, The Gospel of Signs (SNTSMS 11; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1970). Urban C. von Wahlde, The Earliest Version of John's Gospel: Recovering the Gospel of Signs (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1989). 5 One scholar whose work has been unfortunately neglected in recent Johannine studies is D. Flusser; see his, “A Jewish-Christian Source for the Gospel of John,” in Yahadut u-Meqorot ha-Naẓrut (Tel Aviv, 1979), pp. 66–72. See also D. Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988), pp. 593–603. 6 See N. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1980) and E. Stern, et al., eds., The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993).

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7 The early rabbinic literature has often been unduly neglected in light of the excitement caused by research on the Pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls. See the major publications by Jacob Neusner on early Rabbinics and the shaping of Judaism; he has published over 600 works. For English translations of the Mishna, see H. Danby, The Mishna (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933) and J. Neusner, The Mishnah (New Haven: Yale, 1988). 8 J. Roloff, “Der johanneische ‘Lieblingsjünger’ und der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit,” NTS 15 (1968–69): 129–51. Paul Hanson in his monograph makes a similar point concerning the anonymity of apocalyptic texts and their authorship. See The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), p. 252. See also James Scott’s claims concerning anonymity and the literature of resistance in Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), especially 136–81. 9 R. E. Brown, “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,” CBQ 17 (1955): 403–19, 559–74. 10 J. Ashton (Understanding the Fourth Gospel [Oxford: Clarendon, 1991], pp. 237) states: “The evangelist may well have started life as one of those Essenes who were to be found, according to Josephus, ‘in large numbers in every town.’” This is a brilliant insight; Ashton visited me in Princeton and told me that he has not changed his mind. 11 R. Alan Culpepper, The Johannine School (Missoula: Scholars, 1975). 12 These documents are now ordered, first by number and then by name in each volume of James H. Charlesworth, et al., eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994). 13 J. H. Charlesworth, editor, John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1991); see especially the “Foreword” from 1989. Also see Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, translated by C. Hastings; 3 vols. (New York: Seabury, 1968) 1:135. On this page, Schnackenburg concludes that the author of John may have learned from Qumran Essenes “who later entered Christian, Johannine communities.” 14 See Ruckstuhl, “Der Jünger, den Jesus liebte,” in Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (ed. ed. E. Ruckstuhl; Stuttgart: Katholiches Bibelwerk GmbH, 1988), pp. 393–95. He states clearly on page 393, “The disciple, whom Jesus loved, may have been a monk in the Essene Community in Jerusalem.” On many occasions, other scholars have agreed with this conclusion, viva voce, including Bargil Pixner. 15 See especially the following: J. H. Charlesworth, “From Barren Mazes to Gentle Rappings: The Emergence of Jesus Research,” Princeton Seminary Bulletin 7, no. 2 (1986): 221–30. See the many contributions to J. H. Charlesworth, and P. Pokorný, with Brian Rhea, eds., Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions. The Second Princeton Symposium on Jewish Research (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). 16 See J. H. Charlesworth, “Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenological Description of ‘Word,’” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 30 (1970): 609–13 and J. H. Charlesworth, “Polyani, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt in Svetopisemska Hermenevtika,” in Biblija Simpozij: 1996 Ljubljana: International Symposium on the Interpretation of the Bible (Ljubljana: Organizacijski odbor Mednarodnega simpozija o interpretaciji Svetega pisma, 1996). 17 E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985); J. H. Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism: New Light from Exciting Archaeological Discoveries (ABRL 1; New York: Doubleday, 1988). J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, 5 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1991–2015); D. C. Allison, Jr., Constructing Jesus (London: SPCK and Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2010). 18 D. M. Smith, John among the Gospels: The Relationship in Twentieth Century Research (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992).



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19 Verisimilitude must not be confused with historicity, but also a historical account that lacks verisimilitude to what could or would have occurred can scarcely be judged “historically” reliable. See also the Introduction and Chapters 5 and 6. 20 See especially Mk 11:2–11; 14:13–16. 21 Ruckstuhl, “Der Jünger, den Jesus liebte,” pp. 355–401. 22 Many tensions existed between the East and West, between villages in Galilee (notably Sepphoris vs. Jotapata), and between Galilee and Judea, evident in the horrible “wars” within Jerusalem between John of Gischala of Galilee and Simon bar Giori of Judea. In some areas, there was little cultural discontinuity after 70 CE (Sepphoris, Tiberias, Caesarea Maritima). In other locales, villages were never rebuilt after the devastation of 67 (Jotapata and Gamla), and many cities and villages were ravaged (Migdal and Jerusalem). In 2015, a wall apparently built by Josephus to fortify Migdal was discovered near the pre-70 CE synagogue. I have studied this wall which is a pile of stones and a pillar to block a street. The excavations have not yet been published; I am indebted to Dr. Dina Avshalom-Gorni for sharing her excavations. 23 See R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John (trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray; Oxford: Blackwells, 1971). 24 E. Schweizer, Ego Eimi (FRLANT 56; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965). See also E. Ruckstuhl and P. Dschulnigg, Stilkritik und Verfasserfrage im Johannesevangelium (NTOA 17; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1991). 25 See R. Alan Culpepper, The Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia, Fortress, 1983). P. D. Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: Scholars, 1985). G. M. O’Day, Revelation in the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986). Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, pp. 381–553. Quite distinct from other approaches is that of T. L. Brodie (The Gospel According to John: A Literary and Theological Commentary [New York: Oxford, 1993], p. 19) who sees the contradictions and abrupt shifts (as between chapters 14 and 15) as the author’s attempt to warn the reader that he is not writing a biography but a composition focused “on the mindsurpassing realm of the spirit.” Thus he stresses the rhetorical unity of John. 26 R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John and Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John. 27 See also my The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John (pp. 428–32). 28 The Beloved Disciple must not be confused with the many individuals in Christian origins who have received the title “beloved.” Indeed, Jesus is often called the beloved in the Odes of Solomon and in the eastern Gnostic texts. See especially Ode 38 and the “Crucifixion Hymn,” in H.-J. Klimkeit, Gnosis on the Silk Road: Gnostic Texts from Central Asia (New York: Harper), pp. 71–72. 29 Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 1.97. 30 Ibid., 3.375. 31 I use “Johannine believers” to denote the members (mostly Jews) in the Johannine community in which there was a school for study and reflection on the origins and in-depth meaning of the “Christian” faith. Scholars in this school produced numerous literary works, including the first and second editions of John (which included a “hymn” or “psalm,” or “poem” of the Community, the Logos Hymn), the appendix (chapter 21), and the Johannine letters (1–3 John). Perhaps, the Revelation of John and the Odes of Solomon also come from the Johannine School. 32 Ernst Haenchen, John, translated by F. W. Funk and U. Besse (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 2.228.

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33 Lucian, Ver. hist. 1.4 (Harmon in LCL). 34 Ibid. 35 Polybius, Hist 12.7.1 (Paton in LCL). In book XII, Polybius articulates the peculiar virtue of historical study: to recover the words actually spoken and to ascertain the cause of the results of actions (12.25b). Polybius argues that historians must be those experienced in things recounted and to have been an eyewitness to at least some of them (12.25g). He stresses the superiority of seeing over hearing, quoting Heraclitus’ “The eyes are more accurate witnesses (ἀκριβέστεροι μάρτθρες) than the ears” (12.27). Thus, the author must either be an eyewitness or have interrogated those who were. The Fourth Evangelist endeavors through his narrative, and especially in 19:35 and 21:24, to endorse this norm. It becomes much more obvious how powerful is Thomas’ request in the final scene of the drama. 36 M.-J. Legrange, Évangile selon Saint Jean (EBib; Paris: Librairie Victor Lecoffre, 1925), pp. cxcvi–cxcix. 37 Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, p. 15. 38 Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 3.379. 39 J. Painter, The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Community (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991), pp. 87–95. 40 See James H. Charlesworth, “Psuedepigraphy,” EEC, 765–68. 41 F. C. Baur, Kritiche Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien, ihr Verhältnis zueinander, ihren Charakter und Ursprung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1847), pp. 377–79. 42 G. R. Beasley-Murray, John (Dallas: Word Publishing, 1989), p. 5. 43 D. G. Rogers, “Who was the Beloved Disciple?” ExpT 77 (1965–66): 214. It is rather interesting to observe what can be claimed as knowledge. 44 L. Johnson, “The Beloved Disciple—A Reply,” ExpT 77 (1965–66): 380. 45 The causative (and permissive) verbal form is pervasive in Semitics. See J. H. Charlesworth, “The Beth Essentiae and the Permissive Meaning of the Hiphil (Aphel),” in Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental Judaism, and Christian Origins (ed. H. W. Attridge et al.; New York: University Press of America, 1990), pp. 67–78. 46 C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), p. 119. 47 See the text and discussion in Tjitze Baarda, The Gospel Quotations of Aphrahat the Persian Sage, 2 vols. (Amsterdam: Krips Repro B. V. Meppel, 1975) 1.324–25. 48 L. Doohan, John: Gospel for a New Age (Santa Fe: Bear & Co., 1988), p. 39. 49 Culpepper, The Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, p. 47. 50 R. E. Brown stressed long ago that since 21:24 refers to the Beloved Disciple in the third person we must think about an author of John and a “disciple-editor” as the final writer. When he made that point, Brown still thought that the basic tradition stemmed from John, the son of Zebedee. See Brown, New Testament Essays (Garden City: Doubleday, 1968), pp. 187–217, especially 200. 51 For the Coptic and English translation, see J. D. Turner, The Book of Thomas the Contender (SBLDS 23; Missoula: Scholars, 1975), pp. 8–9. 52 See the bibliographical data and discussion in J. Chapman, “We Know that his Testimony is True,” JTS 31 (1930): 379–87. Chapman was convinced that the Beloved Disciple was the Apostle John; see page 380 and his article “Names in the Fourth Gospel,” JTS 30 (1928): 16–23. 53 For additional names, see J. Chapman, “We Know that his Testimony is True,” JTS 31 (1930): 382.



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54 J. Chapman, “We Know that his Testimony is True,” JTS 31(1930): 383–87. 55 It is true that both Nicodemus and Mary Magdalene use “we know” (οἴδαμεν). However, in the first instance (3:2) it signifies the group Nicodemus represents (he comes to Jesus ἐκ τῶν φαρισαίων) and in the second (20:2) it is probably a remnant of the early tradition which described Mary Magdalene and other women going to the tomb early on the first day of the week (cf. Mk 16:1). 56 G. Howard, The Gospel of Matthew According to a Primitive Hebrew Text (Macon: Mercer, 1987), p. 42. See the facsimiles of Hebrew manuscripts from 1668 to 1805 in J. Carmignac, ed., Évangiles de Luc et de Jean traduits en hébreu en 1668 par Giovanni Battista Iona retouchés en 1805 par Thomas Yeates (Turnhout: Brépols, 1982) ad loc cit. 57 See the comments by Brown in The Gospel According to John, p. 424. 58 As Schmithals (Johannesevangelium und Johannesbriefe [Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1992], p. 220) stated, “Er ist Joh 21,24 zufolge als Augenzeuge der Verfasser des ­Evangeliums.”

4

The Historical and Social Setting of the Gospel of John in Light of the Essenes1

The scholarly perspectives on the historical and social setting of the Gospel of John have evolved over the past century. Most scholars no longer assume a pre-Christian Gnosticism that defined John. Greek influence is obvious in Palestine before Alexander the Great’s conquests, as has been clear from my previous chapters. No scholars doubt that diversity defined Second Temple Judaism and that Jews generally were tolerant of some diversity, even though Samaritans were often judged to be different and excluded from Judaism (if that term retains clarity).2 The Dead Sea Scrolls comprise a diverse Jewish library from the land and time of Jesus. The library was found in eleven caves on the northwestern shores of the Dead Sea, one of the lowest places on the earth. Some of the caves form a semicircle to the south and west of an ancient ruin that was destroyed by Roman soldiers in early summer of 68 CE. The ruin is known as “Khirbet Qumran.” The library contained at least 1,000 scrolls (some fragments are still unknown to scholars), and among them are copies of nearly all the books in the Hebrew Scriptures, copies of some of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and various other texts. These also include copies of formerly unknown works unique to the Qumran Community, such as the Rule of the Community, the Thanksgiving Hymns, and lost portions of the Damascus Document. Although many scholars rightly label the Qumran Community an Essene group (or sect), the library itself should not be labeled an “Essene library.” Just as the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and the British Library in London house the works of thousands of authors from different places and times, so too the Qumran library consists of compositions from many different Jews. Some documents represent the ideology and worldview of the Essenes, while other works represent the ideologies and worldviews of other Jews, some of whom held very different ideas from the Essenes.3 Thus, the library may represent some of the ideas and traditions of the Sadducees and the Pharisees (or their precursors), the Samaritans, Enochic groups, and various other types of early Jews. The diversity of content in the Qumran library leads us to question the very nature of the Qumran Community. Was the Qumran Community really the marginal group previous scholars had once assumed?4 Recent studies on this diverse and multiform collection of texts found near Khirbet Qumran has caused a paradigm shift in the study of Second Temple Judaism (or Early



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Judaism); in many ways the claims made by scholars several decades ago about what was “typical” of the Judaism of Jesus’ day have become increasingly obsolete and misleading. The purpose of the present chapter is to discern how, and in what ways, recent research on the Dead Sea Scrolls may help us better comprehend the theological and ideological perspectives present in the work known now as “the Gospel of John” as well as address questions concerning its origins and compositional milieu. The central question becomes: How have the ideas found in the Dead Sea Scrolls helped improve the study of the origins of Christianity and, in particular, comprehension of the origin and meaning of the Fourth Gospel? That is, how have the ideas in these ancient scrolls changed our understanding of Jewish thought during the time of Jesus and his followers? How have they shifted our perception of the origins of Christianity? These are questions that have caught the imaginations of many, including scholars who have devoted decades to seeking answers that are representative of these challenging discoveries. Such assessments have opened something like a newly found window through which we can get a better glimpse of life and thought in and near Jerusalem before, during, and shortly after the time of Jesus of Nazareth. As a number of prominent scholars have already shown, the Dead Sea Scrolls have revolutionized our perception of Judaism before the burning of the Temple in 70 CE.5 In turn, the terms and concepts preserved in these ancient scrolls have also dramatically altered our understanding of Christian origins and our interpretation of much of the New Testament, including Paul’s letters, Hebrews, Revelation, the Synoptic Gospels, and Acts.6 Now, most New Testament specialists recognize that one of the New Testament texts most dramatically improved in terms of our understanding by the discovery of the Qumran Scrolls has been the Fourth Gospel. While nineteenth century scholars were quick to identify the Johannine Gospel primarily as a second century composition written from a Greek perspective, it is now clear that the Fourth Gospel is a text composed during the first century and bearing an extensively ancient Jewish profile. In the following pages, our assessment of recent archaeological discoveries and the Dead Sea Scrolls will help us better understand the rationale behind this paradigm shift.

1  The Gospel of John as a second century composition: An earlier consensus in historical criticism For the last two centuries of scientific research, the acids of biblical criticism burned away many cherished perceptions regarding the Fourth Gospel. It was slowly but widely accepted that John was the latest of the Gospels and thereby historically unreliable. The founder of the Tübingen School, F. C. Baur, claimed that the Fourth Gospel could not be apostolic because it was written around 170 CE.7 At the beginning of the twentieth century, A. Loisy claimed that the Fourth Evangelist was a theologian unacquainted with any historical preoccupation and thereby could not have been an eyewitness to Jesus’ life and teachings, let alone an apostle. Loisy contended, moreover, that a convert

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from Diaspora Judaism composed the Fourth Gospel, that the Fourth Evangelist was influenced by Philo, and that he was “one of the greatest mystical theologians.” For many experts, the concepts in this gospel were shaped by Alexandrian Judaism.8 Thus, the Fourth Gospel was inspired by Greek philosophy. The Logos concept aligned John with pre-Socratics, like Heraclitus, or with the Stoics. Several years later, J. Weiss concluded that Johannine dualism could not have derived from any form of Judaism and must have emerged from Hellenistic thought.9 Similarly, in 1937 E. J. Goodspeed claimed: The thoroughly Greek character of the thought and interest of the Gospel, its literary (dialogue) cast, its thoroughly Greek style, its comparatively limited use of the Jewish Scriptures (roughly one-fifth of Matthew’s), its definite purpose to strip Christianity of its Jewish swaddling clothes, its intense anti-Jewish feeling, and its great debt to the mystery religions—combined to show that its author was a Greek not a Jew. In the Gospel of John the Greek genius returns to religion.10

While not all Johannine scholars at that time would have agreed fully with Goodspeed, nevertheless, his words do encapsulate the spirit of the majority approach of his time to the Fourth Gospel.11 Thus, exactly ten years before the discovery of the scrolls, a leading New Testament expert could claim that John was composed by a Greek who was mostly influenced by mystery religions and Greek philosophy rather than Early Judaism, going as far as to claim that John was the most Greek of the Gospels. In turn, these nineteenth- and early twentieth century scholars held the consensus position that the Fourth Gospel was perhaps written sometime in the middle or late second century CE. Hence, they confidently dismissed the ancient tradition that the Fourth Gospel was related to—let alone written by—the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee.

2  A new consensus: The Gospel of John as a first century composition and its Jewish influences After more than seventy-five years of work on the Qumran library, many Johannine experts throughout the world conclude that the Fourth Gospel may contain some of the oldest traditions in the Gospels. It is also conceivable, though ultimately impossible to prove, that some of these oldest sections may be related in some ways to an eyewitness of Jesus. None of us should close the option that the first author was perhaps an apostle and conceivably the Apostle John himself. The extant Fourth Gospel certainly represents more than one edition.12 The Fourth Gospel is now judged to be Jewish. Most commentators who now study it do so in terms of first century Palestinian Jewish writings, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls. As M. Hengel states, “The Qumran discoveries are a landmark for a new assessment of the situation of the Fourth Gospel in the history of religion.”13 How is this possible? What has led us to such a marked shift?



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3  The date and provenience of the Gospel of John When I published this section, scholars agreed that the discovery of manuscript P52, preserved in Manchester’s John Rylands Library, closed the door to the possibility that the Fourth Gospel postdates 125 CE.14 This fragment of John is not from a source utilized by the author, rather it represents a codex of this Gospel. The fragment contains 18:31–33 and 18:37–38 and was once confidently dated no later than 125 CE. If so, a late second century date for the Gospel is now impossible, since a fragment of a book can hardly predate its composition. It now seems safe to report that scholars do not date the Fourth Gospel after the first decade of the second century CE, and most experts agree that it dates from around 100 CE or perhaps a decade earlier. Hence, the Fourth Gospel is now perceived to be a late first century composition in its present extant form (minus 7:53–8:11, which was added much later because it is not found in the earliest witnesses).15 Moreover, the Gospel evolved over decades and through many editions, with at least 1:1–18 and chapter 21 added by perhaps the Evangelist himself (although the Logos Hymn may not be his own composition).16 The “first edition” would have to antedate the present Gospel (chs. 1–20), and that may take us back to a time near to the composition of the Gospel of Mark shortly before 70 CE, or perhaps even earlier.17 As a number of scholars have postulated, the Evangelist appears to have used sources, some of them being very early. One of them may have been a Signs Source,18 one which appreciably predates the Gospel of Mark. This alleged source used by the Fourth Evangelist may have been composed in ancient Palestine by a Jew living within a decade or two of Jesus of Nazareth.19 Hengel and many others are convinced that the “numerous linguistic and theological parallels to Qumran, especially in the sphere of dualism, predestination, and election also point to Palestine” as the provenience of the Fourth Gospel.20 In his superb commentary on the Fourth Gospel, L. Morris came to the conclusion that the Dead Sea Scrolls “have demonstrated, by their many parallels to this Gospel both in ideas and expression, that our Fourth Gospel is essentially a Palestinian document.”21 F. F. Bruce expressed the same conclusion: An argument for the Palestinian provenance of this Gospel which was not available to scholars of earlier generations has been provided by the discovery and study of documents emanating from the religious community which had its headquarters at Qumran, north-west of the Dead Sea, for about two centuries before AD 70.22

In 2015, Marianne M. Thompson notes that the Dead Sea Scrolls “proved pivotal” in situating John within Palestinian Judaism: “The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, coupled with increased attention to Early Judaism in the last fifty years or so, has certainly changed the discussion, causing interpreters to reevaluate the provenance of John’s Gospel and to situate its origins firmly in first century Palestine.”23 It is not only the research on the Qumran Scrolls that has led to this new appreciation. Other discoveries and studies have contributed to this reassessment. Among them the most important are our renewed appreciation of the Fourth

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Evangelist’s keen knowledge of topography, the debates we now know were raging within Early Judaism, and the importance of the Parables of Enoch. Impressive are the Evangelist’s physical descriptions (esp. of Bethesda and Siloam),24 his understanding of the Samaritans and their territory, and the costly provisions for the Jewish rites of purification.25

4  The historicity of the Gospel of John For decades scholars thought it obvious that the Fourth Gospel contained false or, at least, historically misleading information. The Evangelist referred to a monumental pool inside the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem (Jn 5:1–18), but no ancient descriptions of Jerusalem supported this report. This pool is not mentioned in the Old Testament Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Josephus, or in Josephus’ descriptions of Jerusalem. Yet the Evangelist described the Pool of Bethsaida as having five porticoes. Johannine specialists judged John to be misinformed, because no ancient building resembled a pentagon. It seemed to follow that the Evangelist could not have been a Jew who knew Jerusalem. He seems to be an author interested in symbolism and was ignorant of the physical description of pre-70 CE Jerusalem. Archaeologists, however, decided to dig exactly where the Evangelist claimed a pool was located and designated for healing. Their excavations revealed an ancient pool with shrines probably dedicated to the Greek god of healing, Asclepius. The pool had porticoes (open areas with large columns): one to the north, one to the east, one to the south, one to the west, and one between two pools.26 The two buildings, dedicated to healing, thus had five porticoes. Hence, the Evangelist knew something about Jerusalem that was not mentioned in other sources, composed by individuals, like Josephus, who had lived there.27 Many commentators, intent on understanding the meaning of the episode in which Jesus turned water into wine (Jn 2:1–11), have missed the importance of an oblique aside made by the Evangelist.28 He reports that “Six stone jars were standing there, for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons” (2:6). In the last four decades we have found many stone vessels in Lower Galilee and Judea. We have become aware of the crucial importance of stone vessels; they were far superior to earthen jars for early Jews since their impermeability prohibited impurity from contaminating the contents. For example, in the Temple Scroll, the longest of all the Dead Sea Scrolls, we possess a pre-70 CE firsthand insight into the regulations and necessity for purification. A house and everything within it, especially valuable commodities stored in pottery vessels, becomes impure when one who is ritually unclean enters: And if a woman should become pregnant and her fetus dies within her womb, all the days that it is dead within her, she shall be impure as a grave. Each house which she might enter into shall become impure, as are all its vessels, (for) seven days. . . . And all vessels of clay (‫ )וכול כלי חרש‬shall be shattered, because they are impure and cannot be purified again forever and ever. (Temple Scroll 50:10–19)29



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Excavators working in the Upper City of Jerusalem have unearthed large stone vessels, like the ones the Fourth Evangelist notes in passing. All of them antedate the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE. The chief excavator, N. Avigad, reported, “we were astonished by the rich and attractive variety of the stone vessels.”30 Stone vessels have subsequently been found in both places called “Cana” in Lower Galilee; the site mentioned in John 2.31 Hence, the Evangelist, who was a Jew and probably his fellow Jews, possessed considerable knowledge about Jewish purification rights. We now know from other areas of research that the requirements for purification were increased considerably from the time when Herod the Great began to rebuild the Temple around 20 BCE until its destruction in 70 CE.32 The Fourth Gospel should not, therefore, be ignored in the study of pre-70 traditions that may contain history and it may represent a “school.”33 All pertinent data should be amassed in order to reconstruct the past. Hand in glove with the previous relegation of the Fourth Gospel to the second century and perception of it as a Greek work was the contention that it was only theology and not history. Only the Synoptics could be used in searching for the historical Jesus. As P. Fredriksen states, The Discovery of the Scrolls—whose place, date, and completely Jewish context is very secure—undermined this view of the Fourth Gospel. For the Scrolls, like John, speak the language of Children of Light and Children of Darkness; they too envisage struggle between the two realms. One need not posit, then, as earlier scholars did, that such language and thinking point to a late or non-Jewish origin for John’s Gospel. The Scrolls incontrovertibly show that early first century Judean Jews spoke and thought in similar ways. And an earlier, Jewish context of composition for John’s Gospel then reopens the question of its historical value for reconstructing Jesus’ life.34

Such comments indicate that now a powerful movement is finally evident among the leading scholars. The Fourth Gospel must not be shelved in attempts to say something about Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph (that full name appears only in Jn 1:45 and 6:42; cf. Lk 4:22), and his time.35 As D. M. Smith demonstrated, the Gospel of John contains “an array of historical data,” which has as good a claim to be historically reliable as passages in the Synoptics.36 J. P. Meier has shown in his study of the historical Jesus that the Fourth Gospel often provides genuine historical information.37 In The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide, G. Theissen and A. Merz rightly stress that the Fourth Gospel is independent of the Synoptics and that in places preserves “old traditions” that are “not worthless” historically.38 In her Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews, P. Fredriksen uses the Fourth Gospel to solve the riddle of Jesus’ crucifixion and the survival of his followers. In Rabbi Jesus, B. Chilton heavily depends on the historical information found in the Fourth Gospel to write this “intimate biography.” In the terminology of Hellenistic historiography, the Fourth Gospel is a mixture of rhetorical and mimetic historiography (as M. Meiser argues for Philo’s Against Flaccus);39 but more importantly for understanding “history” in the Fourth Gospel is the Jewish creative view of history40 and the importance of the events themselves (as P. Borgen has shown for Against Flaccus).41

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5  Dualism and Qumran theology The Dead Sea Scrolls’ most important impact on the study of Johannine theology is with respect to dualism. The discovery of a type of Johannine dualism in Early Judaism and in the scrolls composed at Qumran has fundamentally impacted our understanding of John’s dualism.42 The dualistic thinking so characteristic of the Fourth Gospel should not, as earlier scholars were prone to do, be traced back to Platonic idealism (even if there is some influence from Plato mediated through early Jewish thought). The dualistic ideas found in the Fourth Gospel are also appreciably different from those found in the Hebrew Scriptures (the Old Testament), apocryphal books (esp. Sirach and Judith), the Pseudepigrapha, and Rabbinics.43 What scholars could not find within Judaism before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is boldly displayed, with surprising clarity, within one of the most important Qumran texts: the Rule of the Community (1QS).44 In columns 3 and 4 of this document, we find what the Master (‫ )משכיל‬taught all of those entering into the sect. The Master introduced them to a dualistic perspective of the cosmos. This teaching included two diametrically opposed sets of powerful forces (angels), expressed in terms of a light-versus-darkness paradigm, with humans situated at the center of this struggle and divided into two lots themselves: “the Sons of Light” and “the Sons of Darkness.”45 It seems likely that certain sections of the Rule of the Community were memorized, and surely that seems to be the case with columns 3 and 4. The section begins with the words, “it is for the Master to instruct and teach all the Sons of Light” (1QS 3.13). Such an initiate was to know by heart that “from the God of knowledge comes all that is and shall be” (1QS 3.15). Other scrolls composed, or finally edited, in the Qumran Community show that these words were most likely memorized. For example, in the Angelic Liturgy46 we see the effect of the Master’s teaching: “For from the God of knowledge comes all” (4Q402 Frg. 4, line 12).47 Fully initiated members of the Qumran sect would not have needed to carry a copy of 1QS 3–4 to quote from it. As novitiates they had studied it for a period of at least two years. All Qumranites had been examined in its teachings by leaders of the sect (1QS 6.14–20).48 This section of the Rule of the Community was also probably recited in various cultic settings. After the burning of their buildings in 68 CE, those Qumranites who survived the attack by Roman soldiers would have been dispersed with cherished memories, including the secrets that had been revealed only to them by the Righteous Teacher (see 1QpHab 7). If they entered any other Jewish group, they would have surely influenced its members with their special insights and developed terminology. If, indeed, Qumranites or the wider group of which they were members (the Essenes)49 joined a new group within Second Temple Judaism, the Palestinian Jesus Movement, they would have influenced it with their special vocabulary, “knowledge” (‫ )דעת‬and insight into the secret mystery (‫)רז‬. As some scholars have suggested since the 1950s, Acts possibly records the movement of some Essene priests into the Palestinian Jesus Movement: “And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem multiplied greatly, and a great crowd of the priests followed in the faith” (6:7).50 This statement occurs in one of Luke’s little summaries, easily dismissed as devoid of historical worth and



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apologetic; but it is never wise to discard data that, in the light of other sources, may preserve vestiges of history. We know of two major priestly groups in first century Jerusalem, the Sadducees and the Essenes.51 It is practically impossible to imagine that Acts 6:7 refers to Sadducees. In stark contrast to the Essenes,52 the Sadducees rejected the concept of a resurrection (see esp. Acts 4:1–4), actively persecuted Jesus’ group (Acts 1–12, see, for example, 5:17), and probably had no patience with messianism and apocalypticism (both characteristic of the Essenes and Jesus’ followers). Even though Acts surely reflects Luke’s own tendencies and is theologically slanted to prove that the Spirit has broken forth again in history, we should not dismiss Luke’s report that some priests joined the Palestinian Jesus Movement in the 30s and 40s CE. It is also conceivable that Luke was wrong chronologically and was thinking about the Essenes instead, who may have joined the Jesus group after the destruction of 70 CE. Josephus counted 20,000 priests (Apion 2.108) and Jeremias estimated 18,000, but these seem inflated figures; hence, Craig S. Keener calculates that shortly before 70 CE there were about 2,000 priests in and near Jerusalem. Many priests were poor (Ant 20.181, 206–07). Perhaps Luke intimated that these disenfranchised priests joined the Jesus Movement. Keener judges that “a great crowd” of priests joining Jesus’ Movement “is not at all implausible.”53 The book of Acts also refers to the Palestinian Jesus Movement as “the Way.” According to the author of Acts 22:4, Paul reports, “I persecuted this Way to the death.” “Way” is a technical term, as becomes clear when studying Acts 9:2. According to this passage, Paul is commissioned by the high priest to bring bound to Jerusalem “any belonging to the Way.” Where is the origin of this technical term? It—the Way—is not typical of the Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament), the Septuagint, the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, or the Jewish magical papyri. It is, however, the self-designation of the Qumran sect: “These are the rules of the Way (‫ )הדרך‬for the Master in these ages” (1QS 9.21; see also 1QS 9.19; 11.11; 1Q30 2; 1Q22 2.8; 1QSa 1.28; 11QTemplea 54.17). Were members of Jesus’ group called “the Way” because the term was well known within Second Temple Judaism or was the terminology transferred to Jesus’ group from the Essenes? If so, how did that term move from Essenism to Jesus’ group? Possibly numerous Qumranites or Essenes joined Jesus’ group by the time Luke wrote Acts, or even earlier. While this scenario helps us catch another insight into the presence of former Essenes within Early Christianity, it does not permit us to see Essene influence in such Johannine phrases as Jesus’ proclamation, “I am the way” (14:6). In light of the favorable interest in the Levites in many of the Qumran Scrolls,54 and the evidence of Essenes probably living in the southwestern section of Jerusalem,55 it is worth pondering what relation the well-known Barnabas, a Levite from Cyprus, had with Essenes of Levitical descent living in Jerusalem and its environs (Acts 4:36). If he had been a convert and a Levite, then why would not other Levites—especially those whom we call Essenes join the Jesus Movement? What is the most reliable indication that Essenes were entering the Jesus group? And how do we know they were joining this new Jewish group in sufficient numbers to have an impression on the new movement after the 60s CE? The answer seems to lie in the paucity of parallels to Qumran or Essene thought in works prior to that time. There

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is virtually no clear Essene influence on the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, and other authentic writings by Paul.56 In contrast, however, significant links with Essene thought and terminology appear in works postdating the 60s and especially 70 CE, namely Ephesians, Hebrews, Matthew, Revelation, and especially the Fourth Gospel.57 It is also apparent that a section in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians (6:14–7:1) is a later addition to it by one influenced by Essene thought. But, it is in the Fourth Gospel that the most impressive and numerous parallels to Qumran thought have been found. In the Fourth Gospel we find a unique form of dualism and a collection of technical terms. This dualism and these termini technici are not found in Greek, Roman, or Egyptian ideology. The dualism and terms are not found in Philo, Josephus, the Apocrypha, or the Pseudepigrapha (with the exception of the early Jewish portions of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs which, in the judgment of many scholars, is related to or influenced by Essene thought [e.g., the Two Ways in TAsh, TDan 1:7, 3:6; TBenj 6:1, 7:1–2]).58 Terms and phrases, known for centuries as “Johannine,” have turned up in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and precisely in the section of their book of rules that was probably memorized, namely, the Rule of the Community, columns 3–4. Observe Jn 12:35–36, a passage once cherished as the product of the Evangelist’s creativity: Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become Sons of Light.”

Why did the Evangelist use such symbolism, such phrases and terms, and from what source did he inherit the technical term “Sons of Light”? The most probable explanation is that he, and perhaps those in his own group, were influenced by the light/darkness paradigm, which may have been well known in Early Judaism but is developed only in one text we know: the Rule of the Community.59 In that scroll we find an explanation of who are the “Sons of Light” (see 3:13, 24, 25), and we are introduced to the phrase, “and they shall walk in the ways of darkness” (3:21; cf. 4:11). One passage in the Rule contains phrases and words that seem “Johannine” to many that do not know that this scroll antedates John by about two centuries: In the hand of the Prince of Lights [is] the dominion of all the Sons of Righteousness; in the ways of light they walk. But in the hand of the Angel of Darkness [is] the dominion of the Sons of Deceit; and in the ways of darkness they walk. By the Angel of Darkness comes the aberration of all the Sons of Righteousness; and all their sins, their iniquities, their guilt, and their iniquitous works [are caused] by his dominion, according to God’s mysteries, until his end. And all their afflictions and the appointed times of their suffering [are caused] by the dominion of his hostility. And all the spirits of his lot cause to stumble the Sons of Light; but the God of Israel and his Angel of Truth help all the Sons of Light. He created the spirits of light and darkness, and upon them he founded every work. (1QS 3.20–25)60



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While such expressions seem to Christians to be “Johannine,” this passage is certainly not Christian. The kerygma does not appear in this passage. Jesus is neither mentioned nor adumbrated in it. The Rule is a pre-Christian, Jewish work, that emphasizes cosmic dualism, expressed in terms of the light-versus-darkness paradigm, subsumed under the absolute sovereignty of “the God of Israel.” In Jn 3:16–21 we find the following famous passage: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that all who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light, and do not come to the light, lest their deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been accomplished through God (lit., “have been worked in God”).

This passage reflects the Johannine Christological proclamation that Jesus is God’s only Son (3:16; 20:31). No Qumranite could agree; unless he accepted Jesus as the Messiah and believed in him. A member of the Qumran sect would have needed instruction in this belief, by someone other than the Master. This claim is a proclamation typical of the kerygma in the Palestinian Jesus Movement; as such, this confession distinguishes Jesus’ sect from the Essene sect. The Christology here belongs to the Evangelist, but he did not create the symbolism and the terminology. The spirit is definitively Christian and Johannine, but the mentality was inherited. The source is Second Temple Judaism. One of the major sources is clearly Qumranian in perspective (as signaled by the terminological links, even technical terms, italicized in the Johannine excerpt, above). As S. Smalley states, it is certainly impossible to think that the Hebrew Scriptures can be the source of the Fourth Evangelist’s dualism; because as “in Qumranic thought, John’s dualism is not physical but monotheistic, ethical and eschatological.”61 As we have seen, many established scholars have concluded that significant, and unexpected, primary data have revolutionized our perception of early Jewish thought. The Qumranites knew the concept of being “God’s son,” and the title is well known from scripture (esp. Psalm 2 which refers to the enthroned king). Now, there is evidence that the Qumranites knew about another meaning of the title, “the Son of God”; it obtained an eschatological and apocalyptic meaning in Second Temple Judaism. One Dead Sea Scroll does contain the title “Son of God.” It is an Aramaic pseudepigraphon of Daniel called Sapiential-Hymnic Work A (4Q246 or 4QpsDana). The two-column fragment has nine lines and is dated by Milik to the end of the first century BCE. The document refers to the “Son of God” and also to the “Son of the Most High.” J. A. Fitzmyer defines this document as “properly apocalyptic.” He concludes that these Aramaic titles were “applied to some human being in the apocalyptic setting of this Palestinian text of the last third of the first century B.C.” He continues by judging that these titles “will have to be taken into account for any future discussion of the title used of Jesus in the NT.”62

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Obviously, the Evangelist inherited the titles “the Son,” “Son of God,” and “Son of the Most High” from Palestinian Judaism and also from early sources related to Jesus, oral and written; but he placed his own creativity upon them. The 4Q246 fragment warns us of the limits of our knowledge. We must be careful about arguing what was not known in first century Judaism. It urges us, further, to ponder how and in what ways the Fourth Evangelist, and others like him, were influenced by ideas such as the following: [But your son] shall be great upon the earth. [O King! All (men) shall] make [peace], and all shall serve [him. (Col. 2) He shall be called the son of] the Great [God], and by his name shall he be named. He shall be hailed (as) the Son of God, and they shall call him Son of the Most High. As comets (flash) to the sight, so shall be their kingdom.63

This text is not necessarily messianic; at least, “the Messiah” is not mentioned in what has been preserved from this document. When this cosmic figure appears on earth “everyone rests from the sword.” The phrase “all shall serve him” is reminiscent of another text, On Resurrection (4Q521), in which we read that the heavens and the earth shall obey (or serve) “his Messiah” (‫)משיחו‬. No longer can scholars report that no Jewish document before the time of Jesus contained the terms “the Son of God” or “Son of the Most High.” The Qumran Community, like the Johannine community, was exclusivistic. The word “all” appears with more frequency in the Qumran Scrolls than in any other biblical or parabiblical works. This term, in Greek, appears twice in the previously quoted pericope from the Fourth Gospel (“all who believe” [3:16] and “all who do evil” [3:20]), which reflects two distinct opposites in humanity. It is an anthropological dualism. In the Fourth Gospel the word “all” appears infrequently—only sixty-three times, in contrast (for example) with Matthew and Luke, in which it appears 128 and 152 times, respectively. These statistics clarify that the word “all” usually appears in the Fourth Gospel in sections where Qumran influence has been detected. There are only two main antecedents to the uniquely developed Johannine dualism: Qumranism and Zurvanism. The latter religion developed in ancient Persia by a group within Zoroastrianism. Zurvanism, which scholars now agree is much older than any Qumran composition, possibly influenced the Qumran sect, as many scholars have shown in their studies of caravans and 1QS 3.13–4.26, and it conceivably influenced the Fourth Gospel.64 The Qumran concept of final judgment at the messianic end time is reflected in Jn 3:16–21: those who are not “Sons of Light” will perish; all “Sons of Light” will have eternal life. These thoughts are most likely influenced by Qumran dualism, developed at least two centuries earlier and found again in the passage taught to initiates. According to the Rule of the Community, those who are not Sons of Light will receive “eternal perdition by the fury of God’s vengeful wrath, everlasting terror and endless shame, along with disgrace of annihilation in the fire of murky Hell” (1QS 4.12–13). In John 3 the author refers to “the wrath of God” (v. 36), which is reminiscent of “the fury of God’s vengeful wrath” in the Rule (1QS 4.12). The Qumranites believed that the Sons of Light will be rewarded “with all everlasting blessings, endless joy in everlasting life, and a crown of glory along with a resplendent



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attire in eternal light” (1QS 4.7–8). The author of the Fourth Gospel claimed that all who believed in Jesus would inherit eternal life (e.g., Jn 3:16). Often overlooked, when studying the Fourth Gospel and the Dead Sea Scrolls, is the fact that both were very interested in salvation (defined in different ways, of course). The Evangelist thinks in terms of the world’s salvation, a concept very close to the Qumranites’ understanding that they were exiled and living in the wilderness in order to atone for the land and the earth. The Holy Ones in the Community were chosen by God “to atone for the earth” (1QS 8.6, 10); “they shall atone for iniquitous guilt and for sinful faithlessness” (1QS 9.4). In this section I am now reporting a consensus (in the study of John it is precarious to announce too many points of consensus). It is certain that the Fourth Evangelist derived from Second Temple Judaism numerous words, expressions, and terms that helped him to express his non-Qumran conviction that the world has been saved.65 I continue to be convinced that the major source of his dualistic terms are the major Dead Sea Scrolls composed at Qumran. The key that opens up the probability that Jn 3:16–21 and 12:35–36 have been influenced by the concepts developed quintessentially in 1QS 3–4 is the appearance of the light-versus-darkness dualism, a paradigm most likely created at Qumran (and, I am convinced, that it originated with the Righteous Teacher). Note these termini technici and the resulting dualistic paradigm. Except for “Sons of Darkness,” all these technical terms are found in a self-contained, short, memorable section of the Rule (e.g., cols. 3–4): Light

Darkness

Sons of Light Angel of Light Angel of Truth Sons of Truth Sons of Righteousness Spring of light Walking in the ways of light Truth God loves Everlasting life

[Sons of Darkness, see 1QS 1.10] Angel of Darkness Spirit of Perversity Sons of Perversity Sons of Perversity Well of darkness Walking in the ways of darkness Perversity God hates Punishment, then extinction

All these technical terms appear together in one section of the Rule. They are termini technici and they form a paradigm. That dualistic paradigm is mirrored in other early Jewish texts, notably the Jewish substratum of the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs and Visions of Amrana-g (4Q543–49), and the source reflected is probably this pre-Qumran composition, that evolved and received redactions,66 that many rightly conclude probably represents the teachings of the Righteous Teacher67 or an Essene teaching known in non-Qumran circles. This paradigm explains the human condition by clarifying that God “created the spirits of light and darkness” (1QS 3.25), that “he founded every work upon them” (3.25), and that all humans, including the “Sons of Light,” err because of the Angel of Darkness (3.22).68 All these terms (except for “Sons of Darkness”) are clustered in a focused passage to be taught to and, in my judgment, memorized by those who wish

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to cross over the barrier and into the Qumran Community. This section contains the quintessential dualistic teaching of the Qumranites. The section is the Rule 3.13–4.14. For example, “Sons of Light” is unique to Qumran theology and is the sect’s selfdesignation.69 The term is defined in 1QS 3.13–4.26 (3.13, 24, 25; cf. 1.9; 2.16; 3.3), and is found in many other Qumran Scrolls (specifically, 1QM 1.1, 3, 9, 11, 13; 4Q510 11.7; 4QFlor 1 + 1–9). One Qumran specialist, Devorah Dimant, emphasizes: “One of the most striking elements in the Qumranic documents is the dualistic doctrine expounded by them. Unique in Early Judaism, this doctrine drew the attention of scholars from the earliest days of Qumran research.”70 If the dualism is unique to Qumran within the world of Second Temple Judaism, as many leading experts have concluded, it is misleading and fruitless to find isolated and similar phrases in other early Jewish texts. What is missing in these other early Jewish texts is a cluster of termini technici that constitutes a paradigm. It is apparent to many Qumran and New Testament specialists that in many ways the Fourth Gospel has been influenced by Qumran’s dualism and its terminology. Darkness (esp. Jn 3:19) is contrasted with light, evil with truth, hate with love, and perishing with receiving eternal life.71 B. Lindars rightly pointed out that the Qumran Scrolls, especially the Rule, contain “the clearest expression of the contrast between light and the darkness, which is a central theme of John.” I can agree with Lindars that some “kind of influence of the sect on John seems inescapable,” and yet allows for some Qumran ideas to be known by many Jews and were “probably widespread and influential”72 proving how Jewish is the Gospel of John.73 I would continue by pointing out what we learned about the use of the Self-Glorification Hymn (it was known outside of Qumran) and that after the death of Herod the Great some Essenes probably lived in Jerusalem; hence, their ideas and terms would have been known in the intellectual atmosphere in Jerusalem (the Zeitgeist).74 Essene ideas in and around Jerusalem may account for some Essene influence on the Fourth Gospel, but the degree to which the Fourth Evangelist seems to know the Essene paradigm for a dualistic explanation of evil suggests that he was somehow directly influenced by Essene thought. Subsequently, I need to explain what I mean by “direct.” The probability that the Fourth Gospel is influenced by Qumran’s dualistic terms and conceptions, though not its theology,75 is enhanced by John’s choice of “the Sons of Light” and an array of related Qumranic technical terms. Experts have voiced the opinion that the appearance of the unusual term “the Sons of Light” in Second Temple Judaism is evidence of Essene neologism.76 The Fourth Evangelist knows the unique Qumran paradigm for dualism and its termini technici. Note, especially Jn 12:35–36 (my italics for emphasis): Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become Sons of Light.”

Why should any scholar resist the conclusion that the Evangelist received from Qumran the idea of “walking in darkness” versus “walking in light”? Qumran and the Fourth Evangelist witness to the Semitic concept of talking about moral conduct as a



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way of walking (i.e., halakot) and use the same unique terms. Note, in particular, 1QS 3.21: “and they shall walk in the ways of darkness” (cf. 1QS 4.11). Nowhere in the ancient world, prior to the composition of the Fourth Gospel, do we find the dualism of light and darkness developed so thoroughly as in Qumran’s Rule of the Community. The closest parallel is to the East and in Zurvanism. Throughout the ancient world we do obviously find a dualistic use of “light” and “darkness,” but only at Qumran is it elevated to the level of a paradigm with termini technici. Only in Zurvanism and Qumran’s Rule are these concepts and terms developed with such sophistication, and they are mirrored in the Fourth Gospel. Focus should not be on dualism that is everywhere; it should be on the dualistic paradigm and its termini technici that is so central to the Rule of the Community and the War Scroll. From the early 1950s up into the present, leading scholars have suggested, or been open to, the possibility that in the Fourth Gospel this paradigm is assumed and not created. Urban C. von Wahlde reports that scholars recognize as fundamental the importance of the light-darkness paradigm at Qumran and in the Rule of the Community and the War Scroll.77 Thus, the paradigm must antedate the Fourth Gospel; it is obvious only in the Rule of the Community which defined the Qumran Community but was also known elsewhere in ancient Palestine. As in the Qumran Rule so in the Fourth Gospel we hear about a cosmic and soteriological dualism. Moreover, it is subsumed under the belief in one and only one God, and it is joined with a conviction that evil and the demons will cease to exist. As R. E. Brown observed, “it will be noted that not only the dualism but also its terminology is shared by John and Qumran.”78 I would add, the unique paradigm as well. In addition to those already mentioned, several terms and phrases are significantly shared by the Qumranites and the Johannine Jews. Most significant among them are the following: “doing the truth” (1QS 1.5; 5.3; 8.2; Jn 3:21; 1Jn 1:6), “water of life” (1QH 8.7, 16; lQpHab 11.1; CD 19.34; Jn 4:10–14), “works of God” (1QS 4.4; Jn 9:3), “light of life” (1QS 3.7; Jn 8:12), and “knowing the truth” (1QH 6.12; 9.35; 10.20, 29; Jn 8:32). In Qumran’s Thanksgiving Hymns God is described “as perfect light” (1QH 4.23). The author of 1 John, who is close to and perhaps one of the editors of the Fourth Gospel, writes, “God is light and in him is no darkness at all” (1:5). Surely, there is some relationship exposed by these shared technical terms. As J. Becker points out in his Das Evangelium nach Johannes, the dualism in the Fourth Gospel is closest, in the ancient world, to that found in 1QS 3–4. This widespread recognition leads to the thesis that “the Johannine community must, after some undualistic phase, have come under the influence of a type of Qumran dualism.”79 That insight does not demand that the Essene influences come into the Fourth Gospel only at the final level of editing.80 It is important to stress that the Evangelist (and most likely others in his community) was probably influenced by Qumran’s paradigm and terminology. In some passages, he reveals that his thought and perception have been shaped by the concepts, phrases, and technical terms of Qumran. There is, however, insufficient evidence to warrant the logically possible conclusion that he was a former Qumranite or Essene, or that he was influenced by their pre-messianic eschatology and peculiar theology.81 He was a follower of Jesus; that is, he took some earlier terms and concepts and reshaped them to articulate the contention that Jesus was none other than the Messiah promised to

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the Jews (see, for example, Jn 4:25–26). The Evangelist also created other dimensions to his dualism; as an example, he probably created the “below” and “above” dualism to explain his Christology. Jesus was “from above” and all who follow him must be born “anew” which means “from above” (Jn 3:1–10).82 In summary, the preceding discussion of excerpts from the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel helps to clarify a consensus (though not a unanimous one)83 in research. Among all the ancient writings, only the Dead Sea Scrolls disclose a type of thought, a developed symbolic language, and a dualistic paradigm with termini technici that are surprisingly close to the Gospel of John.84 This widely held conclusion is clearly articulated by D. M. Smith: “That the Qumran scrolls attest a form of Judaism whose conceptuality and terminology tally in some respects quite closely with the Johannine is a commonly acknowledged fact.”85 J. Painter astutely concludes that “the context in which the Johannine tradition was shaped . . . is best known to us in the Qumran texts.”86 The Evangelist’s most striking point of contact with the Dead Sea Scrolls, whether direct or indirect, is surely with the dualistic paradigm, and its technical terms. These, moreover, are developed in two columns of the Rule of the Community. This section of the Rule contains the quintessential theology of the Qumranites. It summarizes their lore and explanation of evil and suffering, as well as the cosmic explanation of human behavior. Since it is introduced as a section to be taught by the Maskil, “the Master,” to the candidates for admission into the Qumran Community, it probably was the heart of Qumran lore that had to be mastered and memorized by all members of the Qumran sect. Hence, wherever Qumranties or Essenes could be found they knew some of the definitive scrolls by heart. They did not need to have a scroll open before them.

6  The Jewishness of the Johannine group Subsequent to the widespread recognition that the Fourth Evangelist had been influenced in some way by the dualism found in the Rule,87 and thanks to the work of J. L. Martyn and R. E. Brown on the historical setting of the Johannine community, many scholars have become convinced that the Fourth Gospel bears the marks of a major sociological rift.88 The term aposunagōgos (ἀποσυνάγωγος) appears only in the Fourth Gospel (9:22; 12:42; 16:2). This term means that members of the Johannine community have been thrown out of the synagogue; moreover, others in the community are afraid that they will also be expelled from the synagogue. According to 9:22, the parents of a man who had been blind from birth are said to fear the Jews, “for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone should confess [Jesus] to be Christ, he was to be put out of the synagogue.” These words indicate not only the actions by some Jews in a synagogue, but also that members of the Johannine community had been attending, and wanted to continue to attend, Jewish services and the calendrical festivals in the synagogue. It is beyond any doubt that some members of the Johannine community, perhaps many, were Jews who believed that Jesus was the Christ. Many members of the Johannine group (including some who had not been born Jews) saw themselves, as W. A. Meeks explains, “entirely within the orbit of Jewish communities.” It also seems evident that



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the leaders of these communities “despised secret believers in Jesus who wanted to remain in the Jewish community.”89 The Johannine community was obviously Jewish. Many scholars are now recognizing that in many ways the Fourth Gospel is the most Jewish Gospel in the Christian canon. The Jewishness of this Gospel and the crisis created by the Johannine community’s exclusion from the synagogue services become readily apparent when the Gospel is studied in light of the Jewish festivals.90 Chapters 7 and 8, and perhaps also 9, are united by a common setting. Chapter 7 clarifies the setting: it is the “Feast of Tabernacles” (7:2). Being a devout Jew, Jesus makes the required pilgrimage up to Jerusalem for the Feast (7:10) and enters the Temple (7:14). This great feast celebrates at the end of the year (Tishri, in early fall) the ingathering of the crops and is sometimes called “the Feast of Ingathering.” It is also called the Feast of Booths, when Jews celebrate the period in the wilderness following the exodus from Egypt. Parts of John 7 and 8 may indicate how some Jews remembered the way this Feast was celebrated when the Temple was still standing, or how it may have been commemorated in the synagogue from which they were later excluded. The Fourth Evangelist has Jesus stand up in the Temple on the last day of the Feast and exhort those who heard him to “come to me and drink” (7:37). The multiple references to water and to “rivers of living water” may reflect the seven-day water libation ceremony (m. Sukkot 4:9). When the Temple cult was active, a priest would obtain water in a golden container from the Pool of Siloam, south of the Temple. The priest would then proceed ceremoniously through the “Water Gate” of the Temple, pour the water into two silver bowls near the altar, from which the water would pour forth from perforated holes. This libation to Yahweh would elicit rejoicing and the playing of trumpets, flutes, and rams’ horns. On the one hand, Jews in the Johannine community may have remembered experiencing these celebrations in the Temple. On the other hand, they may have remembered reliving them in synagogues. In either case, the Fourth Gospel mirrors the fact that both of these once cherished celebrations are no longer possible for the believing Jews in the Johannine community. Jesus’ words, “I am the light of the world” (8:12), which are reminiscent of Qumran terminology, have an interesting setting. He is said to have uttered them also during the Feast of Tabernacles, in which one ceremony is called the “lighting of lights” (m. Sukkot 5:2). The lighting of lights and the dancing that ceremoniously accompanied it in the Temple would have been remembered well after 70 CE. Perhaps these customs were reenacted in some way in synagogue services. I tend to agree with G. A. Lee who in Jewish Feasts and the Gospel of John, contends that the “attention that the Fourth Evangelist gives these festivals strongly suggests that these feasts had an important place in the piety of his community as Jewish Christians.”91 Whether the Evangelist is referring to the Temple ceremony of Jesus’ time or recalling how Tabernacles was celebrated after 70 CE, it is clear that Jewish festivals play an important, if perhaps only a rhetorical, role in the Gospel. This fact underscores the Jewishness of the Johannine group; it helps us imagine and appreciate the pain of converted Jews being excluded from the synagogue services (and also the horrifying loss all Jews felt at the loss of the “House of God,” the Temple, when it was destroyed by Roman armies in 70 CE). Another rift in the Johannine community is obvious. The First Epistle of John illustrates that some members of that community have abandoned it: “They went out

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from us, but they were not from [or of] us; for if they had been from us, they would have continued with us” (2:19). The author denounces them as antichrists. We have only the words of the author of 1 John, but according to him these former members of the community could not agree on the reality of the incarnation. They ostensibly would not confess that Jesus was the Christ and denied that he had come in the flesh, as one who was truly human.92 As the members of the Johannine community hear the Gospel read out loud, they would reflect on the claim that Jesus was one who was from above and had descended to earth. Ernst Käsemann claimed that the Fourth Gospel contains some passages that are naively docetic. It is clear that this Gospel can be interpreted so as to support Docetism (the doctrine that Jesus was not really human); but it is certainly not a docetic text.93 If this schism is viewed in light of the expulsion from worship by synagogal Jews, and if both rifts are perceived in light of some Qumran influence on the Gospel, then it is easy to imagine that former Essenes in the Johannine community, unlike some Greek converts, would have emphasized that Jesus, the Messiah, had been a real human, and that he is best described as “the Light.” It is imperative to imagine such scenarios as we contemplate the evolution and social setting of the Gospel of John. It is possible to distinguish different Jewish beliefs in a messiah. Some Jews believed he would be a human being (see, for example, the Psalms of Solomon) and thereby could experience exhaustion and shed tears. Both human emotions are portrayed in John (see chs. 4 and 11). Other Jews believed in a messiah who would be heavenly, coming from the sky or out of the sea (thus, 1 Enoch 37–71 and 4 Ezra 13). The Qumranites believed in the first concept, insofar as they expected an earthly, human messiah who would be sent by God (1QS 9). One Qumran text does mention God’s (lit., “his”) Messiah, who will appear when the Lord (directly or through him) restores life to those who are dead (On Resurrection, 4Q521).94 Hence, it is more likely that former Essenes, now associated with the Johannine community, would have agreed with the Evangelist and with the author of 1 John against the schismatics. A third rift, well known and discussed in most commentaries, is also evident in John.95 The Gospel’s prologue and other passages show us with impressive force the polemic between the Johannine group and the followers of John the Baptizer. The Evangelist has the Baptizer state, “I am not the Christ.” The Baptizer is even portrayed denying that he is Elijah or “the prophet” (see Jn 1:19–23). In this attempt to distance the Baptizer from Jesus, the Fourth Evangelist may reveal his knowledge of Qumran messianology; that is, at Qumran Elijah, the prophet, and the Messiahs are distinguished.96 These retorts in the Fourth Gospel are probably directed against those Jews who believed that John the Baptizer was the Christ, or at least Elijah, or the prophet. The function of the Baptizer in this Gospel is reduced to making straight the way of the Lord, as Isaiah prophesied (1:23), and proclaiming that Jesus of Nazareth is not only “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (1:29) but also “the Son of God” (1:34). We are thus given a view of the Baptizer that reflects the needs and convictions of the Johannine community.97 These observations cumulatively lead to a reconsideration of the Johannine community. It seems to have been something like a “school.” We should not forget, however, that it was similar to other schools in antiquity and was not simply the Qumran Community revived.98 The clearest signals that the Fourth Gospel is from



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a “school” are the evidence of its relation to 1 John, the consecutive writing and expanding of the Gospel itself (the addition of chs. 1, 21, 4:2, and perhaps 15–17), the relation of the Odes of Solomon to John, and the manifest similarities between the Johannine community and ancient schools. Since the different layers of writing in the Fourth Gospel may be by different authors, and each layer reflects the same vocabulary, use of symbolism, and sociology of knowledge,99 it is evident that they cumulatively point to a Johannine School. A scribal school at Qumran was contemplated but not defended in 1958 by M. Martin.100 It is now evident that most of the manuscripts found in the eleven Qumran Caves were copied or composed somewhere besides Qumran, but that there is a discernible scribal school at Qumran. The manuscripts that were composed, or copied at Qumran, share a common orthography and morphology, and unique scribal features such as the paragraphos sign and the writing of the tetragrammaton as tetrapuncta (four dots) or sometimes with palaeo-Hebrew characters.101 The evidence for the Qumran scribal school has been detected and amassed by Emanuel Tov in numerous publications.102 Both the Qumran School and the Johannine School faced not only ostracism but also persecution. The Qumran School was persecuted by the high priest and some of the Temple police. The Johannine community faced opposition and death from synagogal Jews (16:2), and then rejection from followers of Jesus who denied he had been a “fleshly” human being (thus, the cause of the Johannine schism was Docetism).103 Regarding the Johannine schism, experts on John have begun to agree on a probable solution to a major problem. John 14 ends with Jesus’ exhortation to his disciples, “Rise, let us go hence” (v. 31). According to the Gospel’s present shape, Jesus subsequently launches into long speeches (chs. 15–17). Then we come to John 18, which begins, “When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples across the Kidron Valley, where there was a garden, which he and his disciples entered” (v. 1). These words follow chapter 14 much more sensibly than chapters 15 through 17. Hence, John 15–17 was probably added by someone (perhaps the Evangelist himself) in a “second edition” of the Gospel. The clinching argument in favor of this hypothesis is the recognition that chapters 15 through 17 appeal for unity. John 15 uses the image of the vine and urges the reader to remain grafted onto the true vine, which is Jesus. John 17 is Jesus’ appeal to God that his disciples be one: “I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one” (17:20). These words make best sense in light of the sociological rift in the community. The Fourth Evangelist (or a later editor) has Jesus appeal to the members of the Johannine community, probably calling on all of them to avoid a schism, or to heal the threatening schism. We should note, as Bultmann demonstrated long ago, that the prologue, 1:1–18, is probably a hymn once chanted in the Johannine community and now added to the Gospel for the purpose of clarifying Jesus’ origins (eschatology becomes protology), and that Jesus had clearly come in the flesh (1:14). Bultmann noted that the most striking parallels to the Logos Hymn are found in the Odes of Solomon.104 After the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the recovery of the Greek version of Ode 11, M. Testuz concluded that the Odes were composed by an Essene.105 J. Licht, among others, acknowledged the strong links between the Odes and Qumran.106 J. Carmignac and I suggested, with different nuances and insights, that the author was a “Christian” who may have once been an Essene.107 Conceivably, this author completed his

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compositions within, or in the environs of, the Johannine School.108 No other early work except the Odes refers so frequently to Jesus as “the Word.” And this terminology is best known to us from Jn 1:1–18; but the attempts to prove that the Odes depend on the Fourth Gospel have not proved persuasive to most experts. As Smith reported: “The many affinities with the Odes of Solomon, which partly overlap with those of Qumran, are not easily explained as the result of the Odist’s use of the Johannine literature.”109 Scholars are likewise almost unanimous in concluding that it is unlikely that the Evangelist borrowed from the Odes. Hence, it seems most likely the Odes of Solomon came to us from the same environment as the Fourth Gospel and perhaps were composed within the Johannine School.110 The Fourth Gospel was not written by a philosopher working alone and dependent on the Synoptic Gospels.111 This Gospel is the product of a group of scholars; most of whom were Jews, who worked independently of the Synoptics, or at least may have known one of the Synoptics, but were not overly influenced by them.112 The Gospel took shape over more than two decades in something like a school. It is intriguing to ponder who may have been members of this school. How many of its early members had been Essenes? Had any of them formerly lived on the marl terrace called Qumran or in one of the caves just north or west of Qumran? Did they influence the Johannine community, and the composition of the Fourth Gospel by what they had memorized in an Essene setting at Qumran, Jericho, Jerusalem, or elsewhere in ancient Palestine?

7  The Gospel of John and sociology These insights into the Johannine group and their social rifts with John the Baptizer’s group, with another form of “Judaism,” and with what will be eventually labeled “heretical Christians” lead to further sociological reflections. As Wayne Meeks pointed out, this Gospel indicates that faith in Jesus demands “transfer to a community which has totalistic and exclusive claims.” A study of the redactional nature of the Fourth Gospel helps one perceive how the additions and expansions reflect the history of the community. It has become isolated.113 The study of the thoughts in the Dead Sea Scrolls, especially those composed at Qumran, and archaeological examination of the ruins in caves near Qumran reveal to us an exclusive Jewish sect. Although the Qumranites owned and used documents written by many other Jewish groups, they deliberately cut themselves off from other Jews. They vehemently rejected the Temple cult (at least during the formative period at Qumran). The Qumranites saw their own sect as “Sons of Light”; all others, even those heralded as the most pious within Jerusalem, were “Sons of Darkness.” These belonged to “the lot of Belial,” the devil. The Qumranites were a sociological group with strong barriers.114 They lived “liminally,” between the end time and the messianic age.115 Only members of the Qumran Community could have secret knowledge, understand the writing that is encoded (4Q186, 4Q317), and possess the key for unlocking God’s word (1QpHab 7). Hate of others was institutionalized, and love was reserved only for “the Sons of Light,” those who were created to belong to the Qumran (or Essene) Community.



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These reflections help us to understand Johannine sectarianism, even if one is not impressed by the evidence of direct influence of Qumran’s thought on this Gospel. Like the scrolls composed at Qumran (esp. 1QS, 1QSa, 1QH, 1QM), the Fourth Gospel is the product of a sect. In the Johannine community were Jews that represented numerous types of Judaism, and it now seems evident that more than one type of Jew played a significant role in it.116 These believing Jews are cut off from other Jewish groups and excluded from the synagogue services. The Jews in charge of the local synagogue reject the Jews in the Johannine group.117 In such a social setting there is no place for those who are secret admirers of Jesus (like Nicodemus). Unlike Jesus’ initial group, but like the Qumran Community, the Johannine group has strong social barriers and the transition through initiation from Judaism to “Johannine Judaism” was the passage from one social status to another.118 In the process, ethnic identities would have been strained. The members of the Johannine community—Greeks as well as Jews—also lived in a liminal time between Jesus’ resurrection and his return (see esp. 1 John). They too claimed to possess secret knowledge, since Jesus is the only one who knows and reveals God (Jn 1:18). As H. Leroy and F. Vouga have demonstrated, the Johannine esoteric language and use of rhetoric, especially the rhetoric of misunderstanding, reveal the existence of a social group with special speech known only to those who know the truth.119 Perhaps here also—in the use of esoteric knowledge and secret language—the Fourth Gospel reflects Essene influence. Perhaps under the influence of Qumran’s predestinarian exclusivism, the Johannine group more and more delimited the love commandment so that it included only its own members. This development is complete by the time 1 John is written: “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers” (1Jn 3:14). Those outside the community, especially other followers of Jesus, are labeled antichrists (1Jn 2:18–25). Once Qumran, or Essene, influence is obvious in ideological terms, it is wise to perceive possible Qumran influence in sociological issues. Is it possible that earlier rivalries between Essenes and Pharisees (and Sadducees) were later transferred to the social setting of the Johannine sect?120

8  Translating Ioudaioi in the Gospel of John today The Greek noun, Ioudaioi (Ἰουδαῖοι), is almost always translated “Jews.” That rendering is, however, sometimes inaccurate. The social setting of the Fourth Gospel, and the rivalry between Jewish groups—the post-Yavnian (Jamnian) Hillelites and the post-70 CE “Christians,” who had been born Jews—caused the Evangelist creatively to reconstruct the history of Jesus’ time.121 By his own time the opponents of Jesus’ group are not the Sadducees and chief priests, who ceased to exist as a social force after 70 CE. The opponents were the only other group of Jews who survived the destruction of 70 CE: The Pharisees, followers of Hillel and Shammai. It is they whom John sometimes simply labeled Ioudaioi. Context is more important than etymology when translating a word that has a wide semantic range. It is therefore sometimes absurd to translate Ioudaioi as “Jews.” Take, for example, Jn 11:54: “Jesus therefore no longer went about openly en tois Ioudaiois

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(ἐν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις), but went from there to the country near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim; and there he stayed with the disciples.” To render Ioudaioi in this verse as “Jews,” as do most translators, indicates that Ephraim was not a Jewish town, that the disciples were not “Jews,” and perhaps that Jesus was not a Jew. According to the Fourth Gospel (11:57) and many other passages in the Gospels and Acts, the opposition to Jesus emanated from the priestly circles in Judaea. It is sometimes best then to render Ioudaiois in 11:54 as “Judean leaders.” In this way, the meaning of Jn 11:54 becomes clear: “Jesus therefore no longer went about openly among the Judean leaders.”122 Research on the Dead Sea Scrolls and other Jewish writings, especially the Pseudepigrapha, has increased our sensitivity as translators to the different meanings that words obtained by the first century CE. One of these multivalent terms is surely Ioudaioi. As I hope to show in a future publication, there were before 70 CE many Jewish groups. There were certainly more than four Jewish groups or sects (pace Josephus). After 70 CE only two Jewish groups survived with any recognition and influence: The Hillel (and Shammai) group, which gave us the Mishnah, and the Jesus group (or sect), which gave us the New Testament. In 68 CE, the Qumran Community was burned and disappeared from history. It also vanished from view except for the upper portions of the northern tower, until R. de Vaux excavated what many had erroneously judged to be a Roman fortress. After 70 CE, and the burning of Jerusalem, the Qumranites and other Essenes were murdered or eventually, perhaps slowly, disappeared.

9  Summary and reconstruction123 A re-evaluation of the relation between “Qumran and John” should begin by emphasizing a new perspective. Fifty years ago we imagined that Qumran was perhaps an isolated group living in the wilderness. Now we know that only a small percentage of the writings found in the Qumran Caves were composed at Qumran. The Qumran Scrolls represent writings from many other Jewish groups, including at least the Books of Enoch, Jubilees, the Jewish substratum to the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, early versions of the Temple Scroll, the Damascus Document, Qumran Pseudepigraphic Psalms, the Prayer of Joseph, Second Ezekiel, and the Copper Scroll. We now take far more seriously Josephus’ reference to two types of Essenes. And we recognize that Essenes lived throughout ancient Palestine, including, most likely, the southwestern section of Jerusalem, exactly where Jesus’ followers lived according to Acts and archaeological explorations. In the process of seeking to comprehend the extent of Essenism in antiquity, we have become much more aware of the unique features of Qumran theology. To be taken seriously is David Flusser’s comment regarding the Qumran Community: it “is the only group within Second Temple Judaism to develop a systematic theology. . . . The Dead Sea Sect, in the paradoxical restriction of its ideas, created a system which later influenced the history of all mankind.”124 As I have stated repeatedly in my publications, while the Qumranites taught an esoteric wisdom reserved only for full initiates, some of their ideas, symbols, and technical terms were known by other Jews. Indeed, Josephus knew a vast amount about their theology and that observation alone



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puts to rest the claim that Essene theology was a secret known only to full initiates at Qumran. This caveat, however, does not dismiss the uniqueness of Qumran thought or make it indistinguishable from other forms of thought in pre-70 CE Judaism. These observations lead us to focus more deeply on the Fourth Gospel. Schnackenburg rightly stressed that apocalyptic thought has not influenced John as much as Qumran thought. He contends that “the frequently recurring concepts of ‘truth,’ ‘reveal,’ and ‘know,’ the importance of the divine Spirit, the longing for the heavenly world and also the close brotherly union seem to establish a close affinity between the Qumran community and the circle which one must envisage behind the Johannine writings, from their mentality and diction.”125 Schnackenburg represented the consensus among specialists who have focused intensive research on the Dead Sea Scrolls and their relations with the Fourth Gospel. Since many, perhaps most, Johannine experts see some Essene influence on the Fourth Gospel, we might continue to explore more precisely the ways that Essene thought and symbolism may have helped shape the Fourth Gospel. I have organized these initial probes into thirteen areas: 1. Cosmic Dualism and its Termini Technici. Both in the sectarian Qumran Scrolls and in the Fourth Gospel a dualism is expressed in terms of two cosmic spirits, as we have already intimated. The evil spirit causes the presence of evil in the world. Technical terms for expressing this conception were developed in a unique way at Qumran and may have been inherited from Essenes by members of the Johannine School. At Qumran and in the Fourth Gospel, we hear about “the spirits of truth and deceit” (1QS 3.18–19; 4.21, 23; Jn 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; cf. 1Jn 4:6), the “Holy Spirit” (1QS 4.2 1; Jn 14:26; 20:22), and “the Sons of Light” (1QS 3.13, 24, 25; Jn 12:36). The Johannine Paraclete and Jesus himself (the “Light of the World,” Jn 8:12; 9:5) function in many ways as do “the Spirit of Truth” and “Angel of Light” at Qumran (1QS 3.25). Note these shared termini technici: Dead Sea Scrolls

Fourth Gospel

“in the light of life” (1QS 3.7) “and they shall walk in the ways of darkness” (1QS 3.2 1; cf. 4. 11) “by the furious wrath of the God of vengeance” (1QS 4.2) “blindness of eyes” (1QS 4.11) “in the fullness of his grace” (1QS 4.4; cf. 4.5) “the works of God” (1QS 4.4)

“the light of life” (8:12) “and who shall walk in the darkness” (12:35; cf 8:12) “the wrath of God” (3:36) — “the eyes of the blind” (10:21) “full of grace” (1: 14) “the works of God” (6:28; 9:3)

Because of their isolation from the Temple, the priests who followed the Righteous Teacher into the wilderness to prepare the way of the Lord, acting out the prophecy of Isa 40:3, perceived reality in stark ways and developed a unique form of dualism with sharply focused technical terms. The dualism developed in the Dead Sea Scrolls is certainly reflected in the Fourth Gospel. In some ways the Johannine School and its Gospel have been impacted by Essene concepts and terms. What is new today after decades of research and the ability to study over 1,000 scrolls? First, the discovery that

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this dualism is defined, and its technical terms amassed, only in 1QS 3 and 4. Second, the candidates for admission into the Qumran Community were most likely forced to memorize this section. Third, other Qumran compositions indicate these terms, reflecting the mind-set of the Community and the terminological overflow into other Qumran compositions, most notably the War Scroll. One should not jump to the conclusion that the Fourth Gospel is virtually a Qumran composition. As Schnackenburg pointed out the “important contrast between life and death, however, which dominates Johannine thinking, has no parallel at Qumran.” To him this discovery is the “strongest argument to show that Johannine ‘dualism’ cannot have been taken over from Qumran.” Johannine dualism is certainly influenced by the Essenes, but it was not unreflectively borrowed from them without incorporation into the prismatic Christian kerygma. As Schnackenburg stressed: “One can hardly say more than that the Johannine ‘dualism,’ based on Jewish thought, has in many respects its closest parallels in Qumran, especially with regard to ‘light-darkness.’ But then there are profound differences which stem from the Christian faith and its doctrine of salvation.”126 The uniqueness and brilliance of Qumran dualism and its technical, well-developed terms are stunning in the history of human thought. To proceed by recognizing that they shape the mentalité—though not the esprit—of the Fourth Gospel is the correct track to follow, as we seek to discern how and in what ways Qumran conceptions and expressions shaped the presentation of the Fourth Evangelist’s narrative, conceptuality, and terminology.127 2. Dualism of Flesh and Spirit. As D. Flusser and W. D. Davies have lucidly demonstrated, a feature of Qumran theology that distinguishes it from other theologies in Early Judaism is the flesh-versus-spirit dualism.128 In Early Judaism the flesh-versus-spirit dualism denoted far more than merely human weaknesses versus divine strength; it mirrored an eschatological conflict, two spheres of power, and overlapping modes of existence.129 Thus, we obviously need to explore how this particular terminology shaped the Fourth Gospel, especially in 3:6: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” The cultured articulation of this fleshversus-spirit dualism in the Fourth Gospel is indicative of reflections by sophisticated Jews living within the Johannine School. Could the Evangelist have been influenced by this particular dualism, found in the Dead Sea Scrolls? Few should be so foolish as to deny that this shared theologoumenon indicates some Essene influence on the Fourth Gospel, but its extent and the reasons for its occurrence raise different issues. 3. Predestination. M. Broshi rightly stresses: “The most important theological point differentiating the sectarians from the rest of Judaism was their belief in predestination, coupled with a dualistic view of the world (praedestinatio duplex).”130 Josephus reported that the Essenes’ predestinarianism distinguished them from other Jewish groups, like the Sadducees and Pharisees. As J. C. VanderKam states, the Essenes thought that God “not only predetermined all and then proceeded to create the universe in line with his plan; he also chose to communicate with his creatures and to scatter clues throughout his creation to the structure of the cosmos and the unfolding pattern of history.”131 One way for Qumranites to explain why well-educated and cultured people, like the reigning high priest, were so impervious to the truth was to say that they were not



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created “Sons of Light.” They are not among those to whom have been revealed special knowledge (cf. 1QpHab 7). Predestination is implied in the Rule of the Community and apparent in the Horoscopes. In the Fourth Gospel there is no thoroughgoing predestination, because of its missiology (see, for example, 3:16–21).132 There are, however, definite echoes of predestination in the Fourth Gospel.133 Note the following passages: no one can come to Jesus “unless the Father” who sent him “draws” that person (6:44). Those who do not believe in Jesus have the devil as their father (8:44). The Lord has blinded the eyes of those who do not see (i.e., believe) that Jesus is the Christ (12:40; see also 1:12–13; 3:31; 4:42–44; 6:45). Predestination may also be implied in the contrast between those “of God” (8:47), “from above,” and “of the truth” (18:37), on one side, and those “of the world” (8:23), “of the earth” (i.e., “from below” [3:31]), and “of the devil” (8:44), on the other. Flusser rightly stressed that some “connection or affinity” between the Qumran Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel is “indicated” by the fact that the dualism shapes the expression of predestination. As Flusser stated: “The predestinational ideas are linked with dualistic motifs: ‘He that is from God heareth God’s words; ye therefore hear them not; because ye are not from God’” (Jn 8:47).134 Another passage that may reflect some predestinarian strain is the claim that the “children of God” are those “who were born, not from blood nor from the will of the flesh nor from the will of man, but from God” (1:12–13). Are these not echoes of the double predestination that was created at Qumran? Genesis and creation theology and traditions shaped the Qumran documents and the Fourth Gospel. Bauckham correctly points to the importance of Genesis in understanding the development of the light-darkness motif in the Fourth Gospel,135 but he fails to see that this connection does not undermine Qumran influence on the Fourth Gospel—in fact, perhaps it enhances the possible source of such influence. 4. Pneumatology. In the Qumran Scrolls and in the Fourth Gospel we find a strikingly similar pneumatology. This shared pneumatology is sometimes impressively different from what is found in the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Most importantly, the concept of the “Holy Spirit” in the Qumran Scrolls reflects a development from the Hebrew Scriptures. The concept of “Spirit” at Qumran became a personification, and probably a hypostatic being separate from God; and hypostasis is not a creation of fourth century Christianity, as some theologians imagine, but it antedates Qumran, being found in Plato’s concept of objectivity, early Stoicism, and Plotinus, as Henning Ziebritzki demonstrated.136 Frank M. Cross stated judiciously: “In the Qumrân Rule the Spirit of Truth has a ‘greater distance’ from God; the hypostatized Spirit of God has become largely identified with an angelic creature, the spirit from God, and their functions combined.”137 This development was achieved by the Essenes and unique to them; the concept of “the Holy Spirit” appears in other early Jewish writings only in texts that are likely under Essene influence. The concept of the Holy Spirit pervades the scrolls composed at Qumran. Hence, the Fourth Gospel, which identifies the Paraclete with the “the Holy Spirit” (14:26), and which has the risen Jesus breathe the “Holy Spirit” upon his chosen disciples (20:22), has been most likely influenced, somehow, by this unique Qumran pneumatology.138 We need to allow for the possibility that Jesus139 had earlier inherited the concept of the Holy Spirit from the Essenes.140

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The unusual term, “Spirit of Truth,” also links the Qumran Scrolls (1QS 3.18– 19; 4.21, 23) with the Fourth Gospel (14:17; 15:26; 16:13; cf. the variant in 4:24).141 Apparently, the Fourth Evangelist inherited this as a technical term from Essenes. In the Fourth Gospel the Paraclete appears mysteriously, without explanation or introduction. This being is reminiscent of Qumran pneumatology; thus, it is wise to consider the advice of O. Betz that the Johannine Paraclete is rooted in Qumran theology.142 The overall mentality that explains human destiny and meaning through warring cosmic angels that are subservient to one Creator, assisted by cosmic beings named “the Holy Spirit” and “the Spirit of Truth,” and expressed in terms developed within a dualistic paradigm, unites the Qumran Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel.143 It is irrelevant that one can find some elements of this dualistic paradigm in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is the context and collection of complex terms into a new system, and their new definitions and functions that are so unique at Qumran. For example, in the Hebrew Scriptures one can find frequently the name Joshua or Jesus. In the Old Testament Apocrypha one can find ubiquitously the name Judas. Such discoveries, however, do not suggest that there is anything unique about the presence of these names in the New Testament. In that corpus of texts, they take on a new meaning and function because of a new context and the interrelationship of the names Jesus and Judas in a new story. Thus, the dualistic paradigm is new; it is created by a great mind at Qumran (probably the Righteous Teacher). It is this unique system of thought— the dualistic paradigm and its termini technici—that is reflected in the Fourth Gospel. Many scholars recognize that fact;144 how do we explain it? 5. Realizing Eschatology.145 As is well known, Qumran theology, in contrast with the Jewish apocalypses, is built upon the presupposition that the present—and not the far off future—is the end time, or the latter days.146 The Pesharim (the Qumran biblical commentaries) interpret Scripture so that ancient prophecies do not point to the future; they explain the past, present, and near future of the Qumranites.147 The Thanksgiving Hymns or Hodayot breathe the air of end-time realization. This is singularly important, since only in the Fourth Gospel—in stark contrast with the eschatology of the Synoptics, Paul, 2 Peter, and Revelation—do we find a shift from the expectation of the eschaton to the exhortation to experience salvation in the here and now (see esp. Jn 4:13–14). The striking parallels between the Qumran concept of time and the Johannine concept of time, in which the realizing dimension of eschatology appears within a dualistic framework, have been amply demonstrated by J. Frey in his three-volume Die johanneische Eschatologie.148 Surely, in light of the obvious Essene influence on the Fourth Gospel, it is not wise to deny that the eschatology of the Evangelist has been shaped by Essene concepts, perspectives, and terms. 6. Revealed Esoteric Knowledge. Both the Essene literature and the Fourth Gospel stress revealed esoteric knowledge. For at least two years, the Qumran initiate was instructed to memorize Essene lore. During this time he was periodically tested and examined for moral and mental acceptance—and most likely for the ability to interpret scripture using the “pesher” method. The Fourth Gospel reflects a School in which teaching, studying, and interpreting the Scriptures proceeded in line with special,



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revealed knowledge. Both the Qumran Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel are first and foremost revelatory compositions. Both highlight the importance of “knowledge”; this emphasis makes them exceptional in early Jewish literature prior to 136 CE. This shared emphasis may perhaps be because of Essene influence on the Fourth Gospel. The contrast must also be perceived. The revealed knowledge at Qumran is only for initiates who are Sons of Light. The revealed knowledge in John is to be proclaimed so that all might believe and be saved. 7. Salvific and Eschatological “Living Water.” Both in the Qumran Scrolls and in the Fourth Gospel we find a technical term: “living water” (1QH 8.7, 16; 4Q504; 11QTemplea 45.16149; Jn 4:10 and 4:11). In both writings this expression denotes eschatological salvation. In the Biblia Hebraica (and in Rabbinics) the term means “running” or fresh water. In the New Testament, “living water” appears only in the Fourth Gospel (cf. Rev 21:6; 22:1, 17). That is, only the authors of the Qumran Scrolls and the author(s) of the Fourth Gospel use a term that means “living water.” In both, in contrast to other literature, this term signifies salvific and eschatological sustenance that is necessary to “live” and for “eternal life.” The noun “water” occurs with unusual frequency in the Qumran Scrolls, and the provisions for purification at Qumran are exceptional. A shared preoccupation with water distinguishes the Fourth Gospel from the first three canonical gospels: ὕδωρ appears twenty-one times in the Fourth Gospel but only a total of eighteen times in the Synoptics (seven times in Matthew, five in Mark, and six in Luke). Here, surely, one should be open to some Essene influence on the Fourth Evangelist. 8. United Community. The Hebrew noun yaḥad (‫ )יחד‬is well known in biblical Hebrew; but in the Dead Sea Scrolls it obtains a unique meaning. It is usually translated “Community,” which reflects the concept of oneness.150 This technical term yaḥad is pervasive in the Rule, shaping and uniting the disparate works collected into it.151 The Greek term ḥen (ἕν), which means “one,” appears thirty-six times in the Fourth Gospel; as J. Ferreira states: “The mere frequency of the term and its centrality in the narrative underscores its importance for Johannine theology.”152 After or just before the schism that devastated the Johannine community, the Evangelist, or one of his students, enlarged the first edition of this gospel, adding chapters 15–17. It is impressive to observe therein the repetitive emphasis placed on the concept of unity, expressed through the word “one.” The author depicts Jesus praying to the Father, beseeching that his followers be united into one: I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may be one (ἕν), even as you, O Father, are in me, and I in you. . . . The glory that you gave me I have given to them, so that they may be one (ἕν) even as we are one (ἕν), I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one (ἕν). (Jn 17:20–23)

The reference to the “glory that you gave me” in John 17 has a Qumran ring to it. The understanding and use of “glory” in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel are significantly similar and distinct from the concept of glory in the Old Testament.

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At Qumran “glory” denotes God’s glorious design and wisdom (1QS 3.16, 4.18) or the dwelling place of God (1QH 12.30). The Qumran linkage between God’s glory and salvation (1QH 6.12, 14; 12.15, 22; 16.9) is a significant development beyond the Old Testament concept of “glory,” and may lie behind the Johannine claim that “we have beheld his glory” (1:14).153 Ferreira concludes his comparison of “glory” at Qumran and in the Fourth Gospel with these words: “John inherited his concept of δόξα [‘glory’] from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and modified it to emphasize salvation corresponding to his Christology, which emphasizes the descent of the heavenly Revealer.”154 Is it becoming more and more obvious that Essenes, living near the Johannine community in Jerusalem and later some converted Essenes working in the Johannine School, helped other Johannine Jews (and Greeks) work through the tragic traumas of their schism in light of a theology of “being one.” Ferreira judges, and I think rightly, that the Qumran use of terms for one and oneness “may help to clarify the Johannine motif of unity” and that these do help us comprehend “some of the traditions that flow into the Johannine theological prism.” He also wisely stresses that the “Johannine oneness motif is not to be found in any” prior Jewish tradition, and that the creative theology of this gospel is seen in presenting the Father and Son as one, and united, “in action and function.”155 The full extent of Essene influence at the level of the Gospel’s redaction, perhaps as a means of rethinking some aspects of the schism with the synagogue and then within the community, needs to be explored and carefully researched. Guiding such further research should be the experience of alienation and rejection experienced by Essenes for centuries, and the fact that both the Qumran Community and the Johannine community may be designated “sects,” since both were isolated from “mainstream” Judaism and persecuted by some of its leaders. 9. Purity. The Tosefta announces that “purity broke out in Israel” (t. Shabbat 1:14); meaning that concern for purity in Israel evolved and became accentuated in Second Temple Judaism.156 During that time, the Qumranites accentuated in an extreme way the necessity of ritualistic purity. As H. K. Harrington states, although the Qumran Scrolls “represent differences of authorship, date and genre, they consistently champion a more stringent standard of ritual purity than was currently observed in Jerusalem.”157 This is obvious from the numerous cisterns and mikvaot (ritual baths) at Qumran, and from the claim in More Works of the Torah (4Q394–399) that the Qumranites have separated from other Jews, especially the priests in the Temple, because of purity issues. The author of the Fourth Gospel and his Community knew in a special way the Jewish rites for purification and the debates concerning them (see Jn 2:6 and 3:25). If the Baptizer and his followers were influenced by Essene rites of purification,158 then perhaps the debate between them and another Jew “concerning purification,” according to 3:25, may suggest dimensions of Essene thought alluded to by the Fourth Evangelist. The references in the Fourth Gospel are oblique, suggesting that perhaps the author knew about the Essene obsession with purity and the need for stone vessels for rites of purification. We will never be certain, since some Sadducees and Pharisees also most likely developed, after the “rebuilding” of the Temple by Herod the Great, heightened requirements for purification—as we know from excavations of mikvaot



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in Karen Naphtali, Modein, the Upper City of Jerusalem, Migdal, Herodian Jericho, Masada, and elsewhere (see Chapter 6).159 10. Messianology and Christology. Only three known Jewish groups prior to the destruction of 70 CE clearly yearned for the coming of the Messiah: The Jews behind the Psalms of Solomon, the Qumranites, and the followers of Jesus (the Amidah can be included if we are certain that the passage regarding the Messiah is early). Interest in Qumran Messianism has increased because of discussions of recently published texts in which “Messiah,” “the Messiah,” and messianic terms are mentioned.160 A reference book is dedicated to Qumran Messianism, and it contains all the relevant passages in which the Messiah, and obvious messianic figures, appear in the Qumran Scrolls.161 No document in the New Testament, except the Fourth Gospel, contains the Greek transliteration of the Hebrew and Aramaic word for “Messiah.” Only in the Fourth Gospel do we find the Greek transliteration for mšḥ (‫ ;)משח‬that is, Μεσσίας in Jn 1:41 and 4:25. Clearly, the Fourth Evangelist, in a way unparalleled by the other Evangelists, and his Community claimed that Jesus was to be identified as the Messiah promised to Jews. Only in the Fourth Gospel does Jesus admit that he is the Messiah. A Samaritan woman tells Jesus, “I know that Messiah is coming—he who is called Christ” (4:25). Jesus says to this anonymous Samaritan woman: “I, the one speaking to you, am he” (4:26).162 Were discussions with Samaritans and Essenes, living within the Johannine School, responsible for this aspect of Johannine Christology? This possibility cannot be proved, but it remains a conceivable, and perhaps a likely, scenario. 11. A Barrier for Love. At Qumran the exhortation to love one’s neighbor in Lev 19:18 (cf. 19:34), which elicited deep discussions on defining “neighbor” among Jews prior to 70 CE was restricted to the elect ones, “the Sons of Light.” Only members of the Community were “Sons of Light.” All others were “Sons of Darkness.” Concomitant with Essene predestination, a Qumranite was exhorted to love only those in the Community and to hate all others (1QS 1–4).163 Read narratively, as does Sjef van Tilborg in Imaginative Love in John, one is pulled into loving that is real so that all who have experienced Jesus’ love “must opt for his way.”164 Yet, surprisingly in light of Jesus’ exhortation to love “one another” as he had loved his disciples (Jn 13:34), and especially in light of his instruction to love even enemies (Mt 5:44 and parallels), is the Johannine tendency to restrict love to one’s brother in the Community. This tendency comes to full bloom in the Johannine Epistles. It seems wise to consider Qumran influence in the shaping of this Johannine tendency. As M.-É. Boismard contended, it is rather obvious that 1 John “is addressed to a Christian community whose members to a large extent had been Essenes.”165 12. Anonymity. In a frustratingly disconcerting manner, the Qumranites habitually avoided writing proper names. The key figures in their history are anonymous; that is, the Righteous Teacher, the Wicked Priest, and the Man of Lies remain anonymous in all the hundreds of Qumran Scrolls.166 While a unique phenomenon in early Jewish literature, this anonymity is amazingly present in the Fourth Gospel. The Fourth Evangelist never informs the reader of the

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name of Jesus’ mother. The name of the Beloved Disciple is also hidden from the reader, although his identity was most likely known to the Johannine Christians.167 The Qumran Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel utilize, in stunningly unique ways, the narrative art of anonymity. Has the tendency to employ the art of anonymity when describing the Righteous Teacher helped to shape the presentation of the Beloved Disciple?168 13. Symbolic Language. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, especially in the Thanksgiving Hymns, we find an unusually refined employment of symbolism and metaphor. Among the dozens of early Jewish writings, some of the scrolls may be categorized with the Fourth Gospel in terms of their refined, symbolic theology. Both the Qumran Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel stand out in early Jewish literature (i.e., documents composed by Jews prior to 200 CE) with regard to the literary skills demonstrated: the employment of paronomasia, double entendre, metaphor, rhetoric, and sophisticated iconographical language. I am convinced that the best explanation for this linguistic phenomenon is that the Evangelist was somehow influenced by Essenes. Most likely, he knew Essenes and discussed theology with them. Their highly developed language, terminology, and symbols helped to shape John’s own reflections and articulations.

10  Summary and additional reflections This reconstruction of the Johannine community is supported, in some ways, by many scholars who conclude that some Qumran or Essene influence is obvious in the Fourth Gospel. The Qumranites, or Essenes, were the Jewish scholars before 70 CE. They are the Jews who were defined by scribal activity. It is clear that the Palestinian Jesus Movement was a sect within Early Judaism. It was composed primarily of Jews. The only known writing sect in Judaism before 70 CE disappeared after that date. As E. E. Ellis states, the Qumran sect “combined an intense apocalyptic expectation with prolific writing.”169 The same is true of the Enoch group that gave us much more than the five books of Enoch in so-called 1 Enoch. Before 70 CE and within Judaism the most prolific writing group was the Essenes. They disappeared as a unique sect in 70 CE. After 70 CE and before the defeat of Bar Kokhba the most prolific writing group within Judaism was the Johannine School. Most likely, the Johannine School, the new “writing” group within Judaism, was influenced by Qumranites or Essenes. Sociological reflections indicate that a social group that was preoccupied with reading and writing may well have influenced another later writing group within the same religion. These reflections need to be enriched by the discovery that the most significant influences from the Essenes upon New Testament authors have been seen in documents that postdate 70 CE.170 A Solar-lunar Calendar. The Essenes and the communities behind Jubilees and the Books of Enoch followed a solar-lunar calendar171 and thus observed festivals, holy days, and the beginning of the year at a time different from that of the Jewish establishment in Jerusalem. This is a remarkable sociological phenomenon whose theological ramifications are profound when one understands how the Essenes perceived the



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cosmic dimension of the calendar. They worshipped with angels following the same calendar. Because the Fourth Evangelist gives a time different from that in the Synoptics for the celebration of the Last Supper, it is conceivable that the Johannine community followed, or recorded, that Jesus had followed, a calendar similar to that of Essenes. This possibility is weakened by our inability to discern how unique within Early Judaism was the Essene calendar; but, it is strengthened by the growing awareness that Jesus apparently celebrated the Last Supper within the Essene quarter of Jerusalem.172 Even if this possibility looms probable, it is the Evangelist’s theology that removes the institution of the Eucharist from Jesus’ Last Supper; that is, he wants to ground this celebration (as is evident in the early tradition of 1 Corinthians 11) in the remembrance of Jesus’ life, placing it with innuendoes in the feeding of the 5,000 in chapter 6. Other Features. Other aspects of Qumran theology may reappear in the Fourth Gospel, but our ability to discern the level and extent of Essene influence is hindered by our inability to determine whether such ideas were unique to or especially characteristic of the Essenes. Under this category would be placed a cosmological panorama for the drama of salvation: The Qumranites thought about angels being present in divine services and celebrated with them the angelic liturgy, while thought in the Johannine community was directed to “the One from above.” In the Dead Sea Scrolls (especially 1QH 16 [olim 8]) and in the Fourth Gospel (esp. ch. 21) narrative art is shaped by motifs of paradise and Eden.173 Both communities experienced isolation from the Temple cult, and both developed theological reflections in light of persecution from the reigning priests. The Qumran Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel are both shaped in paradigmatic ways by Isaiah. In contrast with other Jewish groups, both preserve a belief in resurrection. Both the Qumran Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel are products of Jewish schools. Perhaps the commandment of Jesus in Jn 13:34 appears only in the Fourth Gospel because of the Essene penchant for rules and legislation. These are all possible parallels that may link the Fourth Gospel with the Essenes, but our lack of historical knowledge precludes developing any one of the points.

11  Reconstruction As has become obvious, from the 1950s until the present, many scholars have come to the conclusion that the Fourth Evangelist was influenced either directly or indirectly by ideas that appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The most obvious point of influence, as we have seen, is the unique Essene paradigm for dualism and its termini technici. There is, however, no consensus on how Essene concepts, symbols, and termini technici influenced the Fourth Evangelist and his School. Scholars have published five intriguing hypotheses to explain how Essene concepts, symbols, and termini technici came to appear in the Fourth Gospel. First, W. H. Brownlee suggested that the influence from Qumran came through John the Baptizer, who may have been an Essene (a suggestion supported in part by Bo Reicke, and others).174 This hypothesis is therefore conceivable. Some influences from

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Qumran on John the Baptizer are evident and he may have once been a member of the Qumran Community. Moreover, Jesus and the Beloved Disciple were probably former followers of the Baptizer, as the Fourth Evangelist claims in his early chapters.175 The obvious tension, reflected in the Fourth Gospel, between the Evangelist’s community and the Baptizer’s group may diminish the possibility that this is the best scenario for explaining Essene influence on the Fourth Gospel.176 And the Essene influences seem to appear not so much in the Jesus traditions the Fourth Evangelist inherited as in his own redactional work of the Jesus traditions in which he employs concepts and terms he shared with others in the Johannine School. Second, Brown stressed the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the Fourth Gospel and concluded that the influence came to the Evangelist indirectly. Notice Brown’s words: “In our judgment the parallels are not close enough to suggest a direct literary dependence of John upon the Qumran literature, but they do suggest Johannine familiarity with the type of thought exhibited in the scrolls.”177 In his essay, “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,” Brown contended that the “ideas of Qumran must have been fairly widespread in certain Jewish circles in the early first century CE. Probably it is only through such sources that Qumran had its indirect effect on the Johannine literature.”178 This is admirably cautious, but to suggest that Qumran ideas were “widespread” in pre-70 CE Palestine does not seem obvious. We have not found evidence of the Qumran dualistic paradigm in any other pre-70 CE Jewish document, with the exception of some relatively insignificant passages in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs (and some of the possible mirroring of this paradigm may result from later Christian redaction that was under the influence of the Fourth Gospel).179 We have been focusing upon concepts, symbols, and technical terms that after decades of research are now seen as ostensibly unique to the Qumran Community.180 I concur with Brown that there is no evidence that the Evangelist had been an Essene or had studied the Rule of the Community, yet I agree with J. Ashton that Brown has given us a rather imprecise scenario.181 Surely the influences from Qumran are more important than an ambiguous explanation that concludes with some inexplicable “indirect” influence. Thus, in Brown’s final publication he raised a question he had pondered for years, and was tempted (I am persuaded) to answer positively: Did the “Baptist disciples who had been Qumranians filter what they heard from Jesus through the prism of their own dualistic outlook?”182 Thus, Brown may have contemplated a scenario that is a modification of Brownlee’s hypothesis. Third, I argued in the 1960s that the influence was direct.183 I was convinced that the Evangelist “did not borrow from the Essene cosmic and communal theology,” but that nevertheless we “have seen that John has apparently been directly influenced by Essene terminology.”184 Professor Ashton, I think not unfairly, criticized my lack of precision: Accordingly it makes little sense to speak, as Charlesworth does, in terms of “borrowing,” however right he may be, against Brown and Schnackenburg, to adopt a theory of direct influence. For what kind of borrowing is he thinking of? Does he picture John visiting the Qumran Library, as Brown calls it, and taking the Community Rule out of the repository, scrolling through it, taking notes perhaps, and then making use of its ideas when he came to compose his own work?185



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Ashton’s question is astute, but one that I had not contemplated. I never imagined, or concluded, that the Evangelist had direct access to a Qumran scroll; yet, I realize that my presentation could have been improved. Long ago I simply offered the opinion that the Essene influence on the Fourth Evangelist can be explained “through the vivid memory of an Essene who had become a Christian, made notes on its contents, perhaps only mental ones, and then composed his Gospel . . . in Palestine.”186 Let me now, approximately fifty years later, try to clarify my position. I am now persuaded that those who wished to join the Qumran Community had to memorize Essene lore, and that consisted of knowing by heart the teaching and terms preserved in the Rule of the Community, in columns 3 and 4. Later, some of those who had memorized this unique teaching that “the Master” taught to members of the Community probably entered the Johannine School. Their memorized terms and sophisticated perceptions about the origin of evil and the reason for a Son of Light to err eventually influenced the Fourth Gospel. I will clarify this scenario at the end of this study. Fourth, Ashton took both Brown and me to task for not realizing how significant is the influence from Qumran on the Fourth Evangelist. He was convinced that the Evangelist had once belonged to Essene groups. He contends that “the evangelist had dualism in his bones.” In this Ashton is certainly correct. He continues by concluding that the Fourth Evangelist “may well have started life as one of those Essenes who were to be found, according to Josephus, ‘in large numbers in every town.’”187 Ashton eventually changed his mind and concluded that it cannot be proved with any confidence that the author of John was “a convert from Essenism”188; yet he told me he still held that view although he thought it could not be proved. Fifth, and in a similar fashion, E. Ruckstuhl suggested that the Beloved Disciple, the Gospel’s trustworthy witness (19:35; 21:24), may have been a monk who once lived in the Essene quarter of Jerusalem. He is impressed by how the Qumran calendar helps to explain the time of Jesus’ Last Supper, according to the Fourth Evangelist. Ruckstuhl suggests that this meal may have been an Essene Passover supper.189 Is it possible that the Last Supper was celebrated in the guesthouse of Jerusalem’s Essene quarter and that the seat of honor was given to the Beloved Disciple, a leading Essene? This is an intriguing question. Since the Beloved Disciple, according to Ruckstuhl, would have been a priest, it is understandable how he was known to the high priest (Jn 18:15–17). There is impressive evidence that Essenes were living in the southwestern corner of Jerusalem when Jesus celebrated the Last Supper, and it is conceivable that he celebrated the meal in an Essene quarter. Ruckstuhl’s suggestion regarding the date of the Last Supper is, however, rather speculative, and I am persuaded that Jn 18:15–17 is not a narrative about the Beloved Disciple.190 It is conceivable, nevertheless, that some Essene influence came to the Evangelist through the Beloved Disciple, since it is probable that he had been a follower of the Baptizer. Let me now return to the position I merely intimated long ago. It has become the one that now seems most likely in light of my research and thinking since 1966. After more than fifty years of work devoted to either the Fourth Gospel or to the Dead Sea Scrolls (usually focusing on the Fourth Gospel or on one scroll without thinking about any link), I am persuaded that, while nothing can be clearly demonstrated, a likely scenario now looms in credibility. It should be introduced for reflection. Let me now

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present what I am convinced is the best explanation for the pervasive Essene influences on the Fourth Gospel. Not all Qumranites died in the attack on their abode in the Judean wilderness in 68 CE when the Roman army lead by Vespasian headed south on the Jordan Rift Valley to Jericho and its environs. Some Qumranites probably fled southward to Masada and left some scrolls which archaeologists have uncovered. Others may have fled eastward toward the safe Transjordan, and others westward, probably to Jerusalem to join the Essene colony there. Some Qumranites were most likely still alive when the Fourth Gospel was being written. It seems widely, and wisely, acknowledged that some Essenes became members of the Palestinian Jesus Movement.191 To imagine that no Essene joined Jesus’ Movement is preposterous. The most striking and impressive parallels between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament documents are in those compositions produced by the second generation of Jesus’ followers. The influence from the Essenes did not come most powerfully through John the Baptizer or Jesus, although (as I have shown) the points of contact here are also intermittently impressive. Paul was not significantly influenced by the Essenes, but the Pauline School (which produced Ephesians, 2Cor 6:14–7:1, and other documents) shows signs of Essene ideology and terminology. Mark is not similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls, but Matthew certainly contains significant affinities to the Qumran School. This observation arouses in the attentive reader thoughts about the School of Matthew. It is obvious that scholars have been perceiving in the products of the Pauline School and the Matthean School the most impressive links between the Essenes and Jesus’ followers.192 The same conclusion makes sense for the Fourth Gospel. The Fourth Gospel comes to us from a school,193 reveals sources and more than two editions, and discloses a struggle with the synagogue. These and other observations prove that Jews were in the Johannine community. It does not seem prudent, in light of the numerous links with Qumran symbolism and terminology to deny the possibility that some of these Jews had been Essenes.194 Most of the influences from the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Fourth Gospel most likely come, therefore, from former Essenes living in the Johannine community.195 These Jews had memorized portions of the Qumran Scrolls, certainly some of the Thanksgiving Hymns and the Rule of the Community (at least 1QS 3.13–4.14). Some of these former Essenes may have labored in the Johannine School; perhaps one of them was the author of the Odes of Solomon.196 Thus, we do not need to think that “direct influence” implies that the Fourth Evangelist visited Qumran or saw a Qumran scroll. The pervasive influence of Essene thought on the Fourth Evangelist, as mirrored in the Fourth Gospel, is best explained by the appearance of Qumran lore present in the minds of some Jews who were living in the Johannine School. Intermittently, I have pointed out parallels between the Qumran Scrolls and the Gospel of John. Too many biblical scholars might contemplate that I have missed Samuel Sandmel’s caution about using parallels. His publication is the most misunderstood publication in our field. Sandmel knew what all scholars observe. A relation between one document and another is due to parallels. Hence, Matthew is dependent on Mark because of the parallels from Mark that reappear in Matthew. Sandmel castigated early comparisons between Qumran and the New Testament from a perfunctory point of



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view. He warned against “parallelomania”; that is the “extravagance among scholars which first overdoes the supposed similarity in passages and then proceeds to describe source and derivation as if implying literary connection flowing in an inevitable or predetermined direction” (p. 1). A parallel is not an influence. What Sandmel urged is not to be afraid of parallelomania but to seek fruitful parallels: “I am not denying that literary parallels and literary influence, in the form of source and derivation, exist. I am not seeking to discourage the study of these parallels, but, especially in the case of the Qumran documents, to encourage them.”197 In summary, endeavoring to understand the Fourth Gospel and assess the level of influences from the Essenes, we cannot avoid some subjectivity. As historians emphasize, informed imagination is demanded in any attempt to reconstruct the past. As we strive to be objective, we need to be cognizant of prejudices and presuppositions that could distort and undermine the results of our detailed research.198

12  Conclusion Have the unique perceptions and terms in the Qumran Scrolls helped shape the Fourth Gospel? The answer of many leading experts is an unequivocal “yes.” As Ferriera reports: “The results of the research on the Scrolls so far have convinced most New Testament scholars that the Gospel of John was produced in a community that knew and interacted with the traditions of Qumran.”199 How have the Qumran Scrolls influenced the Fourth Gospel? Summarizing the above, experts have offered five attractive hypotheses:

1. John the Baptizer had once been a member of the Qumran Community. Jesus was

his disciple, and Jesus passed some of the unique Qumran terms on to his own disciples. 2. The Beloved Disciple, Jesus’ intimate follower, had been a disciple of the Baptizer who had been a member of the Qumran Community, and he influenced Jesus and some of his followers. 3. Jesus met Essenes on the outskirts of towns and cities in Galilee and Judaea. He discussed theology with them, and was influenced by some of their ideas and terms. 4. Essenes lived in Jerusalem (or Ephesus)200 near the Johannine community and influenced the development of Johannine theology. 5. Essenes became followers of Jesus and lived in the Johannine School, shaping the dualism, pneumatology, and technical terms found in the Fourth Gospel. This could have happened in numerous places, including Jerusalem before 70 CE. Each of these is a possible scenario. One should not think that only one of these explanations is possible and differences must be perceived.201 It is conceivable, indeed likely, that each explains how the Essenes, over approximately seventy years, helped influence the Palestinian Jesus Movement. In my judgment, the influence in the Fourth Gospel may come from all levels, and in an increasing dimension, as one moves from the

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first to the fifth hypothesis. Finally, one should not think that “Christianity” is merely Essenism revived or that other forms of Judaism did not influence the Fourth Gospel and other aspects of the Palestinian Jesus Movement. Pharisaism and Samaritanism clearly left their influences on the new Jewish movement. The interest in Moses in the Fourth Gospel seems to betray some Samaritan influence.202 It is now obvious that the Fourth Gospel is not a second century Greek philosophical composition. The Jew who is called the Fourth Evangelist, inheriting earlier writings within the Palestinian Jesus Movement, in the mid or late first century, composed one of the greatest literary masterpieces in human history. The Fourth Gospel was influenced significantly by the symbolic language, pneumatology, and technical terms that are found only in a dualistic paradigm within the Qumran Scrolls, namely the Rule of the Community.203 The Fourth Gospel is our most Jewish Gospel. In conclusion, let me clarify that the Qumran Scrolls do not solve most of the enigmas confronted through a reflective examination of the Fourth Gospel. This Gospel is remarkably different from the Synoptics. It has an independence that remains disturbing to some critics. In fact, a penetrating study of the Qumran Scrolls, and then a thoughtful comparison of their ideas with the Fourth Gospel, awakens a deeper appreciation of the uniqueness of the Fourth Gospel.204 The Fourth Evangelist was a genius, and a creatively independent thinker. By studying the Qumran Scrolls we might perceive how Johannine Jews searched for their own identity in a world that had become increasingly more hostile, especially from other fratricidal Jews. The search for identity had begun earlier by the followers of the Righteous Teacher, who led a small band of priests from the Temple in Jerusalem to an abandoned fort in the wilderness just west of the northern shores of the Dead Sea. They yearned for the end of the latter days and the fulfillment of God’s promises; some looked for the coming of the Messiah. The Johannine Jews founded their identity and faith upon the truthful eyewitness of the Beloved Disciple to Jesus (Jn 19:35; 21:24), whom the evangelists hail as the Messiah, the Son of God, and the One from above. The Dead Sea Scrolls challenge us to think about the sources of the Fourth Evangelist’s vocabulary, symbolism, and refined language.205 They help to clarify the uniqueness of the Fourth Gospel and the Evangelist’s distinctive anthropology, cosmology, pneumatology, Christology, and theology. As John Painter reported in The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature, and Theology of the Johannine Community (p. 35): “The importance of the Qumran texts [for understanding the Fourth Gospel] is difficult to exaggerate.” This research proves that the origins of the Fourth Gospel should be studied within the history of Early Judaism.

Notes 1 I dedicated the earlier version of this work to Professor D. Moody Smith. I am indebted to the editors and publisher for allowing me to prepare a revised, expanded, and updated version of that work: “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the G ­ ospel ­according to John,” in Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith (ed. R. A. ­Culpepper and C. C. Black; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), pp. 65–97.



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2 See “Social Contexts” and “A Jewish Context,” in Craig S Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Peabody, MA: Henrickson, 2003), 1:140–232. 3 The Prayer of Jonathan, for example, found in the caves of Qumran honors a person who was hated by the Qumranites. See James H. Charlesworth, The Pesharim and Qumran History: Chaos or Consensus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). For more on the Essenes, see H. Stegemann, Die Essener, Qumran, Johannes der Täufer und Jesus (Freiburg: Herder, 1993); A. Paul, Les manuscrits de la Mer Morte: La voix des esséniens retrouvés (Paris: Bayard, 1997). 4 The question “how central or marginal was the Qumran Community” is ostensibly the issue addressed by T. H. Lim, et al., eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls in their Historical Context (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 2000). See also F. García Martínez and J. Trebolle Barera, The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. W. G. E. Watson; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1995) and the recent contribution to the discussion by John J. Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013). 5 Among others, see M. S. Pajunen and H. Tervanotko, eds., Crossing Imaginary Boundaries: The Dead Sea Scrolls in the Context of Second Temple Judaism (Helsinki: The Finish Exegetical Society, 2015); Lawrence H. Schiffman, Qumran and Jerusalem: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010); Martin Goodman, “Constructing Ancient Judaism from the Scrolls,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. T. H. Lim and J. J. Collins; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 81–91. For an excellent introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls, see J. C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (2nd ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010). 6 Just a few select examples include J. Murphy-O’Connnor, “Qumran and the New Testament,” in The New Testament and its Modern Interpreters (ed. E. J. Epp and G. W. MacRae; SBL: The Bible and its Modern Interpreters; Atlanta: Scholars, 1989), pp. 55–71; J. Murphy-O’Connor and James H. Charlesworth, eds., Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1992); Jean-Sébastian Rey, ed., The Dead Sea Scrolls and Pauline Literature (STDJ 102; Leiden: Brill, 2014); George J. Brooke, “From Jesus to the Early Christian Communities: Modes of Sectarianism in the Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture: Proceeding of the International Conference Held at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (July 6-8, 2008) (ed. A. D. Roitman, L. H. Schiffman and S. Tzoref; STDJ 93; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2011), pp. 413–34; C. P. Thide, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity (Oxford: Lion, 2000); Bruce Chilton et. al., eds., A Comparative Handbook to the Gospel of Mark: Comparisons to the Pseudepigrapha, the Qumran Scrolls, and Rabbinic Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2010); J. C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012) see especially pp. 118–41. See also the third volume of J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 3 Vols. (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2006). 7 F. C. Baur in Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien (Tübingen: Fues, 1847), pp. 328, 365, 378, 383, pointed to an Entwicklungsprozess (“developmental process”), which proved that the Fourth Gospel could not belong to the apostolic period. See the insightful discussion by M. Hengel, “Bishop Lightfoot and the Tübingen School on the Gospel of John and the Second Century,” Durham University Journal (January 1992): 23–31 (see esp. p. 24). 8 A. Loisy, Le quatrième évangile (Paris: Picard, 1903), pp. 123–29. 9 J. Weiss, Das Urchristentum (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecth, 1917), p. 624.

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10 E. J. Goodspeed, An Introduction to the New Testament (Chicago: University of ­Chicago, 1937), pp. 314–15. Emphasis my own. 11 In the 1960s, I remember R. E. Cushman, then dean of Duke Divinity School, ­discussing with me why it was clear to him that the Fourth Gospel was composed by a Christian who was deeply imbued with Platonic philosophy. 12 See the Introduction to this book and Chapter 1: “Paradigm Shifts in Johannine ­ Studies.” M.-É. Boismard and A. Lamouille in Synopse des Quatre Évangiles en ­Français III: L'évangile de Jean (Paris: Cerf, 1977) conclude that the Qumran ­influences on the Gospel of John are concentrated in the third level of composition. 13 M. Hengel, The Johannine Question (London: SCM, 1989), p. 111. Cf. Hengel, Die johanneische Frage (WUNT 67; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), pp. 281–4. Hengel agreed that the discovery of the Qumran Scrolls is fundamental for the historical development of John (p. 282). Note also C. K. Barrett (The Gospel of John and Judaism [trans. D. M. Smith; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975], pp. 7–8) contention: “Two circumstances have led to a strong reiteration of the Jewish background and origin of the gospel: on the one hand, the criticism, directed against Bultmann and those who follow him, concerning the relative lateness of the comparative material used to establish a gnostic background of John; on the other, and more important, the discovery of the Qumran scrolls.” 14 Cf. K. Aland, “Der Text des Johannesevangeliums im 2. Jahrhundert,” in Studien zum Text und zur Ethik des Neuen Testaments (ed. W. Schrage; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1986), pp. 1–10. 15 See most recently Chris Keith, “The Initial Location of the Pericope Adulterae in Fourfold Tradition,” NovT 51 (2009): 209–231. 16 Among other recent works on the Johannine Prologue, see Matthew Gordley, “The Johannine Prologue and Jewish Didactic Hymn Traditions: A New Case for Reading the Prologue as a Hymn,” JBL 128 (2009): 781–802; M. Endo, Creation & Christology: A Study on the Johannine Prologue in the Light of Early Jewish Creation Accounts (WUNT 2.149; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002); P. M. Philips, The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: A Sequential Reading (LNTS 294; London: T & T Clark, 2006). 17 See Chapter 2 in this volume. Also see J. Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), pp. 199–204. Also, see James H. Charlesworth, “The Priority of John? Reflections on the Essenes and the First edition of John,” in Für und wider die Priorität des Johannesevangeliums (ed. P. L. Hofrichter; Zürich: Georg Olms Verlag, 2002), pp. 73–114. 18 See R. T. Fortna, The Gospel of Signs (SNTSMS 11; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). 19 See U. C. von Wahlde, The Earliest Version of John’s Gospel (Wilmington: Glazier, 1989). 20 M. Hengel, Die johanneische Frage (WUNT 67; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), p. 281. 21 L. Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 9. 22 F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), p. 2. 23 M. M. Thompson, John: A Commentary (New Testament Library; Louisville: ­Westminster John Knox, 2015), p. 19. 24 See Chapter 6 in this volume. 25 See the contributions to the millennium celebration in Jerusalem in James H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006). 26 See J. Jeremias, The Rediscovery of Bethesda (Louisville: Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1966).



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27 See especially Chapter 6. 28 For a recent treatment of this episode in terms of the amount of wine produced by Jesus, see Hans Förster, “Die Perikope von der Hochzeit zu Kana (Joh 2:1–11) im Kontext der Spätantike,” NovT 55 (2013): 103–26. 29 Text by Lawrence H. Schiffman, translation by J. H. Charlesworth and Jacob Milgrom in Temple Scroll and Related Documents (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), pp. 122–23. 30 N. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983), p. 176; for ­photographs and pertinent discussions, see pp. 210–36. 31 In this report, I am indebted to discussions with many archaeologists, including ­Ronnie Reich, Motti Aviam, and James Strange (Sr. and Jr.). 32 Still useful, thought dated regarding the most recent archaeological discoveries, is T. Kazen’s Jesus and Purity Halakhah (Conciectanea Biblica New Testament Series 38; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2002). 33 D. A. Carson rejects the concept of a Johannine School and is suspicious of any historically reliable information in the Fourth Gospel. See Carson, “Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel: After Dodd, What?” in Gospel Perspectives, 2 vols. (ed. R. T. France and D. Wenham; Sheffield: JSOT, 1981) 2:83–145. More recently, F. J. Moloney has taken up Dodd’s insights and shows that the Fourth Gospel is independent of the Synoptics, and in places, especially in Jesus’ early ministry, preserves reliable historical information. See Moloney, “The Fourth Gospel and the Jesus of History,” NTS 46 (2000): 42–58. 34 P. Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), p. 5. 35 See now the proceedings of the 2016 Princeton-Prague Symposium on the Historical Jesus. The focal question was: “How can John be used in Jesus Research?” J. H. Charlesworth with J. G. R. Pruszinski, eds., Jesus Research: The Gospel of John in Historical Inquiry. The Third Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research, Princeton 2016 (forthcoming). 36 D. M. Smith, “Historical Issues and the Problem of John and the Synoptics,” in From Jesus to John (ed. M. C. de Boer; JSNTSup 84; Sheffield: JSOT, 1994), pp. 252–67. Also, see Smith, “John and the Synoptics: Historical Tradition and the Passion Narrative,” in Light in a Spotless Mirror: Reflections on Jewish Traditions in Dialogue (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and M. A. Daise; Valley Forge: Trinity, 2001). 37 J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (5 vols.; New York: ­Doubleday, 1991–2016); see especially 1:41–55. 38 G. Theissen and A. Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (ed. J. Bowden; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), pp. 36–37. 39 M. Meiser, “Gattung, Adressaten und Intention von Philos ‘In Flaccum,’” JSJ 30 (1999): 418–30. 40 See especially D. Mendels, “‘Creative History’: The Jewish Case,” JSP 2 (1988): 13–20. 41 P. Borgen, “Philo’s Against Flaccus as Interpreted History,” in A Bouquet of Wisdom (ed. K.-J. Illman et al.; Religionsvetenskapliga skrifter 48; Åbo: Åbo Akademi, 2000), pp. 41–57; also see Borgen, Philo of Alexandria: An Exegete for His Time (Leiden: Brill, 1997). 42 R. Bauckham (“The Qumran Community and the Gospel of John,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years after Their Discovery [ed. L. H. Shiffman et al.; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and the Shrine of the Book, 2000], pp. 105–15) affirms this consensus, but thinks “this hypothesis is mistaken.” An earlier and shorter version of Bauckham’s paper appeared as “Qumran and the Fourth Gospel: Is There a Connection?” in The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran Fifty Years After (ed. S. E. Porter and C. A. Evans; JSPSup 26; Sheffield: Sheffield, 1997), pp. 267–79.

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43 See G. H. C. Stuart, The Struggle in Man between Good and Evil (Kampen: Kok, 1984), pp. 94–100. 44 One manuscript of this document was found in Cave 1, ten copies in Cave IV, and one in Cave V. The critical edition of the Rule, may be found in the Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project: The Dead Sea Scrolls—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, vol. 1: Rule of the Community and Related Documents (ed. James H. Charlesworth; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994). 45 One of the first scholars to see this Qumran influence on the Fourth Gospel was K. G. Kuhn, “Die in Palästina gefundenen hebräischen Texte und das neue Testament,” ZTK 47 (1950): 192–211. 46 A pre-Qumran origin of the Angelic Liturgy is conceivable, but the work was certainly used in the Qumran Community and the work may have been composed at Qumran; see Carol A. Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (HSS 27; Atlanta: Scholars, 1985), p. 2. 47 See Carol A. Newsom in the Princeton Edition: Angelic Liturgy (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999), pp. 42–43. 48 See E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice & Belief 63 B.C.E–66 C.E. (London: SCM, 1992), p. 349. 49 Despite the dissent of a few authors, a consensus still exists among the best Qumran specialists on the identification of the Qumranites with the Essenes. L. H. Schiffman challenges the Essene origins of the Qumran group, but he has affirmed (at least to me on several occasions) that the Qumran group in the first century CE is to be identified as Essenes. After almost fifty years of teaching and publishing on the Qumran Scrolls, I have concluded that the Qumran group was Essene and a sect (deliberately removing itself, sociologically and theologically, from other Jews and, indeed, persecuted by the powerful Temple group). Also, we should think about Qumran Essenes, Jerusalem Essenes, and other Essene and Essene-related group living on the outskirts of most of the Jewish cities, as Philo and Josephus reported. See Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1994) and idem, “The Qumran Scrolls and Rabbinic Judaism,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years (ed. P. W. Flint and J. C. VanderKam; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 2:552–71. J. C. VanderKam (“Identity and History of the Community,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years [ed. P. W. Flint and J. C. VanderKam; Leiden: Brill, 1999] 2:487–533) shows why the Qumranites were most likely Essenes. 50 The verb ὑπήκουον (“followed”) with the dative case denotes full surrender. 51 For evidence of Essenes living in Jerusalem, see the pertinent chapters in James H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1992). 52 This statement does not mean that the Essenes affirmed in their own sectarian ­writings the belief in a resurrection. They did not reject it, and they used books in which it was clearly present, namely, Daniel 12, 1 Enoch, and On Resurrection (4Q521). 53 Craig A. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Maker Academic, 2013) 2.1291–92. 54 R. C. Stallman, “Levi and the Levites in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” JSP 10 (1992): 163–89. 55 Both the author of the Temple Scroll and Josephus mention a gate, purportedly that of the Essenes, which was located at the southern end of Jerusalem’s western wall. Some archaeologists now claim that a gate, below the remains of a Byzantine and beside a Herodian socket, is indeed the “Essene Gate.” It is located in the southwestern section of the old wall of Jerusalem (not the present Turkish wall) and appears in the model



56 57

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of first century Jerusalem near the Holy Land Hotel. For photographs, drawings, and discussion, see R. Riesner, “Jesus, the Primitive Community, and the Essene Quarter of Jerusalem,” in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; New York: Doubleday, 1992), pp. 198–234, and J. H. Charlesworth, The Millennium Guide for Pilgrims to the Holy Land (North Richland Hills: BIBAL, 2000), pp. 40–41, 149. B. Pixner and R. Riesner are convinced that Essenes lived in southwestern Jerusalem; see Pixner, Wege des Messias und Stätten der Urkirche (ed. R. Riesner; Giessen and Basel: Brunnen Verlag, 1991) see especially pp. 365–71, and Riesner, Essener und Urgemeinde in Jerusalem (2nd ed.; Giessen and Basel: Brunnen Verlag, 1998). See the pertinent chapters in Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls. K. Stendahl (The School of St. Matthew and Its Use of the Old Testament [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968]) demonstrated that there was a School of Matthew and that scholars within it interpreted Scripture in a manner strikingly similar to the methods found in the Pesharim of the Qumran communities. Also see K. Schubert, “The Sermon on the Mount and the Qumran Texts,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament (New York: Crossroad, 1992), pp. 118–28; and W. D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1966) especially pp. 208–56. Davies argues—and I fully concur—that the Sermon on the Mount “reveals an awareness of the [Dead Sea Scroll] Sect and perhaps a polemic against it” (p. 235). On the links between Essene thought and Ephesians, see Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ix–xvi. Essene affinities with the Fourth Gospel are recognized by the contributors to J. H. Charlesworth, ed., John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1991). M. Philonenko and A. Dupont-Sommer judged that the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs originated among the Essenes. See Philonenko, Les Interpolations chrétiennes des Testaments des Douze Patriarches et les manuscrits de Qumrân (Cahiers de la RHPR 35; Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1960). In Chapter 9, Dupont-Sommer claimed that the Testaments were composed at Qumran; see his The Essene Writings from Qumran, translated by G. Vermes (Oxford: Blackwell, 1961; reprinted in 1973). Bauckham (“The Qumran Community and the Gospel of John,” pp. 105–15) denies any Qumran influence on the Fourth Gospel, but he repeatedly refers to dualistic “imagery.” The main point of my work, and that of others is missed. The crucial point is to see the unique termini technici and the dualistic paradigm. It is found only in Qumran sectarian writings and the Fourth Gospel; outside of Judaism it is found only in Zurvanism. Bauckham rightly states, “Only if the development in the two cases exhibited extensive similarities not attributable to common roots in the common Jewish tradition would there be any reason to postulate a connection” (p. 107). The Fourth Gospel contains a developed dualistic paradigm and termini technici that are part of the paradigm. The Fourth Evangelist did not create this paradigm; he inherited it. It is found within Judaism only at Qumran (as far as we now know). It follows that he most likely was influenced by Qumran concepts and terms, but not the theology. As I have been stressing, the Fourth Evangelist was a genius with creative skills. Translation by J. H. Charlesworth, The Rule of the Community and Related Documents (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994). S. Smalley, John—Evangelist & Interpreter (London: Paternoster, 1992), pp. 30–33. J. A. Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean: Collected Aramaic Essays (SBLMS 25; Missoula: Scholars, 1979), pp. 92–93 (see also pp. 90–91, 102–07); idem, “The Aramaic ‘Son of God’ Text from Qumran Cave 4,” in Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site (ed. M. O. Wise; New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994), pp. 163–78. Milik lectured on this text at Harvard as early as 1972.

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63 Fitzmyer's translation; for the text and translation, see his A Wandering Aramean, pp. 92–93. Fitzmyer rightly states that the titles and verb in this line (“He shall be hailed Son of God and they shall call him Son of the Most High”) are the same titles and verb found in the Lucan infancy narrative (1:32, 35). Translation by J. A. Fitzmyer; see his Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), p. 113. 64 See Charlesworth, John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. xiii–xvi, 76–106. 65 E. Haenchen (John, 2 vols. [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984] 1:223) draws attention to the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for interpreting John 4. Compare P. Garnet, Salvation and Atonement in the Qumran Scrolls (WUNT 2; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1977). 66 See J. H. Charlesworth and Brent A. Strawn, “Reflections on the Text of Serek Ha-Yaḥad found in Cave IV,” in Hommage à Józef T. Milik (ed. F. García Martínez and É. Puech; Paris: Gabalda, 1996), pp. 403–35 with three Plates; Sarianna Metzo, The Textual Development of the Qumran Community Rule (STDJ 21; Leiden and New York: Brill, 1997); Metzo, The Serekh Texts (CQS 9; London: T&T Clark, 2007). 67 See especially Dale C. Allison, Jr., “The Authorship of I QS III,13—IV,14,” RevQ 10 (1980): 229–34 and Armin Lange, Weisheit und Prädestination: Weishteitiche Urordnung und Prädestination in den Textfunden von Qumran (STDJ 18; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1995). 68 Clearer in the Horoscopes than in the Rule is the explanation that each Son of Light has a mixture of darkness along with light (see esp. 4Q186). Each human has nine parts, some of light and others of darkness. Some humans are very evil, having eight parts of darkness and one of light. Other humans are nearly perfect, having eight parts of light and one of darkness. 69 The technical term “Sons of Light” has been found only in Qumran compositions and in documents influenced by Qumran theology. See D. Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988) especially p. 26; idem, “The Parable of the Unjust Steward: Jesus’ Criticism of the Essenes,” in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; New York: Doubleday, 1992), pp. 176–97. Bauckham, in The Dead Sea Scrolls, claims that I “misrepresent the matter” when I claim that “the expression ‘sons of light’ is characteristic of Qumran and John” (109). He quotes me correctly, and from John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 101. Bauckham claims that “sons of light” appears in Lk 16:8, 1Thes. 5:5, and Eph 5:8. He is correct with the first two passages, but I had mentioned them on the page from which he quotes me. He is incorrect to include Eph 5:8; it has “children of light” (τέκνα φωτός). What is missed by Bauckham is the fact that “sons of light” is “characteristic” of Qumran and the Fourth Gospel. Both contain this technical term, which is rare in pre-135/6 CE compositions. For example, it does not even appear in the Testaments of the 12 Patriarchs. One might have expected the term to appear in this Jewish pseudepigraphon, since, as is well known, this document has a dualism reminiscent of, and perhaps influenced by, Essene dualism. The absence of “the Sons of Light” in the T12P is remarkable for an additional reason. The Christian additions to it often seem to show influence from the Fourth Gospel. See the insight by H. C. Kee in OTP 1.777. 70 D. Dimant, “Dualism at Qumran: New Perspectives,” in Caves of Enlightenment (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; North Richland Hills: BIBAL, 1998), pp. 55–73, here 55. 71 Those who are convinced that the Fourth Gospel contains predestinarian ideas will be impressed by the possibility of additional Qumran influence, because it was at Qumran that predestination was developed in a unique way in Second Temple Judaism. See



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J. H. Charlesworth, “The Theologies in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Faith of Qumran (ed. H. Ringgren; New York: Crossroad, 1968–87) 1:132–33. B. Lindars, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 38. Lindars’ (John [Sheffield: JSOT, 1990], p. 49) final verdict was that while there are obvious similarities between Qumran and the Fourth Gospel, “the lasting effect of the discovery of the Scrolls is not to range John alongside Qumran, but to give decisive support to the Jewish character of John and the Johannine church.” I have enjoyed and profited from discussions on this issue with M. Hengel, who agreed that the Zeitgeist in Jerusalem, after Herod, was frequently shaped by Essene theology and terminology. See especially Hermann Lichtenberger, “Qumran,” TRE 28 (1997): 75. See especially David Flusser, Jewish Sources in Early Christianity (Tel Aviv: MOD Books, 1989), pp. 39–40: “Jesus regarded the men of the world as wiser than the Sons of Light, and there is no doubt that the ‘Sons of Light’ here is a reference to the Essenes” (p. 40); idem, Judaism of the Second Temple Period (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University Magnes Press and Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 1:290–91; Flusser with R. Steven Notley, The Sage from Galilee: Rediscovering Jesus’ Genius (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2007), pp. 66–68. Urban C. von Wahlde, The Gospel and Letters of John, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2010) 1:259. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966), 1:lxii. J. Becker, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, 2 vols. (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1991) 1:176. Boismard and A. Lamouille conclude that the Essene influences come in at stage three of editing. I have judged that they are there in the “first edition.” There is much research still to be prosecuted on this issue. Brown (The Gospel According to John, 1:lxiii) concluded, “In our judgment the parallels are not close enough to suggest a direct literary dependence of John upon the Qumran literature, but they do suggest Johannine familiarity with the type of thought exhibited in the scrolls” (italics mine). See especially Keener, The Gospel of John, 1:163. G. Baumbach denies a direct influence from the Rule on the Fourth Gospel; see his Qumran und das Johannesevangelium (AVTRW 6; Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1957), p. 53. Some of the Hermetic tractates and gnostic codices are strikingly similar to the Fourth Gospel, but the influence seems to flow from the Fourth Gospel to them. D. M. Smith, Johannine Christianity (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1984), p. 26. J. Painter, The Quest for the Messiah (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), p. 29. See O. Böcher, Der johanneische Dualismus im Zusammenhang des nachbiblischen Judentums (Gütersloh: Mohn, 1965); Raymond E. Brown, “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospels and Epistles,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament (New York: Crossroad, 1992), pp. 183–203; Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 3 vols. (ed. David Smith and G. A. Kon; New York: Crossroad, 1982) 1:108, 128–35, 241, 249, and 402–7; see also most of the essays in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls. J. L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979); Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist, 1979). W. A. Meeks, The Moral World of the First Christians (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), p. 109; see also idem, The Prophet-King (NovTSup 14; Leiden: Brill, 1967).

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90 See A. Guilding, The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship (Oxford: Clarendon, 1960), pp. 92–120. I am also indebted to discussions with students in my doctoral seminars on the Gospel of John. 91 G. A. Lee, Jewish Feasts and the Gospel of John (Wilmington: Glazier, 1989), p. 27; italics hers. 92 See especially Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple; D. M. Smith, First, Second, and Third John (Louisville: John Knox, 1991); and R. Schnackenburg, The Johannine Epistles (New York: Crossroad, 1992), pp. 17–24. 93 See E. Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968), and the counter arguments by Hengel, The Johannine Question, p. 68; R. A. Whitacre, Johannine Polemic (SBLDS 67; Chico: Scholars, 1982), 127–28; and M. M. Thompson, The Humanity of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988). 94 The claims that this text has the Messiah raise the dead are based on a dubious restoration and overlook the fact that, in the immediate context, the governing subject (nomen regens) is clearly “the Lord.” 95 See W. Baldensperger, Der Prolog des vierten Evangeliums (Freiburg: Mohr Siebeck, 1898); R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), pp. 84–97. 96 See the insightful reflections by H. Ridderbos, The Gospel According to John (ed. J. Vriend; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), p. 65. 97 Also, see J. H. Charlesworth, “John the Baptizer and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 3.1-36. 98 R. A. Culpepper, The Johannine School (SBLDS 26; Missoula: Scholars, 1975). See also G. Strecker, “Die Anfänge der Johanneischen Schule,” NTS 32 (1986): 31–47, and E. Ruckstuhl, “Zur Antithese Idiolekt-Soziolekt im johanneischen Schrifttum,” in Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), pp. 219–64. 99 The fact of a unified vocabulary and use of language throughout the strata in the Fourth Gospel was clarified by E. Schweizer and E. Ruckstuhl with P. Dschulnigg. See Schweizer, Ego Eimi (FRLANT 56; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965) and Ruckstuhl and Dschulnigg, Stilkritik und Verfasserfrage im Johannesevangelium (NTOA 17; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991). 100 M. Martin, The Scribal Character of the Dead Sea Scrolls I–II (Bibliothèque du Muséon 44 and 45; Louvain: Publications Universitaires, 1958) 1:393–402, 2:710–11. 101 Seven of the eight manuscripts in which more than one hand is discernible reveal the Qumran Scribal School's characteristics; hence, these seven texts may indicate cooperation within the Qumran Scribal School. I am grateful to E. Tov for this information. 102 See especially E. Tov, “Further Evidence for the Existence of a Qumran Scribal School,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years after Their Discovery (ed. L. H. Shiffman et al.; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and the Shrine of the Book, 2000), pp. 199–216. 103 See P. Stuhlmacher's insights in Das Evangelium und die Evangelien (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), pp. 12–15. 104 R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John, pp. 13–18. 105 M. Testus, ed., Papyrus Bodmer X–XII (Cologne: Bibliotheca Bodmeriana, 1959). 106 J. Licht, “Solomon, Odes of,” EncJud 15 (1971): 114–15. 107 J. Carmignac, “Un qumrânien converti au christianisme: L’auteur des Odes de Salomon,” in Qumran-Probleme (ed. H. Bardtke; Berlin: Akademie, 1963), pp. 75–108; James H. Charlesworth, “Les Odes de Salomon et les manuscrits de la Mer Morte,” RB 77 (1970): 522–49.



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108 See Charlesworth in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 107–36. 109 Smith, Johannine Christianity, p. 27. 110 See James H. Charlesworth and R. A. Culpepper, “The Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John,” CBQ 35 (1973): 298–322. A slightly revised version of this work appears as “The Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John,” in Critical Reflections on the Odes of Solomon (ed. James H. Charlesworth; JSPSup 22; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998) 1:232–60. 111 Even though we have come to realize how different are the Tendenzen of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, I concur with the majority of scholars that there is still merit in seeing these three Gospels together, as the Synoptics, and in contrast with the Fourth Gospel. They tend to see the chronology and teaching of Jesus with (syn) the same eye (optic). Yet we must be alert to the distortions that also can arise by the assumption that they see Jesus synoptically and with little differences. 112 Although the Fourth Evangelist may have known one of the Synoptics, he was not dependent on any one of them, as Gardner-Smith, Goodenough, Käsemann, Cullmann, Robinson, Smith, and other scholars have demonstrated in different ways. As P. Borgen (“John and the Synoptics,” in The Interrelations of the Gospels [ed. D. L. Dungan; BETL 95; Leuven: Leuven University, 1990], pp. 408–37) pointed out, the Fourth Gospel seems to relate to the pre-Synoptic tradition that is evident, for example, in Paul. See the major study by D. M. Smith, John among the Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), and idem, “The Problem of John and the Synoptics in Light of the Relation between Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels,” in John and the Synoptics (ed. A. Denaux; BETL 101; Leuven: Leuven University, 1992), pp. 147–62. 113 Wayne A. Meeks, “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism,” JBL 91 (1972): 44–72, see especially 70–71. 114 See the sociological reflections in my “John the Baptizer and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 3.1–36. 115 I use the term “liminality” in the sense defined by V. Turner, Process, Performance, and Pilgrimage (New Delhi: Concept, 1979); see especially pp. 11–59; also see J. Z. Smith, “Birth Upside Down or Right Side Up?” HR 9 (1969–70): 281–303; idem, “A Place on Which to Stand: Symbols and Social Change,” Worship 44 (1970): 457–74. 116 R. Brown (The Community of the Beloved Disciple, pp. 34–40) rightly suggested that some Samaritans seemed to have joined the Johannine community. 117 See J. H. Neyrey, An Ideology of Revolt (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) especially pp. 208–09. 118 A. Desto, a cultural anthropologist, and M. Pesce, a New Testament scholar, compare the process of initiation between 1QS and the Fourth Gospel. They discover major similarities and differences. See their Come nasce una religione: Antropologia ed esegesi del Vangelo di Giovanni (Bari-Rome: Laterza, 2000). 119 See H. Leroy, Rätsel und Missverständnis (BBB 30; Bonn: Hanstein, 1968); also F. Vouga, Le cadre historique et l'intention théologique de Jean (Paris: Beauchesne, 1977); see especially pp. 15–36. 120 As John Painter (The Quest for the Messiah, 38) points out: “This comparison [between John and Qumran] is important because it highlights the sectarian character of both the Qumran community and the Johannine Christians.” See also M.-É. Boismard, in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1991), pp. 156–65. 121 See the studies by Jewish and Christian scholars in Hillel and Jesus, eds. J. H. Charlesworth and L. Johns (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1996), and see R. A. Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), pp. 125–32.

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122 For a development of this position, see James H. Charlesworth, “The Gospel of John: Exclusivism Caused by a Social Setting Different from That of Jesus (John 11:54 and 14:6),” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000 (ed. R. Bieringer et al.; Jewish and Christian Heritage Series 1; Assen: Royal van Gorcum, 2001), pp. 479–513. 123 Here I am succinctly collecting my own reflections over many years. I am not reviewing the research by Qumran and Johannine experts nor merely summarizing the previous discussion. Hence, it is not possible to present an exhaustive report of the best research. For bibliographical assistance, consult B. Jongeling, A Classified Bibliography of the Finds in the Desert of Judah 1958–1969 (STDJ 7; Leiden: Brill, 1971) 2:1–29, J. A. Fitzmyer, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Major Publications and Tools for Study (Atlanta: Scholars, 1990), pp. 173–79, F. García Martínez and D. W. Parry, A Bibliography of the Finds in the Desert of Judah 1970–95 (Leiden: Brill, 1996), as well as the issues of Dead Sea Discoveries, the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha, the Revue de Qumran, and other periodicals. 124 D. Flusser, The Spiritual History of the Dead Sea Sect (Tel Aviv: MOD, 1989), p. 46. 125 Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 1:129. 126 Ibid., 1:131–32. 127 In using these terms I wish to express my indebtedness to R. de Vaux, P. Benoit, M.-É Boismard, and J. Murphy-O'Connor. During my time at the École Biblique they emphasized, under the influence of J. Guitton, that early “Christian” theology was shaped by the esprit of Jesus and in some ways developed through the mentalité of Qumran. 128 See W. D. Davies, “Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Flesh and Spirit,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament (New York: Crossroad, 1992), pp. 157–82; Flusser, The Spiritual History of the Dead Sea Sect, pp. 52–56. 129 See J. D. G. Dunn, “Jesus-Flesh and Spirit: An Exposition of Romans 1.3–4,” JTS 24 (1973): 40–68; see especially pp. 52–55. It is surprising to read today R. P. Menzies’ (The Development of Early Christian Pneumatology [JSNTSup 54; Sheffield: JSOT, 1991], p. 80) conclusion that the dualism in the Rule is a psychological dualism, pertaining to “human dispositions.” Such an exegesis was abandoned around 1969. 130 See M. Broshi in The Dead Sea Scrolls (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1979), pp. 12–20 (esp. p. 15). Musser (The Spiritual History of the Dead Sea Sect, p. 46) concurs, “The great basic idea, which the Teacher of Righteousness apparently gave the world and which differed from those of similar movements of his age, was the doctrine we call the doctrine of predestination.” I am impressed that numerous scholars (apparently independently) came to the startling conclusion that the Essenes bequeathed to Western civilization the concept of predestination. 131 J. C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), p. 109. 132 See Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 1:132–33. 133 Emmanuel O. Tukasi is convinced that “similar social” concerns explain the apparent similarities between the Essenes and John. See his Determinism and Petitionary Prayer in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Library of Second Temple Studies 66; London: T & T Clark, 2008), pp. 140–41. 134 Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity, pp. 28–29. 135 R. Bauckham, “Qumran and the Fourth Gospel,” in The Scrolls and the Scriptures (ed. S. E. Porter and C. A. Evans; JSPSup 26; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997), pp. 267–79; see especially p. 278.



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136 H. Ziebritzki, Heiliger Geist und Weltseele (BHT 84; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994) see especially. pp. 64–66, 176–81. Also see H. Dörrie, Ὑπόστασις. Wort- und Bedeutungsgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1955). 137 F. M. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), p. 153; italics his. 138 If the Fourth Evangelist had been influenced by Paul, then we should consider if Paul had been influenced by Essenes as he developed his pneumatology. 139 Obviously, we need to explore to what extent the early followers of Jesus imparted to him pneumatology and that this aspect of the early kerygma and didache eventually helped shape the Fourth Gospel, as well as the other gospels. 140 See my discussion in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 20–22. 141 R. Bauckham in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years after Their Discovery, pp. 105–15, seeks “to disprove” the possibility that Qumran has influenced the Fourth Gospel (p. 108). I doubt that scholars will be convinced this method is evidence of objective historical research. He also claims that in “assessing the hypothesis of a Qumran origin for Johannine dualism, it is therefore very useful to focus on precisely how this imagery of light and darkness is used in each case” (p. 106). He thus falls into the error of functionalism (different uses do not prove different influences). He misses the following point: evidence that an author has been influenced by a document but changes some of its meaning and uses it differently than originally intended is still clear evidence that the author has been influenced by the document. That is precisely what happens when Matthew redacts Mark. However, using his “method,” Bauckham, influenced by but misunderstanding Lindars, contends that the appearance of “the Spirit of Truth” in Qumran sectarian writings and the Fourth Gospel—but in other documents antedating Bar Kokhba—is irrelevant and should not be included in a study of Qumran and the Fourth Gospel because in the latter work the term does not appear “in the context of the light darkness imagery” (pp. 113–14). Cannot a Qumran technical term be used differently by the Fourth Evangelist? And are we to think that “the Spirit of Truth” appears in a gospel that is not permeated by the imagery (indeed the paradigm) of light-versus-darkness? 142 O. Betz, Der Parakiet: Fürsprecher im häretischen Spätjudentum, im Johannesevangelium und in neu Gefundenen gnostischen Schriften (AGJU 2; Leiden: Brill, 1963). Also see A. R. C. Leaney, “The Johannine Paraclete and the Qumran Scrolls,” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1991), pp. 38–61. 143 Of course, the authors of the Qumran Scrolls habitually refer to God as YHWH (considered ineffable and clarified sometimes by tetrapuncta), whereas the Fourth Evangelist preserves Jesus’ preferred reference to God as Father, πατήρ (e.g., Jn 14:8–11). 144 George J. Brooke, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005,) pp. 12–13 [with caveats]; R. E. Brown in John and Qumran, pp. 1–8; Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, pp. 235–37; B. J. Capper, “With the Oldest Monks . . .,” JTS NS 49 (1998): 1–55; Painter, John, p. 6; Keener, The Gospel of John, 2.882. 145 Too many non-reflective scholars continue to use the oxymoron “realized eschatology.” C. H. Dodd created the term in rejecting Albert Schweitzer’s futuristic eschatology. Dodd retracted the misrepresentative construct. One should replace “realized eschatology” with realizing eschatology; that is, the eschaton is in the process of breaking into the present. See Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), p. 447, n. 1 (Emendations of “realized eschatology” “have been suggested for the avoidance of misunderstandings . . . [such

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146 147 148 149 150

151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160

161 162 163

Jesus as Mirrored in John as] Professor Florovsky’s ‘inaugurated eschatology’ and Professor Joachim Jeremias’ sich realisierende Eschatologie, which I like but cannot translate into English.”). C. F. D. Moule’s 1978 preface of the revised edition of Dodd’s The Parables of the Kingdom: “Dodd was inclined to believe that the Fourth Gospel had preserved, better than the Synoptic tradition, the original emphasis of Jesus himself.” One of the best studies is by H.-W. Kuhn, Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil (SUNT 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966). See Charlesworth, The Pesharim and Qumran History. J. Frey, Die johanneische Eschatologie, 3 vols. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997–2000); see especially 1:209, 274–75, 400 and 3:77, 200. See James H. Charlesworth, “An Allegorical and Autobiographical Poem by the Moreh Haṣ-Ṣedeq (1QH 8:4–11),” in “Sha‘arei Talmon” (ed. M. Fishbane et al.; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992), pp. 295–307. P. Wernberg-Møller (“The Nature of the Yaḥad According to the Manual of Discipline and Related Documents,” ALUOS 6 [1966–68]: 56–81) warned against thinking that ‫יחד‬, indicated “a monastically organized society of Jewish ascetics.” He rightly stressed that the Community was “open for membership to any pious Jew of the required intellectual and moral standard.” See also S. Talmon, The World of Qumran from Within (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989), pp. 53–60; J. Maier, “Zum Begriff ‫ יחד‬in den Texten von Qumran,” in Qumran (ed. K. E. Grözinger; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1981), pp. 225–48. For the frequency of the use of ‫יחד‬, see James H. Charlesworth, et al., eds., Graphic Concordance to the Dead Sea Scrolls (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1991), p. 275 (this form without a preformative appears ten times in 1QS). J. Ferreira, Johannine Ecclesiology (JSNTSup 160; Sheffield: Sheffield, 1998), p. 132. Ibid., pp. 145–65. Ibid., p. 162. Ibid., 133–34. See Thomas Kazen, Issues of Impurity in Early Judaism (Coniectanea Biblica New Testament Series 45; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 2010). H. K. Harrington, “Purity,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls 2.724. See James H. Charlesworth, “John the Baptizer and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls 3.1–36. The list is in chronological order, to the best of our knowledge. I express deep appreciation for decades of studying these ritual baths with Ehud Nezer, Ronnie Reich, and Motti Aviam. Each is a special friend with exceptional experience and knowledge. Wild and unprofessional claims about “the Messiah” in some Dead Sea Scrolls have been made. For a judicious assessment, see the chapters by Charlesworth, Schiffman, VanderKam, and Talmon in The Messiah, edited by James H. Charlesworth (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), as well as the chapters by Collins, VanderKam, and Puech in The Community of the Renewed Covenant (ed. E. Ulrich and J. VanderKam; Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 1994). Equally important are Flusser, The Spiritual History of the Dead Sea Sect, pp. 83–89, and Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1994), pp. 317–27. James H. Charlesworth, et al., eds., Qumran-Messianism: Studies on the Messianic Expectations in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998). The Greek is carefully constructed, making a play on the ineffable tetragrammaton, Yahweh: “I am [he], the one who is speaking to you.” See Flusser, The Spiritual History of the Dead Sea Sect, 76–82.



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164 Sjef van Tilborg, Imaginative Love in John (Biblical Interpretation Series 2; Leiden and New York: Brill, 1993) p. 252; see also pp. 240–41. 165 M.-É. Boismard, “The First Epistle of John and the Writings of Qumran,” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1991), pp. 156–65; see especially p. 165. 166 See Charlesworth, The Pesharim and Qumran History. 167 I develop this idea in The Beloved Disciple (Valley Forge: Trinity, 1995), pp. xiv–xvi, xix, 14–48, 205–10, 267–68, 384–85. 168 See J. Rologg, “Der johanneische ‘Lieblingsjünger’ un der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit,” NTS 15 (1968–69): 129–51. 169 E. Ellis, “Gospels Criticism: A Perspective on the State of the Art,” in Das Evangelium und die Evangelien (ed. P. Stuhlmacher; WUNT 28; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983), pp. 27–54; the quotation is from p. 40. 170 See James H. Charlesworth, “Have the Dead Sea Scrolls Revolutionized our Understanding of the New Testament?” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years after Their Discovery, 1947–1997 (ed. L. H. Shiffman et al.; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and the Shrine of the Book, 2000), pp. 116–32. 171 See the authoritative study of Talmon in The World of Qumran from Within, pp. 147–85. 172 See the discussions in Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls. 173 Adam, having sinned, knew that he was naked before God. So, Peter, having denied Christ, is described as naked and jumping into the cleansing water before the Lord. 174 W. M. Brownlee, “John the Baptist in the New Light of Ancient Scrolls,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament (New York: Crossroad, 1992), pp. 33–53; idem, “Whence the Gospel according to John?” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1991), pp. 166–94; cf. Bo Reicke, “Nytt ljus över Johannes döparens förkunnelse,” Religion och Bibel 11 (1952): 5–18. 175 See Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple, see especially chapter 12. 176 Thus, Ashton (Understanding the Fourth Gospel, p. 235): “The pervasive and deeplying dualistic structures . . . are scarcely to be accounted for by the suggestion that the evangelist was a disciple of John the Baptist, unless the latter was himself so deeply soaked in Qumranian ideas as to be virtually indistinguishable from one of the community's own teachers.” 177 Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1.lxiii. 178 Brown, in The Scrolls and the New Testament (New York: Crossroad, 1992), p. 206 (originally published in 1955). 179 See H. C. Kee in OTP 1.780. J. Riaud finds that the Christian redaction of the Paralipomena Jeremiae is inspired by the Fourth Gospel. See his “The Figure of Jeremiah in the Paralipomena Jeremiae Prophetiae: His Originality; His ‘Christianization’ by the Christian Author of the Conclusion (9.10–32),” JSP 22 (2000): 31–44; see especially pp. 41–42. 180 See, further, my introductory comments in Ringgren, The Faith of Qumran. 181 See Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, p. 235. 182 Brown, “John, Gospel and Letters of,” in The Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (2000) 1:414–17. 183 I was (and remain) influenced by Brown’s research, as well as that published by K. G. Kuhn, “Johannesevangelium und Qumrantexte,” in Neotestamentica et Patristica (ed. W. C. van Unnik; NovTSup 6; Leiden: Brill, 1962) pp. 111–22; idem, “Die in Palästina gefundenen hebräischen Texte und das Neue Testament,” ZTK 47 (1950): 192–211. 184 James H. Charlesworth, in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 103–04. This essay was first published in NTS 15 (1968–69): 389–418.

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185 Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, pp. 236–37. 186 Charlesworth, John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 105. What I omit from this quotation is my attempt to state in the 1990s what should have been presented more lucidly in the 1960s. 187 Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, p. 237. 188 Ashton, “Second Thoughts on the Fourth Gospel,” in What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies, ed. T. Thatcher (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007), pp. 1–2. 189 E. Ruckstuhl, “Zur Chronologie der Leidensgeschichte Jesu, I,” SNTU 10 (1985): 27–61 (see esp. pp. 55–56); idem, “Zur Chronologie der Leidensgeschichte Jesu, II,” SNTU 11 (1986): 97–129; idem, Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), pp. 393–95. 190 See Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple. 191 It is conceivable that none of the Qumranites ever joined the Palestinian Jesus Movement. That still leaves most of the Essenes unaccounted for, since over 3,850 of the 4,000 Essenes were living outside of Qumran in ancient Palestine, if Philo and Josephus can be trusted. Did none of the Essenes join the Palestinian Jesus Movement? Is that likely when Pharisees and almost every group of Jews are known to have joined it? 192 I have argued that “Essene thought probably had some impact on Jesus and then Paul, but that the major and clearest influences can be dated to the writings that post-date 70 CE.” See Charlesworth, “Have the Dead Sea Scrolls Revolutionized our Understanding of the New Testament?” p. 127. 193 Perhaps other compositions come from the Johannine School as well, including 1, 2, and 3 John, the Apocalypse of John, and the Odes of Solomon. Ignatius of Antioch probably knew John and the Odes, but it is difficult to prove this point. 194 In the late sixties, J. L. Martyn (History & Theology in the Fourth Gospel [Nashville: Abingdon, 1979], p. 12) considered the possibility of Essenes and Samaritans living in “John's city.” He opined that this possibility “cannot be said” or cannot be said “with certainty.” In light of recent discoveries, improved methods, and more careful research, W. Meeks (The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology [NovTSup 14: Leiden: Brill, 1967], pp. 318–19) and R. E. Brown (The Community of the Beloved Disciple, pp. 36–40, 56) concluded that converts from Samaritanism were most likely in the Johannine community. I now conclude that Essenes were probably living in the Johannine School or Community. Note that while Martyn mentions “city,” Brown and I talk about the Johannine community. For a careful and informed assessment of possible Samaritan influence on the Fourth Gospel, and a review of the publications by J. Bowman, Meeks, E. D. Freed, G. W. Buchanan, M. Pamment, J. D. Purvis, and others, see M.-É. Boismard, Moses or Jesus (trans. B. T. Viviano; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993). Boismard adds some challenging new insights, and wisely concludes that the links between Samaritan thought and Johannine theology “cannot be the effect of chance” (p. 32). 195 In The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament, George Brooke opines that some Levites, perhaps Quranites, lived in the Johannine community (p. 1290). 196 Brian J. Capper postulates that influences from the Dead Sea Scrolls upon John’s story of Jesus may have occurred in Bethany or Jerusalem’s southwest hill. See Capper in John, Qumran, and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Sixty Years of Discovery and Debate (ed. M. L. Coloe and T. Thatcher; Early Judaism and its Literature 32; Atlanta: SBL, 2011), p. 114. 197 Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” JBL 81 (1962): 1–13.



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198 I agree with E. P. Sanders that subjectivity “cannot be avoided in anything we do,” and that in “the humanities in the United States today, subjectivity is . . . embraced far too enthusiastically.” Indeed, each scholar should aim “at objectivity.” See Sanders, Jesus Two Thousand Years Later (ed. James H. Charlesworth and W. P. Weaver; Harrisburg: Trinity, 2000), p. 53. 199 Ferreira, Johannine Ecclesiology, p. 140. 200 P. Grech examines the anti-Jewish polemic of the Johannine writings, especially Revelation 2–3, which makes sense in light of what is known about Ephesus. See Grech, “Ebrei e cristiani ad Efeso: Riflessi nel Vangelo di Giovanni,” in Atti del IV Simposio di Efeso su S. Giovanni Apostolo, edited by L. Padovese (Rome: Pontificio Ateneo Antoniano, 1994), pp. 139–46. Murphy-O’Connor (“Qumran and the New Testament,” in The New Testament and Its Modern Interpreters [ed. E. J. Epp and G. W. MacRae; The Bible and its Modern Interpreters; Atlanta: Scholars, 1989], p. 62) favored the conclusion that Essene influence helped shape the Fourth Gospel in Ephesus. 201 Hannah K. Harrington rightly notes that ritual ablutions do not suggest any Qumran influence on John. These, as I have pointed out in the preceding pages, were a common aspect of “Shared Judaism” (my term for what unites Jews before 70 CE). See Harrington in John, Qumran, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 118. 202 The name “Moses” appears in John twelve times but only seven times in Matthew, eight times in Mark, and ten times in Luke. As is well known, Moses was the quintessential prophet in Samaritanism. See F. Dexinger, “Die Moses-Terminologie in Tibåt Mårqe: Einige Beobachtungen,” in Samaritan Researches (ed. V. Morabito, A. D. Crown and L. Davey; Studies in Judaica 10; Sydney: Mandelbaum, 2000) 1.57–70. 203 Loren Stuckenbruck illustrates the way Qumran helps us comprehend the prayer in John 17. See his work in John, Qumran, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 159–60; see especially p. 139. 204 See especially the insights found in J. D. G. Dunn, “Let John be John,” in Das Evangelium und die Evangelien, pp. 330–37; and R. A. Culpepper, “What Makes John Unique?” in The Gospel and Letters of John (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), pp. 18–26. 205 For an overview, see J. H. Charlesworth, “The Fourth Evangelist and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Assessing Trends over Nearly Sixty Years,” in John, Qumran, and the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 161–82.

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Part Two

John and the Historical Jesus

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5

John: A Neglected Source1

Biblical research today seldom permits a scholar to claim an area of consensus; yet most New Testament scholars would probably agree that those who have written a life of Jesus over the past 100 years have usually focused on Mark and the Synoptics. Against this strong consensus, this chapter points to a growing propensity of some of the best experts devoted to Jesus Research. Some leading experts are no longer branding John as a “spiritual” work devoid of historical information.2 I certainly do not presume that the following reflections are scientific and objective; we have all learned to forego such camouflages of what can only be claimed, after the published insights of Polybius, Polanyi, Merleau-Ponty, and Pokorný, to be an aspect of personal knowledge. The first of these, Polybius, stated long before Jesus or John: “The inquirer contributes to the narrative as much as his informant, since the suggestions of the person who follows the narrative guide the memory (ὑπόμνησις)3 of the narrator to each incident.”4 As is well known, Polanyi emphasized personal knowledge and the subjective in all scientific research, and Merleau-Ponty illustrated the intentionality of all language and the collapse of the subject-object dichotomy. Pokorný emphasized the importance of the Gospels in the very beginnings of “Christianity” alongside some apocalyptic texts that were not canonized,5 and “that any kind of search for meaning in history and any understanding of the self must take the possibility of eschatological transcendence seriously and come to terms with its best-known Hebraic-Christian historical expressions.”6 Hoping that our collective memory and suggestions help disclose historical elements in John’s narrative, my focused question is the following: Is it wise to ignore the Fourth Gospel in re-constructing the life, mission, and message of Jesus from Nazareth?7

1  A dated paradigm: Ignore John 1.1  Five influential opinions After Reimarus’ thoroughgoing dismissal of any historicity in the gospels, the nineteenth century began with a search for a source with reliable historical data about Jesus. In 1832, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) concluded that the Gospel of John was the best source for reconstructing the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. In 1835, David Friedrich Strauss critiqued Schleiermacher’s choice; and though he used John, Strauss

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

judged the gospels, especially John, devoid of reliable history; they were deposits of myths which evolved from philosophical ideas, poetry, or history.8 In 1847, F. C. Baur convinced many that John could not be used in recreating Jesus’ life and teaching.9 In his Vie de Jésus of 1863, Ernest Renan judged John to be an apologetic work devoid of the attractive “simple, disinterested, impersonal tone of the synoptics.”10 In Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes of 1892, Johannes Weiss argued: “The contemporary state of Gospel criticism justifies our excluding the Gospel of John almost totally from our investigation.”11 As Walter P. Weaver pointed out in his judicious survey of Jesus’ lives from 1900 until 1950, at the beginning of the twentieth century scholars tended to concur not only that only the intra-canonical gospels alone count in historical research, but that John “raises great difficulties and should be largely omitted.”12 As J. D. G. Dunn reports, “The Fourth Gospel had been effectively knocked out of the quest.”13 Subsequently, Jesus scholars depended on, sometimes only on, the Synoptics, and among them most notably Mark. Occasionally, emphasis is placed on a Sayings Source used by Matthew and Luke; this Source, Q, is probably anterior to Mark and is certainly Jewish, perhaps emanating from Galilean circles.14 In a most helpful guide to studying the historical Jesus, Gerd Theissen and Annette Merz conclude: “Q is certainly the most important source for reconstructing the teaching of Jesus.”15 They also rightly report that Paul is closer to the historical Jesus than any of the Synoptics, making no mention of John at that point and representing a tendency among scholars.16 John has been ignored by scholars devoted to the so-called Quest of the Historical Jesus. In the past half century, many exceptionally influential scholars, prosecuting research on the historical Jesus, stress that only the Synoptics are to be followed in reconstructing Jesus’ life and message. I have chosen five luminaries to illustrate the perspective that the Synoptics alone are to be used in reconstructing the life and teaching of Jesus. In Jesus of Nazareth, G. Bornkamm argued that “the sources to which we owe almost exclusively our historical knowledge of Jesus are the Synoptics.”17 To study the history of the traditions about Jesus “we have to turn first of all to the synoptics.”18 Perhaps Bornkamm used two adverbs “almost exclusively” to reflect a choice for the Synoptics but uncertainty in claiming there is no historical data in John. In the notes, Bornkamm evidences numerous problems in ignoring John’s witness when describing Jesus’ passion and resurrection.19 After presenting a most helpful study on the tendencies of the Synoptic tradition, one would expect E. P. Sanders to begin with and stay focused on the Synoptics. In Jesus and Judaism, Sanders begins a clear approach to Jesus, beginning with Mark’s account of the so-called cleansing of the Temple. In John’s account of this action, we confront “post-Easter interpretation.”20 In a subsequent book, The Historical Figure of Jesus, Sanders writes: “We shall now follow Mark for the story of Jesus’ early activity in Galilee after the call of the first disciples.”21 Sanders is clear about rejecting John from Jesus Research: “The Gospel of John is quite different from the other three gospels, and it is primarily in the latter that we must seek information about Jesus.”22 The most influential book on Jesus from the Jesus Seminar is by John Dominic Crossan. In The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant, Crossan uses the intra-canonical and many extracanonical sources for Jesus’ life and teaching.23



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He perceives the importance of learning from the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, the Jewish papyri, and the Greek and Latin authors who mention Judaism and Jews in antiquity. Crossan’s prose is often so attractive that one forgets to think about his methodology. In studying Jesus’ baptism, Crossan judges that in the Gospel of John “the baptism of Jesus is gone forever, and only the revelation about Jesus remains.”24 One could add that according to Luke, another non-historical account, John the Baptizer cannot have baptized Jesus, since Luke has placed him in prison. Crossan has a very detailed and novel list of sources for Jesus. He places the following sources for Jesus between 30 CE and 60 CE: 1 Thessalonians, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, Romans, Gospel of Thomas (earliest stratum), Egerton Gospel, Papyrus Vindobonensis Greek 2325, Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1224, Gospel of the Hebrews, the Sayings Source Q, a miracle collection, an apocalyptic scenario, and a Cross Gospel. The first edition of the Gospel of John is relegated to the “very early second century CE and a second edition of John appeared somewhere between 120 and 150 CE.”25 Obviously, for Crossan, John is not a source for authentic Jesus tradition. In Jesus and the Victory of God, N.T. Wright admitted: “This book is largely based on the synoptic gospels.”26 As Wright informed me, his focus and the exclusion of John was because of the mood at that time and the scholars he was addressing, namely Sanders and Crossan. He also admitted that the study of John was not his specialty and that the Gospel was challenging: Someone who spends most of his time studying Paul and the synoptics, rather than John, may come to feel like an Alpine climber who from time to time hears tales of the Himalayas. I am aware that there is a large range of mountains still waiting for me; aware, too, that they may offer views, prospects and of course risks yet more breathtaking than the ones I habitually climb.

One could not have wished for a more balanced and mature expression of why Wright chose the Synoptics as the source for Jesus Research. One should not confuse Bornkamm’s definition of Jesus sources with Wright’s prerogative. Wright admitted later in this book that including non-canonical gospels “is simply good scholarly practice” and clearly used John in imagining Jesus’ passion and resurrection.27 This inclusion of John appears more evident in Wright’s smaller The Challenge of Jesus.28 Jewish experts on Jesus—notably Klausner, Flusser, and Vermes—tended to shun John and follow Mark; perhaps the reasons are the long-held (and confused) opinion that John is really a Greek Gospel and somewhat “anti-Jewish.”29 Note the words of Joseph Klausner: “The Fourth Gospel is not a religio-historical but a religiophilosophical book.”30 In Jesus, David Flusser offered the customary claim: “The fourth gospel is correctly regarded as biographically unreliable,” and “is of less historical value than the three synoptic gospels.”31 More recently, in 2007, Flusser repeated these judgments and added new ones: “The first three Gospels are primarily based upon common historical material, while the fourth Gospel, John, is correctly regarded as more concerned with presenting a theological perspective.”32 Our final witness for a consensus to base Jesus Research on the Synoptics is Geza Vermes. In Jesus the Jew, he chose to use the Synoptics to “find out how the writers of the

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Gospels, echoing primitive tradition, wished him to be known.”33 Vermes’ many works on Jesus include The Changing Faces of Jesus, The Authentic Gospel of Jesus, The Passion: The True Story of an Event that Changed Human History, and The Nativity: History and Legend. Vermes often mentioned “all three evangelists” which means Mark, Matthew, and Luke. Vermes judged that John is “at home in Hellenistic mystical speculation,” contains a “highly evolved doctrine,” was by no means composed by an eyewitness to Jesus, and reflects a rift with the synagogue that is “hardly conceivable before the turn of the first century AD.” He concludes: “The combined evidence suggests that the Fourth Gospel was published in the early second century, probably between the years AD 100 and 110.”34 Vermes judged that in contrast to John, the Synoptics were right to report a rift between Jesus and his family. He also concluded that John incorrectly has Jesus travel from Galilee to Jerusalem through Samaria.35 Regarding the time of Jesus’ Last Supper, Vermes followed the Synoptics and has Jesus celebrate a Seder and contends that John was incorrect to report that Jesus’ Last Supper was “before the feast of Passover”; “After sunset, at the start of 15 Nisan, Jesus reclined at table with his apostles and celebrated what is known in contemporary Judaism as the Seder meal.”36 In another book, published in the same year, Vermes perceived more credibility in John’s traditions: “In John, with greater probability, everything is dated twenty-four hours earlier: the Last Supper of Jesus with his apostles is not described as a Passover meal and it is specifically stated that Jesus was delivered by the chief priests to Pilate in the morning of the day before the feast on 14 Nisan.”37 In The Passion, Vermes wisely saw the importance of John’s dating and narrative; that is, Jesus was arrested and interrogated (not a trial) before Passover and Shabbat and not during it, as the Synoptics report. It is refreshing to see how Vermes perceived that John’s passion narrative is harmonious with Jewish customs and laws. Vermes also recognized that Luke clearly misrepresents Jewish law, having two high priests at the same time (Lk 3:2), and John seems to be correct in not reporting a trial of Jesus but only an interrogation in Annas’ house (Jn 18.13–14).38 Vermes’ penchant to ignore or minimize John and prefer the Synoptics began to change. His books are full of insights, rare brilliance, and impressive control of historical data from the first century CE. These are seven very influential scholars—Bornkamm, Sanders, Crossan, Wright, Klausner, Flusser, and Vermes. They represent many different approaches to Christian Origins. It would be risky for a scholar to go against this august front. It seems that the decision to follow only the Synoptics in the study of Jesus has become a consensus, and many scholars assume it is a well-established conclusion of Gospel research. It is clear now that an impressive group of experts working on the historical Jesus either minimize or ignore John and follow only the Synoptics. Is this informative and does it represent precise historiography? Too often we are misled by a generic title or summary of diverse data; in particular, we should pause to ponder how “synoptic” are Matthew, Mark, and Luke. To what extent do the first three canonical gospels see all about Jesus with a unified eye? Are we to follow Matthew’s record that has wise men at Jesus’ birth or accept Luke’s account that places lowly shepherds in Bethlehem adoring the baby Jesus? Are we to accept Matthew’s portrayal of Jesus’ presenting a lengthy “Sermon on the Mount” or prefer Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain”? Is Matthew correct to portray Peter attempting to walk



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on the water as Jesus had or is Mark closer to historical events with the simple version of Jesus alone walking on the water? Is Mark correct to leave us assuming Jesus rebukes Peter’s confession and associates him with Satan, or is Matthew reliable when he has Jesus bless Peter for his confession of him as the “Christ, the Son of the living God” (Mt 16:16). Should we follow Mark and have Jesus make a long journey to Tyre and Sidon, or accept Luke’s account that has no such journey outside Palestine? Is Mark’s story only a post-Easter creation, reflecting Marcan literary creativity, to indicate how the prophecy of Isa 9:1 came true?39 What did Jesus say to the high priest? Should we follow Mk 14:62 or the variant to Mk 14:62 along with Matthew or Luke? Were Jesus’ last words in Aramaic, as Mark indicates, or in Hebrew, as Matthew reports? Should we choose Mark who ends his story of Jesus with women running from the tomb with fear or should we opt for Matthew and especially Luke who provide lengthy accounts of Jesus’ resurrection? Were Matthew and Luke correct to reject Mark’s account of the parable of the seed growing secretly and to rewrite Mark’s emphasis on the immediacy of God’s Kingdom, or was Matthew perceptive to emphasize the presence of the Son of Man and Luke the presence of God’s Rule? We may have answers for most of these questions but each of them point out the differences among the compositions that are categorized as seeing Jesus’ story with one eye (synoptically). Why have most Jesus scholars used only the Synoptic account of Jesus’ life and teaching? Five reasons seem apparent. First, many of those who become devoted to the search for the historical Jesus were previously devoted to a study of the history of the Synoptic tradition; one rightly can imagine that this interest shapes their opinion. None of those influential in presenting a historical Jesus is a specialist on the Gospel of John. Second, it is much easier to base one’s historical work on the Synoptics and ignore the challenges confronted by including John. Third, the Synoptics’ account of Jesus seems coherent but John’s account is disjointed and the flow of the narrative suggests that a concise chronology and geography is impossible to construct using it. Fourth, with the Synoptics one can compare three separate but related accounts of Jesus’ life, but there is no comparative data for John;40 that is, the Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum is almost always used only to study the redaction of Mark by Matthew and Luke. Fifth, neither Mark, Matthew, nor Luke present the historian with so many editorial problems and Christological anachronisms as John. The regnant paradigm which I perceive as waning is accurately defined by Francis J. Moloney: The rumblings of Reimarus, the work of the source critics and the first search for the historical Jesus, closed by Schweitzer,41 all led to the rejection of the Gospel of John as a reliable source for words and works of the pre-Easter Jesus. The emergence of Form Criticism, the post-Second World War redaction critics, and the new quest for the historical Jesus, all strengthened the grounds of this rejection.42

The major commentaries43 tend to ignore the search for the historical Jesus and focus more on the theological and rhetorical thought in John; this is true of the masterful commentaries written by M.-J. Lagrange, R. Bultmann, C. H. Dodd, C. K. Barrett, F.-M. Braun, R. Schnackenburg, R. E. Brown, E. Haenchen, Y. Simoens, and J. Frey’s work on Johannine eschatology.

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Are scholars correct in using only the Synoptics as sources for understanding the historical Jesus? Are there no other sources to help us reconstruct the life and teachings of Jesus? Earlier I suggested the importance of including the Gospel of Thomas and the Testimonium Flavianum in Jesus Research;44 for our present purposes, I will focus on the Gospel of John.45

1.2  Ten reasons for reassessing a putative consensus I shall now present ten reasons why we should reconsider jettisoning John from Jesus Research.

1.  John is theologically shaped, but he is not the only Evangelist with a Theology Too often scholars devoted to Jesus Research have forgotten the major contribution of Redaktionsgeschichte: Each Evangelist shapes tradition from a pronounced theological agenda. One needs only a quick glimpse over the past fifty years: Bornkamm clarified the theological Tendenzen of Matthew,46 Marxsen proved the theological purpose of Mark,47 and Conzelmann illustrated that Luke edited traditions to create a new theology.48 Hence, John is not the odd fellow out because of theological Tendenzen.49 Scholars who use only the Synoptics in Jesus Research must assume that John nowhere preserves reliable Jesus traditions. To admit that John may occasionally have reliable Jesus tradition demands that John be used in reconstructing Jesus’ life or thought. Scholars who dismiss the possibility of reliable Jesus traditions in John often do so at the outset assuming John is unreliable historically because it is so highly developed theologically and Christologically. There is no doubt that John’s presentation of Jesus is shaped by Johannine theology. Clearly redactional are, at least, the following Johannine themes: the Logos theology, the paradigmatic use of ἄνω and κάτω, the ἐγώ εἰμι pronouncements, the long discourses, the absence of agony in Gethsemane (in contrast to Luke), the portrayal of Jesus carrying his own cross, the use of irony and double entendre, and the Johannine colouring due to imagery and symbolism. None of these, however, indicates that all is creative history. Evidence of editing (redaction) is also evidence of something to edit, and that is earlier traditions. No one should assume that just because the Gospels interpret history they cannot contain history. No unbiased and unselected sources of human history can exist.50

2.  John is not clearly dependent upon the Synoptics Those who use only the Synoptics must assume that John depends everywhere on the Synoptics and thus has no independent traditions about Jesus. Here specialists in Jesus Research have not kept abreast of research; to claim that John is dependent on the Synoptics is no longer a consensus.51 John’s similarity to the Synoptics is most evident in the Passion, and this section of the Gospels cannot prove John’s dependence on one or more of the Synoptics since it is a tradition that antedates them. The form critics clearly showed that the first narrative written was the Passion narrative; it was necessary to combat the opinion, especially in Jerusalem, that Jesus deserved to die with criminals.



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3.  John’s traditions do not always postdate the Synoptics Jesus scholars who reject John as a source presume that John is later than the Synoptics and thus unreliable. Yet it is now becoming clear that John also had sources and that many of these antedate the first Gospel, Mark. If John is the latest Gospel to be completed that in no way indicates it preserves only late traditions. If specialists on John are correct to conclude that it took shape over many decades and shows evidence of being expanded and edited and reedited, then it is not simply a work that postdates the Synoptics. When was the earliest portion of John composed? Can we ignore evidence that there is a Signs Source preserved in this Gospel and that it indicates a composition somewhere near Cana? When was the first edition of the Gospel of John composed? Does it antedate 70 CE because it preserves impressive evidence of pre-70 CE Jerusalem and may reflect traditions associated with the Essenes?52 John has passages that indicate independent and reliable early traditions about Jesus. By what criteria do we dismiss as unreliable historically such unique Johannine passages as the miracle at Cana and a male disciple present at the cross? Surely, Jn 7:53– 8:11 is a later addition to John but that does not indicate that it is devoid of reliable Jesus traditions; in fact, the story of the woman caught in adultery has all the characteristics of early Jesus traditions: The Palestinian colouring, the halakhic concerns, and the debates over adultery found in pre-70 CE Jewish traditions, including the very early halakhic traditions in the Temple Scroll.

4.  The Synoptics are not intrinsically superior to John for historical data While the written traditions about Hillel first appear three or even six centuries after him, all the Jesus traditions in the canonical gospels can be dated to the century in which Jesus lived. We must not assume that within that relatively short period all eyewitnesses disappeared. At least one of the evangelists was interested in checking with eyewitnesses.53 Luke, perhaps under the influence of Polybius, claims to have examined eyewitnesses (Lk 1:2). Oral traditions also did not disappear when the Gospels were composed.54 Long after John had been composed, Papias claimed that he checked with those who had heard the Lord. Archaeological research also proves that one should not talk only about discontinuity, as if 70 CE was a major divide in ancient Palestinian culture. There is stark evidence of discontinuity in Jotapata, Gamla, Qumran, Jericho, and Jerusalem; but there is undeniable evidence of continuity in Sepphoris, Nazareth, Capernaum, Bethsaida, Tiberias, Caesarea Maritima, and around Jerusalem. By what criteria do we dismiss the probability that from 26 CE until about 90 CE in some of these villages, towns, and cities lived eyewitnesses who had heard what Jesus had said and seen some of his works? Perhaps some of these eyewitnesses helped to provide historical insights for Paul, James, wandering charismatics, and the anonymous Jews and Gentiles who checked and protected the evolution of Jesus’ traditions. As we noted earlier, Vermes rightly pointed out that John’s account of an “interrogation” in front of a high priest is more historically reliable than “the trial” described by the Synoptics. There would have been many eyewitnesses to this event and some of them would have been alive during the early stages of the composition of John.

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John’s account of Jesus’ passion makes sense only when one appreciates Jewish jurisprudence.55 According to Jn 18:13, there is a hearing before the high priest, who would be, Joseph Caiaphas, the high priest from 18 CE to 36 CE or 37 CE.56 Note verse 19: “The high priest then questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.” After being interrogated by the high priest (who is Caiaphas), Jesus is then sent to Caiaphas: “Annas then sent him bound to Caiaphas the high priest” (18:24).57 This absurd narrative is not because of some idiotic editor. It makes sense only when one appreciates that the questioning high priest is Annas who is Ananus Son of Seth (or Sethi), the high priest from 6 CE to 15 CE and influential for decades following.58 Annas interrogates Jesus and sends him to the reigning high priest. He, Caiaphas, must be secluded in the Temple for the purpose of avoiding impurity for seven days before a major festival (Leviticus 21).59 According to Halakot, the reigning high priest is taken from “his own house” into the Temple’s “Counselor’s Chamber” (Heb. = liškat palhedrīn) or “President’s Room” which was on the south side of the priests’ forecourt and adjoining the “Chamber of Hewn Stone” (m. Middot 5:4; m. Yoma 1.1-8).60 Caiaphas then sends Jesus to Pilate.61 Most likely the charge against Jesus had to do with sorcery. After the raising of the dead Lazarus,62 Jesus would have been considered a sorcerer (‫)מכשׁף‬63 according to some priests’ interpretation of the legislation in Deut 18:10, Exod 22:17, and m. Sanhedrin 7.11. The lawyer John W. Welch wisely argued64 that according to John, Jesus is accused of “doing evil” (kakon poiōn; Jn 18:30). Thus, the charge against Jesus was maleficium and witchcraft because he was guilty of sorcery. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are full of contradictions regarding Jesus’ interrogation, making it a trial. John’s account alone is accurate; there was no trial after Jesus’ arrest (if that is the appropriate term). The Sanhedrin cannot meet the day before Passover, since it is a sacred time— the eve of a feast day or Shabbat (m. Sanhedrin 4:1 L and m. Besah 5:2 F).65 No Jewish judge can make a decision the next morning; it is Shabbat (consult CD 10.17–18). The Sanhedrin cannot meet in the evening. No trial can be held on Shabbat since no records could be kept on Shabbat or a holy day (m. Shabbat 7:2 I and 12:1 A-E). The Sanhedrin’s sentence must be on the following day; and only John reports, correctly, that Judean leaders at that time could not sentence anyone to death (Jn 18:31) even if one were guilty of “doing evil” (kakon poiōn; Jn 18:30). It is no longer wise to ignore the historical gems preserved in John. For example, Moloney perceptively points out that the Marcan and Lucan accounts of the call of the disciples are “idealized.” That is, the Johannine account “may be closer to ‘what actually happened’ than the highly charged narratives found in the Synoptic tradition.”66 Indeed, the call of the disciples in Mark is abrupt; there is no indication in Mk 1:16–20 that Simon, Andrew, James, or John knew about Jesus’ teachings. Most likely, the Marcan narrative is shaped by editorial emphasis on immediacy demarcated by καὶ εὐθύς, “and immediately,” a Marcan Christological and eschatological theme: “and immediately they left their nets and followed him” (cf. 1:18).

5.  The Synoptic chronology is not obviously superior to John’s chronology In a review of the sources now employed by most Jesus scholars, Darrell L. Bock reports that Mark provides the outline of Jesus’ ministry for most scholars.67 He is



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correct; scholars who are specialists in Jesus Research and who exclude John from consideration tend to assume that the first three Gospels provide reliable evidence that Jesus’ ministry lasted one year, and not roughly two or perhaps three years. Flusser, for example, prefers the Synoptics’ duration of Jesus’ ministry, “not more than one year,” and that if we followed John, “We would have to assume that it covered two, or even three years. It has become fairly clear today that John, the theologian, had little intention of being a historian, and thus it would be unwise to accept his chronology or his geographical framework without careful examination.”68 We scholars should admit that we are not so certain about the conclusion that the Synoptics and John present irreconcilable differences and one must choose the former, rejecting John as too theological for historical reconstructions. There is much wisdom in Raymond E. Brown’s insight that “the arrangement of the Jesus material” in John, Jesus’ ministry of baptism, the length of Jesus’ ministry, frequent journeys to Jerusalem, long-standing clashes with Jerusalem authorities, the timing of Jesus’ “arrest,” the role of Annas, are historically valid: “A defense can be made for most of these Johannine details, and in some of them the Johannine picture is almost certainly more historical than the overall Synoptic picture.”69 I would agree that all evangelists have Jesus’ ministry begin with John the Baptizer then move to Galilee and finally to Jerusalem. As Sean Freyne noted, Jesus’ first disciples were formerly John the Baptizer’s disciples and John, “the narrator, deliberately changes the scene to Galilee (Jn 1:43).”70 Each evangelist has probably inherited and expanded upon what Brown called “the basic kerygmatic outline of Jesus material used by the earliest preachers.”71 William R. Farmer also rightly stressed that when one compares the intra-canonical gospels with “all extant examples of gospel literature” the four Gospels are “in fact all strikingly similar.”72 It is becoming apparent that too many New Testament experts assume that only the Synoptics provide trustworthy historical information and have not carefully sifted John for reliable chronological data. Mark, Matthew, and Luke do not explicitly state that Jesus’ ministry lasted only one year and John does not demand a duration of at least three years. The first three evangelists report only one Passover during Jesus’ ministry. John clarifies three Passovers (2:13; 6:4; 11:55) and perhaps a fourth is implied in the ambiguous “a feast of the Jews” (5:1). The contention that Jesus’ ministry lasted roughly one year is derived from putting together several assumptions and observations. On the one hand, none of the Synoptics claim that Jesus’ ministry lasted only about one year. On the other hand, John does not indicate that Jesus’ ministry lasted more than three years. As L. Devillers points out, John’s narrative is presented in line with Jewish festivals. He shows that chapters 7–10 in John are shaped by Sukkoth (Feast of Booths or Tabernacles) but they are heavily edited with Christological developments.73 Michael A. Daise may be correct to suggest that perhaps “in an earlier stage of its development, the Fourth Gospel gave Jesus’ ministry as long a duration as is implied in the Synoptics.”74 We scholars should be more attentive to our assumptions, reevaluate some long-held conclusions, and read the narratives with an open and inquisitive mind. No ancient source helps us decide the precise length of Jesus’ public ministry. What might be reported about the timing of Jesus’ actions in the Temple, when the tables of the money changers were overturned (cf. m. Shekalim 1.3)? Was that event at

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the beginning (John) or the end of Jesus’ ministry (Mark)? Almost all scholars follow Mark as if he were a well-trained historian without a theological bias. They conclude that the event must have occurred at the end of Jesus’ life. Such certainty smacks of historical positivism. It is conceivable that Jesus’ so-called cleansing of the Temple occurred at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Judea, as explained in John, and not during his last week in Jerusalem, as stressed by Mark, Matthew, and Luke. The setting could be at the beginning of Jesus’ last Judean ministry when he was near Jerusalem or in it for numerous months. As Dan Bahat points out, Jn 2:19–20 is a reference “to the Temple Mount and not to the Temple,” and the Temple Mount “played as important a role in Jesus’ life in Jerusalem as it played in Jewish life altogether.”75 Unlike the Qumranites who paid the Temple tax only once (4Q159 6–7; cf. 1QSa 1.8–9),76 like most Jews (m. Shekalim 3.3; cf. Exod 30:11–16 and Neh 10:33–34)77 Jesus and his disciples paid the half-shekel tax each year (Mt 17:24–27). Jesus’ admiration of the Temple is clear from the Gospels and especially from John. Many scholars take John’s references to Jesus’ relation to, and work in, the Temple to be fundamentally historical, and while only John clarifies that there were large animals within the Sanctuary (the Temple Mount area) this possibility is supported by the Palestinian Talmud (y. Betzah 2.4 61c.13). Perhaps the passage in the Jerusalem Talmud adds credence to John’s chronology. It is relatively certain that Jesus frequented the Temple, clarified by John’s use of the festivals, and it is obvious that the Temple was a world-class bank in which the Temple treasury as well as individual accounts were preserved (4Mac 4:3). Now we know that the Temple represented “one of the architectural wonders of the ancient world,” as Bahat claims.78 Imagining the size of the Temple Mount, especially from the 570-ton stone in the western retaining wall, leads many to agree with the well-known adulation: “He who has not seen Herod’s Temple, has never in his life seen a beautiful structure” (b. Baba Batra 43a). We may never be able to determine if Jesus’ disruptive actions in the Temple occurred at the beginning or end of his ministry, but we should not dismiss John as if this Gospel alone has a theological agenda at this point. While Mark preserves pre-Marcan traditions that suggest Jesus’ chronology may be better preserved in the longer ministry implied in John, dating the Last Supper as a Passover meal is hardly certain. While Mark indicates that Jesus observed the Last Supper at Passover, John reports that Jesus’ last meal was before Passover. It is obvious that two calendars were regnant in Second Temple Judaism, one that is lunar-solar (represented by the Jewish groups behind 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and the Dead Sea Scrolls) and one lunar (followed by many in Jerusalem and those controlling the Temple); but, it is far from certain that the Synoptics have the proper presentation of Jesus’ last meal. At present, one should avoid the positivism that too often shapes the presentation of Jesus’ last week and his Last Supper as a Passover meal. For certain, Jesus’ last meal was during Passover week and would have been influenced by the celebration of Passover hopes during the week. If the canons of historiography demand balance and caution, it is better not to follow slavishly Mark’s presentation of Jesus, which is certainly shaped by an eschatological urgency, repetitively advanced by the connective καὶ εὐθύς, “and immediately.” Moreover, Mark’s account of Jesus’ life is not in any coherent putative chronological



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order; it is frequently structured according to themes or topics. Mark’s chronology is shaped by theological concerns; most notable among them is his pervasive penchant for apocalyptic urgency. Clifton Black has demonstrated the narratology in Mark and the rhetorical thrust of his story of Jesus.79 Mark is not to be categorized as a historian.

6.  The Synoptic geography may intermittently presuppose John’s emphasis on Judea Mark situates Jesus’ ministry in Lower Galilee and reports that Jesus goes to Jerusalem only once.80 From chapter 11 to chapter 20, John presents Jesus working in Judea, and has Jesus making at least four trips to Jerusalem. Mark, in contrast, has no Judean ministry for Jesus. Should we follow the mass of Jesus scholars who follow Mark without providing exegetical grounding for that position? What if John’s portrayal of Jesus’ numerous trips from Galilee to Jerusalem is implicit at times in Mark’s own traditions? Does it seem relatively certain that passages in Mark imply that Jesus knew Jerusalem and had been to that city before his final week? Some of Mark’s comments indicate that Jesus knew Jerusalem. Note, for example, the following passage: On the first day of Unleavened Bread, when the Passover lamb is sacrificed, his disciples said to him, “Where do you want us to go and make the preparations for you to eat the Passover?” So he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the owner of the house, ‘The Teacher asks, Where is my guest room where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make preparations for us there.” So the disciples set out and went into the city, and found everything as he had told them; and they prepared the Passover meal. (Mk 14:12–16)

For one who believes that Jesus was omniscient, this precise information for one who has never been to Jerusalem causes no problems. The inquisitive reader, however, will be curious, asking: “How does Jesus know about such a man and the area of Jerusalem in which a man carrying a water jar might be exceptional?” Is it not astounding that Jesus knew the room was “large,” “upstairs,” “furnished,” and “ready”? How can Jesus refer to “my guest room” if he has never been to Jerusalem, as Mark reports? Almost any reader would assume this visit to Jerusalem described by Mark is certainly not Jesus’ first trip to the city. Only John provides data that allows one to conclude that Jesus was familiar with Jerusalem and had associates who knew him and accorded him the title “the Teacher.” In similar fashion and in contrast to Mark, John suggests that Samaria was a region important to Jesus. Luke tends to support John’s inclusion. Sean Freyne brought into focus a point often lost: “Of all the literary sources from the first century, the Fourth Gospel expresses the competing religious claims of the Samaritans and the Jews most sharply.”81 Freyne assumes we know these tensions are historically valid; they are clearly evident in Josephus’ works. We should remember that Mark merely implies that Jesus focused only on Galilee; and that he provides asides that make it clear that Jesus had a ministry for Jews in

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Judea. Matthew indicates many connections between Jesus and those in Jerusalem; Luke adds that some of Jesus’ relatives lived near Jerusalem. The summary of Jesus in Acts 10:36–43, which many scholars judge to be pre-Lucan, indicates that Jesus taught in Galilee and Judea. That Jesus, a Galilean, had probably been in Jerusalem before his final visit receives extra-biblical support. Thanks to archaeological excavations, it is becoming clear that a large number of Jews moved from Judea to Galilee after the Hasmonean conquests of the north in the second century BCE. The topography of Galilee is clearly demarcated between Gentile and Jewish sites. For example, the pagan temples are not in Lower Galilee; they are in the Golan, the Hermon, and the high mountains of Upper Galilee.82 From a study of historical sources and especially from explorations and excavations, Aviam proves that “the foundations of Jewish settlement in the Galilee go back to the Hasmoneans.”83 Excavations in Lower Galilee have produced realia that indicate a bond with Jews living in Judea. Mikvaot and stone vessels are not unique to Judea and are found in many areas of Lower Galilee; moreover, it is evident that, although there were quarries for making stone vessels in Nazareth and elsewhere, some of the pottery and some of the massive stone vessels found in Galilee were made just outside of Jerusalem. Thus, the assumption that one should differentiate between Galilean and Judean Judaisms (as reflected in the works by Horsley, Oakman, and Kloppenborg)84 and that Lower Galilee was far removed culturally from Judea needs to be replaced with precise information obtained by the present excavations at Jotapata, Khirbet Kana, Bethsaida, Midgal, Tiberias, and elsewhere (see the following Chapter 6). The pre-70 CE archaeological evidence now unites Upper Galilee not only with Tyre and Sidon but also Lower Galilee with Judea. Hence, it is no longer obvious that Jesus focused his ministry on Galilee and went to Jerusalem only once, when he was crucified. Scholars must dismiss from their minds the misconception that Galileans in Jesus’ time were Jews with a mixed lineage; this construct has been regnant for over a century and found, for example, in Bornkamm’s words: “It is a mixed race, incidentally, which also lives in Galilee, the home of Jesus.”85 Jesus was not from a mixed race; he is perhaps the most Jewish Jew of the first century and his Jewish blood is too obvious to discuss. He was a deeply Torahobservant Jew and worshipped in the Temple. As Luke T. Johnson warns, in his criticism of M. Borg, we must avoid any semblance of Marcionism and avoid depicting Second Temple Judaism so that it is a foil for Jesus, contrasting harsh legalism with divine compassion.86 In Galilee, Jesus, and the Gospels, Sean Freyne, under the influence of the Johannine expert C. K. Barrett,87 wisely warned us not to jettison John when exploring Jesus and his world: “Despite the Fourth Gospel’s widely recognized theological concerns there is a surprising amount of detail as the work develops, especially of a geographical nature.”88 Inter alia, Freyne noted the mention of Cana in Galilee, Aenon near Salim, Sychar, and Bethesda. Finally, at least five major insights help shine light on geography and topography in Jesus Research. Recently, challenging new insights have converged to assist a better comprehension of the Jewishness of Lower Galilee and its Judean connection



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in Jesus’ time. First, probably only in a small section of western Galilee, notably in the area of Asochis (the Talmudic Shihin), were there Jews since the First Temple period. According to Josephus (Ant 13.337) on a certain Shabbat, Ptolemy Lathyros took 10,000 captives from Asochis.89 The reference to Shabbat indicates the captives were Jews. Second, Aviam clarifies the prosopography: “For a period of more than four hundred years, from the sixth century to the second century BCE, there is no information about Jewish life in the Galilee.”90 That indicates that probably there were no significant Jewish settlements in Galilee during those centuries. Third, the author of 1 Maccabees, our only conceivable historian in the Jewish apocryphal works, reports that Simon (142/3–135/4 BCE) led “the Jews in Galilee” (ἐκ τῆς Γαλιλαίας) to Judea (εἰς τὴν Ἰουδαίαν) with much rejoicing (1Mac 5:23).91 Fourth, Josephus reports that the Hasmoneans, from Jonathan to Jannaeus, sought to conquer Galilee and connect it to Judea; this report implies that the Hasmoneans settled Judeans in Lower Galilee (cf. War 4.104–105; see also 1 Maccabees 11–12). In favor of this assumption is the archaeological discovery that only with the Hasmoneans was olive-oil production an export commodity in Galilee, and especially at Gischala among Jews (cf. also War 2.590–595; Life 23; b. Menachot 85b; Sifri Devarim 316).92 Moreover, the earliest mikvaot are located at Keren Naftali, Gamla, and Sepphoris, and they dated to the Hasmonean period. These earliest mikvaot in Galilee are in two out of three sites mentioned in the “Baraita of the fortified cities from the time of Joshua Ben Nun.” Thus, Rappaport can assume that by the time of Jannaeus, the Hasmonean leaders had settled Judeans in the area of conquered Galilee.93 Fifth, archaeological explorations in many sites in Lower Galilee indicate that Jewish settlements there began in the Hasmonean period (esp. between 135 BCE and 76 BCE) and are culturally connected with Judea (and not Syria [Tyre and Sidon] or Samaria).94 By the time of Jannaeus (104–76 BCE) Galilee,95 especially in the middle and east, was dominated by Jews and Gamla in the Golan had become a Jewish town.96 If these five insights regarding the origins of Jews in Lower Galilee—in villages like Nazareth—are correct, then they produce two challenging conclusions for the study of the historical Jesus. First, they give credence to the report that Jesus’ family had relatives in Judea and in the hill country west of Jerusalem (Lk 1). Second, they help us perceive some historical data behind the mythological Infancy Narratives in Matthew and Luke and kerygmatic claim that Jesus is the Messiah because of his Davidic roots. That is, while Jesus might have been born in Nazareth (as Mark and John may imply), his ancestry could have originated in Judea or even in Bethlehem, the City of David.97

7.  John’s traditions of Jesus speeches may be grounded in pre-Synoptic traditions Jesus’ long discourses in John are so different from his parables in the Synoptics that customarily scholars dismiss Jesus’ sayings in John either as creations or as heavy redactions by the Fourth Evangelist. Almost always scholars do not consider the possibility that these speeches were crafted and shaped from living traditions that evolved through many stages of oral history and performance. Clearly, Jesus’ sayings in John are shaped by the theological Tendenzen of the Fourth Evangelist, but it is also

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certain that at least some of these are derived from earlier traditions. The best example is found in Mt 11.25–27; the saying is well known but deserves repeating: At that time Jesus said, “I thank [or praise] you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will [or, for so it was well-pleasing in your sight]. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (NRSV)

As has been known for centuries, this passage in Matthew has a distinct Johannine ring to it. The tradition obviously antedates Matthew, because it appears also in Luke: At that same hour Jesus [lit. he] rejoiced in the Holy Spirit [some mss ‘in the Spirit’] and said, “I thank [or praise] you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will” [or for so it was wellpleasing in your sight]. (Lk 10:21–22; NRSV)

These passages in Matthew and Luke, and clearly anterior to those gospels, reveal a literary quarry from which the Fourth Evangelist seems to have mined then developed his well-crafted sayings of Jesus. Thus, while Jesus’ teachings in John serve the Evangelist’s own interest, they cannot be judged to have been created de novo by the Evangelist; at least some of them have a pre-Johannine history. The study of the transmission of Jesus’ sayings is almost always limited to the Synoptics as in Bultmann’s History of the Synoptic Tradition; yet this influential study makes unreliable assumptions as E. P. Sanders demonstrated long ago.98 There are no set rules for the development of tradition.

8.  Jesus’ authority and high esteem are not uniquely Johannine To dismiss John’s account of Jesus’ message because it reflects Jesus’ high self-esteem fails to recognize that many of Jesus’ sayings in the Synoptics represent a very high selfevaluation.99 This high esteem was pointed out by David Flusser in “Hillel and Jesus: Two Ways of Self-Awareness.” Basing his work on Matthew and Luke, Flusser argued that the divine element is found not only in Socrates and Hillel but also in the Christ of faith and the historical Jesus; he opined that “the highest expression of Jesus’ exalted self-awareness” is preserved in Mt 11:28–30.100 A purely confessional or Christological reading of John will fail to reveal that all evangelists portray Jesus with a very high self-understanding. Perhaps this evidence derives from Jesus, who certainly should not be expected to misperceive the miracles he performed, the effect he had on others, and the authority that accompanied his own pronouncements. All of us need to recognize that a so-called high Christology is not uniquely Johannine. If John uses ἐγώ 465 times, let us not forget that Matthew uses the



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pronoun 210 times, Mark 104 times, and Luke 215 times. In fact, ἐγώ is found 1,713 times in the New Testament. For example, Matthew reports authoritative claims by Jesus six times in chapter 5; see 5:22; 5:28; 5:32; 5:34; 5:39; 5:44. Too many New Testament specialists are influenced by the ἐγώ εἰμι, “I am,” statements in John and imagine that such a formula appears only in John, concluding that it is a creation of the Fourth Evangelist. In fact, the expression ἐγώ εἰμι on the lips of Jesus is not peculiar to John. As P. Pokorný pointed out, the “I am” formula appears long before the first century in self-introductions by a deity (Exod 3:14; 20:2) and is used by Jesus in Mark. According to Mark, when Jesus announces himself to the high priest he reputedly used the expression ἐγώ εἰμι: “But Jesus said: ‘I am (ἐγώ εἰμι)’” (Mk 14:62). According to Mark, followed by Matthew, when Jesus was walking on the sea he tells his disciples: “I am (ἐγώ εἰμι); do not fear” (Mk 6:50; Mt 14:27). Matthew concludes his gospel with the Great Commission in which the expression reoccurs: “I am with you (ἐγὼ μεθ᾽ὑμῶν εἰμι) all the days” (28:20). Three times Luke reports the expression ἐγώ εἰμι in Jesus traditions (Lk 21:8; 22:70; 24:39). Although the expression ἐγώ εἰμι is associated with Jesus, it is attributed to others. Luke allows Gabriel (1:19) and even the centurion (7:8) to utter the expression. John allows John the Baptizer to say ἐγώ εἰμι (1:20).101 John has a high Christology; that is not debated. What seems lost in too many publications is the perception that high Christology is not uniquely Johannine and that such elevated claims may not be pure creations or later developments of the Jesus traditions. Larry Hurtado has argued this point: “The risen Jesus was included with God programmatically in the devotional pattern of early Christian circles as rightful co-recipient of their cultic devotion” (p. 16).102 Most importantly, I have discovered from exploring the earliest traditions in the Gospels that Hurtado is perceptive in emphasizing that this development occurred very early in the Palestinian Jewish Movement: I propose that the remarkable and novel readings of Psalm 110:1 and Isaiah 45:22–5, and other biblical texts as well, likely emerged early, quickly, and typically in settings of group prayer and worship where the sense of the Spirit’s presence and power was strong. Early believers came to their Scriptures with convictions shaped by powerful religious experiences that opened the sacred texts for them in new ways, particularly experiences of the risen and exalted Jesus, and continuing revelations from the Spirit. (p. 23)

The earliest gospel, Mark, stresses that Jesus spoke authoritatively. Thus, to claim that John’s witness to Jesus’ claims is unparalleled misses the elevated claims in many documents from Second Temple Judaism, including the Self-Glorification Hymn, the Thanksgiving Hymns (1QH 16), 11Q Melchizedek, and the Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch. Thus, behind John a well-trained Semitist can detect evidence of authentic Jesus tradition that may be hidden in redacted speeches. Obviously, no historical person named Jesus of Nazareth went around Galilee making the Christological claims we find in John, but these very pronouncements may reflect pre-Johannine traditions that come to us via passages that are now highly edited by the Fourth Evangelist.

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9.  Names and anonymity: No rules govern the transmission of tradition The study of the Synoptics’ transmission of Jesus traditions103 and the examination of the two versions of the Lord’s Prayer104 indicate that no rules govern and shape such transmissions. No putative universal rules protect traditions or shape them for later needs as they evolve through time. Formulae, such as “what I received I delivered,” certainly define the transmission of the sayings of the Rabbis and are well known in Pirke Aboth and Paul’s letters (e.g., 1Cor 11:25), but these are not rules that control or govern the recording and copying of a tradition. A tradition does not always expand, as we know from studying how Matthew and Luke abbreviate Mark and how a full manuscript of Astronomical Enoch is reduced to relatively few chapters. While this point is almost universally recognized, many scholars see names appearing in John and make two assumptions: First, they assume the names appear for the first time because John is much later than any of the Synoptics. Second, they presuppose that the appearance of a name is due to the need to clarify ambiguities in an earlier narrative. Surely, this method of thinking implies one is influenced by the order of the Gospels in our Bibles: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then finally John. The pervasive expression in introductions to the New Testament “when we come to John” implies that one should read the Synoptic Gospels first. That assumption mars methodology and perception. No one should imagine that the Gospels are placed in a chronological order in our canon, yet thinking sometimes is corrupted by such unexamined thoughts. We New Testament scholars readily admit that names are added to the developing gospel tradition. Luke’s believing centurion is revealed to be “Longinus”;105 Matthew’s three anonymous wise men receive names (Gaspar, Balthasar, Melchior).106 The two men crucified with Jesus are eventually supplied with names (Dysmas and Gestas).107 Moreover, Veronica (= Bernike), who had the golden cloth with Jesus’ portrait,108 appears so late in the tradition that we have no doubt judging this legend to be creative history. While all these names should not be judged to be historical, we should remember that there is no rule that names found in some documents but not others are clearly supplied and thus unhistorical. For example, document B that is later than document A may contain a name that is historical and obtained from a tradition that is reliable and earlier than document A. Scholars customarily dismiss as unhistorical John’s specification of the name of the servant whose ear was cut off by Peter. They argue that John is later and supplements the Synoptics, that we should expect “Malchus” to be supplied since names are added as the tradition develops, and the name seems a good guess for a servant of royal figures, since it represents that “he who belongs to the king.” Yet, there are problems with each of these arguments. Many New Testament scholars will not agree that John was written to supplement the Synoptics. Names should not be judged prima facie to be clearly added when they appear in one gospel but not another. And names that fit a narrative are not necessarily supplied by the narrator. Malchus admirably fits the name given by a high priest to a servant. The name Eutychus, despite the meaning “fortunate,” is considered authentic historical tradition (Acts 20:9) and slaves usually receive names appropriate to the needs they supply: Chrestos, “the useful one,” Philo, “the friendly one,” and Sophos, “the skilled one.”



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Let us all admit that there are reasons to doubt the authenticity of the name “Malchus.” Yet there are also reasons to suspect that “Malchus” may not be an addition to the tradition. It admirably fits the historical event, that is not doubted; perhaps John may here provide a reliable tradition that contains history and may represent an eyewitness account (Jn 18:10). Likewise, allegedly creative episodes may preserve history. In contrast to the Synoptics, the Gospel of John highlights Mary Magdalene and Thomas. We must not conclude that Malchus and other names are highlighted since John is fond of adding names. The Fourth Evangelist clearly shows interest in these persons named but within a narrative that is defined by anonymity. For example, the author never provides a name for Jesus’ mother or the Beloved Disciple, and he introduces the ambiguous “other disciple.”109

10.  John has knowledge of pre-70 CE Judaism that is superior to the Synoptics Virtually all scholars know that Jesus was a Jew and that his life and teachings must be understood in terms of Palestinian Judaism. Such a point was emphasized by Schlatter110 and re-emphasized by Hengel who added that any possible so-called pagan influences in earliest Christianity were most likely already in Palestinian Judaism which was heavily influenced by Hellenistic culture.111 John’s knowledge of Palestinian Jewish practices is evident in his theological reflections on the Feast of Booths; these, as Raymond E. Brown perceived, “reflect an accurate knowledge of the festal ceremonies in the Jerusalem Temple area.”112 Furthermore, in the past decade, major archaeological advances have been made that have repercussions for Jesus Research (see Chapter 6).113 Not all of them are mentioned in the Jesus and Archaeology, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus, and Excavating Jesus.114 How archaeology sometimes indicates historical data in John is intimated by Paul N. Anderson and Urban C. von Wahlde in Jesus and Archaeology.115 Many leading archaeologists now admit that John preserves valuable information about pre-70 CE Jerusalem and Judea. Scholars, like Sanders and Fredriksen, who have shown skills with scientific inquiry, have concluded that there could be no centurion in Capernaum (Matthew 8), perhaps to guard the border between Galilee and Perea, because no road led from this Jewish village northward or eastward. The recent discovery of a long stretch of perhaps the via maris in Migdal, south of Capernaum,116 and a massive road near the monumental stairs to the Augusteum at Horvat Omrit, north and northeast of Capernaum, supply evidence that most likely a road existed near Capernaum which is on the route from Migdal to Horvat Omrit.117 If a road led northward from Beth Shean to Panias then the objections against a centurion being present in or near Capernaum (Mt 8:5–13) disappear or are at least muted.118 Many experts concur that Peter’s house has been located in Capernaum and that Mark accurately imagines the type of houses in this village. As Mark in 2:4 implies, they were thatched-roofed; they were not made of tile as Luke reports in 5:19 (διὰ τωˆν κεράμων; a passage missing in the Syriac witnesses). Excavations at Gamla and Yodefat (the only excavated cities reflecting social groups in Lower Galilee)

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prove that the villages or cities contained a mixture of wealthy and average people as dwellers. Thus, we should jettison categories like “peasant” for three main reasons: The term developed from socioeconomic models that seem anachronistic for pre-70 CE Galileans; the Rabbis refer to day-laborers in Lower Galilee;119 and most of the Galileans owned their own lands.120 While no large stone jars were found at Gamla or Yodefat, major pottery industries were discovered at Yodefat, Kefar Hananyah, and at Shikhin which is a hilltop beneath Sepphoris on the southwestern border of the Beit Netofa Valley.121 When we turn specifically to John, many archaeological and architectural details are now appearing significant as evidence of an eyewitness to Jerusalem before 70 CE. Details that appeared to be imaginative are appearing in the bottom of archaeological pits or under debris from the devastation of 68–70 CE. For example, only in John does Jesus make a whip to attack the tables of the money changers in the Temple. If the Hanuth (the area for shops and the large animals to be sacrificed) moved within the Temple precincts in 30 CE,122 then Jesus would never have seen bulls and cows within the Sanctuary earlier. It is easy to imagine how he was able to fashion a whip from the straw or tethering robes in the underground corridor of the passageways in the southern area of the Sanctuary, and the laws of purity did not apply to this southern extension of the Temple Mount built by Herod the Great.123 The importance of archaeology for John and Jesus Research will be elaborated later in this chapter and Chapter 6. Suffice it now to clarify that John has access to some traditions that are independent of the Synoptics and some of these were already in a written form. Among them, I think we can discern a collection of signs (σημεῖα), some Johannine dialogues, architectural features, and especially John’s passion story and resurrection accounts.124 Finally, while the Synoptics are not always synoptic, John is often synoptic with them. This is certainly true in the passion narrative where all four gospels, despite glaring differences, do share the same general pattern and flow of the story: arrest, appearance before priests and then Pilate, crucifixion, burial, and resurrection. Yet, there is more. John (implicitly) and Mark (explicitly) report that Jesus was baptized by John the Baptizer and that Jesus was a disciple of this John but eventually broke with him and went to Galilee to teach and serve. In all Gospels, Jesus speaks with unparalleled authority and without depending on the authority of a rabbi. All evangelists, and also Paul, report that Jesus proclaimed the dawning of God’s Rule and that his preferred word for the Creator is “Abba.” Jesus’ ministry begins in Galilee and ends in Jerusalem. The four evangelists are more “synoptic” than we have thought by calling only the first three “the Synoptics.” In comparing John with the Synoptics too many scholars commit the Bretschneider error. In 1820, Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider argued that the Synoptics should be preferred since three votes against one settles any debate about which “source” to use for discerning the historical Jesus.125 If Matthew and Luke depend on Mark, then three independent witnesses are reduced to one. Mathematically, it is Mark versus John. And as has become clear in the preceding chapters, John is not only one source; it also contains the Signs Source, at least three editions, and various sources, and most likely an eyewitness. While each gospel is theologically shaped, each contains history



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behind kerygmata. Our task is not to ignore either but to work with both the Synoptics and John; moreover, all relevant sources and realia must be evaluated and consulted in searching for meaningful historical traditions that allow us to portray the life and teachings of Jesus from Nazareth.

2  A new paradigm: Do not ignore any data, especially not John 2.1  Five influential opinions In evaluating a possible paradigm shift,126 one should perceive at the outset a major point made by W. R. Farmer in 1967 and accentuated by B. F. Meyer in 1979.127 Farmer and Meyer stress that while Schleiermacher depended on John, Baur on Matthew, and Hirsch (and many others) on Mark, the critic should not give such pre-eminence to only one Gospel. We should acknowledge that each Gospel may provide invaluable data concerning the historical Jesus. That point brings us back to John who is too often judged the odd-man-out. In assessing the status quaestionis regarding the appropriateness of using John in Jesus Research, it is possible to perceive a growing tendency to include John. This recent trend was foreshadowed by C. H. Dodd’s well-known Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel128 and Raymond E. Brown’s publications, including The Death of the Messiah.129 Brown rightly warned against assuming “facilely that the Synoptic Gospels are recording the historical fact and that John has theologically reorganized the data.” He rightly judged that “the critics have played us false in their minimal estimate of the historicity of the Fourth Gospel.”130 Much later, in 2003, Brown (1928–1998), with the help of Francis J. Moloney’s editing, opined: “Today there is a growing tendency to take seriously many of the historical, social, and geographical details peculiar to narratives found only in the Fourth Gospel.”131 With these promising insights, I now boldly choose five luminaries to illustrate the point that John should be, and is being, used in Jesus Research.

1. In the voluminous A Marginal Jew (1991–), J. P. Meier not only claims that the

“major source of our knowledge about the historical Jesus is . . . the four canonical Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John)”132 but shows how each Gospel intermittently provides valuable historical data. Meier does not relegate the use of John to the Passion; he indicates that John helps us comprehend the historical relation between Jesus and John the Baptizer who was Jesus’ teacher. 2. In The Historical Jesus (1998), Theissen and Merz offer the insight: “It is also clear that John presupposes sources with a Synoptic stamp both in the narrative tradition and in the sayings tradition. But he seems to refer back to them independently of the Synoptics.” They point out that John’s version of the centurion at Capernaum (Jn 4.46–54) “can hardly be understood as a direct revision of the corresponding miracle story in Q (Mt 8:5–13; Lk 7:1–10), because the part which goes beyond Q (Jn 4:52ff.) expresses that naive view of miracle which the redactional passage Jn 4:48 criticizes.”133

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3. In “Historiographical Characteristics of the Gospel of John,” in The Testimony of

the Beloved Disciple (2007),134 Richard Bauckham argues that John’s account of Nicodemus is reliable. The Nicodemus of John 3 was a member of the wealthy Gurion family known from rabbinic texts. Likewise, Bauckham offers some thoughtful reasons why we should not ignore Lazarus in spite of the silence in the Synoptics about such a Lazarus. While I differ with Bauckham’s views on the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for comprehending John and his claim that John 21 was part of the original composition, I think it evident that he offers some good reasons to use the Fourth Gospel for reconstructing the historical Jesus. 4. In The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus (2006), Paul N. Anderson published the first voluminous book which seeks to show that John is imperative in Jesus Research. His book is more than an exhortation to include John in the study of the historical Jesus; it is a polemic against the myopic use of the Synoptics. It seems clear that Anderson’s insight regarding the dialectical thought in John removes the reasons for positing an editor’s insertion that is late, non-historical, and ecclesiastical. Admitting that the Synoptics’ presentation of Jesus is “at many turns . . . still to be preferred over the Johannine,” yet at other turns Anderson insists, “the Johannine presentation of Jesus is historically preferable over the Synoptics.”135 One should not caricature Anderson; he knows that “the Johannine Jesus is clearly crafted in the image of the evangelist’s own convictions.”136 Yet, Anderson strives to point the way away from “the de-historicization of John” and the “de-Johannification of Jesus” which is hailed by too many as a critical consensus. Anderson shows that the alleged agreement among scholars is by no means a “consensus” and is hardly “critical.” 5. In The Fourth Gospel in Four Dimensions (2008), D. Moody Smith publishes for the first time four essays that focus on history in John: “The Gospel of John in its Jewish Context,” “The Problem of History in John,” “Jesus Tradition in the Gospel of John,” and “Redaction Criticism, Genre, Narrative Criticism, and the Historical Jesus in the Gospel of John.” He also adds a fifth: “The Historical Figure of Jesus in First John.” Smith seeks to demonstrate that there is some historical basis in John’s narrative presentation of Jesus. Smith argues that the Fourth Gospel’s claim to be based on an eyewitness (21:24 and 19:35) should “be taken seriously, although not at face value.”137 Smith contends: “John is an independent Gospel, and its claim to be based on an independent witness is worth taking seriously.”138 Smith adds: “Redaction criticism does not prove John’s independence of the Synoptic Gospels, but at least suggests that at many points John may know alternative traditions that are arguably historical.”139 With a balanced nuance, Smith encapsulates a new trend in Jesus Research and the importance of John in supplying historically reliable data. Smith sees why John has not been used; scholars inherit this invalid presupposition: “The distinctive Johannine portrayal of Jesus, his opponents, and controversies does not accurately represent the historical figure of Jesus or his milieu.”140 Smith also perceives why John should be used and exhorts scholars to comprehend: “John’s narrative, as distinguished from the portrayal of Jesus, often appears quite plausible historically just at those points



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at which it differs from Mark or the Synoptics. Arguably, John presents factually data that are irrelevant to his theological purposes or even contravene them.”141 Smith even speculates that John, in its earliest form, is conceivably “prior to it”142 and that it is even imaginable that Luke may have referred to the earliest form of John as one of the eyewitnesses upon which he based his work (Lk 1:1–4).143 We have chosen to indicate five leading scholars who have argued that John must be included in Jesus Research; they are Meier, Theissen with Merz, Bauckham, Anderson, and Smith.144 Other distinguished and gifted scholars devoted to Jesus Research include John.145 Prominent among them are Ben F. Meyer,146 Paula Fredriksen in Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews147 and in From Jesus to Christ,148 Amy-Jill Levine in The Misunderstood Jew,149 and Bruce Chilton in Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography. Although Chilton puts great emphasis on the Targumim, he includes Jesus’ life episodes unique to John, including his tutorial relation to John the Baptizer, the wedding at Cana, and the reviving of Lazarus, arguing that “strong elements of Jesus’ actual practice flicker through John’s symbolic picture.”150

2.2  All sources should be surveyed and not dismissed at the outset I have come to appreciate how archaeology, topography, symbology, and sociology, as well as the traditions preserved in the Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the rabbinic writings help me comprehend better and imagine the world of Jesus and his life within it. Historically reliable Jesus traditions are clearly preserved in Paul’s letters and perhaps in some so-called apocryphal compositions. When we study the extracanonical gospels, however, we can appreciate more fully the reserve, focus, and attention to the pre-cross Jesus found in the intra-canonical Gospels. Scholars who use only the Synoptics as sources for understanding the historical Jesus err in missing the early and independent traditions in John and fail to grasp a major point in historiography. Long before the Gospels, appearing for example in Polybius, is the warning that a good historian must use all sources, or witnesses, and examine them for their reliability in search of historical truth.151 In Excavating Q, John S. Kloppenborg rightly points out that Q “is an important source for the historical Jesus, but it is only one of several.”152 We have seen that John belongs to those other sources.

2.3  Archaeology proves pre-70 CE historical data in John’s narrative Today, most New Testament scholars recognize they should be informed of pre-70 CE Judaism and the vast amount of archaeological evidence from that time and from ancient Palestine. Yet, too many of those who publish in the area of Jesus Research have never excavated in the Holy Land and do not seek to comprehend the methods, techniques, and tasks of archaeologists. To appreciate the purpose of archaeologists seems as important as to be abreast of challenging developments. For our present purposes, I have chosen to highlight briefly only four archaeological discoveries that help us perceive that John must be used in Jesus Research (also see Chapter 6). First, John knows that stone vessels reflect Jewish purification rites. An aside in John 2 is archaeologically significant. The Synoptics do not mention the importance

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of stone vessels, yet John states that in Cana there were “six stone jars standing there for the Jewish rights of purification” (2:6).153 This is a major datum that is grounded in Jesus’ time and place. Stone vessels have been found at the two sites vying for this “Cana”: Khirbet Kana and Kefer Kana.154 Stone vessels are designed for preserving the contents from ritual pollution, and they are found not only in the Upper City of Jerusalem but also in many sites of Lower Galilee especially the villages known to have been frequented by the historical Jesus. Almost all the stone vessels date from the time of Herod the Great to 70 CE, although some sites for manufacturing stone vessels continued in Lower Galilee, notably just outside Nazareth. In this one particular example, John is more reliable than the Synoptics and the tradition makes appropriate sense only in pre-70 CE Jewish settings when the Temple authorities were mandating ritual purity for all Jews in Palestine. Moreover, when John reports that the miracle in Cana was “the first of his signs” (2:11), the comment fits well with the Jewish emphasis on signs found in Josephus, Pseudo-Philo, and in other early Jewish texts. Second, John has impressive and intimate knowledge of Jerusalem’s architecture. John’s description of Jerusalem and its environs is frequently now supported by the latest archaeological discoveries. Many archaeologists only recently are finding that John is indispensable in recreating and imagining pre-70 CE Jerusalem and the context of Jesus’ life and mind.155 The placing of Lazarus, a leper, in Bethany (Jn 11:1–17) is in line with the statements in the Temple Scroll that a place for lepers is to be located east of the Holy City (11Q19). The description of Lazarus’ tomb and the stench of the corpse (11:38–44) fits precisely the tombs around Jerusalem—many of which are caves (Jn 11:38)—and the need for many glass vessels for perfume (unguentaria) to be placed near the corpse. Only John reports the massive stones in the pavement of Pilate’s palace: The Lithostrotos; and Gabatha (Jn 19:13), a Hebrew word that does not translate the Greek, must be the name used by Semites in Jerusalem for the place. Now, massive pre-70 CE slabs of enormous stones have been discovered precisely where Pilate’s palace, formerly Herod’s palace, had been located. John appears to report accurately the Bēma, the “high seat” (19:13) where Pilate would sit and render judgment. Previous generations of New Testament authorities either ignored or considered these embellishments to John’s narrative. It was only an exciting narrative that was not historical but invented by the Fourth Evangelist. Now, that option is impossible, thanks to decades of research prosecuted on the Mishna, Qumran, apocryphal Jewish works, and archaeological discoveries. Other details that seem incidental in John’s story are now appearing to be historical, according to archaeological discoveries in Jerusalem. Among them are the following: the house and courtyard of Annas (18:13), the house of Caiaphas (18:24), Golgotha (19:17), the ḥanuth, “meat market,” where the large animals for sacrifice were held, a garden tomb (19:17), and a room in which the disciples gathered (20:19–29). It is clear, John provides amazing details about pre-70 CE Jerusalem. John knew that Solomon’s Portico was an ideal shelter from the cold winter blasts (10:22–23). Only John reports that there is a pool with five columned porticoes north of the Temple and a large pool (probably) south of it. Among early historians of Jerusalem, especially Josephus, only John reports these pools—Bethzatha and Siloam (see Chapter 6)—with surprising accuracy. Scholars thus judged these details to be created for theological



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or Christological purposes. Now each pool has been located and each antedates the destruction of the area by Roman armies in September 70 CE. The Pool of Bethsaida (Bethzatha) does have five porticoes and the columns can be seen today lying on the ground. The Pool of Siloam (9:1–12) was exposed recently when a sewer pipe burst. The Pools of Bethzatha and Siloam are the largest mikvaot (Jewish baths for ritual purification) that antedate 70 CE. Both had been buried under the debris from the First Jewish Revolt which ended in the burning of Jerusalem including the Temple. In addition, a monumental stairway leads from the Pool of Siloam to the Temple gates. Thanks to focused scientific archaeological work, it is now clear that scholars err in using only the Synoptics as sources for understanding the historical Jesus. Third, John alone knows termini technici characteristic of early Jewish thought before 70 CE. For example, he uses the term “Sons of Light” which is found in the most important documents from Qumran, the Rule of the Community and the War Scroll. A highly developed dualistic paradigm of light-versus-darkness or good and evil once thought to be present only outside Palestine is now evident within Jewish Palestinian thought beginning in the second century BCE. The Logos concept draws our minds not to Heraclitus and the Stoics but to the Jewish debates over Sophia, Wisdom, and divine intermediaries. Fourth, John preserves Palestinian debates anchored in problematic Hebrew Scriptures. Only one example must now suffice. Genesis reports that God completed his creation on the sixth day and rested on the seventh day. Yet, Gen 2:2 in Hebrew means: “And God completed on the seventh day the work he had been doing.” That means God worked on the seventh day. John seems to know the debates over interpreting this verse to mean that God did not work on the seventh day, Shabbat. According to the Septuagint, God completed his work on the sixth day. John, knowing these competing traditions, has Jesus defend his healings on Shabbat, with a surprising knowledge of the Hebrew of Gen 2:2: “My Father is working still, and I am also working” (5:17). Jesus was working, as his Father, on Shabbat (5:16). Why, then, have so many scholars devoted to Jesus Research rejected John or tended to ignore his account? If it is because John is theological and ideologically motivated then the choice is misinformed. The Synoptics are also theologically and ideologically shaped. Moreover, we have seen, in studying the Pesharim (the Qumran commentaries on Scripture), that history is often transported via theological and ideological documents.156

Conclusion We may summarize a few points. To many of us who specialize in first century Jewish thought, Josephus seems to edit his Antiquities to better represent historical episodes somewhat bowdlerized in the War due to more maturity and reflection, less dependence on the Flavians, and perhaps more precise documentation in Roman archives. Matthew and Luke heavily edit Mark, their main source, but they never seem to change Mark for historical accuracy. They redact Mark to introduce theological and Christological viewpoints. Thus, scholars agree that each Evangelist—Mark, Matthew, and Luke— sacrifices historical data for theological purposes and does so in ways that contrast to

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the other intra-canonical Gospels. Yet this consensus provided by those devoted to the Redaktionsgeschichtliche Schule never changed the categorization of the first three Gospels as “Synoptic.” Since the Second World War we have seen how un-synoptic are the Synoptics, and at the same time we are now perceiving how synoptic in places are all four Gospels, especially but not only in the passion narratives. The dawning of the Kingdom of God, “God’s Rule,” is Jesus’ authentic proclamation. The vast majority of New Testament experts reject Ritschl’s depiction of God’s Rule in Jesus’ message as an ethical exhortation. Almost all follow, mutatis mutandis, Johannes Weiss’ insistence that Jesus’ Kingdom talk must be understood in the terms and perspectives developed within the Jewish apocalypses and apocalyptic literature.157 Yet, most New Testament scholars focus all their work only on Matthew, Mark, and Luke as they seek to comprehend God’s Rule. The terminus technicus, however, is also apparent in John and is presented at the outset when Jesus instructs a teacher of Israel: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born anew (or from above), one cannot see the Kingdom of God” (τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ; 3:3). He then adds: “Amen, amen, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, one cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (τὴν βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ; 3:5). These teachings preserved in John reflect Jewish apocalyptic eschatology and help us comprehend Jesus’ fundamental message. In conclusion, as J. D. G. Dunn pointed out, we must allow John to be John and not to read his narrative with our minds on the Synoptics and how he differs from them.158 Scholars who myopically employ only the Synoptics as sources for understanding the historical Jesus miss the independent and reliable traditions in John. They also violate the canons of historiography: The historian should use and sift for insight all available data and witnesses to the events being represented. That methodology is imperative in Jesus Research,159 which is not like the various “Quests”; Jesus Research denotes the scientific search for reliable historical data in the life of “Jesus, the son of Joseph” (Jn 6:42). In the process of being faithful to historiography, we must avoid two psychological errors. The first is the manipulation of texts to ascertain something historically valid. The second is the tendency to resist historical information in seeking to be scientific and objective, as well as the fear of being judged one who allowed faith to provide answers. Each tendency is well demonstrated in Jesus Research and the study of the historical Jesus over the past three centuries. Two questions remain to be explored. First, is there a paradigm shift in Jesus Research that indicates John should also be used? Here is my answer for discussion: It is not too early to discern a shift in the use of sources. A subtle change may be discerned in contemporary research: For almost a century scholars tended to use only Mark and the other Synoptics and ignore John, and often to expunge his historical veracity. Then, some scholars began to use the Synoptics and refer occasionally to John. Now, more and more specialists on John and Jesus Research are using Mark as well as John without judging one to be always superior to the other. The Society of Biblical Literature’s Group on “John, Jesus, and History” is bringing together Johannine experts who are devoted to John and the study of the history preserved within it, including reliable traditions that take us back to the historical Jesus. The first triennium (2002– 2004) “showcased invited papers from leading biblical scholars on topics pertaining to the relationship between the Johannine literature and the study of the historical Jesus.”160 In their second triennium (2005–2007) this SBL Group focused on “aspects



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of historicity” in John, and in its third triennium (2008–2010) the Group emphasized “glimpses of Jesus through the Johannine lens.”161 Earlier I noted the most recent work and the publication that will appear about the same time as this book. What is new? Here is how I would evaluate the present development toward a burgeoning consensus: John is recognized as highly developed but so was Jewish thought in the first century. John is basically independent of the Synoptics and has special sources that need to be evaluated for their historical value. John has amazing details about pre-70 CE Jerusalem and archaeologists are frequently able to prove John’s historical accuracy. Second, should scholars call for a paradigm shift in the study of the historical Jesus so that all data is included for assessment, including evidence that seems to lie hidden behind the kerygmatic Christology of John’s narrative? The evidence surveyed above indicates that the obvious answer in terms of historiography and reliable historical data is “yes.” When Gerd Theissen and Dagmar Winter exhort us to replace the criterion of dissimilarity with historical plausibility, they help us comprehend that “distinctions between Judaism and early Christianity are not in themselves an adequate methodological basis for Jesus research.”162 Their more refined methodology helps us find historical gems in the Johannine mines, since John, unlike the Synoptics, is so complex in its two horizons: it is so Jewish and it is so anti-Jewish, and the story of Jesus by John sails not only between the two but within them; moreover, the horizon of Jesus’ time coalesces with the horizons of the authors. We began this chapter with one focused question: Is it wise to ignore the Fourth Gospel in reconstructing the life, mission, and message of Jesus from Nazareth? The answer is “no.” It is now time to move beyond the caricature of John as a non-historical theological treatise, a judgment that has plagued scholarship since Eusebius’ report that Clement of Alexandria correctly characterized the Synoptics as factual but John as “spiritual.” I do not think that Clement was defining John as mythological, legendary, and unhistorical (HE 6.14.7).163 John’s highly interpreted story of Jesus is becoming a telescope to peer back into first century Jerusalem so we may see not only Jewish stone vessels and mikvaot but also the shadows of a Galilean bringing healing to the sick and a renewed oneness with the Father to the lost. Is it possible, then, to observe a paradigm shift from ignoring John and focusing only on the Synoptics to including John and sometimes giving priority to some of the traditions preserved in it? Yes.

Notes 1 This chapter is a revised version of “The Historical Jesus in the Fourth Gospel: A Paradigm Shift?” Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 8, no. 1 (2010): 3–46. 2 In this chapter I use “John” to refer both to the Gospel of John and to the author(s) and editor(s) of the Gospel. I wish to focus on the Johannine tradition in contrast to the Synoptics’ traditions. D. M. Smith read an earlier draft of this publication and helped me improve my thoughts. I am most grateful to him for his typical graciousness and willingness to share his knowledge. He passed on as I was polishing these thoughts.

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3 On memory, historiography, and “comprehensive” memory, see D. Mendels, M ­ emory in Jewish, Pagan, and Christian Societies of the Greco-Roman World (LSTS 45; New York: T & T Clark, 2004), p. xiv. 4 Polybius, Histories 12.28.9. 5 Pokorný, “Reflexion über die Rolle der Evangelien in den Anfängen der Kirche,” in Neutestamentliche Exegese im Dialog (ed. P. Lampe et al.; Neukirchen-Vluyn: ­Neukirchener Verlag, 2008), pp. 135–47. 6 Pokorný, Hermeneutics as a Theory of Understanding, trans. A. Bryson-Gustová (Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2011), p. 199. Also see Pokorný’s Hermeneutika jako teorie porozumĕní (Prague: Nakladatelství Vyšehrad, 2005). 7 That question was central to the 2016 Princeton-Prague Symposium on the Historical Jesus. J. H. Charlesworth with J. G. R. Pruszinski, eds., Jesus Research: The Gospel of John in Historical Inquiry. The Third Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research, Princeton 2016 (forthcoming). 8 J. S. Kloppenborg (Excavating Q: The History and Setting of the Sayings Gospel [Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000], p. 283) warns us that Strauss’ work “was less interested in recovering a life of Jesus than it was in documenting and interpreting the use of myth in gospel narratives.” See S. Freyne, “Re-imagining Jesus in his Culture: Reflections on Some Recent Scholarly Byways,” in Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions (ed. James Charlesworth; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014). 9 F. C. Baur, Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonische Evangelien (Tübingen: L. F. Fues, 1847). 10 E. Renan, The Life of Jesus (New York: Modern Library, 1927) p. 44. 11 J. Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God (Chico: Scholars, 1985), p. 60. 12 W. P. Weaver, The Historical Jesus in the Twentieth Century: 1900–1950 (Harrisburg: Trinity, 1999), p. 46. 13 James D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 41. 14 Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, 435; Christopher M. Tuckett, Q and the History of Early Christianity (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996), p. 15. 15 G. Theissen and A. Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (ed. J. Bowden; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), p. 29. 16 Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, p. 17. 17 G. Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth (New York: Harper, 1960), pp. 13–14. 18 Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 215. 19 See Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth, pp. 210–20. 20 E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), p. 62. 21 E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993), p. 128. 22 Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus, p. 57. 23 John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (New York: Harper San Francisco, 1991). 24 Crossan, The Historical Jesus, p. 234. 25 Ibid., pp. 427–32. 26 N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (London: SPCK, 1996), p. xvi. 27 Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God, p. 30. 28 N. T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1999); see especially pp. 146–47 and 174–97. 29 I try to show that John is not “anti-Semitic” in numerous publications; see James H. Charlesworth, “The Gospel of John: Exclusivism Caused by a Social Setting Different from That of Jesus (Jn 11:54 and 14:6),” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000, eds. R. Bieringer, et al. (Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001), pp. 479–513.



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30 J. Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth, trans. H. Danby (New York: Macmillan, 1944), p. 125. 31 D. Flusser, Jesus, trans. R. Walls (New York: Herder and Herder, 1969), pp. 7–8; see also p. 58. 32 Fludder with R. S. Notley, The Sage from Galilee: Rediscovering Jesus’ Genius (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), p. 1. See also p. 9. 33 Geza Vermes, Jesus the Jew (London: Collins, 1973), p. 19. 34 Geza Vermes, The Passion (New York: Penguin, 2006), pp. 11–12. 35 Geza Vermes, Who’s Who in the Age of Jesus (New York: Penguin, 2006), pp. 130–32. 36 Vermes, The Passion, pp. 36–37. 37 Vermes, Who’s Who in the Age of Jesus, pp. 135–36. 38 See also Vermes, Who’s Who in the Age of Jesus, p. 44. 39 For the argument that “the Great Omission” of a Marcan passage in Luke is because this was added later to Mark, see A. F. Rainey and R. S. Notley, “Literary and Geographical Contours of ‘The Great Omission,’” in The Sacred Bridge (Jerusalem: Carta, 2006), pp. 360–62. 40 See especially P. Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), p. 199. She states: “Lacking the sort of comparative data that the synoptic gospels provide for each other, it is difficult to say [what] sources or traditions stand behind John’s Jesus.” 41 As Weaver demonstrates in The Historical Jesus in the Twentieth Century: 1900–1950, in Great Britain and the United States, and for Dibelius, there was no moratorium on the “search” for the historical Jesus. 42 F. J. Moloney, “The Fourth Gospel and the Jesus of History,” NTS 46 (2000): 42. 43 This point was also made by Moloney, “The Fourth Gospel,” p. 42. 44 See James H. Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism: New Light from Exciting Archaeological Discoveries (ABRL 1; New York: Doubleday, 1988). 45 J. D. Crossan (Historical Jesus) includes many extracanonical works, notably the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of the Hebrews, and the Gospel of Peter. While alluring to many, this approach fails to convince because most scholars agree that these gospels are not as early as Crossan claims and they do not appear to be so independent of the canonical gospels. See G. Theissen and D. Winter, The Quest for the Plausible Jesus: The Question of Criteria (trans. M. E. Boring; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), p. 7. 46 Also, see Ulrich Luz, “Matthew’s ‘Interpretive Tendencies’ and the ‘Historical’ Jesus,” in Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions: The Second Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research, Princeton 2007 (ed. Charlesworth et al.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). 47 See D. L. Bock, “The Gospel of Mark and the Historical Jesus,” in Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions: The Second Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research, Princeton 2007 (ed. Charlesworth et al.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). 48 See C. Keener, “Luke-Acts and the Historical Jesus,” in Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions. In a recent study, Keener (The Historical Jesus of the Gospels [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009], p. 164) claims that he will “depend heavily on Mark and ‘Q’ material” in reconstructing Jesus’ life because of “a consensus of scholarship regarding the most accepted sources for reconstructing Jesus’ life.” Yet, later he prefers the historical elements in John, stating: “The Fourth Gospel’s portrait of baptism by Jesus’ disciples (Jn 3:26) thus makes sense” (176). Note his judgment that John “thus may report accurate historical tradition that in the earliest stage of Jesus’ ministry, which overlapped with John in a comparable region, Jesus’ disciples supervised others’ baptisms under his instruction” (176).

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49 See the reflections of D. M. Smith, “Redaction Criticism, Genre, Narrative Criticism, and the Historical Jesus in the Gospel of John,” in Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions. 50 G. Theissen and D. Winter, Die Kriterienfrage in der Jesusforschung: Vom Differenzkriterium zum Plausibilitätskriterium (NTOA 34; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997). 51 See D. M. Smith, John among the Gospels (Columbia: University of Carolina, 2001), especially pp. 195–241. 52 See J. H. Charlesworth, “The Priority of John? Reflections on the Essenes and the First Edition of John,” in Für und wider die Priorität des Johannesevangeliums: Symposium in Salzburg am 10. März 2000 (ed. P. L. Hofrichter; Theologische Texte und Studien 9; Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2002), pp. 73–114. 53 See Richard Bauckham, “Gospel Traditions: Anonymous Community Traditions or Eyewitness Testimony,” in Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions. Also, see Bauckham, Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006). 54 See W. H. Kelber, “Rethinking the Oral-Scribal Transmission/Performance of the Jesus Tradition,” in Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions. 55 For decades I discussed these issues with Geza Vermes in his home. See his superb discussion on the obvious impossibility of a trial of Jesus before the Sanhedrin in his The Passion, pp. 99–101. I express indebtedness to him now. Also see the following: P. Winter, On the Trial of Jesus (2nd ed.; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1974), G. Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judea (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), F. Millar, “Reflections on the Trials of Jesus,” in A Tribute to Geza Vermes (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1990), E. P. Sanders, The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Allen Lane, 1993), R. E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 2 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1994). 56 The definitive study of high priests in Early Judaism is by James C. VanderKam; see his From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests After the Exile (Minneapolis: Fortress Press and Assen: Van Gorcum, 2004). 57 F. J. Matera, “Jesus Before Annas: John 18, 13-14, 19-24,” ETL 66 (1990): 54. 58 See U. C. von Wahlde, The Gospel and Letters of John, 2.758. 59 See the contribution in Jesus and Temple, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014). Also see, Ehud Netzer, “The Rebuilding of the Second Temple and Its Precinct,” in The Architecture of Herod, the Great Builder (TSAJ 117; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2006), pp. 137–78. 60 See Josephus’ description of the renovation and extension of the Temple by the builders of Herod the Great (Ant 15.380-425). Also see Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem in the Time of Jesus (trans. F. H. and C. H. Cave; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), p. 153 and note 22. 61 The third volume of the SBL John, Jesus, and History Group is focused on Jesus’ passion. See Paul N. Anderson, F. Just, and T. Thatcher, eds., Glimpses of Jesus Through the Johannine Lens (Early Christianity and its Literature 18; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2016). I express gratitude to the editors for sending me the uncorrected page proofs. The chapters on Jesus’ passion in John are by J. Clark-Soles, P. N. Anderson, D. Senior, W. Carter, C. S. Keener, S. Witetschek, J. Zumstein, W. E. S. North, R. T. Fortna, and T. Thatcher. 62 See P. Samain, “L’accusation de magie contre le Christ dans les Évangiles,” ETL 15 (1938): 449–90. G. H. Twelftree, Jesus the Exorcist (WUNT 2. Reihe 54; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993); idem, Jesus the Miracle Worker (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1999).



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63 The Piel part. of ‫כשׁף‬. 64 John W. Welch, “Miracles, Maleficium, and Maiestas in the Trial of Jesus.” in Jesus and Archaeology (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 349–83; and “The Legal Cause of Action against Jesus in John 18:29–30,” in Celebrating Easter, eds. T. A. Wayment and K. J. Wilson (Provo, Utah: BYU, Religious Studies Center, 2007), pp. 157–76. Welch suggests that it may be that the deliberation of the Sanhedrin and the decision by Caiaphas in Jn 11:47–53 gave the chief priests legal permission “to arrest” Jesus and to move forward against him. See Welch, “Raising Lazarus: Jesus’s Signing of His Own Death Warrant,” http://www.byunewtestamentcommentary. com/?s=Lazarus (2016). 65 See Jacob Neusner, The Mishnah: A New Translation (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1988). 66 Moloney, “The Fourth Gospel,” pp. 49–50. 67 D. L. Bock, Studying the Historical Jesus: A Guide to Sources and Methods (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2002), p. 26. Also, see Bock, “Gospel of Mark and the Historical Jesus.” 68 Flusser, The Sage from Galilee, p. 9. 69 Raymond E. Brown, An Introduction to the Gospel of John (ed. F. J. Moloney; New York: Doubleday, 2003), p. 93. 70 S. Freyne, Galilee and Gospel (WUNT 125; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), p. 294. 71 Brown, An Introduction to the Gospel of John, p. 91. 72 W. R. Farmer, Jesus and the Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), p. 161. 73 L. Devillers, La Fête de l’Envoyé: La section Johannique de la fête des tentes (Jean 7, 1–10, 21) et la christologie (Paris: J. Gabalda, 2002). 74 M. A. Daise, Feasts in John (WUNT 2.229; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), p. 12. 75 D. Bahat, “Jesus and the Herodian Temple Mount,” in Jesus and Archaeology (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), p. 300. 76 See M. Broshi, “The Role of the Temple in the Herodian Economy,” JJS 38 (1987): 34–35, and Broshi, “Anti-Qumranic Polemics in the Talmud,” in The Madrid Qumran Congress (ed. J. T. Barrera and L. V. Montaner; STDJ 11; Leiden: Brill, 1992) see especially 2:593. 77 The Temple tax was not acceptable from a Gentile or Samaritan; see m. Shekalim 1.5. 78 D. Bahat, “The Herodian Temple,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism (ed. W. Horbury et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge, 1999) 3:58. 79 C. Clifton Black, Mark (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2011); idem, The Disciples According to Mark: Markan Redaction in Current Debate (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012); idem, The Rhetoric of the Gospel: Theological Artistry in the Gospels and Acts (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013). 80 See J. Schröter, “Jesus of Galilee: The Role of Location in Understanding Jesus,” in Jesus Research: An International Perspective (ed. James H. Charlesworth and Petr Pokorný; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 36–55. 81 S. Freyne, Galilee and Gospel, p. 125. 82 See the map (fig. 17.25 on page 202) in M. Aviam, Jews, Pagans, and Christians in the Galilee: 25 Years of Archaeological Excavations and Surveys, Hellenistic to Byzantine Periods (Rochester: Rochester, 2004). 83 Aviam, Jews, Pagans, and Christians in the Galilee, p. 49. 84 See the admission by Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, p. 434. 85 Bornkamm, Jesus of Nazareth, p. 42. 86 Luke T. Johnson, The Real Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 44. 87 C. K. Barrett, “St. John: Social Historian,” PIBA 10 (1986): 26–39.

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88 S. Freyne, Galilee, Jesus, and the Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988), p. 116. 89 The author of 2 Kgs (21:19 and 24:1) also indicates some Israelites lived in western Lower Galilee, probably not far from where Sepphoris would be built. 90 Aviam, Jews, Pagans, and Christians in the Galilee, p. 42. 91 L. Finkelstein, in The Cambridge History of Judaism II (ed. W. D. Davies and L. ­Finkelstein; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 305, rightly points out that Simon was “able to evacuate the Jews of Galilee and Gilead to Judea.” 92 M. Aviam, “The Beginning of Mass Production of Olive Oil in the Galilee,” in Jews, Pagans, and Christians in the Galilee, pp. 51–58. Aviam illustrates why a “survey of the literary sources and the archaeological finds suggests that the mass production of olive oil did not gain its place of importance in the rural life of the Galilee until the Hasmonean period (in earlier periods, production was limited mainly to the domestic level).” Many of the oil presses are found in Jewish towns and villages. 93 U. Rapport, “The Hellenistic Period and the Hasmonean State (332–37 BCE),” in The History of Eretz Israel (ed. M. Stern; Jerusalem: Yad Yitsḥaḳ Ben-Tsevi, 1981). I am grateful to Aiam for taking me to these sites and discussions with him for over twenty years. 94 See M. Aviam, “The Hasmonaean Dynasty’s Activities in the Galilee,” in Jews, Pagans, and Christians in the Galilee, pp. 41–50. 95 For a map showing the extent of the kingdom of Jannaeus, see The Cambridge History of Judaism 2.431, fig. 2. 96 S. Gutman, “Gamla,” in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land, 4 vols. (ed. E. Stern; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993) 2.459–63. 97 I hold it also possible that the family was returning from Judea to Lower Galilee because they were related to the Jews who were liberated by Simon. 98 E. P. Sanders, Tendencies of the Synoptic Gospels (SNTSM 9; London: Cambridge, 1969). 99 See K. Haacker, “‘What Must I Do to Inherit Eternal Life?’ Implicit Christology in Jesus’ Saying about Life and Kingdom,” in Jesus Research: An International Perspective (ed. James H. Charlesworth and Petr Pokorný; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 140–53. 100 David Flusser, Hillel and Jesus (ed. James H. Charlesworth and L. L. Johns; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997), p. 74. 101 The John reference is a little misleading. John the Baptist actually states Ἐγὼ οὐκ εἰμὶ ὁ χριστός. Two other characters in John also utter the phrase: (1) the man born blind, ἐκεῖνος ἔλεγεν ὅτι Ἐγώ εἰμι (9:9); (2) Pilate, Μήτι ἐγὼ Ἰουδαῖος εἰμι; (18:35). 102 See the third edition of Hurtado’s book One God, One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish Monotheism (London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2015). The most important addition to the third edition is the 53-page epilogue that explains the debates. 103 See especially Sanders, Tendencies of the Synoptic Gospels. 104 See especially James H. Charlesworth, et al., eds., The Lord’s Prayer and Other Prayer Texts from the Greco-Roman Era (Valley Forge, Trinity, 1994). 105 The Letter of Pilate to Herod; see J. K. Elliot, The Apocryphal New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), p. 223. 106 See W. Schneemelcher, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen, 2 vols. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1990) 1:364. 107 Schneemelcher, Neutestamentliche Apokryphen, 1:406. 108 See the Pilate Cycle of texts, for example, Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament, p. 215. 109 On “ambiguity” in John’s narrative, see Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple.



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110 A. Schlatter, Die Geschichte des Christus (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1977), p. 8. 111 M. Hengel, Between Jesus and Paul, trans. J. Bowden (London: SCM, 1983), xiv. Also, see Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 2 vols. (trans. J. Bowden; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974). 112 Brown, An Introduction to the Gospel of John, p. 92. 113 For a summary, see Charlesworth, “Hat die Archäologie Bedeutung für die JesusForschung?” EvT 68 (2008): 246–65. 114 Charlesworth, Jesus and Archaeology; J. L. Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus (Harrisburg: Trinity, 2000); J. D. Crossan and J. L. Reed, Excavating Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 2001). 115 Paul N. Anderson, “Aspects of Historicity in the Gospel of John: Implications for Investigations of Jesus and Archaeology,” pp. 587–618, and U. C. von Wahlde, “Archaeology and John’s Gospel,” in Jesus and Archaeology, pp. 523–86. 116 I am indebted to Father Stefano De Luca for many insights and with whom I have enjoyed excavating (but only at intervals) in Migdal. 117 See the map of Roman roads in Galilee in Aviam, Jews, Pagans, and Christians in the Galilee, 13; also see his discussion of Roman roads in Galilee on pp. 133–38. 118 For a decade, I have benefited from discussions with Aviam who took me to many hidden sites in the Galilee and with whom I served as co-director of the excavations at Khirbet Beza. 119 See U. Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee: An Archaeological Survey of the Eastern Galilee (TSAJ 127; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009), p. 293. 120 See J. H. Charlesworth and M. Aviam, “Überlegungen zur Erforschung Galiläas im ersten Jahrhundert,” in Jesus und die Archäologie Galiläas (ed. C. Claußen and J. Frey; B-TS 87; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2008), pp. 93–127. Also see his M. A. thesis: Christian Settlement in the Western Galilee in the Byzantine Period (Jerusalem: The Hebrew University, 1994 [in Hebrew]). 121 The Talmudim reports that Shikhin is the home of a pottery industry (t. Shabbat 13.9; y. Shabbat 16d, 121a; y. Nedarin 4 9G). James R. Strange of Samford University and Mordecai Aviam are the Co-directors of the excavations at Kefar Shikhin. Most importantly for us is the evidence of a pottery-making industry that dates from the first century BCE and the first century CE. A significant number of large jars found in Sepphoris were made in Shikhin. See the interview with J. R. Strange: Brian Leport, “Shikhin Excavations with James R. Strange,” Ancient Jew Review (July 22, 2015), see especially the image of the lamp molds found at Shikhin. Also see the interview with Aviam by S. Hudes, “Shikhin, Talmudic Village Home to Many Potters, Found Near Tzipori,” in The Jerusalem Post (August 5, 2013). 122 b. Sanhedrin 41.1; b. Aboda Zara 8.2; see Bahat, “Jesus and the Herodian Temple Mount,” in Jesus and Archaeology, pp. 306–07. 123 This fact is clarified by D. Bahat, “Jesus and the Herodian Temple,” pp. 300–8. 124 See a similar judgment by Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, p. 35. 125 K. G. Bretschneider, Probabilia de evangelii et epistolarum Joannis apostoli indole et origine eruditorum iudiciis modeste subiecit (Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1820). 126 For my earlier thoughts, see J. H. Charlesworth, “From Old to New: Paradigm shifts Concerning Judaism, the Gospel of John, Jesus, and the Advent of ‘Christianity,’” in Jesus Research: An International Perspective (ed. Charlesworth with Petr Pokorný; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009), pp. 56–72. 127 W. R. Farmer, “An Historical Essay on the Humanity of Jesus Christ,” in Christian History and Interpretation: Studies Presented to John Knox (ed. W. R. Farmer et al.;

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Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967) see especially p. 105; I am indebted to B. F. Meyer for this citation; see his endorsement of Farmer’s point in The Aims of Jesus (London: SCM, 1979), p. 72. 128 C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963). 129 R. E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah, 2 vols. (New York: Doubleday, 1994). For a brilliantly written exposé of John’s passion narrative, see vol. 1, pp. 33–35. Brown’s study of the passion narrative led him to follow “the thesis that John wrote his PN independently of Mark’s” (1:83). 130 R. E. Brown, New Testament Essays (Garden City: Image Books, 1965), p. 271. 131 Obviously this opinion must antedate 1998, the year of Brown’s death, yet he listed scholars who scarcely, even then, should be labeled representatives of “today.” That is, Brown noted “the works of Albright, Higgins, Leal and Stauffer.” See Brown, An Introduction to the Gospel of John, p. 91. 132 J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (5 vols.; New York: Doubleday, 1991–2016) 1:41. Moloney (I think rightly representing Brown) saluted Meier for his “careful use of Johannine material in his discussion of the material in his second volume, subtitled, “Mentor, Message, and Miracles.” See Brown, An Introduction to the Gospel of John, p. 93. 133 Theissen and Merz, Historical Jesus, p. 35. 134 R. Bauckham, The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), pp. 93–112. 135 P. N. Anderson, The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus (New York: T & T Clark, 2006), p. 154. 136 Anderson, The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus, p. 46. 137 D. M. Smith, The Fourth Gospel in Four Dimensions (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 2008), p. 81. 138 Smith, The Fourth Gospel in Four Dimensions, p. 111. 139 Ibid., p. 118; emphasis original. 140 Smith, The Fourth Gospel in Four Dimensions, p. 110. 141 Ibid., pp. 110–11. 142 Ibid., p. 116. 143 Ibid., p. 118. 144 P. Borgen, from 1959 to 1993, argued that John and not only the Synoptics preserve valuable historical information. See especially Borgen, “John and the Synoptics in the Passion Narrative,” NTS 5 (1959): 246–59. 145 M. A. Powell also notes a shift in Jesus Research in the direction of appreciating the traditions in John; see Powell, “‘Things that Matter’: Historical Jesus Studies in the New Millennium,” Word & World 29, no. 2 (2009): 121–28. 146 While B. F. Meyer argued that John does not present us with memory but highly developed religious reflection, he admits that John retains significant historical information on the beginnings of Jesus’ ministry, the reason for Jesus’ death, and the Easter experience of his disciples. See Meyer, “Jesus Christ,” ABD 3.774. 147 P. Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews (New York: Knopf, 1999). 148 Fredriksen sees that John’s “information is historically more sound” than the Synoptics in “the probable duration of Jesus’ ministry, the Sanhedrin’s concern for the political consequences of his preaching, the pitch of popular messianic excitement around Passover, the extent of the Jewish authorities’ involvement on the night of Jesus’ arrest, the date of his arrest relative to Passover,” From Jesus to Christ (New Haven: Yale, 1988), pp. 198–99.



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149 A.-J. Levine (The Misunderstood Jew [New York: Harper San Francisco, 2006], p. 8) wisely observes that the “popular image of Jesus as a ‘peasant’ often serves not to connect him to his fellow Jews but to distinguish him from them,” that Jesus probably wore “fringes” (tzitzit, 24), that Jesus not only dresses like a Jew, “he eats like a Jew as well. He keeps kosher; that is, he keeps the dietary requirements established in Torah” (24), and that John’s version of the “Cleansing of the Temple . . . accentuates the point” that is crucial: not exploitation but making the holy place a business center (p. 153). 150 B. Chilton, Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography (New York: Doubleday, 2000), p. 244. 151 See, for example, Polybius, Histories 12.27. Polybius warns that we must not only study written sources but also interrogate “living witnesses” and study topographies. 152 Kloppenborg, Excavating Q, p. 352. 153 See C. Claussen, “Turning Water to Wine: Re-reading the Miracle at the Wedding in Cana,” in Jesus Research: An International Perspective, pp. 73–97. 154 Some of this information has not yet been published, but see P. Richardson, “Khirbet Qana (and Other Villages) as a Context for Jesus,” in Jesus and Archaeology, pp. 120–44. 155 James H. Charlesworth, “Pour savoir ce qu’était Jérusalem avant sa destruction, il faut lire Jean,” Le Point 1 (December 2008–January 2009): 24–25. 156 This is demonstrated in James H. Charlesworth, The Pesharim and Qumran History (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). 157 J. Weiss, Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1982). See Weiss, Jesus’ Proclamation of the Kingdom of God (trans. R. H. Hiers and D. L. Holland; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971). 158 J. 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), pp. 309–40. 159 M. Borg and others, who criticize my own studies, miss the point that I coined this term, “Jesus Research,” to refer to the study of Jesus that appeared around 1980 and was not primarily motivated by theology or Christology and included Jews, like Vermes and Flusser. Prior to 1980, the study of Jesus was considered a “Quest.” Before the eighteenth century the study of Jesus was frequently confused with worship of him as the Christ by Christians. Many Jews dismissed the New Testament and Jesus; both were judged to be misguided, even diabolical. See G. Theissen and D. Winter, Die Kriterienfrage in der Jesusforschung (NTOA 345; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag/ Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), p. 4 n. 8. 160 These are the words of a member of the steering committee, Tom Thatcher; see John, Jesus, and History (ed. P. N. Anderson et al.; SBL Symposium Series 33; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2007) 1.9. 161 I am grateful to Paul Anderson for this information. Other volumes of the John, Jesus, and History SBL Group are as follows: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel, vol. II (ed. P. N. Anderson et al.; Leiden: Brill, 2009) and Glimpses of Jesus through the Johannine Lens, vol. III (c. 2011). 162 Theissen and Winter, Quest for the Plausible Jesus, p. 25. 163 One of the pillars of the Jesus Seminar is that the Synoptics allow us to find the historical Jesus but John presents a “spiritual gospel.” See R. Funk et al., eds., The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus (New York: Macmillan, 1993), p. 3. See now the proceedings of the most recent sessions of the Princeton-Prague Symposia on the historical Jesus: J. H. Charlesworth with J. G. R. Pruszinski, eds., Jesus Research: The Gospel of John in Historical Inquiry. The Third Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research, Princeton 2016 (forthcoming). 

6

Archaeological Discoveries Supporting the Historicity of John’s Traditions1

The Bible and archaeology represent two distinguishable areas for intensive scientific research. The respective methodologies in these fields have been refined over the past three centuries for exploring the same geographical area and, for biblical archaeology, the identical time period. Biblical scholars do not attempt to “shore up the Bible” through archaeology. Along with persons of faith they know that the Bible needs no such support. As the distinguished archaeologist William G. Dever emphasized: “Archaeology as it is practiced today must be able to challenge, as well as confirm, the Bible stories. Some things described there really did happen, but others did not. The biblical narratives about Abraham, Moses, Joshua and Solomon probably reflect some historical memories of people and places, but the ‘larger than life’ portraits of the Bible are unrealistic and contradicted by the archaeological evidence.”2 I recall how the students of Albright helped us comprehend that the Bible is a celebration of God’s mighty acts in history. That celebration exaggerates what the biblical luminaries accomplished, and is unhistorical. But the celebration is historical because it occurred and is recorded by historical authors (like the anonymous J, E, D, and P) and there is secular history embedded in stories. Sometimes so-called fiction can represent reality better than “objective history.” David may not have slain Goliath with a stone sent from a slingshot, but the more I study shepherds and slingshots from c. 1000 BCE and contemplate that Goliath was a “giant” like Bill Russell, then I comprehend more history in David’s lore. Moreover, those in antiquity believed such marvelous stories and that is historical. Non-scholars and journalists seeking attention and respect err in seeking to see how archaeological discoveries prove the claims in the Bible. The correct perspective can be perceived by reviewing archaeology from the nineteenth century to the present. Our focus must be on how and in what ways, if at all, archaeology helps us to discern the validity of the historical asides found in the Jesus Story in John. These features highlight the Christologically irrelevant and unintentional descriptions of the unique architecture of Jerusalem that disappeared in 70 CE. With this focus only a rapid overview alone is permissible. Detailed notes also would be obsolete since archaeological discoveries move at an electrifying pace in comparison to any alleged consensus within the world of biblical research.



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Figure 6.1  Statue of the Roman God Jupiter, late first century.

A glimpse of the beginnings of “Biblical Archaeology”: The nineteenth century The first archaeological work was not scientific. It was digging into the remains of Pompeii searching for valuable objects, especially sculptures. The first research center for intensive and scientific biblical research is the Tübingen School in southern Germany; but the scholars in it lived before the advent of “Biblical Archaeology.” Two prominent representatives of this school are Ferdinand C. Bauer, who explained Christian Origins in light of Hegelian dialectic, and David F. Strauss, who perceived the importance of myth and defined it as representative of poetic thoughts, philosophical ideas, or historically significant occurrences. The French and then British conquests of the Middle East made Pompeii, the pyramids, and the ruins of the Holy Land objects of veneration. Many savants and those fascinated by the Bible, considered God’s inviolable word, took the “Great Tour” to experience what was being heard, primarily from popular sources.3 Napoleon is famous for telling his troops near the pyramids that three millennia are looking down on them. Manuscripts and antiquities flowed on barges up the Nile and consecutively into the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris and the British Museum in London.

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Sensational discoveries heated biblical research. Seeking to prove that the Tübingen School erred in its claim that the Gospels were composed by men who did not know Jesus, Tischendorf searched for manuscript proof that they were wrong. He discovered one of the earliest Uncials in St. Catherine’s Monastery; it was placed in the British Museum (= Library).4 Eventually, scholars discovered that one of the most memorable passages in the New Testament, the account of the woman caught in the act of adultery according to Jn 7:53–8:11, was not in the early copies of John.5 Concern was focused on the validity of the Bible: “Does it contain history or is if full of fabricated stories?” Many experts became convinced that only archaeology can provide proofs that help the search for answers to these questions. The earliest biblical “archaeologists” were often the great surveyors and epigraphers under the Ottoman Rule.6 The leading names are Edward Robinson, Conrad Schick, Charles Warren, Charles Wilson, Ermete Pierotti, Charles Clermont-Ganneau, Fredrick Bliss, Archibald Dickie, and Raymond Weill. Thanks to advice from a Swiss named Titus Tobler, Wilson discovered the vault supporting the elegant causeway from the Upper City of Jerusalem, where the priests lived, to the Temple. Today, the arch is called “Wilson’s Arch.” Robinson studied the arch in the western retaining walls of the Temple. Archaeologists have discerned it supported the grand stairway (not bridge) that led up and into the Temple. Today, it is “Robinson’s Arch.” Dan Bahat offers this insight: The beginning of the scientific examination of the history of Jerusalem can be dated to Edward Robinson’s visit to the city in 1838. He was the first in a long line of great explorers who based their identifications on proof that was not prejudiced by religious and traditional beliefs.7

Bliss and Dickie are famous for digging tunnels deep into the earth within Old Jerusalem; they were seeking to understand the past. They recorded, sometimes in precise details, remains of David’s and Herod’s Jerusalem. While such primitive methods for exploring the past evolved in the Holy Land, scholars freed themselves from ecclesiastical institutions to study scientifically the text and message of sacred texts. In Berlin, the Wissenschaft des Judentums (Hokhmat Yisrael) used logic, reason, and a more objective examination of ancient texts to seek new insights regarding the origins of Judaism. The dates begin in 1810 and continue to 1820 for the first phase of this research [in Berlin Jews called the institute Haskala, “Knowledge”]. All scholars today are dependent on these early attempts to bring science to bear on some of the eternal questions focused on the origins of the Bible and related literature. Most fruitful is the method of examining traditions through scientific analysis and refined methodologies. Hence, no established scholar today uses archaeology to prove beliefs. The weaknesses in the beginnings of archaeology are also evident. The Germans were too dependent on Hegel’s bewitching philosophy of evolving history. Upon examination, history does not develop from thesis, to antithesis, and finally to synthesis. History is not so logical. The early work was also too optimistic about finding history in the Bible, and some scholars almost sought to prove the Bible



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historically accurate. Finally, in the late twentieth century, the pioneering work was evaluated as too Christian or Jewish and too oriented to the needs of Western culture. The Holy Land was too often considered part of the West, but it is where East meets West.

Biblical archaeology: The twentieth century The first half of the twentieth century is the period for refining and making archaeology scientific. The leading archaeologists who refined methodologies before the Second World War are Petrie and Albright. Together they observed stratification in balks and the evolution of pottery types from c. 3000 BCE to the Arab conquest. Today, the importance of pottery and pottery chronology is illustrated by the volumes published by Seymour Gitin.8 When invented between 700 BCE and 600 BCE in Europe, India, and China, coins helped to date the layers of dirt or ancient deposits; when one dug deeper one entered earlier times. Pottery chronology and numismatics (with precise dates on coins) revealed the realia and life situations of those whom the authors of John tried to remember and to celebrate. The École biblique et archéologique française de Jérusalem was founded, inter alia, to take seriously the “crisis of faith” caused by the separation of theology from philosophy, the crises caused by Darwinism, and the new disciplines threatening theology such as psychology (begun by Freud). The leading lights in the tower of the École biblique are Vincent, de Vaux, Benoit, and Murphy-O’Connor. The last three were also my teachers and confidants. Never did they seek to prove the Bible or shore it up. Faith and science were not competing methods in their lives and careers. The British School was powerful and influential in leading excavations until 1967 when the State of Israel took control of Jerusalem. The problems from the mandate and the deaths, especially in the King David Hotel, left too many scars on many British scholars in 1967 and afterward. The luminary in the British School of Archaeology, less than one mile northeast from the Albright (then the American Schools of Oriental Research) was Dame Kathleen Mary Kenyon. Among other exploits, this strong personality sought to find evidence of Joshua’s conquest of Jericho. It became clear that no city was at Jericho when Joshua entered the Land. The burned debris found in situ were bricks not from Joshua’s time; they antedated him by centuries. From about 1930 to 1960, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem was the home of world-class luminaries, like Buber, most of whom had fled Europe to escape anti-Semitism. In the field of archaeology were Eleazar Sukenik, Benjamin Mazar, David Flusser, Shemaryahu Talmon, and Avraham Biran. The latter told me repeatedly: “I was Albright’s first PhD student.” The influence of Albright on archaeology and Israeli archaeology is regnant in that admission. Biran was the famous excavator who, near the end of his career, found an inscription to the “House of David” at Dan. Fundamental is Biran’s “What is Biblical Archaeology?” in Jesus and Archaeology.9 The Dan inscription dates from the ninth to eighth century BCE and is an Aramaic victory stele with the names of “Joram of Israel” and Ahaziah of “the House of David.”10 For Biran, this Tel Dan inscription illustrated

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“most strikingly how archaeological research and biblical studies complement each other.”11 Aramaic was the ethno-linguistic lingua franca of Syria-Palestine from at least the fifth century BCE to about 1000 CE. In Syria, today there are villages in which an Aramaic similar to Jesus’ dialect is spoken.12 The American Schools of Archaeological Research on Saladin Street in Jerusalem was the center of activity for William F. Albright (now the institution bears his name), Nelson Glueck, Frank M. Cross, and Ernest Wright.13 Pottery chronology was polished in this school. Most importantly, for Johannine research, the Dead Sea Scrolls were first photographed in the basement of the American Schools of Archaeological Research by William Brownlee who taught at Duke University the first course on the Qumran Scrolls. From these first images, Albright, based on his study of the Nash Papyrus, could announce the authenticity and antiquity of the Qumran Scrolls. These Dead Sea Scrolls defined the career of those present in the America School at that time, namely Millar Burrows, William Brownlee, and John Trever. Wright, who was in charge of the excavations in Shechem, made the American School his home. Frank Cross, John Strugnell, Ray Brown, and Joseph Fitzmyer were the leading lights in Qumran Research in the 1950s and 1960s; they often resided at the American School. In the middle of the nineteenth century, two great schools defined the global agenda in New Testament research. In Germany, it was the Bultmannian School created by the insightful and influential agenda and methodology of Rudolf Bultmann. He created the term “demythologization” which means removing the myth from the kernel of the faith. Bultmann’s most famous student, and the one most admired, was Ernst Käsemann. He excelled in differing with his teacher on the study of mythology and on the study of the historical Jesus. Eventually, the Bultmannian School began to disappear. Why? Perhaps it was because the focus was too theological, devoid of archaeological research, and too dependent on existentialism which was no longer fashionable because it failed to include the insight that we are not existential beings but historical people. Thus, when we meet someone we ask historical questions such as: Where did you study? Where are you from? What did your parents do? In the United States, the most powerful school was the Albrightian School; it was founded by William F. Albright.14 Affectionately, the School was hailed as the thought of Albright, Wright, and Bright. Among the most distinguished experts who studied under Albright were Frank Cross, David Noel Freedman, Nelson Glueck, G. Ernest Wright, John Bright, and Avraham Biran.15 The Albrightian School slowly lost its influence. Why? Following the incomparable Albright, the members of this School had a dream that the grand synthesis between archaeology and biblical research would become obvious. Archaeology was not to prove the Bible; it was to help explain the Bible. It was assumed, at the outset, that Abraham, Joshua, and David were historical persons whose life was not only clear in the biblical narratives but also hidden in the remains of the past. Many in the School expected to find evidence of Joshua at Jericho and Ai. No evidence was found to the disappointment of Kenyon (at Jericho) and a shock to Joe Callaway at Ai (he



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was my close friend).16 Eventually, as those in the school admitted, the Albrightian synthesis collapsed. The vacuum left by the so-called maximalists was filed by the minimalists. The minimalists claimed that there is virtually no history in the biblical story and that it was composed after the Exile, far from the events themselves. The maximalists replied that the Bible records history. Both missed the mark: the Bible is celebratory history, a liturgical rehearsal of God’s mighty works in the past in the Holy Land.

The new age: A sketch Many tensions existed between the East and West, in the Mediterranean world and within the Holy Land. Villages in Galilee, notably Sepphoris and Jotapata, had opposite reactions to the First Jewish Revolt. Sepphoris accepted Rome’s might and continued; it became one of the first rabbinic academies. Jotapata, behind proud walls, revolted; it was razed and escarped by Vespasian who soon thereafter became emperor of Rome. Tensions between Galilee and Judea exasperated the horrible “wars” within Jerusalem between John of Gischala of Galilee and Simon bar Giori of Judea. In some areas, there was little cultural discontinuity after 70 CE (Sepphoris, Tiberias, Caesarea Maritima). In other locales, villages were never rebuilt after the devastation of 67 CE (Jotapata and Gamla), and many cities and villages were ravaged (Migdal and Jerusalem).

Figure 6.2  Hatzor [cracked basalt stones in palace. JHC].

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The die-hard maximalists could never win because they read the Bible with the eyes of fundamentalists and did not perceive how the biblical texts developed and were shaped during time. In light of recent and surprisingly important archaeological work related to biblical events and the biblical stories, the minimalists lose.17 The tide has turned and so the importance of archaeology for Jesus Research and the study of the Gospel of John is now again before us.18 To illustrate these perspectives, I have arranged the following selected report in roughly chronological order. 1. Hatzor: About 1250 BCE, a massive conflagration destroyed the palace in the acropolis of Hatzor, a large Canaanite city that is 15 kilometers north of the Sea of Galilee. It is the largest archaeological site in Galilee and Judea, consisting of about 200 acres. Most likely, the fire which destroyed the city was not caused by rioting Canaanites. Perhaps the destruction is evidence of the conquest led by Joshua (as Amon Ben-Tor claims in many publications).19 According to the Hebrew Bible, Hatzor is the only city Joshua burned (Josh 11:10–13) and the idols that were smashed indicate conquerors like the Hebrews who were vehemently against idolatry.20 2.  Jerusalem: Human habitation in and around Jerusalem began early with anonymous hunter-gatherer groups of humans. Perhaps as early as 250,000 BCE Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal humanoids lived together in the Misliya Cave on Mount Carmel.21 Humans were living in “Jerusalem”22 during the Kebaran culture, Neolithic period, Chalcolithic period, and Gassulian period. Nearby in many sites, especially Jericho, Natufian culture has been found; it represents the beginning of agriculture about 1300 BCE.23 Human occupation, and most likely migration from Africa to Europe, is evident; note the following: flint tools (as early as 5000 BCE; many sites), a basalt female figurine (4th millennium BCE; Golan) most likely the oldest artwork known, and the carvings of a snake and bird on river pebbles at Netiv Hagedud and Gilgal in the Jordan Valley.24 As the Tamar and Teddy Kollek Chief Curator of Archaeology in the Israel Museum, Michal Dayagi-Mendels, reports: “The Land of Israel . . . has been home to people of different cultures for more than one and a half million years.”25 Jerusalem’s eastern wall from about 1800 BCE surrounds the Gihon Spring; it was exposed by Reich and Shukron and is massive with a breadth of about twelve feet.26 The Herodian western wall of the Temple is astounding, boasting of a stone that weighs about 470 tons.27 The name “Jerusalem” appears in the Egyptian Execration Texts as “Jerusalem,” YRŠLMM. As I shall point out, the dual and modern name, YRŠLAYM, dates from the time of Hezekiah who built the Upper City and added it to the ancient Zion. His wall can be seen in the Jewish Quarter.28 About the same time, or roughly 600 BCE and prior to the Babylonian conquest of Judah, a tomb on the western slopes of the Hinnom Valley (Ketef Hinnom) was filled with treasures. The ceiling collapsed and hid beneath it objects from robbers; the realia are astoundingly important artifacts for us. The most important realia are two silver amulets found by Gabriel Barkay (Barkai).29 They contain the Aaronic blessing found in Num 6:22–26. This blessing could have been copied from a scroll and it certainly reflects oral traditions. The Aaronic blessing is the oldest evidence of a biblical passage,



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antedating the Qumran Biblical Scrolls by about three hundred years. The Aaronic blessing is recited in synagogues, homes, and churches throughout the world: The Priestly (or Aaronic) Benediction ‫ְהו֖ה אֶל־מ ֶ ֹׁ֥שה ּלֵאמֹֽר׃‬ ָ ‫ַוי ְדַ ּבֵ ֥ר י‬ ‫ָאמֹור לָהֶ ֽם׃ ס‬ ֔ ‫ּדַ ֵ ּ֤בר אֶ ֽל־ַאהֲר ֹ ֙ן ְואֶל־ּב ָָנ֣יו ל‬ ֖ ‫ֵאמ ֹר ּ֥כ ֹה תְ ב ֲָרכ֖ ּו אֶת־ּב ְֵנ֣י יִׂש ְָר ֵ ֑אל‬ ‫ׁשמ ֶ ְֽרָך׃ ס‬ ְ ִ ‫ְהו֖ה ְוי‬ ָ ‫יְב ֶָרכְָך֥ י‬ ‫ְהו֧ה׀ ּפָנָ ֛יו א ֵֶל֖יָך וִ ֽיחֻּנֶ ּֽךָ׃ ס‬ ָ ‫י ָ ֵ֨אר י‬ ‫ׁשלֹֽום׃‬ ָ ֖‫ְהו֤ה׀ ָּפנָי ֙ו ֵא ֶ֔ליָך ְוי ֵ ָׂ֥שם לְָך‬ ָ ‫ּׂשא י‬ ָ ֨ ִ‫י‬ ‫ְוׂש ָ֥מּו אֶת־ׁש ִ ְ֖מי עַל־ּב ְֵנ֣י יִׂש ְָר ֵ ֑אל ַו ֲא ִנ֖י ֲאב ֲָרכֵ ֽם׃ פ‬ And the Lord instructed Moses, saying: “Instruct Aaron and his sons, saying, ‘Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel.’ You shall say to them, ‘May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.’ So they shall put my name on the sons of Israel, and I, I will bless them.” (Num 6:22–27)30

The most revered building in human history is probably Jerusalem’s Temple. It was the center of worship from about 900 BCE to 70 CE. Here Israelites and Jews experienced God’s presence.31 Solomon’s Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians during the Babylonian conquest in 586 BCE, while the Second Temple finalized by Herod was demolished by Romans in 70 CE. These buildings are gone, and only the Temple Mount remains. In the past four decades, some scholars have doubted what was recorded in the Bible (1 Kings 6–7). These passages were judged to be fictional creations. Two astounding discoveries make such a conclusion impossible. First, at Khirbet Qeiyafa (see the next entry) archaeologists found a stone carved by a craftsman and artist. This model of a temple and palace dates from the tenth century BCE—the time of David and Solomon—and has elements found in the biblical account of Solomon’s Temple.32 Second, at Motza, on Jerusalem’s western hills, experts found a temple dating from the time of Solomon. It has two front columns (similar to Jachin and Boaz; 1Kgs 7:21), a forecourt, an outer sanctum, and perhaps a “Holy of Holies.” We now have architectural facts that help us better imagine Solomon’s Temple and all conform to the biblical descriptions. In the foreword to Solomon’s Temple and Palace are these words by Yosef Garfinkel and Medeleine Mumcuoglu: “The Motza temple confirms in all aspects to the biblical description of Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem.”33 The Khirbet Qeiyafa temple model and the Motza temple help all understand features in Solomon’s Temple and Palace, according to the Bible: “planks” (slaot), “lintels” (sequfim), “mezuzah” (mezuzah), and “windows having recessed frames” (halonei sequfim atumim). Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu report: “Thus, with the discovery of the model of the temple and palace at Khirbet Qeiyafa and the temple at Motza, it can never again be claimed that the description of a palace and temple in the tenth century BCE in Jerusalem is historically unfounded.”34

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

3.  Khirbet Qeiyafa: Khirbet Qeiyafa, “the Ruins of Qeiyafa,” has yielded up astounding archaeological facts.35 The site is in the Elah Valley, where David slew Goliath (1Sam 17:52). The “city with two gates” is on the main road leading from the coastal plane and Philistia to the mountains of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Archaeologists discovered a large building beneath a Byzantine structure which dates from about the tenth century BCE. Some are convinced the site can be an administration center for David’s kingdom. An ostracon was found, and it dates from the time of the monarchy and is in an early form of Hebrew. Many palaeographers are convinced the ostracon reflects the Davidic Monarchy.36 4.  Dan: In 1993, an early Iron Age inscription was found outside the gates of Dan. It contains the words “house of David.” This ninth to eighth century BCE Aramaic inscription is on a victory stele commemorating the defeat of David. Thus the name of David should no longer be judged fictitious.37 5.  Ir David: In the City of David, on Jerusalem’s southeastern promontory is archaeological evidence from the tenth to ninth century BCE. This area of Ir David helps us comprehend the time of David and Solomon. A large rectangular hall may be where David and Solomon received dignitaries. The site is discussed by Eilat Mazar38 and Ronny Reich.39 Archaeologists are thus amassing impressive data against those who claimed that David and Solomon never existed. 6.  Bullae: Bullae, the seals that closed scrolls, have been found in Old Jerusalem excavations and the names of prominent biblical persons appear on some of them.40 One name is “the might of the LORD.” Hezekiah’s name appears on numerous bullae. He reigned from 726 BCE to 697 BCE and was one of the three kings of Judah which the books of 1 Samuel–2 Kings viewed as truly upright in the eyes of God (2Kgs 18:5). He was king during the time of Isaiah.41 An epitaph commemorating the final resting place of the bones of King Uzziah, a leper and the head of Judah in the eighth century BCE, has also been found, but the inscription is from the first century BCE or CE and no one knows where Uzziah’s tomb is now.42 7.  Yerushalayim: As intimated above, during the time of Hezekiah Jerusalem became two cities, one in the southeast where David and Solomon lived, and one on the western hill with the addition of a stone wall built by Hezekiah’s builders. From that time Jerusalem was known as “Yerushalaim,” a dual noun that denotes “two Jerusalems.” This dual is the modern Hebrew name for Jerusalem. 8.  Sifting the Temple Dump: G. Barkay’s sifting of the Temple dump has recovered evidence of Iron Age Jerusalem, even the time of David and Solomon—and certainly realia from Solomon’s Temple. More than fourteen bullae found in the “Temple Sifting Project” date to the reign of Hezekiah’s son, Manasseh (695–664 BCE).43 They display the art and symbolism of that period which is between the Assyrian Conquest of 701 and the Babylonian conquest of 586. Bullae 21 and 25 depict the uraeus.44



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9.  Tel Reḥof: Archaeologists, under the direction of Amihai Mazar, have discovered an apiary, a sophisticated industry for the production of honey, dating from the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age, at Tel Reḥof in the Beth Shean Valley. They also recovered the name “Elisha” in palaeo-Hebrew and in red ink. It was found on an ostracon that was lying on a clay bed within a cultic room that was highlighted by incense stands. The area dates from the late ninth century BCE.45 Since we know of only one holy man named “Elisha” at that time, we should contemplate that this room could be the famous “room” of Elisha mentioned by the author of 2Kgs 4:10. ‫ׁשּמָה׃‬ ֽ ָ ‫ְנֹורה ְו ָה ָי ֛ה ּבְב ֹ֥א ֹו א ֵֵל֖ינּו י ָ֥סּור‬ ֻ ‫ׂשים לֹו֥ ָ ׁ֛שם מ ִָּט֥ה ְו‬ ִ ֨ ָ‫ֶה־ּנ֤א ֲע ִלּי ַת־קִי ֙ר ְק ַט ָּ֔נה ְונ‬ ָ ‫נַ ֽ ֲעׂש‬ ֑ ָ ‫ׁשל ָ ְ֖חן ְוכ ֵ ִּ֣סא ּומ‬ Let us, please, make a small upper room on the wall; and let us put for him [Elisha] there, a bed and a table and a chair and a lampstand; hence, it will be, whenever he comes to us, he may turn in there.

10.  Wadi ed-Daliyah [Samaritan] Papyri (c. 450–332 BCE): Fifth and fourth century papyri, legal documents, internally dated prior to the invasion of the Levant by Alexander the Great, were found in a wadi near Samaria. They were left by Samaritans fleeing Alexander. Along with about 300 skeletons, these papyri were found in Wadi ed-Daliyah. The bullae on the manuscripts preserve images from Greece and Homeric myths.46 Hence, Greek influences in ancient Palestine clearly antedate Alexander. 11.  Mikvaot and Stone Vessels: Mikvaot are ritual baths for Jewish purposes of purification.47 They are not known prior to 150 BCE, seem to appear in Hasmonean times, and define Jewish culture during the Herodian period. The earliest mikveh could be the early Hasmonean one at Tell Qadis, a large Tell west of the Huleh in Upper Galilee. The site was conquered by Jonathan, the Hasmonean, who defeated Demetrius II here (1Mac 11:63–73; Joseph, Ant 13.154). The author of John knows two mikvaot near the Temple; this will be the major discussion in this chapter. Stone vessels are required by Jews to keep the contents pure from contaminants nearby or contiguous.48 They are possible because of the stone industry introduced to Israel by Herod the Great. Thus these were crafted from about 20 BCE to 66 CE, when the craftsmen left to join the First Jewish Revolt. The author of John’s knowledge of Judaism is obvious because he knows the two largest mikvaot in Israel, one north and one south of the Temple (as I shall demonstrate), and also mentions the stone vessels belonging to a Jewish family in Cana. John’s references appear because of his narrative. While his interest is Christology and the relation between Jesus and God, his work discloses how well he, and no other New Testament author, knew Jewish culture and architecture during the time of Jesus. 12.  The Dead Sea Scrolls: Usually Bedouin and sometimes archaeologists recovered Dead Sea Scrolls in caves west of the Dead Sea from before 136 CE and notably before 68 CE near Khirbet Qumran.49 In the judgment of most scholars, the Qumran Scrolls contained ideas and concepts that revolutionized our knowledge of Early Judaism and the Origins of Christianity. In the New Testament, Jesus and Paul, along with the

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Figure 6.3  Charlesworth in Pre-30 CE Foundations in Nazareth [Lea Berkuz and JHC]. authors of Hebrews, Revelation, Matthew, and, most importantly, John, have been reinterpreted in light of the unique thoughts in the Qumran Scrolls.50 13.  Ancient Jewish Boats: A wooden boat, dating from the first century BCE or CE was found on the western shores of the Sea of Galilee [Kinneret]. It dates from the time of Jesus and is built low to the water so fishermen could easily throw their nets overboard.51 Such construction also is dangerous since a sudden storm could sink the craft as is evident in the Gospels (see esp. Mk 4:35–41). Further south, boats on the Dead Sea are now certain due to the recovery of ports and anchors dating from late Hasmonean times (esp. coins from Alexander Jannaeus).52 Our knowledge of the bitumen trade is also improved.53 14.  Bethzatha and Siloam Pools: These massive pools are mentioned only in the Gospel of John. Previously, scholars imagined the Fourth Evangelist created these places ex nihilo to stress Christology. Our grandfathers, if they taught the New Testament, claimed Bethzatha has five porticoes, according to John. No pentagon existed in antiquity; hence, John must have been referring to the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses). A first century pool at Siloam was confused with Byzantine structures. Both these pools are now discovered and each predates 70 CE. In the following pages, I will explain why each is a mikveh and that John is astoundingly accurate architecturally. 15.  Nazareth: I had the privilege to announce on Fox News, with Bill Hemmer, that the foundations of first century dwellings had been unearthed in Nazareth as modern



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Figure 6.4  Pre-67 CE Migdal Synagogue [JHC]. construction began for a nun’s residence. First century stone foundations for houses and a cistern were discovered. Jesus lived in Nazareth for at least twenty years and he would have played, as a boy, in or near these structures.54 For two weeks I excavated another site that was part of ancient Nazareth. Ross Voss and I found well-chiseled stone walls that probably contained the vertical levels of a vineyard, a wine press, and three towers. The latter were shomerim, guard towers to prevent anyone from stealing from the vineyard or harming it. Similar stone towers are also found near Jerusalem and are often millennia old. 16.  Migdal: The excavations at Migdal are unusually informative. Archaeologists have found a synagogue that dates from the middle of the first century BCE to about 67 CE when Titus and the Roman troops he commanded annihilated the town (a coin from that year was found near the synagogue).55 Now, for the first time we can see a pre-70 CE synagogue in Galilee in which Jesus could have taught. A “synagogue” can be a building in Jesus’ Galilee. For decades, many scholars have lectured me stressing that “synagogues” were not buildings; they were only gathering places for Jews. There is every reason to assume, according to John (the Synoptics are more specific about Jesus teaching in the Galilean synagogues)56 that Jesus taught in the Migdal synagogue. Recall his words: “I have habitually taught in a synagogue . . . where all Jews gather” (ἐγὼ πάντοτε ἐδίδαξα ἐν συναγωγῇ . . . ὅπου πάντες οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι συνέρχονται; Jn 18:20). In 2015, an obstruction apparently built by Josephus to fortify Migdal was discovered near the pre-70 CE synagogue. I have studied this wall which is a pile of stones and portions of a pillar to block a street. The excavations have not yet been published, so I am indebted to Dr. Dina Avshalom-Gorni for sharing her excavations over the

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Figure 6.5  A Replica of the Stone from the First Century Synagogue in Magdala Center. past five years. Many architectural features and realia found in Migdal point to the Romanization of Migdal beginning about 43 BCE and Cassius who seized Migdal from the Parthians about 40 BCE (Cicero, Ad familiars 12.11 and Josephus, War 1.180).57 At ancient Migdal, archaeologists have discovered a plastered harbor with moorings for ships in the first century CE, a tower (“migdal”), a marketplace, toilets like the ones in Beth Shean, mikvaot, possibly part of the via maris, and most importantly, as mentioned already, a synagogue in which Jesus most probably taught.58 Within the synagogue was found a large stone, probably a Torah stand, with a Menorah and images from the Temple.59 These symbols and iconography prove the spiritual attachment of Jews in the Lower Galilee, like Jesus, with the Holy Temple and Jerusalem, as placarded in the Gospel of John and the other Gospels. In particular, compare the Migdal Menorah with the first century BCE incised image of the Temple Menorah, incense altar, and showbread table, found in Jerusalem’s Upper City.60 Note the judgment of Bauckham and De Luca: “What the stone would have done was make constantly visible to the people assembled in the synagogue the connection of what they were doing with the Temple in Jerusalem. For this reason it makes a hugely important new contribution to discussions of early synagogues in Palestine.”61 Many scholars are convinced that the stone may represent the apocalyptic imagery found in texts such as the Parables of Enoch.62 17. Horvat Omrit: Archaeologists have discovered a road running north from Bethsaida (Mk 8:22) to Caesarea Philippi and remains of the Augusteum built by Herod the Great. It is not in Caesarea Philippi, as most scholars conclude or assume. The Augusteum is south of Caesarea Philippi at Horvat Omrit. It was here “on the way” (καὶ ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ ἐπηρώτα τοὺς μαθητὰς αὐτοῦ λέγων αὐτοῖς, Τίνα με λέγουσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι εἶναι; Mk 8:27) to Caesarea Philippi that Jesus may have asked: “Who do men say that I am?” (Mk 8:27).63 Augustus was hailed as “the son of God.” The



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Figure 6.6  Wailing Wall, Jerusalem. sonship Christology is fundamental for understanding the Christology of Paul, Mark, and John. Was Jesus’ question prompted by a vision of Horvat Omrit? Did Jesus see the bright light from the pure marble that rose over 20 meters above the Golan that hailed Augustus as “the son of God?” Did this experience prompt Jesus’ interrogative? Most scholars have perceived that Jesus thought he was “the son of God.” How and in what ways did seeing Horvat Omrit shape Jesus’ self-understanding?64 18.  Caesarea Maritima. Herod the Great built a port at Caesarea Maritima on the coast sometime after 37 BCE. Archaeologists have found notably the following: a theater, a temple to Augustus, a hippodrome, probably the prison for Paul, and later, after the First Revolt (66–73/4), a Mithraeum.65 Of exceptional importance is the volume Ancient Gems, Finger Rings and Seal Boxes from Caesarea Maritima.66 It announces “The Hendler Collection.” From the 1950s to the 1970s, Yochanan Hendler explored the dunes east of Caesarea Maritima. He and his sons, especially Shay, continued to explore a vast area from the Roman aqueduct in the north to the theater in the south, encompassing 2–3 km. What they found is outstandingly important since all artifacts are surface finds from Caesarea; they never

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contaminated their collection by additions from another site. Now, part of their treasures, dating from the second century BCE to the thirteenth century CE, appear in a magnificent form and with new photographic techniques that allow the reader to see what is hidden to the naked eye and even magnification. The creative imaging is a significant advance. Many of the artifacts—intaglios (used for decoration and to seal documents), cameos, gems, finger rings, and metal seal boxes—help scholars understand the economic and social life of those living in Caesarea during the early Roman period and later. The realia represent stone, gold, silver, copper alloy, iron, lead, glass, glass paste, coral, ceramic, ivory, and pearls67 as well as Haematite.68 The Hendler book provides images that aid the imagination concerning the life, clothing, and beliefs of those living in and near this seaport built by Herod the Great.69 Of the 495 objects the following are exceptionally noteworthy. Number 6 shows the assimilation of Sarapis, Helios, Zeus, and Ammon into one deity. Number 22 may mirror a stout emperor with a thick neck and military garb as divine. Number 39 depicts Athena with a shield from which a serpent ascends. Of number 56 we are told: “It is clear that at Caesarea, Sarapis and Isis did not only personify the city’s fortune but were also considered healers, associated with Asklepios and Hygeia.”70 Number 67 conflates four goddesses; the symbol of each goddess appears in this artistic gem. Number 68 depicts Tyche of Caesarea, crowned and holding a bust of Sarapis; she steps on the Genius of Caesarea who personifies the harbor. Images of goddesses on gems have been found not only in Caesarea Maritima but throughout Roman Palestine. Number 121 may mean “for Zōilo,” if so the name should be in the dative, but grammarians and gem engravers received different training. Number 375 is arrestingly beautiful, and in nearly perfect shape. It is a gold brooch with twelve pearls and a garnet in the center. This discovery is rare; gold beads and pearl beads were found in Hippos. The brooch seems to date to the early first century CE. Number 376 is a gold ring with a garnet cabochon. Most likely the gold was crafted from a gold sheet and not soldered. It probably dates from the time of Herod the Great. With these objects a scholar may imagine the opulence of some living in Caesarea Maritima during the time of Jesus, Paul, the Apostle John, and Eusebius. Seal boxes date from the late first century BCE to the third century CE.71 The Hendler Collection contains eleven Roman metal seal boxes in four shapes (semi-oval, circular, square or rectangular, diamond). These boxes contained and protected wax sealing imprints often incised in beeswax. Four seal boxes were found on Masada. Many of the Hendler seal boxes are from the time of King Herod and the Herodian period. 19.  Jericho, Ramat haNadiv, Masada, and Machaerus: Herod the Great built villas or fortresses at Jericho72 (and dammed the Wadi Qelt), Ramat haNadiv,73 Masada,74 and Machaerus.75 These reveal the opulence of Palestine during the time of Jesus and the author of John, and also mirror the wages and land stolen from Jews to build such elegant architectural marvels. Expensive wine was shipped from Italy to Palestine; a jar with a Latin inscription found at Masada and dating to 19 BCE bears the inscription: “Property of Herod, King of Judea.”76 20. Bethsaida: The site is on the eastern edge of the Jordan River above the Kinneret. It preserves a massive gate from the Geshurite Kingdom.77 The pottery identifies the



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Geshurites with the Israelites at Dan, since unlike the Canaanites at Hatzor, the Hebrews did not destroy Geshur: ָ ‫ְואֶת־ ַה ַּמ ֲעכ ִ ָ֑תי ַו ֵּ֨יׁשֶב ּג ְׁ֤שּור ּומַ ֽ ֲעכָת ֽבּק ֶֶרב י‬ ‫ְׁשּורי‬ ִ֨ ‫ִׂשראֵל עַד הַּיֹום ַהזֶּה ׃ וְֹל֤ א‬ ֖ ִ ‫הֹוריׁש ּ֙ו ּב ְֵנ֣י יִׂש ְָר ֵ֔אל אֶת־ ַהּג‬ (Josh 13:13) But the sons of Israel did not drive out Geshurites and Maachathites, so the Geshurites and Maachathies continue to live among the Israelites until today.

Less than four centuries later, King David married Maachah, the daughter of the king of Geshur; she is the mother of Absalom and Tamar (2Sam 3:2, 3). Rami Arav claims that he has also been digging “Bethsaida.” In the first century CE, Bethsaida was the home of some of Jesus’ disciples, as we know from the Gospel of John: “Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter” (Jn 1:44).78 Lower Galilee is a region in which Jewish settlements began to appear during the Hasmonean period due to the conquest of this area by Judean troops, led by the Hasmoneans.79 Using impressive grasp of Q and the search for authentic Jesus traditions among the traditions attributed to Jesus, removing additions by the post-Easter followers of Jesus, and being intimately involved in excavations at Bethsaida, Heinz-Wolfgang Kuhn shows that Bethsaida was “a Hellenistic-Roman settlement” and that “Jesus most probably stayed for some time at a more or less Jewish-oriented place called Bethsaida.”80 21.  Herod’s Jerusalem and Temple: Though the Temple itself was destroyed by the Roman armies in 70 CE, the excavators working around the Temple Mount have unearthed monumental discoveries. Among them are massive stones (one weighing about 570 tons), mikvaot, walkways, monumental stairways, a bridge connecting the

Figure 6.7  The Herodium [view from above].

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

Upper City with the Temple, human skeletons,81 remains of shops, and sewers in which women and children hid from the invading armies and horrifying fratricide.82 All of these were underground from 70 CE until excavations began in 1968. We may now more fully appreciate the claim that the one who has not seen the Temple standing has “never seen a magnificent building” (b. Sukkah 51b). Shimon Gibson and James Tabor showed me their excavations south of Zion gate. They have unearthed luxuries, including a bathtub, two mikvaot (one most likely for servants), an oven (two taboons), and a cistern. All these realia prove that the house of 2,000 years ago belonged to a member of the ruling class, perhaps to the family of Annas. The house of Caiaphas, his son-in-law is nearby.83 22.  The Hyrcanium and Herodium: The Hyrcanium is situated a little west of Qumran on a high hill. This fortress was named after John Hyrcanus (135/4–105/4 BCE) who built it. Herod later fortified it. Along with the other six desert fortresses, the purpose of Hyrcanium was to protect the eastern border from Edomites, Parthians, and other groups. Queen Alexandra (Shlomzion), Alexander Jannaeus’ widow, placed her most precious treasures in Hyrcanium, as well as in Alexandrium and Macherus.84 The Herodium is south of Jerusalem and east of Bethlehem. Herod the Great built a palace-fortress and, according to Josephus, was buried at the Herodium (War 1.670–73). After a life of searching for Herod’s tomb, Ehud Netzer announced he had located the tomb on the northern face of the Herodium. According to Netzer, during the First Jewish Revolt (66–74), rebels smashed this monumental edifice and scattered Herod’s bones.85 23.  Inscriptions: Inscriptions and onomatology reveal social contexts.86 The book of Nehemiah begins as follows: “The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah.” This name (‫ הילכח‬in Neh 1:1; 10:2) does not mean “hope (or wait) for God”; it denotes “God’s grieving” and reflects the Babylonian Semitics of the anonymous ancestors of Nehemiah, the cupbearer of King Artaxerxes (465–423 BCE). Nehemiah means “God consoles.”87 Vast amount of data important for understanding John, including an ossuary that many identify as that of Joseph Caiaphas, appear in the helpful reference work entitled Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae.88 24.  Idumean Ostraca: More than 2,000 Idumean Ostraca (ten owned by Charlesworth) are sometimes self-dated to between 365 BCE and 302 BCE. Cumulatively, they list forty-four products transacted. The most important are wheat, barley, followed by semolina.89 The latter word appears frequently in the Temple Scroll. We are learning a vast amount about diet and commerce in ancient Palestine and the habits and customs of Palestinian Jews. 25.  Names of Ancient Villages: Nelson Glueck often told me he had discovered that the Arabic names of villages often indicated ancient sites; but one had to be clever to discern how the name had evolved and changed. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus leaves Jerusalem and the hostility he experiences there and goes with his disciples to a place called “Ephraim” (Jn 11:54). In the past, many exegetes knew about such a village and drew attention to 2Chr 13:19. Eusebius claimed Ephraim was a very large village.90 We now know that it is et Tayyibe or Apharaema, a village five miles east



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Figure 6.8  Sea of Galilee from the Mount of Beatitudes [“Mount of Happiness” in Hebrew]. of Bethel, added to Judea in 145 BCE, and known to the author of 1Mac 11:34.91 The author of the first edition of John was familiar with Judea. No one should doubt now, that archaeology is a major dimension to New Testament research and the study of the origins of the Gospel of John.92 Many other important archaeological discoveries for biblical research, but not so important for research on John, may be saluted. Among them would be the following: Excavations at Tel-Miqne-Ekron, led by Seymour Gitin and Trude K. Dotan,93 have proved that the Philistines continued in the eastern Mediterranean littoral until the late seventh century BCE. This corrected chronology is due to the discovery of the seventh century Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription in which “Ekron” is mentioned, confirming that Tel Miqne is Philistine Ekron. Ashkelon is the southernmost ancient city on the Mediterranean.94 Archaeologists led by Lawrence Stager have recovered at this seaport a sixteenth century BCE clay shrine and calf of silver-plated bronze95; they are reminiscent of Aarons’ golden calf. Bones found in situ connect the Philistines with Europeans. The construction of gates reveal architectural details that were formerly attributed to the Crusaders.96 Additional important archaeological discoveries are these: The Canaanite gate at Shechem. The mazzeboth at Gezer. The interesting Roman and earlier ruins at Dor.

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The Hasmonean and earlier ruins on Mount Gerizim. Herod’s massive edifices at Sebaste, including the hippodrome (with ten starting gates), amphitheater, and the theater.97 Herod’s commemoration of the patriarchs at Hebron. The evidence of Hasmonean industry in Ain Feshka.98 The vast numbers of papyri from Bar Kokhba, some with his name Bar Kosiba. The early ruins and cathedral at Iscariot (perhaps the home of Judas Iscariot).

Too many archaeological treasures are plowed under the many new superhighways being constructed all over Israel and are lost as a result of the looting of sites for antiquity dealers in Jerusalem’s Old City.

The Jesus of history and the topography of the Holy Land99 Broadly defined, archaeology includes the topography of the land, its rivers and streams, its ravines and valleys, its hills and mountains, and the evidence of ancient human occupation in roads, bridges, aqueducts, walls, houses, dams, and buildings or palaces. Many who have fallen in love with the topography of the Holy Land, broadly defined, admit becoming addicted to its powers.100 Bahat points out the importance of topography for Jerusalem: “The topographical features enabled the city’s defense, as it is built on a hilltop and its walls rest on natural barriers such as dry riverbeds and ridges that surround the inhabited hill.”101 Herod changed the topography of the Temple area, extending the Temple southward, westward, and northward. He

Figure 6.9  Mount Tabor and the Topography of Lower Galilee [JHC].



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also changed the topography of Judea by lowering one hill and building another, the Herodium. Foldouts of over 130 cm highlight the topographical marvels disclosed in Panorama Israel.102 I have often been moved by geography and theology, and raised a question regarding their relationship in October 1968 when I went to Jericho for the first time with Delbert Hillers, Bob Bolling, and Joe Callaway. Note these reflections: Like poetry topography is to be felt. Statistics and prose can capture neither. Moving through a lunaresque landscape, I wonder about natural marvels, Though such thoughts alone scarcely suffice. Perceiving pellucidly the Galilean in his landscape, Requires moving beyond feeling and thinking, And allowing topography to express itself through me. Then such landscape may flow through me to others, So history is disclosed through informed imaginations. Then others like me may experience the supernatural within the natural, And feel the Creator, each morning, dressing the lilies of the field. (JHC, Judean wilderness, between Jerusalem and Jericho; 8.18.04)

When I wrote these words, looking at the landscape before me, I recalled a quotation from Paul Cézanne when he was asked what he was doing, sitting quietly observing the topography of southern France, at Aix-en-Provenance. He stated: “The Landscape becomes reflective, human and thinks itself through me. I make it an object, let it project itself and endure within my painting . . . I become the subjective consciousness of the landscape, and my painting becomes its objective consciousness.”103 Cézanne’s insight expresses precisely that nature and the earth are not objectives; they are subjects that are full of energy and the source of life.104 As F. D. Peat states, we need to recognize that nature is a living agent, a power, and a presence.105 The Synoptic and Johannine Jesus certainly bequeathed to us images and words that convey that thought. For him, and many of his followers, nature’s horizons were full of meaning since they clarified human horizons, especially in an eschatological and apocalyptically charged milieu. Jesus is reputed to have said to some Pharisees and Sadducees: When it is evening, you say: “It will be fair weather; for the sky is red.” And in the morning: “It will be stormy today, for the sky is red and threatening.” You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times. (Mt 16:2)

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Figure 6.10  From the Sea of Galilee: the Arbel, Nittai, and Hittim Hills [left to right; JHC]. The redactor of John well knew the beauty in our earth and that it was from our Creator: Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. 2 οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. 3 πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὃ γέγονεν 4 ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων· (Jn 1:1–4) In the (very) beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was in the presence of God. And God was the Logos. This One was in the beginning in the presence of God. All was made through him, and without him not one thing was made that was made. In him was life. And the life was the light of the human.

Pre-70  CE synagogues: Kiryat Sepher, Modein, Migdal, Jericho [possibly], Herodium, Masada, and Tel Rakesh A vast amount has been written about ancient synagogues in Israel. I shall simply summarize what we know at the present time, as many publications are now dated. Kiryat Sepher, near Jerusalem, and Modein, on the way to Jerusalem, are the oldest synagogues. Each dates from Hasmonean times or prior to 100 BCE. Migdal’s



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Figure 6.11  Pre-70 CE Massive Stone Vessels, Upper City of Jerusalem, courtesy of Zeb Radoven. synagogue is anchored by coins: from c. 50 BCE to 67 CE when Titus destroyed it. Synagogues in Jerusalem are obvious from Josephus and the New Testament. Only an inscription to the Theodotus Synagogue remains, but this inscription proves the existence of synagogues in Jerusalem.106 Ehud Netzer identified a “synagogue” in Jericho, but his arguments have not proved convincing to specialists.107 The building may be Hasmonean but what sort of building is it? When does a public building become a synagogue? Water running through it may suggest the building is not a synagogue, but no standard was set for constructing a synagogue before 100 BCE. Gamla in the Golan (not in Galilee) preserves a synagogue that is certainly pre70 CE. The synagogues in the Herodium and Masada are probably post-66 CE and pre-70 CE but they were built by the Sicarri (terrorists) and may not be typical of most Jews. The synagogue at Wadi Hamman, west of Migdal, alone dates from the third century CE. The white synagogue at Capernaum is a sixth century CE building; coins under the basalt base postdate 470 CE; hence, it is a sixth century CE synagogue. Perhaps underneath there is a synagogue from the time of Jesus, since synagogues do not migrate. The synagogue at Corazim is also from the fifth or sixth century. If you include Kfar Baram you must include many others that are post–sixth century CE. The synagogue at Sepphoris, found in 1993, can be dated to the period between the early fifth and early seventh centuries CE.108 The mosaics in the fifth century CE synagogue at Hukok highlight biblical and non-biblical persons and events.109 This rapid survey, which extends chronologically beyond our limits, indicates that there were synagogues in Lower Galilee when Jesus lived and the report that he preached in them is not post70 CE redaction.

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The text of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint Why is the Hebrew Bible and Septuagint important for those who specialize in John and generally in Early Judaism and Christian Origins? An answer may be threefold:

1. Louis Ginzberg wrote: “No student of the post-biblical literature of the Jews

can fail to be struck by the fact that it is predominantly interpretative and commentative.”110 2. Specialists on the evolution of the texts of the Hebrew Bible have noted more than ten text types of the Hebrew Scriptures before 70 CE. Moreover, the Septuagint is not just a translation but often, like the Samaritan Pentateuch, preserves ancient Hebrew text types.111 I published a text of Deuteronomy that helps correct the so-called Masoretic Text that lies behind all modern translations in the West.112 3. Similarly, fulfillment hermeneutics appear among the Qumranites in the Pesharim and are regnant in the Gospels and within the Palestinian Jesus Movement. For example, in the Gospel of John some actions of Jesus are necessary so “that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled” (12:38). Historiography is fundamental in all biblical research. The Bible and all extra-biblical narratives are not collections of fables and stories; yet, their history can be conveyed even in fiction. Archaeology is the source of insights into the background and foreground of biblical texts. It alone supplies evidence of the material life of those who lived in the past. It includes all biblical studies and theology. All discoveries, including those found in controlled excavations, must be interpreted and debated. By now the reader should understand that one who ignores archaeology and the information provided by realia to reassess the context of texts is anachronistic, ill-informed, and misleads those we are to educate. On August 10, 2016, Dr. Motti Aviam, who has mastered the archaeology of Galilee, sent me news of a stunning discovery. He has been excavating at Tel Rakesh which is 17 km east of Nazareth. He has found a small “first century synagogue” on the top of this Tel. He and I are still searching, as Co-directors of Khirbet Beza, for evidence of a synagogue on this most western village in western Galilee; we have found a massive olive industry and evidence of Jewish stone vessels. Archaeology may be a study of the old but the old quickly becomes renewed each day.

Two pools near the Temple and Jesus With this rapid survey before us,113 we may focus on two archaeological discoveries in Jerusalem and their importance for the Gospel of John.114 In the following discussion, we will attempt to show why the pools of Bethzatha (John 5) and Siloam (John 9) are not Christological creations by the Fourth Evangelist. The pools have been excavated archaeologically, and now we know that each structure was described accurately by the Evangelist. And they are not mentioned or described by Matthew, Mark, Luke, or even



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Josephus, who is the main literary source for our knowledge of pre-70 CE Jerusalem. Together, these pools serve as windows through which one may peer into a Jerusalem known to the author(s) and editor(s) of John. In Chapters 5 and 9, the Fourth Evangelist focuses on the instructions of Jesus. He was in Jerusalem and ascended to the Holy City, as a Jew faithful to Torah regulations. Why was Jesus in the Holy City? A pilgrimage to Jerusalem is demanded of those, like Jesus, who were faithful to Torah. Note Deut 16:16: Three times a year all your males must come into the presence of the Lord your God (‫ )פני יהוה אלהיך‬in the place which he shall choose: At the Festival of Unleavened Bread (‫)בחג המצות‬, the Festival of Weeks (‫ )בחג השבעות‬and the Festival of Booths (‫)בחג הסכות‬. But no one may come into the presence of the Lord without an offering.

For the author of Deuteronomy, “in the place which he shall choose” (‫)במקום אשר יבחר‬ is only Jerusalem. In the time of Jesus, many Rabbis relaxed this requirement due to the vast area in which Jews, including those in the Diaspora, lived. Most likely, Jewish males came to understand the stipulation as a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage. Yet, the Galilean Jesus is portrayed by the Evangelist to be in Jerusalem more than once, perhaps as many as three times. Thus, when the Evangelist refers to “a feast [or festival] of the Jews,” in Jn 5:1, one should ask: “Which one?” He offers no information. “Why?” Perhaps he wanted the reader to focus only on Jesus. Perhaps he did not know. Perhaps he wanted to reduce the references to Passover so that the setting of Jesus at the Last Supper

Figure 6.12  Herodian Steps with Platforms in the Mikveh at Bethzatha.

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would not become common. Nevertheless, it would appear that most commentators are correct to surmise that the Evangelist in 5:1 is thinking about Passover. As numerous scholars have shown, the Fourth Evangelist was familiar with Jewish customs and the importance of stone vessels and mikvaot. What can be known about these different pools—the two pools of Bethzatha (John 5) and the pool of Siloam (John 9)? They were in prominent areas of Jerusalem and significant in the time of Jesus. Today, descending southward from the Damascus Gate, and turning left at the first major fork, one proceeds eastward up the so-called Via Dolorosa. Before the Sheep Gate, one arrives at the site of St. Anne’s Church. On entering the enclosure, one can observe the remains of the Pool of Bethzatha, which was excavated in the nineteenth century. Returning to the fork, one can walk southeast to the Pool of Siloam, which is now south of the present walls of the city. The walk divides the city, especially in the south, into two ridges. Until recently, the Pool of Siloam was lost under debris from the destruction of the area by Titus’ troops in 70 CE.

1  Bethzatha: The upper pools of Jerusalem During the time of King Hezekiah (conceivably 726/7 to 695/6 BCE),115 a pool existed to the north of the Temple. Note the description of a pool according to 2Kgs 18:17: Then the king of Assyria sent his commander-in-chief, and his quartermaster, and his field commander with a large army from Lachish (against) Jerusalem, to King Hezekiah. And they went up and came to Jerusalem. When they had come up and came (to Jerusalem). Then they stood by the aqueduct of the Upper Pool which was on the road to the Fuller’s Field (‫ׁשר ִּב ְמס ִַּל֖ת ׂש ְֵד֥ה כֹובֵ ֽס׃‬ ֶ ֕ ‫) ַו ַּי ֽ ַעמְד ּ֙ו ּבִתְ ָע ַל ֙ת ַהּב ְֵר ָכ֣ה הָ ֽ ֶעלְיֹו ָ֔נה ֲא‬.

A contemporary of Hezekiah (‫ ) ִחזְ ִק ָּי֖הו‬the blessed Isaiah, also knew about the location of a pool where Bethzatha is located: “Then the king of Assyria sent his commanderin-chief with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah in Jerusalem. And he stood by the aqueduct of the Upper Pool (‫)ּבִתְ ָע ַל ֙ת ַהּב ְֵר ָכ֣ה ָה ֶעלְיֹו ָ֔נה‬, on the road to the Fuller’s Field” (Isa 36:2; also see 7:3). Thus, the history of a pool to the north of the Temple can be traced back to at least the eighth century BCE—that is, the time of Hezekiah and Isaiah. Most likely a dam had been built across the Beth Zeta Valley, collecting rainwater flowing from the northwest (where the Russian church is today) into a reservoir. No springs exist in this area, so one might contemplate a pool for collecting rainwater. Perhaps around 200 BCE, a second dam was added in the southern portion of the older pool. The southern pool most likely supplied water for the Temple and perhaps to those who dwelt nearby, including those in the Baris, which later became the Antonia Fortress.116 The early Greek manuscripts of John provide two names for this place. The first name is “Bethesda,” (Βηθεσδά in Codex Alexandrinus, Codex Ephraemi Rescriptus, Codex K, Diatessaron, Didymus). The meaning of Bethesda is easy to comprehend; in Hebrew or Aramaic it means “House of Grace [or Mercy].” This reading was preferred by Stephanus and placed in the Textus Receptus of 1550. The reading most likely explains Jerome’s much earlier rendering; the Vulgate has Bethsaida, but that is



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the name of a town on the northeastern shore of the Sea of Galilee. Bethesda is also the accepted reading by the Greek Orthodox Church. In Syriac, Beth ḥesdo provides two distinct meanings: “House of Disgrace” (where the invalids were) and “House of Grace” (appreciation for healings). The more reliable reading is Bethzatha (βηθζαθά), which is supported by Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Bezae, Codex Regius, Minuscule 33, and Eusebius. This place name appears in the text of the latest edition of Nestle-Aland’s Greek New Testament, and βηθζαθά was also preferred by Tischendorf in his eighth edition and by Westcott and Hort in 1881. The noun provides no transparent meaning. Obviously, the text denotes the “house of ” something, but there is no Semitic word for “zatha.” It appears to be the name of the region of “the new city” just north of the Temple; this suggestion is supported by Josephus’ reference to “the hill Bezetha” in War 5.5.8–246 or the village called “Berzetho” (var. Bethzetho) in Ant 12.10.2–397. He reports that this area encompasses the “new city” (τῆς καινὴς πόλεως; War 5.5.8–246). Most likely, Jews gave numerous names to this area north of the walls of Jerusalem. The author of 1 Maccabees calls the area north of the Temple Bethzaith or Bethzethō (βηθζηθώ), Berzethō (βηρζηθώ) or Bezeth (βηζέθ [Lucian βαιθζαρά]): “Then Bacchides withdrew from Jerusalem and encamped in Bethzaith. And he sent and seized many of the men who had deserted to him, and some of the people, and killed them and threw them into a great pit” (1Mac 7:19). Most likely, this is the area the Fourth Evangelist calls “Bethzatha.” Perhaps it means “the House of zatha” which could denote olives (Aramaic ‫ ;זיית‬Arabic zait; and Ge’ez zaḭt). Our surmise is that Beth-Zatha means “House of the Olive Orchard.” In Jn 5:1–14, the Evangelist provides the following topographical and architectural descriptions: After this there was a festival of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 2 Now in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate (ἐπὶ τῇ προβατικῇ) there is a pool (κολυμβήθρα), called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, which has five porticoes. 3 In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed. 5 One man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and knew that he had been there a long time, he said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” 7 The sick man answered him, “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; and while I am making my way, someone else steps down ahead of me.” 8 Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” 9 At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. Now that day was a sabbath. 10 So the Jews said to the man who had been cured, “It is the sabbath; it is not lawful for you to carry your mat.” 11 But he answered them, “The man who made me well said to me, ‘Take up your mat and walk.’” 12 They asked him, “Who is the man who said to you, ‘Take it up and walk’?” 13 Now the man who had been healed did not know who it was, for Jesus had disappeared in the crowd that was there. 14  Later Jesus found him in the temple and said to him, “See, you have been made well! Do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse happens to you.” (NRSV)

It should not be doubted that this story shows the editorial work and Tendenzen of John. If we stop with this observation and focus only on rhetoric and Christology, we will enter the world of Johannine symbology (as in Chapter 16), but we will miss the

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local color and the exceptional knowledge the Evangelist has of Jerusalem’s topography and architecture. Why has the Evangelist John poured so much detail into Jn 5:2–3? Recall the text: ἔστιν δὲ ἐν τοῖς Ἱεροσολύμοις ἐπὶ τῇ προβατικῇ κολυμβήθρα ἡ ἑπιλεγομένη Ἑβραϊστι βηθζαθà πέντε στοὰς ἔχουσα. ἐν ταύταις κατέκειτο πλῆθος τῶν ἀσθενο ύντων, τυφλῶν, χωλῶν, ξηρῶν. Now among the Jerusalemites by the Sheep (Gate) (ἐπὶ τῇ προβατικῇ) there is a pool (κολυμβήθρα), called in Hebrew Beth-zatha, having five porticoes. 3 In these lay many invalids—blind, lame, and paralyzed.

The author informs us that there is a large pool in Jerusalem (κολυμβήθρα denotes a large pool). The Evangelist cannot be referring to “a swimming pool,” because the area near the Temple is sacred. It is near a place defined by sheep. If it denotes a sheep pool, it cannot be a place for washing sheep. The excavated pools are far too deep for washing a sheep. The series of steps followed by a level and wide steps indicate the southern pool here is a mikveh to purify those who wish to enter the Temple. Perhaps the Greek ἐπὶ τῇ προβατικῇ denotes the gate through which sheep enter Jerusalem for sacrificing. In the 1960s, I remember seeing sheep gathered outside only this gate; it is the one closest to the area in which sheep graze to the east. The Sheep Gate today is also called the Lion’s Gate (because of the lions carved above the outside gate) and Stephen’s Gate (because once this was the route to St. Stephen’s Monastery [the École Biblique]). This area, north of the Temple, was mentioned by Nehemiah: “Then Eliashib the high priest arose with his brothers the priests and built the Sheep Gate; they consecrated it and hung its doors. They consecrated the wall to the Tower of the Hundred and the Tower of Hananel” (Neh 3:1; cf. Neh 3:32 and 12:39). The Fourth Evangelist notes that the area has five porticoes. In this area were gathered many sick, suffering from various ailments, including blindness, lameness, and paralysis. Some ancient authorities (see the apparatus in Nestle-Aland) add the end of verse 3 and all of verse 4: “waiting for the moving of the water; for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool, and troubled the water; whoever stepped in first after the troubling of the water was healed of whatever disease he had.” No textual critic would find it difficult to judge these words to be additional. They are not attested by the major witnesses. Why would a scribe (or scribes) add them? Clearly, the answer is to supply details and explain the supernatural. Reflecting on the topography, one can imagine that the water most likely appeared disturbed in the lower pool when water overflowed from the upper to the lower pool in antiquity. The “door” for this overflow has been discovered. When a priest or attendant opened this door, it would appear to many Jews and others in the first century BCE and CE that the water was disturbed by an angel sent from above. For 2,000 years, New Testament scholars have searched for spiritual nourishment by claiming to perceive a brilliant Christological creation in John 5; that is, the realization and affirmation that Jesus is the Great Healer, the Savior. Their focus on Christology led to a failure to perceive that the Evangelist may be describing, quite accurately, an architectural feature of pre-70 CE Jerusalem.



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New Testament theologians are correct to point out that a pool called “Bethzatha” or “Bethseda” is not mentioned in ancient, pre-70 CE, descriptions of Jerusalem. We do not find the location in the early descriptions of Jerusalem by Pseudo-Hegisippus and Josephus. The mention of a Gate for Sheep is of little help, since there is no “gate” mentioned in the Greek of John. Some critics assume that the Evangelist used imprecise wording, but perhaps his descriptions were very familiar to the audience of the first edition of John. We are left to contemplate some type of pool near a place associated with sheep on the northern exterior of Jerusalem (later incorporated within the city), having five porticoes. One can thus understand why theologians surmise that perhaps John created the place, “House of Grace,” to emphasize the “grace” supplied by the Christ. Moreover, five porticoes seem to indicate a pentagon, and such buildings did not exist in antiquity. Clearly, the Evangelist is not one devoted to ancient architecture, as was Vitruvius who composed ten books On Architecture. “What could the Evangelist have in mind?” Some theologians have imagined that John most likely was symbolizing the failure of the Pentateuch. Within the five porticoes, Jesus alone can save those calling for help. We now turn to the new insights and archaeological discoveries,117 but should continue to be sensitive to the theological approach to Scripture. The Evangelist is symbolically clarifying that Jesus alone provides healing and life, but this exegesis does not demand that the Evangelist created the pools for narrative Christology and rhetorical force.

2  New insights: Archaeology and the book of John Problems appear with the pure theological interpretation. John is gifted with symbols, but he also stresses the humanity of Jesus, claiming that “the Word became Flesh” and that Jesus is portrayed as tired, thirsty, and crying. John is not to be branded as Docetic. To claim that Jesus and not the Pentateuch can provide healing misses the fact that there is no Anti-Moses polemic in John, as demonstrated by Boismard.118

2.1  Archaeology and the history of Bethzatha In the mid-nineteenth century, a pool that is most likely Bethzatha was discovered by Conrad Schick who came to Jerusalem in 1846. Schick carried out excavations at Bethzatha between 1863 and 1876 and from 1886 to 1900.119 I first visited the site in 1968 with Pierre Benoit who was intimately knowledgeable about Jerusalem and its archaeology. He pointed out how archaeology and biblical research sometimes intersect. Joachim Jeremias published a popular book about the site in 1966.120 It is certain that two pools, both trapezoids, are represented by the name “the Pool of Bethzatha.” They are separated now by a bedrock causeway that preserves columns from a Byzantine church. The smaller northern pool is c. 53 by 40 m wide.121 It seems to be a reservoir. The larger southern pool is about 47 by 52 m as exposed now and continues southward, under unexcavated earth, toward the Temple. Both pools are constructed out of bedrock; they are finished by applying mortar and additional stone. Gibson states: The two basins would have been surrounded by porticoes on the four sides, with an additional portico extending across the barrier wall separating the two basins.

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The plastered barrier wall separating the two parts of the pool was partly hewn into the rock and partly built of alternating courses of header and stretcher ashlars with smoothed exteriors, typical of Second Temple building initiative and one may suggest this took place before the construction of the new quarter on the Bezetha Hill and most likely at the time of Herod the Great, perhaps ca. 25 B.C., when the major building activities relating to the rebuilding of the Temple Mount were first initiated.122

Hence, the pools of Bethzatha would need five porticoes. One reaches the bottom of the southern pool by a steep series of stone steps and platforms in which, when the waters receded in the dry season, Jews could fully immerse themselves.123 The architectural creation of steps with platforms indicates that the large pool was built during the time of Herod the Great. The series of steps followed by a landing also indicate that the southern pool is a mikveh, a Jewish ritual bath to remove moral or ritual impurity.124 The upper, northern pool served as an otsar (a reservoir providing “living water” without the help of humans). Those who wanted to be ritually pure would go to the landing, which held water, and immerse themselves until they were fully under the “living water.” Afterward, the Jew—so purified—could ascend to the Temple to worship. In light of recent excavations, we may better approximate the history of the pools north of the Temple Mount. Apparently before the first century BCE, natural caves (whose contours in some places are still visible) in this area were converted into baths. These may well be pagan shrines dedicated to Asclepius and Fortuna (m. Zabim 11.5). Before the time of Herod the Great, they were outside the walls of Jerusalem and the center of holiness, the Sanctuary, the Temple. During the two centuries before 70 CE, Jerusalem tripled in size. The Hasmoneans continued Hezekiah’s expansion of the city to the west (the Upper City), and under Herod, the “new city” expanded to the north of the Temple; that is the location of Bethzatha. One of the major reasons for the expansion of Jerusalem during the time of Jesus was the increasing appreciation of the cosmic and religious significance of the Temple (cf. Jubilees) and the resulting pilgrimages to Jerusalem by Jews, notably, from Rome, Cyrene, Alexandria, Philadelphia, Adiabene, Antioch, Tarsus, Athens, and elsewhere. The annual pilgrimages demanded massive mikvaot to purify Jews coming to the Holy City. The healing pools would have been attractive to the Greeks and later the Romans residing nearby. From about 200 BCE, Seleucid Greek soldiers lived in the “Baris,” which would later become the site of Herod’s “Antonia” Fortress (Josephus, War 1.3.3– 75). This fortress was taken by the Hasmonean Simon and two centuries later, after a riot in the Temple, Paul was imprisoned there (Acts 21–22). Shortly after 41 CE, eleven years after the crucifixion of Jesus outside Jerusalem’s walls, Agrippa built a new wall, incorporating the northern area within the walls of Jerusalem. Thus, during the time of Jesus the pools were outside the walls of the Holy City and for some Jews no laws (halakot) would have been broken by carrying a mat that had been a bed in that location on Shabbat; many Palestinian Jews could be “liberal” and held views about Shabbat less strict than those found in the Damascus Document. The authors and compilers of the Temple Scroll emphasize that one must



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be pure within the Holy City which is defined as an extension of the holiness in the “Sanctuary.” In Jesus’ time, Bethzatha was outside the Holy Sanctuary. Many exegetes imagine that the Evangelist John is mirroring a conflict between Jesus and Asclepius. I present reasons why this is an apt insight.125 In the “Preface” of my monograph The Good and Evil Serpent, I indicated that my research “will clarify how the Asclepius story threatened the ‘Jesus Gospel.’” Asclepius was a human physician who became a god. He lived among humans, was noted for healing miracles, raising the dead, and being brought back to life (or was raised again) after death. His devotees hailed him as “Savior.” The story of Jesus is strikingly similar. Most likely the Evangelist knew about the Asclepius story and wanted to stress that Jesus is the One who heals, the One who is from above, the One and only Savior. The latter term is on target; both Jesus and Asclepius were hailed as the Sōter.126 More details lead to the supposition that some polemic is hidden within John’s highly edited account. At Bethzatha an early shrine to Asclepius has been exposed. The building may be Hadrianic or later, but there is no reason to suppose Asclepius was revered here only after Jerusalem became Aelia Capitolina. Asclepius was considered divine and was associated with the question: ὑγιὴς γενέσθαι; “Do you want to be healed?” The question is atypical of the Gospels, but it appears in the accounts of Asclepius. Finally, the votive offerings, the Bethzatha Cup, the Asclepiad at Bethzatha,127 and the metal and glass serpents found within Bethzatha indicate that Asclepius was revered at Bethzatha long before 70 CE.128 I do not think one should date all of them to the period after 70 CE. The archaeological evidence of Greek influence is pervasive in ancient Palestine long before 70 CE, as is known from the bullae on the Samaritan papyri and the excavations of Upper Jerusalem and near Caiaphas’ house: Roman bathrooms and mikvaot nearby. The soldiers in the Antonia Fortress, nearby, when wounded, from battle or practice, would need the healing of the god Asclepius. That Fortress antedates Jesus’ visit to Bethzatha. In summary, the precise location of Bethzatha is clear. It is indicated by Josephus and most importantly by excavations just west of the present Sheep Gate. The five porticoes are the five areas covered by pillars: the north, the east, the south, the west, and the area between the two pools. The site was certainly a place for healing long before Jesus. I have often explored the eastern areas and it is clear that Hasmonean and probably Hellenistic evidence is present. Theologians are correct to argue that confessional theology needs neither historical research nor archaeology; however, when biblical theology is informed by historical and archaeological research, the full force of the evangelical message begins to actualize the power one felt when hearing the words of the Evangelist: Jesus is from above. He is the perfect healer. And he is the only Savior. This message would have been most appealing for Jews within Jerusalem before 70 CE, and it spoke to the needs of Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, and many others.

2.2  Pool of Siloam: “The lower pool of Jerusalem” Scholars and theologians have known about a Pool of Siloam shown to pilgrims for centuries. They could cite Isaiah: “You have seen the breaks in the City of

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David that they are many; and you have gathered the waters from the Lower Pool (‫ ;הברכה התחתונה‬Isa 22:9; cf. 22:11).” It is imperative, nevertheless, to distinguish between the pre-exilic pool and the Herodian pool partly uncovered recently. The oblique references to “Siloam” in the Lives of the Prophets (LivPro 1:1–13) are allegedly to the time of Isaiah, but it is evident that the author is writing from a date closer to the time of the composition of John. The author of the pseudepigraphon clarifies, as does the Fourth Evangelist, that “Siloam” means “sent,” but that does not indicate any relationship between the two documents. The steps leading up to the Temple mentioned by Nehemiah, however, may well be beneath portions of the Herodian monumental stairway that has recently been unearthed. Recall Neh 3:15: “The Fountain Gate was strengthened by Shallum son of Col-Hozeh, the leader of the Mizpah district. He rebuilt it, roofed it, set up its doors, and installed its bolts and bars. Then he repaired the wall of the Pool of Siloam (‫ )ברכת השלח‬by the king’s garden, and he rebuilt the wall as far as the stairs that descend from the City of David.” As the Evangelist shows, “the Pool of Siloam” receives its name from the noun ‫שלח‬ which means “sent”; in modern Hebrew the place is called ‫בריכת השילוח‬. For the biblical theologian, the water, “living water,” that is pure and alone can purify, was sent there by God from heaven (and not from the Gihon Spring). John knows the etymology and makes a play on it. As the water is sent, so Jesus is sent into the world. Hence, the man is healed. Here is my translation of Jn 8:59–9:12: Therefore, they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and exited the Temple. And as he proceeded, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying: “Rabbi, who sinned, this one or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered: “Neither this one nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him. We must work the works of him who sent me, while it is daylight. Night is coming, when no one can work. While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” Having said these (words), he spat on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and anointed the man’s eyes with the mud. And he said to him: “Go, wash in the Pool of Siloam” (which means Sent). He went, therefore, and washed, and came back seeing. Then, the neighbours and those who had formerly seen him as a beggar said: “Is not this the (same) man who used to sit and beg?” Some said: “It is he.” Others said: “No, but he is like him.” That one said: “I am the man.” Then (some) said to him: “How then were your eyes opened?” That one answered: “The man called Jesus made mud and anointed my eyes and said to me ‘Go to Siloam and wash.’ So I went and washed and saw.” And they said to him: “Where is this one?” they asked him. He says: “I don’t know.” (italics mine)

No one who knows Johannine theology would miss the paronomasia. Jesus is the Light that brings light into darkness. The Pool of Siloam means “sent” as Jesus is sent. Confrontation with Jesus opens the eyes of the blind. At this stage in the story, the man does not know the origins of Jesus, but the reader of John already knows Jesus’ origins.



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The use of “that (one)” and “this one”—and especially “anointed”—are often lost in influential translations. Two questions arise: Is the account in John a clever story created to clarify a Christological proclamation? Or, has the Fourth Evangelist based his Christological thoughts on an actual event and site well known to those who lived in Jerusalem before 70 CE? Too many scholars focus only on John’s Christology, and too many exegetes assume that the words “the Pool of Siloam” was completely a Johannine creation. They claim the site was fabricated to make a beautiful play on “sent,” as it is obvious John portrays God as the One who sends and Jesus as the one sent into the world. They could point out that the well-known Pool of Siloam, shown for centuries to pilgrims, dates from the fifth century CE and cannot go back to the time of Jesus. These interpreters assume that no pool existed in the area and the setting was a creation for rhetorical effect. Other theologians and evangelists have argued that this chapter is a well-crafted parable. A man has been born blind, but Jesus, as the Light of the world, gives sight to all the blind, especially those who see but cannot perceive. Polemics have been fashioned to show that the Light of the Torah is dimming and the Pharisees are men who can no longer see. Books are filled with the claim that John is anti-Jewish or even anti-Semitic. The Old Covenant has been replaced by a New Covenant; it is easy to see supersessionism corrupting interpretations.

2.3  Recent discovery As previously noted, a well-known pool shown for centuries to pilgrims, and also called the Pool of Siloam, cannot be the pool mentioned in John. It is associated with Eudocia, the empress of Byzantium, who had a church built there about 450 CE. The church was destroyed during the Persian invasion of 614 CE. The water flowing into Eudocia’s pool flows from the only spring within Jerusalem, the Gihon Spring. The spring is connected to the Pool by a tunnel built by King Hezekiah (1Kgs 20:20). The tunnel antedates Jesus by centuries; Eudocia’s pool postdates Jesus by centuries. Was there no Pool of Siloam in Jesus’ day? In 2004, another pool was located immediately to the southeast of the well-known Pool of Siloam. Bliss and Dickie exposed a segment of stone steps at this site, but they did not recognize that they had uncovered part of the Herodian Pool of Siloam. The founder of the École Biblique, Father Vincent, in the early 1900s and other early archaeologists opined that the area labeled as “Birket el-Hamra” hid an area in which an ancient pool could be located. In 2004, Ronnie Reich and Eli Shukron were called to explore large stones that had been unearthed by bulldozers driven by workmen who were repairing a sewer pipe that had burst. In 2005, the author was in Jerusalem and spent time with them during the early phase of excavations.129 There are three groups of four or five steps and a horizontal area or plaza; these are similar to the pool farther north, the Pool of Bethzatha. This was a typical construction during the time of Herod the Great. Early Roman and Herodian period pottery were discovered. Four coins of Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 BCE) were recovered, although these are not definitive for dating since they are the most common coins found in the Holy Land, were used for over a century, and move from one stratum of an excavation

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to another. I have acquired fifty of them. Definitive for dating is the recovery of about a dozen coins dating to the First Jewish Revolt; they were found in a sealed corner of the pool. These coins indicate that the pool was covered over shortly after 70 CE during the destruction of the area by the Roman troops directed by Titus, the future emperor. The structure itself is approximately 68.5 m long. The large pool is constructed like smaller mikvaot (Jewish ritual baths) that surrounded the Temple area. The flowing water, the “living waters,” from the Gihon Spring served as an ostar (water reservoir) for the mikveh. Flights of four or five steps are separated by landings so that the Jews could immerse themselves when water receded as in Bethzatha. Reich and Shukron succinctly explain the phenomenology of immersion implied by the series of steps and platforms evident in the architecture: This practical architectural feature allows Jews to use the water in the pool up to the level of the exposed platform; that is, when the water was high in the pool the Jews would proceed to the first platform, when it was very low, they would descend to a lower platform. The Jews most likely felt comfortable and safe as they descended or ascended.130

There should be no doubt that the Herodian Pool of Siloam served as a mikveh for ritual cleansing. Its massive size (over 60 m long—and it extends southward under the area owned by the Greek Orthodox Church) provided space for the thousands of pilgrims from all over Palestine and from as far away as Spain and Parthia; they had to be purified in a mikveh before entering the Holy Temple.131 A monumental stairway over six meters wide of Herodian stones and framed by Herodian ashlars leads from this mikveh up to the Temple. The largest area of the pool is to the south, under a garden owned by the Greek Orthodox Church. Hopefully, the church will allow archaeologists to expose the complete mikveh which is the Herodian Pool of Siloam. Archaeologists and biblical scholars now affirm that this Pool of Siloam is the one indicated by the Fourth Evangelist. One can imagine the direction Jesus went as he left the Temple. He was proceeding south, perhaps out of one of the Huldah Gates. At this point it is likely that he descended the same steps that have been excavated archaeologically on the southern end of the Temple Mount. There he met a man who was blind, healed him, and told him to descend further to the Pool of Siloam and be purified. Later, so purified, the man may for the first time in his life enter the Temple, as the blind were excluded because they might touch something that would bring a curse upon them (as we learn from Some Works of the Torah and the Temple Scroll). A more precise time for this recorded event may be made evident by the Jewish liturgical calendar. During the period of the Second Temple at the Feast of Tabernacles, pilgrims brought offerings to the Temple. These consisted primarily of fresh dates, figs, grapes, olives, and pomegranates. The celebrants most likely began at the recently excavated Pool of Siloam and ascended up the monumental staircase. The procession was accompanied probably by dancing and musical instruments. The ceremonial procession is called Simhat Beit HaShoevah, “The Rejoicing of the Water-Drawing” (m. Yoma 26b).



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While the Evangelist may not have had this precise time in mind, he may well have expected his readers to make some connection. He used a metaphor from the waters of Siloam and the Feast of Tabernacles, mentioned explicitly in Jn 7:2. He had Jesus declare in Jerusalem that he is “the living water.” On the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, according to the Fourth Evangelist, Jesus in the Temple shouted: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the Scripture says, ‘Out of his132 interior shall flow rivers of living water’” (Jn 7:37–38). The paronomasia is evident when one recalls the words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman: “If you knew the gift from God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water (ὕδωρ ζῶη)” (Jn 4:10). Since the late 1960s, archaeologists unearthed numerous mikvaot to the west and south of the Temple Mount. During their period of use before 70 CE, each needed “living water”; such must be supplied “by God” without human assistance. The Evangelist John, who assumed his original audience was aware of this practice, was convinced that Jesus is the “gift from God” and he alone provides to all who believe “living water” that “will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (Jn 4:14). Once again, we perceive how Christology is grounded in secular history.133 The Evangelist certainly knew the places in which Jesus healed the sick. As von Wahlde shared with me viva voce, the accuracy of John’s narrative is clearly established. The shared reflections help illustrate how archaeology can help us improve exegesis and theology. If Christian theology is grounded in a story that is historical, and hence can be falsified, historians must examine all alleged facts with openness and appreciation for the data left us by many who died when the world of Jesus disappeared in flames. Archaeological research helps us enter the world imagined by the Evangelist. We also enter into the narrative and begin to perceive the intricate mixing of facts and interpretations. John is clearly editing traditions and bringing out his own Christological insights, but his traditions are often early and grounded in a world that is now more apparent to us after 2,000 years, thanks to sensational archaeological discoveries. We can progress up the stairs toward the Huldah Gates of the Temple and feel more powerfully the progression of one who sees and progresses from “I do not know” (Jn 9:12), through “He is a prophet” (Jn 9:17), to a full confession that Jesus is the Son of Man who has come into the world for judgment (Jn 9:35–39). According to my research, the latter confession is most likely an echo of the Son of Man traditions in 1 Enoch 37–71. In this document the Son of Man is revealed to be the eschatological and heavenly judge; in almost all other documents, including the Bible, God is the Judge. The author, like Jesus, refers to the Son of Man in the third person and he, not God, is judge.134 Most likely Jesus learned this concept from Essenes living in Galilee or Judea.

3  Summary Both the southern Pool of Bethzatha and the Pool of Siloam are mikvaot. Each receives “living water” from an ostar to the north. From the Pool of Bethzatha to the Pool of

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Siloam, east of the Temple Mount, are a series of mikvaot; all these ritual baths are to purify Jews so they may enter the Holy Temple. The largest of the mikvaot may be the Pool of Siloam and the second largest seems to be the southern Pool of Bethzatha. Neither is now fully exposed. Such insights raise many questions; this one in particular: What was the attitude of Jesus toward mikvaot? The Sea of Galilee contains “living water” and so it, as well as the Jordan River where John claims he baptized (note the Aorist in Jn 2:22, ἐβάπτιζεν), provide “living water” for ritual purification. In Jerusalem, Jesus seems to advise those whom he healed to immerse in a mikveh. Why? In search for answers to such questions we learn how to improve exegesis. On the basis of the above study we are now more sensitive to the fact that the man healed by Jesus at Bethzatha had immersed in a mikveh. Why? It is because Jesus “found him in the Temple”? (Jn 5:14). Before entering the Temple the man who had been ill for thirty-eight years must have previously entered a mikveh. Probably he and Jesus were purified to qualify for entering the Temple in the Bethzatha mikveh. In Chapter 9, the Fourth Evangelist seeks his reader to comprehend that Jesus—the Light of the world whom God sent into the world—now sends the previously blind man, after a lifetime of exclusion, into the Temple, to see “my Father’s house.”

4  Conclusion: Symbolism based on history Throughout this book, we have illustrated the dangers of the purely theological approach to a text. Theology alone may have served “the church” in the past, but in the twenty-first century, we should pause upon reading John, and contemplate that the vast amount of archaeological discoveries are now our earliest evidence for the Jesus Story, and some date from the years he walked within Jerusalem. Thus, they antedate John who enlivens his rhetoric with scenes we may now contemplate. Focusing only on Christology blinds us to the full meaning of the evangelists’ kerygmata and Christological affirmations. Such myopic focus does not allow us to realize the purpose of the four Evangelists and especially John’s claim: “The Word became Flesh.” Exegetical studies not informed by archaeological research may also tend inadvertently to support Docetism—the greatest Christian heresy. The Docetists were convinced Jesus was of celestial substance and he only “seemed” to be human. With the above reflections and insights, we glimpse some of the ways archaeological research helps us avoid erroneous or insufficiently informed exegesis as well as obtain fresh insights. The older constricted theological views continue in many seminaries and universities, often masquerading as Christological exegesis or a pure rhetorical approach to the New Testament. It is understandable why theologians and exegetes tend to be afraid of archaeology. They have never immersed themselves in the land of Israel. As Motti Aviam frequently told me as we explored Galilee: “To know a land, one must live, feel, and walk almost every square meter of it.” Too many thinkers have never immersed themselves in topographical explorations nor participated in scientific excavations. I have too often heard historians admit that they shun theologians because they do not “objectively” study a text, do not think and simply posit what they claim to be in a text. I have heard archaeologists state that historians do not ponder archaeological



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work and float sentences like clouds in the sky. I have also heard philologians who say that theologians, historians, and archaeologists cannot be trusted since the precise ancient meaning of a word is unperceived by them. Surely, in the present age, we all need the specific training and insights of others who are trained in different, but complementary, ways. No one should be afraid of theologians, historians, archaeologists, or philologians. Theology devoid of history is in danger of becoming meaningless myth. History without the insights of archaeology can be subjective speculation. Philologians without attending to the full meaning can present meaningless etymologies. Ultimately, archaeologists, historians, and philologians need the insight and contributions of informed theologians. Biblical scholars do need geologists, geographers, phenomenologists, and experts with other methodologies as displayed in Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions (2014). In this study, we caught a glimpse of how theology and Christology benefit from history and archaeology. A new paradigm seems to be appearing.135 Archaeologists expose facts, data, and challenging images that are paradigmatically closer to Jesus’ time than any extant text. In summation, we note a growing perception of a dated and false dichotomy. Leading scholars know how to avoid “the either/or”; both archaeology and theology are important. Scholars are now recognizing that some of the earliest traditions in the New Testament are in John. They antedate Paul and derive from Jesus’ time. We have explained that John knew more about some aspects of architecture of Jerusalem than any ancient author who described Jerusalem. Just because PseudoHegesippus and Josephus do not mention the Pools of Bethzatha and the Pool of Siloam does not mean they were not there. The absence of notation is not the absence of reality. We all can see the mikvaot mentioned in this chapter; they are precisely where they were when Jesus visited Jerusalem. The fresh, challenging, and earliest kerygmata is grounded in history. The Fourth Evangelist intimately knew Jerusalem. He perceived the importance of mikvaot and stone vessels (Jn 2).136 Perhaps he should be trusted; perhaps he is the only Evangelist who was an eyewitness or edited the testimony of an eyewitness. Scholars trained to disagree will be divided on such possibilities, but we should not miss the obvious: Johannine symbolism is not created exclusively to serve rhetoric; it is intermittently grounded in history.137

Notes 1 This chapter is a revised and updated version of “The Tale of Two Pools: Archaeology and the Book of John,” NEASB 56 (2011): 1–14. 2 W. G. Dever, “The Western Cultural Tradition Is at Risk,” Biblical Archaeology Review 32 (March–April 2006) see especially pp. 26 and 76. 3 In 1912, Rev. Dr. Thomas Charlesworth traveled to Egypt and the Holy Land. He, my grandfather, left me his diary. It reflects that time and mentions the sinking of a large vessel (the Titanic). It is full of local color; I hope to publish his diary. 4 For a succinct report with images, see A. Schick, “Der Bibelschatz aus dem Wüstenkloster,” Mitternachtsruf (August 2016): 20–25.

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5 See the discussions in The Pericope of the Adulteress in Contemporary Research, eds. D. A. Black and J. N. Cerone (London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2016). Also see Chris Keith’s argument that the pericope was added to prove Jesus was literate; Keith, The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus (Leiden: Brill, 2009). 6 See the discussions of each by R. Reich, La-ḥepor et ʻIr Daṿid: ha-maḳom she-bo heḥelu toldoteha shel Yerushalayim (Jerusalem: Yad Yitsḥaḳ Ben-Tsevi: Ha-Ḥevrah la-ḥaḳirat Erets-Yiśraʼel ṿe-ʻatiḳoteha, 2011). In Hebrew; cited below as Excavating the City of David (2011). 7 D. Bahat with C. T. Rubinstein, The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, trans. S. Ketko (Jerusalem: Carta, 1989 [1990]), p. 10. Also, see pp. 10–11 for an informative reflection on the explorers I have just mentioned. 8 S. Gitin, The Ancient Pottery of Israel and Its Neighbors from the Iron Age through the Hellenistic Period, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2015). These volumes illustrate the importance of international trade and that Palestine was neither a political nor cultural entity; see 2:673. 9 A. Biran, “Introduction: What is Biblical Archaeology?” in Jesus and Archaeology (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 1–8. 10 See the clear and colored image in M. Dayagi-Mendels and S. Rozenberg, eds., Chronicles of the Land: Archaeology in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 2010), p. 68 (Illus. 6). 11 Biran, “Introduction: What is Biblical Archaeology?” p. 8. 12 For similar reflections, see R. Zadok, “The Ethno-linguistic Character of the Semiticspeaking Population (Excluding Judeo-Samaritans) of Syria in the Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Periods,” in Michael [Michael Heltzer Festschrift] (ed. Y. Avishur and R. Deutsch; Tel Aviv-Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publications, 1999), pp. 267–301. 13 Each bore a distinct personality. Glueck was gregarious and a lot of fun, talking with me about Sir Flinders Petrie (esp. carrying the coffin with his headless corpse inside) and exploring the Negev in the thirties. Cross was a polished gentleman who was precise in his work and always positive and supportive. Wright was a “buddy” who impressed me with his humanity, theological sophistication, and humility. 14 See D. N. Freedman and L. G. Running, eds., William Foxwell Albright: A Twentieth century Genius (New York: Two Continents Pub., 1975). 15 A. Biran, “Introduction: What is Biblical Archaeology?” pp. 1–8. Also see J. H. Charlesworth, “Jesus Research and Archaeology: A New Perspective,” in Jesus and Archaeology, pp. 11–63. 16 Joseph A. Callaway’s popular book on the Old Testament was brilliantly illustrated by Jerrie P. Charlesworth, during 1968 to 1969, and was full of interesting insights and reflections. Unfortunately, some in the Southern Baptist Church felt the book could be controversial. It was not published. Perhaps some portions were recycled in Callaway’s Faces of the Old Testament (Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys, 1995). “Joe” mastered Kenyon’s archaeological methodology. His balks were 90 percent vertical. 17 The shift is obvious in A. F. Rainey and R. Steven Notley, The Sacred Bridge (Jerusalem: Carta, 2006). The work is full of data and images; for example, see p. 299 and the colored map of Alexander’s conquests in Palestine in 332–31 BCE. These events are assumed as we explore the background and historical setting of the Gospel of John. 18 Notably, see J. L. Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2000) and J. D. Crossan and J. L. Reed, Excavating Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001).



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19 See especially A. Rabinovich and N. Silberman, “The Burning of Hazor,” Archaeology 51, no. 3 (1998) and Staff, “Hazor Excavations’ Amnon Ben-Tor Reveals Who Conquered Biblical Canaanites,” Bible History Daily (November 25, 2015 [updated]). 20 For the scholarly publication, see Hazor VI: The 1990-2009 Excavations: The Iron Age in the Selz Foundation Hazor Excavations in Memory of Yigael Yadin (ed. Tsipi Kuper-Blau, with Amnon Ben-Tor, et al.; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology, 2012). 21 For a discussion and 3-D image, see J. H. Charlesworth and M. Medina in Walking through the Land of the Bible: Historical 3D Adventure (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 2014), pp. 78–79. 22 For a succinct summary, see A. De Groot in Excavations at the City of David 19781985 Directed by Yigal Shiloh (Qedem 53; Jerusalem: Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2012) vol. VIIA, p. 143. Also see O. Marder and H. Khalaily, “New Epipaleolithic Remains in Jerusalem and the Judean Mountains,” in New Studies on Jerusalem 10 (ed. E. Baruch and A. Faust; Ramat Gan: Merkaz Ingeborg Renert le-limude Yerushalayim, 2004), pp. 7–10 [in Hebrew]. 23 Consult the well-researched publication, with maps and drawings in O. Bar-Yosef, “The Natufian Culture in the Levant, Threshold to the Origins of Agriculture,” Evolutionary Anthropology (1998): 159–77. 24 See M. Dayagi-Mendels and S. Rozenberg, eds., Chronicles of the Land: Archaeology in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 2010), pp. 12–19 with color images. 25 M. Dayagi-Mendels Chronicles of the Land, p. 7. 26 See Fig. 185 in R. Reich, Excavating the City of David (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Biblical Archaeology Society, 2011), p. 285. 27 D. Bahat, The Jerusalem Western Wall Tunnel (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2013). Bahat and his co-workers discovered, inter alia, a monumental walkway, many Herodian mikvaot and a Herodian Hall; see especially pp. 113ff. 28 I am indebted to Dan Bahat for over a decade of exploring ancient Jerusalem, often deep beneath the surface of the earth. 29 G. Barkai, Ketef-Hinom: Matmon el pene homot Yerushalayim (1986). Most importantly, see G. Barkay, et al., The Amulets from Ketef Hinnom: A New Edition and Evaluation (Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 334; South Hadley, MA: American Schools of Oriental Research, 2004). 30 My translation represents the Hebrew, distinguished between verbs chosen, and reflects the ancient poetry. 31 See the reflections of T. García-Huidobro, Las experiencias religiosas y el templo de Jerusalén (Estella [Navarra]: Verbo Divino, 2015). 32 For a color image of the palace and temple models, see Y. Garfinkel and M. Mumcuoglu, Solomon’s Temple and Palace: New Archaeological Discoveries (trans. M. F. Vamosh; Jerusalem’s Old City: Bible Lands Museum and Washington, DC: Biblical Archaeology Society, 2016), p. 32. 33 Garfinkel and Mumcuoglu, Solomon’s Temple and Palace, p. ix. 34 Ibid., p. x. 35 See Y. Garfinkel and M. Mumcuoglu, “The Secrets of Khirbet Qeiyafa, a Fortified city from the Time of David in the Elah Valley,” in Solomon’s Temple and Palace, pp. 13–35. 36 See Y. Garfinkel and S. Ganor, eds., Khirbet Qeiyafa, Vol. 1: Excavation Report 20072008 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2009); see especially pp. 243–57 in which Haggai Misgav deciphers the ostracon with a photograph and drawing. See also

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E. Puech, “L’Ostracon de Khirbet Qeyafa et les débuts de la royauté en Israel,” Revue Biblique 117 (2010): 162–84. A. Millard, “The Ostracon from the Days of David Found at Khirbet Qeiyafa,” Tyndale Bulletin 62 (2011): 1–13. M. Richelle, “Quelques nouvelles lectures sur l’ostracon de Khirbet Qeiyafa,” Semitica 57 (2015): 147–62. The five lines of text contain names; research continues and translations are debated. Some readings may be too sensational. At this stage in research, I believe it is too good to believe that the text has the names of “Goliath” and “David.” We must not project our hopes into letters on an ostracon. See especially A. Biran and J. Naveh, “An Aramaic Stele Fragment from Tel Dan,” Israel Exploration Journal 43 (1993): 81–98. E. Mazar, Preliminary Report on the City of David Excavations, 2005 (Jerusalem and New York: Shalem Press, 2007). R. Reich, Excavating the City of David (2011). See N. Avigad, Hebrew Bullae from the Time of Jeremiah (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1986). R. Deutsch, Biblical Period Epigraphy: The Josef Chaim Kaufman Collection (Jaffa: Archaeological Center Publications, 2011) 2:76–77. See Royal Bulla 509 which mentions “Belonging to Ḥezekiah.” At that time, three bullae of Hezekiah were known. Dayagi-Mendels and Rozenberg, eds., Chronicles of the Land, p. 69 (Illus. 7). G. Barkai in Recording New Epigraphic Evidence: Essays in Honor of Robert Deutsch (ed. M. and E. Lubetski; Jaffa and Tel Aviv: Leshon Limudim, 2015), p. 46. It is possible that Barkai (also known as Barkay) is sifting a dump created by Herod’s workmen in antiquity. See Reich and E. Shukron, “The Jerusalem City-Dump in the Late Second Temple Period,” ZDPV 119 (2003): 12–18. See A. Mazar and N. Panitz-Cohen, “To What God? Altars and a House Shrine from Tel Rehov Puzzle Archaeologists,” Biblical Archaeology Review (2008): 40–47 and 76. Also see B. O. Long, “The Shunammite Woman,” Bible Review (1991): 12–19 and 42. I have seen the Elisha inscription and am impressed that the name dates from the time of Elisha and has his name on it [or some other sacred person from the same site, with the same name, and previously unknown]; the ostracon has not yet been officially published. For a popular article, see F. M. Cross, “The Historical Importance of the Samaria Papyri,” BAR 4 (1978). For the bullae, see M. J. W. Leith, “Wadi ed-Daliyeh I: The Wady ed-Daliyeh Seal Impressions,” in DJD 24 (1997) and Leith, “Greek and Persian Images in Pre-Alexandrine Samaria: The Wadi Ed-Daliyeh Seal Impressions,” (1990) cited in DJD 24. Consult “Jewish Practices & Rituals: Mikveh, History and Archaeology,” in Encyclopedia Judaica (2008). For Rabbinics, see J. Neusner, Tractate Miqvaot in the Mishnah and the Tosefta (South Florida Studies in the History of Judaism 112; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995). For archaeology, see R. Reich, “Synagogue and Ritual Bath during the Second Temple and the Period of the Mishna and Talmud,” in Synagogues in Antiquity (ed. A. Kasher et al.; Jerusalem: Yad Ben-Zvi, 1987), pp. 205–12 [Hebrew with an English summary on pp. xiii–xiv]. Reich, “The Synagogue and the miqweh in EretzIsrael in the Second Temple, Mishnaic and Talmudic Periods,” in Ancient Synagogues, Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discoveries (ed. D. Urman and P. V. M. Flesher; Leiden: Brill, 1995), pp. 289–97. Reich, “The Miqweh (Jewish Ritual Bath) and the Hellenistic World,” in Resumees 13: Internationaler Kongress für Klassische Archäologie (Berlin, 1988), p. 274. Reich, “Two possible Miqwa'ot on the Temple Mount,” Israel Exploration Journal 39 (1989): 63–65. Reich, “Miqwa’ot (Ritual Baths) at Qumran,



48 49 50 51 52 53

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Qadmoniot 114 (1997): 125–8 [in Hebrew]. Reich, “Miqwa’ot at Khirbet Qumran and the Jerusalem Connection,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls, Fifty Years After their Discovery, Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, 1997 (ed. L. H. Schiffman et al.; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Shrine of the Book, 2000), pp. 728–31. Reich, “They Are Ritual Baths,” Biblical Archaeology Review 28/2 (2002): 50–55. Reich, Miqwa’ot (Jewish Ritual Baths) in Eretz-Israel in the Second Temple and the Mishnah and Talmud Periods (Jerusalem: Ben-Zvi Institute, 2013). Y. Magen, The Stone Vessel Industry in the Second Temple Period, Excavations at Hizma and Jerusalem Temple Mount (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Israel Antiquities Authority, 2002) with sixteen color plates. J. H. Charlesworth, “Qumran Revisited: A Reassessment of the Archaeology of the Site and Its Tests,” in RBL (June 1, 2015). See the contributions to the three-volume The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. J. H. Charlesworth. L. Lofenfeld and R. Frenkel, The Boat and the Sea of Galilee (trans. O. Cummings; New York: Gefen Publishing House, 2007). I am grateful to Yizhar Hirschfeld for showing me sites on the western shores of the Dead Sea and picking up the remains of Hasmonean coins. L. D. Chrupcala, ed., Christ is Here! Studies in Biblical and Christian Archaeology in Memory of Michele Piccirillo (Milan: Terra Santa, 2012). Of particular interest is the study of Elijah’s cave on Carmel and its inscriptions, boats on the Dead Sea, and the bitumen trade. See “Nazareth Dwelling Discovery May Shed Light on Boyhood of Jesus,” guardian. co.uk (December 21, 2009). See L. I. Levine, “The Synagogues of Galilee,” in Galilee in the Second Temple and Mishnaic Periods (ed. D. A. Fiensy and J. R. Strange; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), pp. 138–39; M. Aviam, “The Decorated Stone from the Synagogue at Migdal: A Holistic Interpretation and a Glimpse into the Life of Galilean Jews at the Time of Jesus,” NovT 55 (2013): 205–20; and M. Aviam, “The Book of Enoch and the Galilean Archaeology and Landscape,” in Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and D. L. Bock; London: T & T Clark, 2013), pp. 159–69. Note, in particular Mk 1:39 (καὶ ἦλθεν κηρύσσων εἰς τὰς συναγωγὰς αὐτῶν εἰς ὅλην τὴν Γαλιλαίαν καὶ τὰ δαιμόνια ἐκβάλλων.). See especially S. De Luca and A. Lena, “The Mosaic of the Thermal Bath Complex of Magdala Reconsidered,” in Knowledge and Wisdom: Archaeological and Historical Essays in Honour of Leah Di Segni (ed. G. C. Bottini et al.; Studium Biblicum Franciscanum Collectio Maior 54; Milan: Terra Santa, 2014), pp. 1–33. An overview is provided by J. H. Charlesworth and M. Aviam in “Reconstructing First Century Galilee: Reflections on Ten Major Problems,” in Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions, pp. 103–37. I wish to express appreciations to Stefano De Luca for years of being with him in Migdal (sometimes helping with excavations) and to Dina Avshalom-Gorni and A. Najjar for visits with them in the synagogue as it was being unearthed. Josephus’ fortifications are also visible (they are not a dam as some have speculated). I am appreciative to M. Zapata-Meza of the University of Anáhuac México for discussion of his area in Migdal. See especially the following: R. Bauckham and S. De Luca, “Magdala As We Now Know it,” Early Christianity 6 (2015): 91–118. M. H. Jesen, “Magdala/Taricheae and the Jewish Revolt,” in Magdala, Jewish City of Fish (ed. M. Aviam, R. Bauckham and S. De Luca; Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2016). Consult also: “1st Century Synagogue Found at Magdala (2009)” www.bibleplaces.com.

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59 I made that claim when the stone was recovered. Now that identification is widely accepted; see especially M. Aviam, “The Decorated Stone from the Synagogue at Migdal: A Holistic Interpretation and a Glimpse into the Life of Galilean Jews at the Time of Jesus,” NovT 55 (2013): 205–20; D. B. Binder, “The Mystery of the Magdala Stone,” in A City Set on a Hill: Essays in Honor of James F. Strange (ed. D. A. Warner; Mountain House, AR: 2014), pp. 17–48. R. Bauckham, “Further Thoughts on the Migdal Synagogue Stone,” NovT 57 (2015): 113–35. For a color image of the Menorah on the Migdal stone, see Biblical Archaeology Review 36 (May/June 2010): 8. 60 See Dayagi-Mendels and Rozenberg, eds., Chronicles of the Land, p. 113 (Illus. 17). 61 Bauckham and De Luca, Early Christianity 6 (2015): 111. 62 See M. Aviam’s chapter in Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and D. L. Bock; London: T & T Clark, 2013). 63 See J. A. Overman, D. N. Schowalter, and M. C. Nelson, The Temple Complex at Horvat Omrit (Queens College of the City University of New York; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2015). The excavators found three successive temples at the site. I am appreciative to Overman, Schowalter, and others for visits to Horvat Omrit during the excavations. I agree with them that they have found the Augusteum that had been placed incorrectly at Caesarea Philippi. 64 See the final chapter in my Jesus within Judaism. 65 Y. Porath, Caesarea Maritima (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2013). 66 This superb work of art appeared after I had completed this chapter. I have featured the new information because the collection is unknown to specialists and the book may be difficult to obtain. S. Amorai-Stark and M. Hershkovits, Ancient Gems, Finger Rings and Seal Boxes from Caesarea Maritima: The Hendler Collection (Tel Aviv: Shay Hendler, 2016). 67 Amorai-Stark and Hershkovits, Ancient Gems, Finger Rings and Seal Boxes from Caesarea Maritima, p. 17. 68 Ibid., p. 28. 69 Previous related publications: A. Hamburger, “Gems from Caesarea Maritima,” ‘Atiqot 8 (1968) and S. Amorai-Stark, “Gems, Cameos and Seals,” in The Sdot-Yam Museum Book of the Antiquities of Caesarea Maritima (ed. R. Gersht; Tel Aviv, 1999), pp. 87–115 [in Hebrew]. 70 Amorai-Stark and Hershkovits, Ancient Gems, Finger Rings and Seal Boxes from Caesarea Maritima, p. 79. 71 Ibid., p. 459. 72 For this information and for information on other sites mentioned in this chapter, see The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Archaeology (ed. Daniel M. Master; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). See especially E. Netzer, “Readers Restore and Preserve Herodian Jericho,” BAR 4 (1978). 73 Y. Hirschfeld, Ramat Hanadiv Excavations (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000). 74 Y. Yadin, Masada, 8 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1989) and J. F. Hall and J. W. Welch, eds., Masada and the World of the New Testament (Provo: BYU Studies, 1997). 75 Győző Vörös, Machaerus I (Milan: Terra Santa, 2013). Volume one reports on the excavations and surveys from 1807 to 2012. Győző Vörös, Machaerus II (Milan: Terra Santa, 2015). Volume two is the final report of excavations from 1968 to 2015 [the volumes are richly illustrated]. 76 See Dayagi-Mendels and Rozenberg, eds., Chronicles of the Land, p. 107 [Illus. 12].



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77 See P. Bohstrom, “Mighty Fortifications Found by Archaeologists Show Kingdom of Geshur More Powerful Than Thought,” Haaretz Breaking News from Israel & the Mideast (July 20, 2016). 78 See J. H. Charlesworth, “Tzer, Bethsaida, and Julias,” in Bethsaida (ed. R. Arav and R. A. Freund; Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press), pp. xi–xiii. 79 See U. Leibner, Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee (TSAJ 127; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2009). See J. H. Charlesworth’s review of Uzi Leibner’s Settlement and History in Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine Galilee in JSHJ 8 (2010): 281–84. 80 See H.-W. Kuhn, “Did Jesus Stay at Bethsaida? Arguments from Ancient Texts and Archaeology for Bethsaida and Et-Tell,” in Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus 4:2973–3021 (with plates). 81 See P. Smith, et al. “The Human Remains from Area H,” in Excavations at the City of David 1978-1985 (ed. A. De Groot and D.T. Ariel; Qedem 33; Jerusalem: The Institute of Archaeology of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1992) vol. 3, pp. 54–62. 82 See the discussions in Jesus and Temple: Textual and Archaeological Explorations (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014). Also see: B. Mazar, The Mountain of the Lord (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975); Y. Yadin, ed., Jerusalem Revealed: Archaeology in the Holy City, 1968-1974, trans. and abridged R. Grafman (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1975); N. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (Nashville: T. Nelson, 1980, 1983); M. Ben-Dov, In the Shadow of the Temple: The Discovery of Ancient Jerusalem, trans. I. Friedman (New York: Harper & Row, 1985). H. Shanks, Jerusalem: An Archaeological Biography (New York: Random House, 1995). L. and K. Ritmeyer, Jerusalem: The Temple Mount (2015). L. and K. Ritmeyer, Jerusalem in the Year 30 AD (Jerusalem: Carta, 2015). 83 P. Bohstrom, “Archaeologists Uncover Life of Luxury in 2,000-year-old Priestly Quarters of Jerusalem,” Haaretz (July 12, 2016). 84 I have climbed each of the desert fortresses, often wondering where some of Herod’s family could be buried. 85 For a popular article with color images, see E. Netzer, “In Search of Herod’s Tomb,” BAR 37 (January/February 2011). A superb exhibit of Netzer’s discovery was featured in the Israel Museum; see Y. Roman, ‫חייו ומותו של מלר יהודה‬: ‫( הורדוס‬Tel Aviv: Eretz Hatzvi, 2013). Obviously, some archaeologists will find Netzer’s claims unacceptable, pointing out that the tomb is too ordinary for a megalomaniac like Herod the Great, and agreeing with the opinion of Joseph Patrich; see T. Ghose, “King Herod’s Tomb: A Mystery Yet Again,” The Huffington Post (October 16, 2013). For Patrich’s own thoughts, see J. Patrich and B. Arubas, “Revisiting the Mausoleum at Herodium: Is it Herod’s Tomb?” Palestine Exploration Quarterly 147 (2015): 299–315. 86 See especially F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp et al., eds., Hebrew Inscriptions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), pp. 335–37. 87 M. Lubetski, “Father of Nehemiah Reflects Spirit of the Times,” in Recording New Epigraphic Evidence: Essays in Honor of Robert Deutsch (ed. M. Lubetski and E. Lubetski; Jerusalem: Leshon Limudim, 2015), pp. 107–12. 88 Hannah M. Cotton et al., Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae, 4 vols. (Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2010–14). The abbreviation is CIIP. See my forthcoming review in the Journal for the Historical Jesus. 89 See B. Porton in Recording New Epigraphic Evidence: Essays in Honor of Robert Deutsch, pp. 123–75. 90 See notably T. Zahn, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Leipzig and Erlangen: Verlagsbuchhandlung Dr. Werner Scholl, 1921; reprinted in 1983 by R. Brockhaus

206

91 92 93 94 95

96

97 98 99 100 101 102 103

104 105

Jesus as Mirrored in John Verlag Wuppertal) pp. 496–97; J. H. Bernard, Gospel According to St. John (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1928) vol. 2, p. 408; and especially A. Schlatter, Der Evangelist Johannes (Stuttgart: Calwer Vereinsbuchhandlung, 1930) p. 261. See Y. Tsafrir et al., Tabula Imperii Romani Iudaea-Palaestina (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1994), p. 64. See J. H. Charlesworth, “Jesus Research and Archaeology,” in The World of the New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts (ed. J. B. Green and L. M. McDonald; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), pp. 439–66 [with images]. S. Gitin, T. K. Dothan et al., Tel Miqne-Ekron Excavations, 1995-1996: Field INE East Slope, Iron Age (Early Philistine Period) (Jerusalem: W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological research and Institute of Archaeology in the Hebrew University, 2006). See L. E. Stager, “New Discoveries in the Excavations of Ashkelon in the Bronze and Iron Ages,” Qadmoniot 39 (2006) [in Hebrew]. See the colored images in Dayagi-Mendels and Rozenberg, eds., Chronicles of the Land, p. 47 (Illus. 11). See especially L. E. Sager, “The House of the Silver Calf of Ashkelon,” in Timelines: Studies in Honour of Manfred Bietak (ed. E. Czerny, I. Hein, H. Hunger, D. Melman and A. Schwab; Leuven: Peeters 2006) vol. 2, pp. 403–410. See R. Voss, “A Sequence of Four Middle Bronze Gates in Asheklon,” in The Middle Bronze Age in the Levant: Proceedings of an International Conference on MB IIA Ceramic Material, Vienna, January 24–26, 2001 (ed. M. Bietak; Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2002), pp. 379–84. I must express appreciations to “Ross” for numerous trips to Ashkelon and for the insights he shared with me, including holding and discussing a serpent on a bowl. See the magisterial volumes published by Y. Magen: Flavia Neapolis: Shechem in the Roman Period, 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, 2000). Parts are translated by M. Guggenheimer. I am not offering substantial notes, as focus must return to John; yet, I wish to honor Ezar Hirschfeld for days of exploring Ain Feshka with him. Roland de Vaux’s judgment about Ain Feshka needs to be updated. For further reflection on Jesus and Topography, see J. H. Charlesworth, “Jesus of History and the Topography of the Holy Land,” in Handbook for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 3:2213–42. See the photographs and comments in Neil Folberg, In a Desert Land: Photographs of Israel, Egypt, and Jordan (New York and London: Abbeville Press Pub., 1998). D. Bahat, “The Topography of the City,” in The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, pp. 12–19; the quotation is from p. 12. See the topographically revealing book by A. Kleinberg [text] and Ofek Aerial Photography Ltd. [images], Panoramic Israel: Israel 360o (Bnei Brak, Israel: Steimatzky Ltd., 2002). Italics mine. J. Medina, Cézanne and Modernism: The Poetics of Painting (Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), p. 2; also see H. Dudar, “Cézanne’s Endless Quest to Parallel Nature’s Harmony,” Smithsonian 27 (April 1996): 82–88. I am appreciative to Colin Yuckman (one of my students) for helping me locate this insightful quotation that I memorized as a student. I am indebted in these thoughts to the amazing mind of William Poteat. F. D. Peat, a physicist, also re-publishes the quotation from Cézanne. See Peat’s The Blackwinged Night: Creativity in Nature and Mind (Cambridge, MA: Perseus Books, 2000) see especially chapter 2. Peat is absolutely correct to point out that creativity characterizes the cosmos. I wish to point out that Jesus’ creativity derives not only from direct revelation but also from his closeness to the cosmos and nature. I



106 107

108 109

110 111 112

113 114

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207

am also persuaded that Jesus did spend all night in contemplation, as Luke reports (dianuktereuōn; Lk 6:12). Jesus’ habit of devoting all night to prayer and contemplation (as did Socrates) explains the episode just before his walking on the water (Mk 6:45–48) and his last night in Gethsemane with his closest disciples. John S. Kloppenborg Verbin, “Dating Theodotus (CIJ II 1404)” Journal of Jewish Studies 51 (2000): 243–80 with a clear image (on p. 245). Verbin wisely dates the Theodotus synagogue, a building, to the early first century CE. See E. Netzer, “A Synagogue from the Hasmonean Period Recently Exposed in the Western Plane of Jericho,” Israel Exploration Journal 49 (1999): 203–31 and Nezer, Hasmonean and Herodian Palaces at Jericho (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University, 2013), p. xxiii. Zeev Weiss, The Sepphoris Synagogue (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and Institute of Archaeology, Hebrew University, 2005), p. 4. For a color image of Alexander, see Sarah Griffiths in MailOnline (July 25, 2016). In the Pseudepigrapha are many works suggesting “a cycle” of works attributed to Adam, Enoch, Abraham, David, Solomon, and many others. Perhaps a Samson cycle was honored and highlighted at Hukok; see J. Magness, “Samson in the Synagogue” BAR (January/February 2013), and BAS staff, “Huqoq Synagogue in Israel Reveals Additional Depictions of Samson in the Bible,” Bible History Daily (July 14, 2014). Louis Ginzberg, On Jewish Law and Lore (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America; reprinted at Cleveland: World Publishing Co., 1962), p. 3. See A. Lange and E. Tov, eds., Textual History of the Bible, Volume 1A (Leiden: Brill, 2016). Four volumes are planned. See my publications on this Qumran fragment: J. H. Charlesworth, “An Unknown Dead Sea Scrolls Fragment of Deuteronomy XXVII 4-6,” The Samaritan News 1019–20 (August 8, 2008): 64–68. Charlesworth, “An Unknown Dead Sea Scrolls Fragment of Deuteronomy,” ijco.org [with an image] 2008. Charlesworth, “What is a Variant? Announcing a Dead Sea Scrolls Fragment of Deuteronomy,” MAARAV 16, no. 2 (2009): 201–12, Plate IX and X. Charlesworth, “The Discovery of an Unknown Dead Sea Scroll: The Original Text of Deuteronomy 27?” Ohio Wesleyan Magazine (July 2012) links.owu.edu/Charlesworth; and Charlesworth, “An Unknown Dead Sea Scroll and Speculations Focused on the Vorlage of Deuteronomy 27:4,” in Jesus, Paulus und die Texte von Qumran [H.-W. Kuhn Festschrift] (ed. J. Frey and E. E. Popkes; WUNT 2.390; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2015), pp. 393–414. My notes are designed to aid the exploration of readers; many publications are not mentioned. Where a major discovery is especially significant and new, I supply more notes; but even these are selected. The following section is an updated and rewritten version of a paper presented during the annual meeting of SBL in Atlanta in November 2010 at the request of Professor Edwin Yamauchi for the Near East Archaeology Society. In addition to the current study, see Charlesworth, “Biblical Archaeology: Good Ground for Faith,” U.S. Catholic 59 (July 1994): 14–19; Charlesworth, “Jesus Research and Near Eastern Archaeology: Reflections on Recent Developments,” in Neotestamentica et Philonica: Studies in Honor of Peder Borgen (ed. D. E. Aune et al.; NovTSup 106; Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 37–70; Charlesworth, “Hat die Archäologie Bedeutung für die JesusForschung?” EvT 68 (2008): 246–65; Charlesworth and W. P. Weaver, eds., What Has Archaeology to Do with Faith? (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992), p. 199; Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Archaeology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006); and especially Charlesworth, “Jesus Research and Archaeology,” in The World of the

208

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New Testament: Cultural, Social, and Historical Contexts (ed. J. B. Green and L. M. McDonald; Grand Rapids: Baker, 2013), pp. 439–66 [with images]. 115 See N. Na’aman in Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research (April 1974): 32, note 28. 116 Paul was taken to the “barracks” which would mean the Antonia Fortress; see E. Netzer, “A New Reconstruction of Paul’s Prison: Herod’s Antonia Fortress,” BAR 35.1 (January/February 2009). D. Bahat, “Jerusalem Down Under: Tunnelling Along Herod’s Temple Mount,” BAR 21 (1995): 30–47. One eagerly awaits Shimon Gibson’s definitive publication on the Pool of Bethzatha (Bethesda) in a supplement to Proche-Orient Chrétien. 117 I am deeply grateful for permission to study the area of the Pool of Bethzatha during the period I was Annual Professor at the Albright Institute and for the assistance of Herman Konings at Bethzatha. 118 M.-E. Boismard, Moses or Jesus: An Essay in Johannine Christology (ed. B. T. Viviano; Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 84A; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993). 119 See the discussions in D. Bahat with C. T. Rubinstein, The Carta Jerusalem Atlas (Jerusalem: Carta, 2015). 120 J. Jeremias, The Rediscovery of Bethesda, John 5:2 (Louisville: Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1966). 121 I am indebted to S. Gibson for numerous visits to and discussions about Bethzatha; see his “The Pool of Bethseda in Jerusalem and Jewish Purification Practices of the Second Temple Period,” PrOC 55 (2005): 270–93) for these measurements; see especially p. 286. 122 S. Gibson, “The Pool of Bethseda,” PrOC 55 (2005): 286. 123 For Rousée’s plan of the Pool of Bethzatha (Bethseda), see B. Pixner, Paths of the Messiah and Sites of the Early Church from Galilee to Jerusalem (trans. K. Myrick and S. and M. Randall; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010), p. 35. 124 At Qumran, a plastered barrier in the mikvaot separated those who ascended and were purified from those who were entering the mikveh and were ritually impure. The scholar who first suggested that both the Pool of Bethzatha and the Pool of Siloam are mikvaot is S. Gibson, “The Pool of Bethseda,” PrOC 55 (2005): 291. 125 Consult J. H. Charlesworth, “An Asclepian Cult in Jerusalem?” in The Good and Evil Serpent (New Haven: Yale, 2010), pp. 108–16. 126 See L. Edelstein and E. Edelstein, Asclepius: A Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies, 2 vols. (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1945 [1998]). 127 Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent, p. 112, fig. 44. 128 For a study and images of these metal and glass serpents, see Charlesworth, “Anguine Iconography in the Studium Franciscanum Museum and Biblical Exegesis” Liber Annuus 49 (1999): 431–42, plates. 5 and 6; and Charlesworth, “An Asclepian Cult in Jerusalem,” in The Good and Evil Serpent, pp. 114–15, figs. 45–46. 129 I am deeply appreciative of many discussions at the Pool of Siloam with Professor Ronnie Reich and Dr. Eli Shukron. 130 R. Reich, E. Shukron, and O. Lernau, “Recent Discoveries in the City of David, Jerusalem,” Israel Exploration Journal 57 (2007): 153–68; and H. Shanks, “The Siloam Pool Where Jesus Cured the Blind Man,” Biblical Archaeology Review 31 (2005): 16–23. 131 See G. Ibba, “Gesù e l‘impuro,” in Il Vangelo di Marco e l’impuro (Brescia: Editrice Morcelliana, 2014), pp. 59–93.



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132 “His” may refer to the believer or to Jesus. Has the Evangelist intended both meanings? Double entendre is a Johannine technique and it also appears frequently in the Odes of Solomon. 133 See T. García-Huidobro, Celestial Intermediaries: Jewish Roots of Early Christianity (Moscow: St. Thomas Institute, 2016 [in Russian]). 134 J. H. Charlesworth, “Il figlio dell'uomo, il primo giudaismo, Gesù e la cristologia delle origini,” in Il Messia: Tra Memoria e Attesa (ed. G. Boccaccini; Brescia: Editrice Morcelliana, 2005), pp. 87–110, and Charlesworth, “Can We Discern the Composition Date of the Parables of Enoch?” in Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables (ed. G. Boccaccini et al.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), pp. 450–68. Also see the many contributions to Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift. 135 J. H. Charlesworth, “The Historical Jesus in the Fourth Gospel: A Paradigm Shift,” JSHJ 8 (2010): 3–46. 136 An abundance of stone vessels are known archaeologically from the time of Jesus. They have been found at places such as Qumran, Jerusalem, and in Lower Galilee. They were demanded for Jewish ritual laws, as only stone, glass, and metal prohibited impurities from entering a vessel (cf. Temple Scroll col. 50). 137 J. H. Charlesworth, “Revealing the Genius of Biblical Authors: Symbology, Archaeology, and Theology,” CV 46 (2004): 124–40.

210

Part Three

The Gospel of John and Other Sacred Literature

John and the Dead Sea Scrolls

7

The Dualism of Qumran and the “Dualism” of John1

Qumran dualism and its possible relation to Johannine “dualism” has been a subject of considerable interest and discussion. In the light of the demise of Qumran fever, the time may be opportune for a fresh assessment of the evidence. In this chapter we shall confine ourselves to the crucial passage in 1QS, specifically 3.14–4.26. It was probably the lore Essenes would have memorized to cross over into the Community. After examining the type of dualism reflected in these two columns, we shall proceed first to investigate the Johannine “dualism” separately, secondly to draw comparisons and contrasts, and finally to ask whether we are thereby led to any conclusions about the provenience of the Johannine tradition.2 While the purpose of the present study is to define the type of dualism contained in 1QS 3.13–4.26 and in the Gospel of John, a brief note regarding the terminology employed in the following pages is appropriate. The term “dualism” can refer to a pattern of thought, an antithesis, which is bifurcated into two mutually exclusive categories (e.g., two spirits or two worlds), each of which is qualified by a set of properties and ethical characteristics which are contrary to those under the other antithetic category (e.g., light and good vs. darkness and evil). There are various types of dualism in the history of ideas: philosophical, anthropological, psychological, physical, metaphysical, cosmological, cosmic, ethical, eschatological, and soteriological. However, few phenomena in the history of religion would be representatively defined by only one of these terms. We have attempted to apply the following definitions: psychological dualism denotes two contrary inclinations which are found only within man. Physical dualism means the absolute division between matter and spirit. Metaphysical dualism signifies the opposition between God and Satan. Cosmic dualism denotes the conception of two opposing celestial spirits or two distinct and present divisions of the universe. Ethical dualism signifies the bifurcation of mankind into two mutually exclusive groups according to virtues or vices. Eschatological dualism denotes the rigid division of time between the present eon and the future one. Soteriological dualism means the division of mankind caused by faith (acceptance) or disbelief (rejection) in a Savior. The type of dualism with which we are concerned is a modified dualism and not a polarity between two equal, eternal forces or concepts.

214

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1  The dualism in 1QS 3.13–4.263 1QS 3.13–4.26 begins with the clear purpose of instructing the Qumran covenanters regarding man’s nature. In the prologue (3.15b–18a) the scribe posits the belief that from the God of Knowledge comes all that is. Everything, therefore, is not only derivative from the Creator, but is dependent upon him (as in the Logos Hymn or Poem). In the first section of the body of this discourse (3.18b–4.1), the author records that “two spirits” were allotted unto man that he should walk in them; in 1QS 3.18–19, we are told they are “the Spirits of Truth and Deceit” (‫)רוחות האמת והעול‬. The first is the “Spirit of Truth” which originates in “a habitation of light.” The second is the “Spirit of Perversity” which originates in “a spring of darkness.” The “Prince of Lights” (‫ )שר אורים‬has dominion over all the “Sons of Righteousness,” and the “Angel of Darkness” (‫ )מאלך חושך‬has dominion over the “Sons of Perversity.” In the second section of the body of this discourse (4.2–8), one is informed about the ethical and religious attributes of the “Sons of Light” (‫ )בני אור‬who are the “Sons of Truth” (‫ )בני אמת‬and their reward “in perpetual life.” In the third section (4.9–14) the scribe presents the moral callousness and impiety of those who walk in the “Spirit of Perversity,” and their reward of torment and bitterest misfortune until “they are destroyed.” In the final section (4.15–26) one is taught that these two spirits continue a battle in which the “Spirit of Perversity” is eventually annihilated. Before we get to the heart of the controversy over the dualism in 1QS 3.13ff.— whether or not we are presented with a cosmic dualism—it is necessary to observe five of its important characteristics: the predominance of the light-versus-darkness motif, the ethical implications, the belief in an absolute determinism, the solution of the origin of evil, and the eschatological framework. Perhaps the most conspicuous characteristic of the dualism in this document is the predominance of the light-versus-darkness motif. The contrast between the two warring spirits is immediately evident since the “Spirit of Truth” and the “Spirit of Perversity” are categorized on opposite sides of the mutually exclusive light-versusdarkness paradigm. Light or darkness denotes the origin and qualifies the actions of the respective spirit. Light is often used interchangeably for righteousness, and darkness is frequently applied alternatively for perversity.4 Hence “Spirit of Truth” seems synonymous with “Prince of Light,”5 and “Spirit of Perversity” seems equivalent to “Angel of Darkness.”6 Indeed, the probability that these expressions are synonymous is strengthened by the observation that there are various names for God: ‫מאל הדעות‬ (“from the God of Knowledge”), ‫“( אל ישראל‬the God of Israel”), and ‫“( אל נקמת‬the God of Vengeance”). Surely, no one would suggest that these expressions reveal a belief in three different gods; rather it is clear that these expressions are also alternative names of the same reality. The same linguistic phenomenon applies to the names for the evil one. The ethical implications of this paradigm are explicitly enumerated in 4.2–14. First, the ways of the “Spirit of Light” are described by means of a list of righteous attitudes and moral deeds. Next, the ways of the “Spirit of Darkness” (here called the “Spirit of Perversity”) are presented by means of a list of immoral deeds and a perverse personality described in bodily terms (viz., “tongue,” “eye,” “ear,” “neck,” and “heart”). This observation reveals the treatise is essentially Jewish since these



The Dualism of Qumran and the “Dualism” of John

215

expressions presuppose an earthly and homogeneous anthropology distinct from the Greek transcendent and bifurcated concept.7 We learn that there are two distinct and mutually exclusive groups of men, respectively characterized not only by light and darkness but also by virtues and vices. The expression of ethical ideas in terms of the light-darkness paradigm is shared by this section in 1QS with other post-exilic Jewish documents. The germinal idea of this paradigm may be traced to the division of light and darkness in Gen 1:3–5 (e.g., 1:4, ‫ִי־טֹוב‬ ִ ‫) ַו ַּי ְ֧רא א‬.8 S. Aalen, however, has correctly seen that the important ֑ ‫ֱֹלה֛ים אֶת־ה ָ֖אֹור ּכ‬ distinction between the meaning of this schema in the Old Testament and in the intertestamental literature is that in the latter it obtained an ethical dimension.9 Finally, it should be observed that in no other Jewish document did this concept attain so high a level of sophistication. Conjoined with this ethical dualism is the belief in an absolute determinism. 1QS 3.15 states that God is the sole Creator of all that is and shall be, and that before things came into existence he determined (‫)הכין‬10 all their design (‫)כול מחשבתם‬. In 1QS 3.16, moreover, it is stated that when things had come into being they fulfilled their work (functions, tasks) according to “their appointed roles” (‫)לתעודותם‬, in accordance with his glorious design (‫)כמחשבת כבודו‬. Most scholars lean toward the view either that determinism is presented here although neither logically nor speculatively developed (so R. E. Brown),11 or that this passage conveys a rigorous predestinarian formulation (so F. M. Cross, J. Licht, J. T. Milik, and H. Ringgren).12 It is worth noting that to join the Community was not a free act of choice;13 it was an appointed task carried through by one predestined by nature to be a son of light (3.18).14 The preceding discussions prompt the following question: How does 1QS 3.13–4.26 account for the origin of evil? It appears that the author of this treatise felt that he had solved this pervasive riddle for post-exilic Judaism and protected explicit monotheism. Greed, falsehood, pride, deceit, hypocrisy, lust, and all the other evils in the world are caused by one spirit, who is called the “Spirit of Perversity” or the “Angel of Darkness.” It is conceivable, as some scholars have suggested,15 that this cosmic being is to be identified with the customary name for the “Devil” in the Dead Sea Scrolls,16 Belial, which is mentioned four times in the two columns which precede this passage (1.18, 24; 2.5, 19).17 It is clear that our author wanted to attribute the cause of all evil to one spirit. His solution to this problem, however, is transparent precisely because he has not advocated an absolute dualism but has subjugated the evil spirit to God who created all things (3.15b), established all things (3.25: “And he created the Spirits of Light and Darkness and upon them he established every act”), and ordained all things (3.15–16, “all that is and shall be . . . fulfill their task . . . according to his glorious design”). Hence, his monotheistic faith and concomitant belief in God’s supreme sovereignty leads him inadvertently to attribute the cause of all things, even evil, to the “God of Israel” (3.24). But only the evil cosmic spirits are directly responsible for evil. Has belief in God’s omnipotence been sacrificed? The attempt to solve the problem of evil found in this treatise is not as successful as other explanations found in post-exilic Jewish documents. An important distinction not made in this passage is found in the solution presented by both the author of 1En 6:1–6; 7:1; 10:8–9 and the author of the Book of Jubilees 5:1–2.18 In these pseudepigrapha,

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evil is not ultimately attributable to God but to the fallen angels’ willful corruption of their freedom. Two additional explanations for the cause of evil were prevalent in post-exilic Judaism. Note the contention found in the Apocalypse of Abraham 26 that sin originated with Adam’s rejection of God’s will and the rabbinic explanation found in the Mishnah at Berakot 9:519 that evil is caused by the “evil inclination” in man. Certainly 1QS’s solution would also be weaker than either of these if it could be proved that Adam’s sin and the “evil inclination” were conceived as something for which Adam or man himself were solely responsible, but there is evidence both for (ApocAb 26; Gen 6:5; TAsh 1:6–9; 4 Ezra 8:56–60) and against (Gen 8:21, see Gen 9:7 in Midrash Rabbah) such an assumption. There is even evidence of the belief that the origin of evil is a mystery which man is incapable of understanding (4 Ezra 4:4–11). Of course, there is a loophole even in these explanations for God must allow evil to exist since apparently in these texts he is also omnipotent. Nevertheless, it is important to observe that while in other intertestamental texts there is a possible attribution of evil to an angel’s free will or to Adam’s own responsibility or to man’s own failure to control his “evil inclination” by means of his “good inclination,” there is in 1QS 3.13–4.26 no similar recourse, for it is clearly stated that God created the “Spirit of Darkness.” That declaration means this spirit was evil from the instant he was created; he did not fall from an original state of purity as in Genesis 6 and 1 Enoch 1–36.20 In order to understand the dualism in this section of 1QS it is necessary to comprehend its eschatological nature. One of the most striking features of the Qumran sect is its consciousness that it was living in the last days, so this passage in 1QS was written in an eschatological key.21 While eschatology is present in the beginning of this discourse (3.18b: “until the time of his visitation”), it soon crescendos in a fugal pattern, as it were, appearing with intensity in the closing lines of each section of the teaching until it bursts forth to occupy the major portion of the final section (4.18b– 26). Let me reiterate more specifically: in the closing lines of section one, we read that God loves everlastingly the “Spirit of Light” but hates for ever22 the counsel of the “Spirit of Darkness.” The low eschatological tone in these verses reaches a much higher level in the closing lines of the second section, where we read about the rewards of the “Sons of Truth.” Even more space is taken to describe the eschatological fate of the “Sons of Perversity” at the close of section three. And in contrast to this section, the final one allots almost three times as much space to eschatology.23 Moreover, woven into the fugal pattern of this movement are two distinct eschatological levels. The eschatology in the closing lines of the first two sections is one which breaks into the present. When we reach the last lines of section three, however, we find both an emphasis on interim eschatology and also the introduction of a more distant time when the “Spirit of Perversity” will be annihilated. In the final section the progression of the fugal movement is complete as the emphasis is placed clearly upon the final judgment: “until the appointed time for judgment” (4.19b–20a).24 In answer to the apparent question, how distant is the final judgment, the author of this treatise, as J. Licht remarked,25 declares the unfathomable mystery of God’s wisdom (4.18). The consensus of scholarly opinion has been that 1QS 3.13–4.26 emphasizes a cosmic dualism between two warring spirits who are locked in a titanic warfare,



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although it is readily conceded that the cosmic dualism does break into the so-called “psychological” arena of each man.26 Lately, however, P. Wernberg-Møller has argued for an entirely psychological interpretation.27 He maintains that it is hard to comprehend how Dupont-Sommer’s interpretation can insist both that the human personalities are made up of various mixtures of two metaphysical cosmic spirits, that all partake of both spirits, and that men can be divided into two exclusive groups. Consequently, he rejects Dupont-Sommer’s view that “their works, with their classes” in 3.14 refers to the two catalogues of virtues in 4.2–6 and vices in 4.9–11. At this point Wemberg-Møller uncovers a possible problem in the theology of the scroll, but perhaps it can be resolved in the following manner. The Rule of the Community (1QS) contains the idea that men are divided into two mutually exclusive camps; they are either “Sons of Light” or “Sons of Darkness.” This distinction is clearly made in 1QS 3.18ff. Two other observations, however, must be made. First, each individual exhibits varying degrees of virtues (4.2–6) and vices (4.9–11). Each person is a mixture of virtues and vices and is a “Son of Light” or a “Son of Darkness” according to the degree to which he displays respectively good or evil (4.16).28 Secondly, a “Son of Light” may reveal eventually that he is actually a “Son of Darkness.” The evil portion in a “Son of Light” may be removed by his own actions or will disappear with the final destruction of the evil spirit and the purification of the Holy Spirit. The Rule of the Community was written to clarify by what criteria one was to be admitted into the Community and by what standard a member of the congregation was to be promoted, demoted, or ejected. P. Wernberg-Møller contends, furthermore, that in 4.23 the scribe is not dealing with a kind of cosmic dualism represented by the two spirits.29 He suggests that when the Jew wrote “until now the Spirits of truth and evil have been contesting in (for) [‫ ]בלבב‬the hearts of man,” he advocated the idea that man was created by God with two spirits and that ‫ רוח‬is used here as a psychological term. He derives this conclusion from the fact that the two spirits were created by God and dwell “in man.” However, they do not dwell “in man”; they are cosmic forces that target the human. The belief that the two spirits were created and are limited in time does not suggest that they must be inward or psychological forces. Likewise, there is no suggestion that the two spirits dwell in man exclusively. Rather in 3.18 we read that God allotted the two spirits unto man (‫)וישם לו‬.30 This verb, ‫שים‬, when combined with the preposition ‫ל‬, means “to set for” (Gen 43:32; 2Sam 12: 20) or to “direct toward” (1Sam 9:20; Deut 2:46). If this verb had been combined with the preposition which would probably have meant “to put in” (Gen 31:34), then a psychological rendering might have been possible. Furthermore, in 4.12 it is clearly stated that the “Angels of Destruction (or Punishment)” (‫ )מלאכי חבל‬plague all who walk in the “Spirit of Perversity” in a place which is neither in man nor on earth, but in the everlasting pit (‫)לשחת עולמים‬.31 P. Wernberg-Møller correctly asserts that the ethical demands of the Community were so rigid that the members fell far short of the ideal; but what is more important to our investigation is that they knew they were far below these ethical demands. In 1QS 3.13–4.26 we find the differences between what the covenanters were eschatologically, by divine election (‫ )בני אור‬and what they were in reality during their sojourn here on earth. Consequently, he contends: “The darkness is not merely outside the community: it is present in the

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hearts of all the members.”32 This statement seems to disclose that he has misread A. Dupont-Sommer, K. G. Kuhn, F. M. Cross, Jr, and others who advocate a cosmological dualism. These scholars do not argue that the cosmological dualism was “merely outside the community.” The two spirits are cosmic and explain the forces of good and evil in the Community, on earth and in the universe.33 One of Wemberg-Møller’s pivotal points is the contention that ‫ תולדות‬in 3.19 should be translated “characters,” “dispositions,” or “minds,” and that ‫ תולדות‬and ‫“( רוח‬spirit”) are synonymous.34 Wernberg-Møller and A. Dupont-Sommer suggest that ‫ תולדות‬in 3.13 denotes “the original source” of the “natures” of all men. To suggest, however, that in 3.19 it should be translated similarly distorts the proper meaning of this noun and overlooks the fact that context determines the precise meaning of a noun when it has considerable semantic range. W. Gesenius’ lexicon as edited by F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs records that ‫תולדות‬, a feminine noun which appears only in the plural, means “generations,” or the account of a man and his descendants.35 Nowhere has it been translated with any psychological connotation. It derives etymologically from the verbal root ‫ילד‬, which in the Qal denotes “to bear” and in the Hiph‘il means “to beget.” Petrus Boccaccio, consequently, translates this passage with this denotation in mind: historiam omnium filiorum hominis (3.13), origines veritatis—origines pravitatis (3.19).36 Moreover, contrary to WernbergMøller’s suggestion,37 ‫אמת‬/‫ אור‬and ‫עול‬/‫ חושך‬had dualistic overtones in post-exilic Judaism.38 It seems certain that at Qumran these terms did have dualistic overtones (1QS 3.25; 10.1; 1QM 1.1–2f; 13.15–16; etc.). The preceding remarks demonstrate why 1QS 3.13–4.26 does not espouse a psychological dualism. Accordingly, far from accepting Wernberg-Møller’s position, it is evident that this passage expresses a cosmic dualism, even though the cosmic spirits struggle for control of human actions. For example, in 3.25 it is stated both that God created the two spirits and that he founded upon them every work. Since for post-exilic Jews angels (the terms angel and spirit are sometimes used synonymously throughout this section of 1QS)39 were unquestionably cosmic beings and not merely psychological projections, anyone advocating a psychological rendering of this passage must necessarily explain why here particularly “Angel of Darkness” or “Angel of Truth” should be drained of their cosmic force.40 The specialist will also be forced to explain why the scribe wrote ‫לו‬, “for him,” and not ‫בו‬, “in him,” (see 3.18).41 Four other observations strengthen our argument that 1QS 3.13ff. presents a cosmic dualism. First, J. Strugnell has shown that the angelology of the Angelic Liturgy is celestial. This Qumran composition reveals that the Essenes imagined a heavenly sacrificial cult with celestial beings (or angels) who performed priestly functions. The cosmic dimension of this document increases the probability that the dualism in 1QS 3.13ff. is cosmic since both seem to date from the same early stage in the development of Qumran theology.42 Second, the astrological document from Qumran published by J. M. Allegro has striking similarities with 1QS 3.13–4.26. In this document (2.7–8), a Jew explains the influence of the stars upon humans; according to the time of his birth, a person is allotted unto him (‫ )לו‬portions of light and darkness. The similarities between this passage and 1QS 3.18b–4.1 are impressive. For example, in 1QS 3.19 we read that



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the “Spirit of Truth” originates “in a habitation of light” (‫)במעון אור‬, and in Allegro’s document we read of a spirit that originates “in a house of light” (‫)בבית האור‬. In 1QS 3.19, we learn that the “Spirit of Perversity” comes “from a spring of darkness” (‫)וממקור חושכ‬,43 and in Allegro’s document we read of a spirit that originates “in a well of darkness” (‫)בבור החושך‬.44 Third, Y. Yadin demonstrates the Qumranite cosmology: “Israel will overcome her enemies because God Himself and His angels fight in Israel’s ranks.”45 It is significant that Yadin suggests that the purpose of 1QM was to apply the cosmic dualistic doctrine defined in 1QS 3.13–15.46 Fourth, S. Holm-Nielsen and M. Delcor have shown that the Hodayot (the Thanksgiving Hymns) have cosmic dimensions. For example, note 1QH 3.21–22: “And the perverted spirit Thou hast cleansed from the great transgression, to stand in the assembly with the host of the saints, and to come into communion with the congregation of the sons of heaven.”47 M. Delcor, therefore, correctly contends that one may speak of a sort of mystic communion between the sectarians and the celestial beings so that the community was thought of as a kind of “antichambre du ciel.”48 The conclusions from the research of Strugnell, Allegro. Yadin, Holm-Nielsen, and Delcor strengthen our conclusion that 1QS 3.13–4:26 presents a cosmic dualism. If we are dealing with Qumran’s cosmic dualism, can we trace its antecedents? The scholarly answers given to this question can be arranged into two somewhat overlapping viewpoints: K. G. Kuhn,49 C. T. Fritsch,50 F. M. Cross, Jr.,51 A. Dupont-Sommer,52 D. Winston,53 J. M. Allegro,54 and H. Ringgren55 argue that it has been influenced by the Iranian Weltanschauung. F. Nötscher,56 J. van der Ploeg,57 H. J. Schonfleld,58 and O. Böcher59 contend that it reflects a further development of biblical thought. The latter group point out that the dualism in 1QS 3.13–4.26 remains rooted in the monotheism of the Old Testament. However, striking similarities between the mythology of 1QS and a particular system developed in Iran may encourage us to look in that direction, namely to Zurvanism, which was current as early as the fourth century BCE.60 As at Qumran, the adherents of this religion believed in one supreme God.61 Their God of Time or Destiny, called Zurvan, transcended the spirit of light and the spirit of darkness as in 1QS 3.15ff.62 Zurvan was the father of Ohrmazd, who “was on high in omniscience and goodness; for infinite Time he was ever in the Light. That Light is the Space and place of Ohrmazd: some call it the Endless Light”63 Zurvan was also the father of Ahriman, who was “slow in knowledge, whose will is to smite; was deep down in the darkness: (he was) and is, yet will not be. The will to smite is his and darkness is his place: some call it the Endless Darkness.”64 The consonance of this dualism with Jewish monotheism,65 the apparently clear solution to the problem of evil contrasted with the obscure, futile attempts within Judaism and the similarities between this aspect of Zurvanism and the ideas found in 1QS 3.15ff. prompt the view that the author of 1QS 3.13–4.26 derived his dualism from the Zurvanites.66 Moreover, the fact that Zurvanism was probably predominant in the time when Essene67 thought developed, that both are qualified dualisms and contain a deterministic view, that both dualistic beliefs are cosmic and permeated by a similar light-versus-darkness motif, that both dualisms focus on two warring spirits, and that most scholars opt for Iranian dualism as the origin of post-exilic biblical dualistic thought68 supports the idea that

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the Essenes were directly influenced by the Zurvanites. Conceivably indeed, when one reflects that the caravan routes between Iran and Egypt went through Palestine, the Essenes may have received this influence viva voce from the Zurvanites themselves.69 It is also possible that the Jews, who were returning intermittently from Babylon, brought with them to Palestine these dualistic conceptions which they had received from their Zurvanite neighbors. In summation, the dualism in this treatise has seven70 salient features.71 First, we find a modified dualism both because the “Spirit of Truth” and the “Spirit of Perversity” are subjugated to one God and because the dualism is limited by the finite existence of the “Spirit of Perversity”—he appeared after God and will disappear at the final judgment (4.18). Second, the dualism is explained in terms of the light-versusdarkness paradigm, which is raised to a unique degree of sophistication. Third, there is an ethical dualism in the sense that men are divided into two mutually exclusive camps according to virtues or vices. Fourth, conjoined with this ethical dualism is a belief in an absolute determinism; according to the Qumranites one is created either a Son of Light or a Son of Darkness. Fifth, although the author attempted to solve the problem of evil by positing an evil spirit, God becomes ultimately responsible because of the author’s monotheistic and predestinarian beliefs. Sixth, there is an eschatological dualism both because the entire treatise is written in an eschatological key and because there are present rewards or punishments and future rewards or punishments—and finally the extinction of the Spirit of Darkness. Seventh, although the titanic struggle of the two spirits seems to be directed to the heart of man (4.23), it is not limited to man, but has cosmic dimensions which reflect the influence of Zurvanism. In conclusion, the treatise presents a modified cosmic dualism, under which is a subordinate ethical dualism, whose most conspicuous characteristic is the light-versus-darkness paradigm, and most pervasive feature is the eschatological dimension.

2  Johannine “dualism” We now turn to an examination of the passages in the Gospel of John which suggest a dualistic framework. In the Gospel we find the belief in two worlds assumed;72 assumed, in the sense that this belief is neither introduced and defined before it is applied nor made the intentional subject of any passage. The primary world is the “world above” (ἄνωθεν) which is both the region73 from which the angels descend and to which they ascend (ἀναβαίνοντας καὶ καταβαίνοντας, see 1:51; 3:13; 3:31; 3:33; 6:41, 50, 51, 58, 62, et passim) and the realm from which all emanates (in 1:3 and 1:10 it is stated that the Logos created all things, in 19:11 we read that Pilate receives his power “from above”). The “world above” is contrasted with the “world below” (τῶν κάτω), which is comparatively limited in quality and quantity (6:51, 58, 63; 4:13f.), which is the object of action from above (1:11; 6:38–40; 6:51; 17:6–10), and which hates (7:7) the “world above.” It is important to note, moreover, that the “world below” does not signify the underworld or Hades. It signifies the inhabited earth which has rejected the revelation of Christ (note the antithetic parallelism of 8:23 and the consequent similarity of κάτω and κόσμου).



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These two different worlds are represented by two sets of forces. The “force” from above is Christ (who is the Logos, 1:14, who is divine, 1:1, also the variant in 1:18 μονογενὴς θεός, “only God”), who is opposed by “this world.” The “force” from above is one (1:1, 14; 17:3, 21) but the “force” from below is manifold (8:23f. et passim, “the Jews”; 13:27; 12:31; 14:30; 13:2; 7:7).74 The main actors within this framework are Jesus and “the Jews.” Jesus’ twelve disciples display an ambiguous faith and are portrayed as intermittently moving between belief and doubt; consequently neither are they categorized as “of the world” (ἐκ τοῦ κόσμου; 15:18–19) nor willing to commit themselves fully to Jesus since he must finally ask them: “Now do you believe?” (ἄρτι πιστεύετε; 12:16; 16:32).75 The word kosmos (κόσμος) plays an important conceptual role in the theology of the Fourth Evangelist. It is used eight times in Matthew, three times in Mark, three times in Luke, but seventy-eight times in John. It appears as early as 1:9 where it is the place into which the light (τὸ φῶς) which came is synonymous with the Logos (ὁ λόγος) and Christ (ὁ Χριστός). In the next verse, it is stated that the cosmos did not always exist but came into being through the light, and that it did not know (ἔγνω) him. Jesus is the one who has come down from above (6:51) in order to give light to the world (6:33; 8:1; 12:46) to save it (1:29; 3:16–17, 19; 4:42; et passim) and to sacrifice himself in the end vicariously for the sake of the world (6:51). John clearly points out that Jesus (ὁ λόγος, τὸ φῶς, ὁ θεός) was sent “so that the world might be saved through him” (ἵνα σωθῇ ὁ κόσμος διʼ αὐτοῦ; 3:17); but ironically it is the cosmos which hates him (7:7; 15:18–19). W. F. Howard and M. Meinertz rightly point out that the Hellenistic concept of the cosmos as the realm of created things or the realm in which men live receives a theological meaning: “The mass of mankind mobilized in defiance of the divine power.”76 Likewise, C. K. Barrett argues that the concept of “this world” (ὁ κόσμος οὗτος; 8:23; 9:39; 11:9; 12:25, 31; 13:1; 16:11; 18:36) is not simply equivalent to the rabbinic “this age” (‫ עולם הזה‬and τὸ αἰὼν οὗτος), and hence contrasted with a future world, but is contrasted with a world existing and above (ἄνω).77 Therefore, while the cosmos was created by the Logos (1:10), it had not known the Logos (1:10), but had rejected him (1:11, 14) who was the Word. The cosmos, consequently, is an inferior and vulgar force in rebellion against God.78 How similar, as one can see from 8:23, but not always synonymous are the concepts “the cosmos” (ὁ κόσμος) and “the below” (τῶν κάτω) in the Fourth Gospel. Two groups of antithetic categories contrast the two worlds. Light (φῶς) characterizes the “world above” (ἄνω) and darkness (σκοτία) distinguishes the “world below” (κάτω).79 In John’s thoughts light comes first but is immediately opposed by darkness (1:4–5; 3:19). Dark-black is the paint by which he portrays man’s resistance to belief.80 In 3:19 he states why men hate the light: “And men loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil.” Being in darkness is equivalent to being in ignorance: “He who walks in darkness does not know where he goes” (12:35).81 The pericope of the man born blind described in chapter 9 sharply displays the two levels of being in darkness: physical darkness and spiritual darkness. In verse 7 the man who was born blind receives his eyesight but it is not until verses 37–38 that he receives “the true light.” Verse 41 clearly shows that only spiritual blindness (unbelief)

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is condemned. In this chapter, we see the lucid application of the formula presented in 8:12: “Jesus spoke to them saying, ‘I am the light of the world’” (see also 12:35–36, 46). This exegesis reveals that for John “the light of the world” describes what is “essentially a soteriological function rather than a cosmological status.”82 The question arises: Is the Johannine “dualism” operative only on the human level? The overall belief of the Gospel is that all men are in darkness (1:5) but have the potential to believe and receive the light. If they believe then they are called children of God (τέκνα θεοῦ; 1:12) but if they reject the light then they remain in darkness and are not from God (ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ἐστε).83 Consequently, there are not two groups of men, those from above and those from below (as in 1QS 3:15ff.), but initially only Jesus is from above (ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ; 3:13), though later “everyone who believes in him” (πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων ἐν αυτῷ) obtains this quality. Thus, the division caused by man’s response to Jesus is brought into sharp focus in chapter eight. In chapter eight, the Jews claim Abraham as their father (8:44). However, this statement does not reflect a cosmological or ontological connection but a practical and soteriological category as explained on the one hand by the charge “you are not from God,” and on the other by the reasons given why they are so designated: They have rejected “the words of God” (v. 47). In vivid contrast Jesus’ father is God. He absolutely obeys God’s will and so speaks the truth (5:30ff. and 8:45). Men are not divided into two mutually exclusive groups since the criterion is individualistic (homo sui iuris). “The one who believes” (ὁ πιστεύων; 3:16; 12:36) and “the one who does not believe” (ὁ μὴ πιστεύων; 3:18) categorize themselves by their response to the Word (3:16ff.; 5:29, 40; 6:40; 8:12; 11:26). In a sense, but only in the sense that one’s response to Jesus reflexively categorizes an individual as dwelling in darkness or in light, there are two exclusive groups in John.84 In the Fourth Gospel, therefore, we find the idea that all men are in darkness and the suggestion that men are divided into different categories according to their response to Jesus. We must now turn to a question which appeared in the preceding exegesis: “Is the Devil portrayed as a cosmic spirit or as a figure of speech?”85 As “the cosmos” (ὀ κόσμος) obtains the figurative meaning of all that rejects the light and defies God, so “the Devil” (ὁ διάβολος; 6:70; 8:44; 13:2), “the ruler of this world” (ὁ ἄρχων τοῦ κόσμου τούτου; 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), and “Satan” (ὁ Σατανᾶς; 3:27) have begun to lose their completely cosmic, hypostatic quality. Sometimes, it appears to me, these expressions symbolize the force of the collective temptations of this world.86 The Evangelist seemed to mean “not from God” by the expression “from your father the Devil” (8:44–47). The opposite of “he who is of God” (ὁ ὤν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ) is the human who is “not being of God” (ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ οὐκ ὤν); hence, John is consistent with his monotheistic proclamation in 1:1–3 (which is a later addition).87 I imagine that the Devil in John is not only a hypostatic creature because of the following five observations:88 (a) Jesus is not portrayed as struggling against an evil spirit, but against ὁ κόσμος. (b) There are not two exclusive groups of men, but “of the Devil” signifies the base condition of all men. (c) Man is no puppet, but homo sui iuris. (d) Satan is not characterized as a “spirit” or angel (cf. 2En (A) 31:4, “the Devil is the evil spirit of the lower places”). (e) If exegetes would argue with W. Bousset89 that “the Devil” in John is “the ruler of this age” (κοσμοκράτωρ τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου), then, as



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W. F. Howard states,90 the burden of proof lies with them to explain why κοσμοκράτωρ is not found in the Fourth Gospel. There are traces of the old view, that the Devil is a personified creature (e.g., 8:44), but one should expect such ideas because of the Weltanschauung of John’s day; however, the main thrust of the Evangelist is that the Devil is now passé. The reason for this Johannine characteristic is the belief that through his crucifixion Christ overcame the world (16:33) so that the Devil is now defeated and destroyed (12:31; 16:11). As we have just seen, the realizing aspect of the eschatological dimension of John’s “dualism” is important and pervasive. In John, the eschatological view is not primarily futuristic, as in the apocalyptic literature; more than any biblical writer John emphasizes that the last things have already begun to break into the present. This interpretation seems verified by the formula “but the hour is coming and now is” (ἀλλὰ ἔρχεται ὥρα καὶ νῦν ἐστιν; 4:23; 5:25) and the announcement of 12:23: “The hour has come” (ἐλήλυθεν ἡ ὥρα). The following passages elucidate the “realizing” character of Johannine “dualism.” Those who cling to the Law orient themselves around a past revelation (1:17), but those who come and believe in him whom God has sent (8:42) receive the light of a present revelation which has come but is also still to come (15:26; 4:16ff.). The first wine was inferior to “the good wine” which was held “until now” (2:10). And the water from Jacob’s well means one will thirst again (4:12; see 6:58) but the water which Jesus gives is everlasting “living water” (4:10–14). These passages display the present quality of John’s eschatology. Even Solomon’s Temple has become superseded by “the temple of his (Jesus’) body” (2:21). The futuristic eschatology so prevalent in the Synoptics has become modified in John so that despite 5:28–29; 6:39, 40, 44, 51c–58 and 12:48, which a few scholars believe are redactional,91 the emphasis is on “realized” eschatology.92 If, however, these verses are not redactional, we cannot simply overlook them, any more than we can overlook the futuristic aspect of the repeated “the hour is coming” (ἔρχεται ὥρα), or the futuristic quality of “the Paraclete” and “the Spirit of Truth” (ὁ παράκλητος and τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας) in chapter 16. One of the undeniable aspects of Johannine “dualism” is that, while the soteriological task of Jesus of Nazareth has been completed, God’s revelation has not ended. The future holds the last judgment and final revelation.93 Even so the eschatology of the Fourth Evangelist is predominantly “realizing.” The thorny question of predestination in John, which has been approached only obliquely in the preceding pages, must now be examined directly because it points to the limits of John’s “dualism.” In 1:12, the “children of God” (τέκνα θεοῦ) are all who have accepted the Word and believed in Jesus. The commentators who argue for a predestinarian reading of John contend that this doctrine is espoused in verse 13. They hold that the “children of God” have believed precisely because they have come from God. However, there is no chronological division between being a “child of God” and believing.94 The “power to become children of God” (ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα θεοῦ γενέσθαι, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ; 1:12) occurs with the decision to believe. Furthermore, this verse is accompanied by the belief that all things come from God (1:3) and the “true light” enlightens all men (1:9). There is no predestination here, for one is a “child of God” the moment he believes; he does not believe because he has been foreordained a “child of God.”95

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Is there an emphasis upon determinism in 6:37–45? Note verse 37: “All that the father gives to me shall come to me.” One wonders to whom the “all” (πᾶν) refers. If it refers only to those who are given to Jesus then there is an element of determinism, since the “giving” precedes the “coming.” But it is necessary to observe what this verse does not say: it does not say some are not given to Jesus. Hence, there are not two predetermined categories of men. There is no chronological precedence affirmed here but rather a theological precedence, that is, God is prior to man; it is not that man’s election is prior to his act of faith. Recall 6:44: “No man can come to me except the Father who sent me draws him.” Though that verse may sound deterministic, one must not remove it from its context. Jesus has addressed himself to the Jews who have just turned their backs on the present revelation; consequently they are not drawn by God because of their own actions.96 Furthermore, this verse is followed by the statement: “Everyone (πᾶς) who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me.” The “everyone” (πᾶς) itself indicates that all have the potential of being drawn by the Father.97 Indeed, “to draw” is the verb used by the Evangelist when he has Jesus state: “When I am lifted up from the earth, all I will draw to myself ” (κἀγὼ ἐὰν ὑψωθῶ ἐκ τῆς γῆς, πάντας ἑλκύσω πρὸς ἐμαυτόν. 12:32). The fruits of the cross are available to all; in fact, “all” in 12:32 is placed first for emphasis. In chapter 9, Jesus asks the man who had been blind from birth if he believes. Does this question not signify that man’s will plays an important part in believing? An affirmative answer is required when one sees that in contrast to his confession, “I believe, Lord” (9:38), the Pharisees’ spiritual blindness remains because they freely rejected the Light. Jesus’ demand for faith goes forth to all. His words are not meant to instruct but to invite one to make a decision. Throughout the Gospel men are asked if they want to remain in their present situation, that is, in darkness: “I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness” (12:46). Many times the importance of man’s decision is accentuated: “he who believes” (3:16, 36), “he who hears and believes” (5:24), “he who comes” (6:35), “he who follows” (8:12).”98 In conclusion, no doctrine of predestination is espoused by the Fourth Evangelist,99 nor is there any strong emphasis upon determinism. Humanity’s destiny is balanced between God’s sovereign initiative and a human’s response. Verses that initially seem predestinarian may be caused by John’s influence from Qumran. In summation: we have argued that whereas there is no cosmic struggle between two warring spirits there is a cosmic dimension to the distinction between the world above and the world below (or this world). Light and darkness convey, respectively, the superiority of “above” (τῶν ἄνω) and the inferiority of “below” (τῶν κάτω). There are not two distinct or predestined classes of men, according to the Fourth Evangelist. The struggle between light and darkness is portrayed as the struggle between Jesus and “the cosmos.” Nevertheless, belief or disbelief conditions whether one is of the light or of the darkness; that may mean there is some conceivable mirroring of two predestined groups of men. The Devil in John is not primarily a cosmic spirit; the struggle between good and evil is not portrayed as Jesus versus an evil angel; hence there is no unqualified



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metaphysical dualism. John presents a realizing eschatology so that there is no distinct eschatological dualism. Neither do we find a physical dualism.100 The Johannine “dualism” is essentially soteriological and ethical: soteriological and ethical, in the sense that the “dualism” is conceived as Christ opposed by the world, belief opposed by disbelief, light opposed by darkness, truth opposed by falsehood, righteousness opposed by sin, love opposed by hate, and life opposed by death.

3  A comparison of the “dualism” in the Gospel of John and that in 1QS 3.13–4.26 We are now in a position to take up the question of whether John was dependent, in some way, on 1QS. The task of discovering the antecedents of Johannine thought is rather more difficult than in the case of Qumran dualism. If we attempt to trace John’s “dualism” to rabbinic thought we must first recognize that the rabbinical literature was not compiled until long after the Gospel. Yet no doubt some of the rabbinic traditions predate John. If we stress the similarities between John and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs we must first allow for the possible redactions of post-Johannine Christians.101 If we argue for the close parallels between Johannine “dualism” and the Ethiopic Book of Enoch we are faced with the fact that we do not have Aramaic or Greek manuscripts of chapters 37–71. John was probably not dependent in the literary sense upon the extant apocalyptic literature, although he probably was influenced by apocalyptic dualism.102 In the first two sections of 1 Enoch, which are indisputably pre-Christian, we find the belief that the “spirits of the reprobate” and the “children of the watchers” (similar to the unbelievers in John) are to be destroyed (1En 10:15) and that the “children of men” (the believers in John) shall receive “the store chambers of blessing which are in the heaven” (1En 11:1ff.). This belief in a great world judgment seems to be paralleled in Jn 5:28–29.103 Likewise, the two worlds found in John’s thought are parallel to the idea of a dusty earth on which humans struggle and an obscure abode of Yahweh which permeates the canonical Old Testament. Prior to the composition of John, the conception of Satan in Jewish thought not peculiar to Qumran had evolved from God’s obsequious opponent described in the prologue of Job to the full-blown dualistic conception of the Adversary in The Martyrdom of Isaiah.104 In 2:4 of this work we are told that Beliar is “the angel of lawlessness, who is the ruler of this world.” This expression is parallel to Jn 12:31: “the ruler of this world.” Clearly, the search for the relation between the “dualism” in John and the dualism in 1QS 3.13–4.26 must be pursued on two levels. First, there is the question of what the author of John and the author of 1QS both derived in common from the dualistic or incipient dualistic concepts in the Old Testament and the Jewish compositions in Early Judaism. Second, there is the question of what ideas and expressions are unique to 1QS and of whether the author of John has been influenced by them. In answer to the first question our previous comments and studies of a number of scholars found elsewhere105 have made it quite clear that both John and Qumran were influenced, if

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only in a limited degree, by the dualism in early Jewish writings. What is not so obvious is that John shares with 1QS a type of dualism which is unique. In the following pages we hope to clarify this contention. It is significant to note that the characteristic dualism of Second Temple Judaism,106 the thought of two ages or eons sharply distinguished (“this age,” ‫העולם הזה‬, and “the coming age” ‫)העולם הבא‬, is modified by the author of 1QS and the Fourth Evangelist in precisely the same manner. Neither in 1QS 3.13–4.26 (viz., in 4.1, 3, 7, 8, 12, 16, 17, 22) nor in John (viz., in 9:32; 4:14; 6:51; 8:51, 52; 10:28; 11:26; 8:35; 12:34; 13:8; 14:6) are these technical terms found. In 1QS 3.13–4.6, “age” (‫ )עולם‬indicates “everlasting.” In John, with the exception of 9:32—where it is a figure of speech signifying “the world,”— “age” (αἰών) indicates “everlasting.” This observation raises the possibility of some dependence of John on Qumran, a possibility which will become a probability through research shared in the following pages. It seems convenient to begin a comparison of these two dualisms first by discussing the differences then the similarities between John and 1QS. Despite similarities there are also notable differences. Whereas the Rule of the Community affirms that “God appointed for him (man) two Spirits,” John does not teach that there are two hypostatic spirits appointed to plague or help humans.107 In John, while there is a parallel to the “Spirit of Truth,” as we shall see, there is no parallel to the “Spirit of Perversity” (but again one must note the pertinent qualifying remarks in the following discussion of similarities). In 1QS, we read of the “Spirit of Truth” warring against the “Spirit of Perversity” (4.17–19). In John, however, there are not two warring spirits but only one human named Jesus who is also the protological Word who is rejected, betrayed, and persecuted by men; but he is “with God” and above any influence from an evil spirit or angel.108 In 1QS, the dualism is centered on two warring cosmic spirits. In John, the ministry of Jesus is portrayed against a dualism of two worlds. In John, “the Son of Man” is the origin of angels who ascend and descend from one world to the other (καὶ τοὺς ἀγγέλους τοῦ θεοῦ ἀναβαίνοντας καὶ καταβαίνοντας ἐπὶ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου. [1:51; see also 3:13; 6:33, 38, 41, 50, 51, 58, 61; 20:17]. It should be noted that the correlative Hebrew verb to ἀναβαίνειν, ‫עלה‬, is found in 1QS only in line 12 and line 24, and there it has no dualistic or cosmic overtones. The correlative Hebrew verb to καταβαίνειν, ‫ירד‬, does not appear in 1QS. While the dualism in 1QS develops determinism and predestinarianism, the “dualism” in John does not advocate either. The Rule of the Community is quite explicit about there being two distinct classes of men created and predetermined. John no more than implies two groups and is not predestinarian in anything like the full Qumran sense. Another difference between the two types of dualism lies in their respective eschatologies. In the Rule there is a strong futuristic eschatological view, although the future is not far off, since the covenanters believed they were living in the last days. The day when truth shall arise (4.19) and the time of final judgment (4.20) are in the future for Qumran. In John, we find the view that with the incarnation of the divine Logos (1:14) truth came into the world (1:14, 17; 8:32; 14:6), though, paradoxically, the final event is still to come (16:13). The advent of the Messiah



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brought judgment into the world (9:39; 12:31), and again, paradoxically, the judgment is in the future (e.g., 5:28–29; 6:39, 40, 44, 51c–58; 12:48). Consequently, in contrast to Qumran’s futuristic eschatology, John emphasizes that the eschaton has already begun to break into the present. The crucial point is that for the Essenes the Messiah is yet to come, but for John he has already come and has completed his earthly ministry. While their respective eschatologies are different, one should note how similar to 1QS are the few passages in John which talk about the coming of the “Spirit of Truth” (14:17ff.; 15:26f.; 16:13ff.)109 and the final judgment (5:28ff.; 6:38ff.; 12:48). John’ solution to the problem of evil is quite different from that of the Rule. According to 1QS, sin is disobedience to God’s laws (4.9–11); but according to John, sin is primarily the rejection of Christ: “he who does not believe is condemned already” (ὁ δὲ μὴ πιστεύων ἤδη κέκριται [3:18, see also 8:24 and 6:9]). The source of evil in 1QS is external and cosmic; the source of sin in John is within each human. In short, the dualisms in 1QS and John differ from each other in angelology, eschatology, predestination, and the solution to the problem of evil. The differences between these two dualistic systems may be summarized as follows: The Qumran dualism is based upon belief in two warring cosmic spirits; the Johannine “dualism” evolves out of an assumed belief in a spiritual world above and an evil world below. The stress of the eschatology in 1QS is upon the future, but the emphasis of the eschatology in John is upon the present. In 1QS, the prominence of an absolute determinism results from a dualism which is primarily cosmic; in John, the insistence upon believing in the truly human Jesus, “the Christ” and “the Son of Man,” causes his “dualism” to become essentially non-cosmic. In terms of emphasis, therefore, it is wise to perceive that Qumran’s dualism is primarily cosmic and secondarily ethical; but John’s “dualism” is essentially soteriological and only tacitly cosmic. Now as to similarities: There is some similarity between John’s two worlds and the scroll’s two spirits. The world above, like the “Spirit of Truth,” is characterized by light and truth, is the qualifying characteristic predicated of the righteous, and is opposed by the world below. This lower world, which is somewhat similar to the “Spirit of Perversity,” is characterized by darkness and falsehood, and is the abode of unrighteous. In the previous discussion we noted that there is no explicit reference to the “Spirit of Perversity” in John (cf. only two references in Paul to the spirit as an evil force: 1Cor 2:12 and Eph 2:2). A qualifying observation, however, must be made. In Jn 12:31 we read: “Now is the judgment of this world, now shall the ruler of this world be cast out.” Notice that “the world” performs the same function in John as the “Spirit of Perversity” in 1QS; observe that when John mentions the judgment the concept of “the ruler of this world” appears with the belief that “now he shall be cast out.” It is likely that John knew and deliberately toned down a rigid dualism which appears in Jewish thought only in the Scrolls, and developed only in 1QS. Both of these dualisms are modified. The Qumran and Johannine opposites are not absolute. They are unequal. “The world above” and the “Spirit of Truth” are vastly superior to their respective opposites. These opposites are limited in time; evil and perversity will eventually cease. Moreover, they are subordinate to God; in 1QS 3.15 and Jn 1:3 we find the belief that God is supreme and the sole Creator (the Logos is

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identified “with God”). One of the most striking similarities is that both dualisms are so qualified. In both the Rule and John light characterizes the righteous and darkness the unrighteous. Similarity on this point alone, however, proves very little with regard to the Rule’s influence on John. The light-darkness motif was common in John’s day, and was used to describe the contrast between good and evil in many writings (e.g., TLevi 2:8–3:1; 1En 58:5f.; 2Bar 17:4–18:2; 48:50; 59:2). However, none of the authors of these texts emphasize the light-darkness motif as fully as do the author(s) of 1QS 3.13ff. and the author of John. Moreover, the light-darkness paradigm is not found in the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,110 but it is found in the Rule and John. In the Rule and John light symbolically represents life, truth, knowledge, and eternal life; conversely darkness represents death, falsehood, ignorance, and annihilation. This similarity between the Rule and John is impressive. Since the Rule antedates John, the influence must be from the Rule to John. In both 1QS and John there is the emphasis that the righteous shall be rewarded with an everlasting reward (1QS 4.7-8; Jn 3:16, et passim) and the wicked shall not receive eternal punishment, as in Dan 12:2, but shall be destroyed (1QS 4.14; Jn 3:16; 8:21, 24). There is strong agreement reading the results of the final judgment. On the whole, the similarities between John and the Rule appear to be outweighed by such distinct differences as earlier noted. That the differences are evident is not surprising. John’s theology has been transposed into quite another key from Qumran’s theology. The Fourth Evangelist is kerygmatic; the author of 1QS is not. John believes that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah. To take but one instance of the radical differences demanded by John’s belief that Jesus is the Christ, we need only hold up the affirmation of Jn 3:16 against that of 1QS 3.6–8: “For by the Spirit of true counsel concerning the ways of man shall all his iniquities be expiated in order that he may behold the light of life. By the Holy Spirit of the Community, in his truth, he will be purified from all his iniquities.” For John, not any community but only Jesus Christ, the protological Logos, is the One who purifies sinners. After full account is taken of all the dissimilarities in theological perspective, we must ask whether in the realm of symbolism and mythology there exists between John and the Rule any underlying interrelationship of conceptual framework and literary expression.111 We may reasonably hold that the dualistic paradigm between light and darkness is not something each developed independently, but rather something that betokens John’s dependence on the Rule.112 The probability of dependence is increased by the following observations.113 There are four literary formulae which show that John was probably directly influenced by the terminology and ideology in 1QS 3.13–4.26. Both documents use the expressions “Spirit of Truth” and “Holy Spirit.” Moreover, both called the righteous “Sons of Light.” This observation is quite important precisely because the expression “Sons of Light” is characteristic only of Qumran and John.114 This expression is found neither in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (except in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs) nor in the Old Testament Apocrypha; neither, of course, is the term found in the Old Testament books. This observation heightens the importance of the fact that in both texts the reward of the “Sons of Light” is eternal or perpetual life.115 The four shared



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linguistic formulae which suggest a strong correlation between John and 1QS 3.13– 4.26 are the following: 1 2 3 4

τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας “the Spirit of Truth” (Jn 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; and variant in 4:24) τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ἅγιον “the Holy Spirit” (Jn 14:26; 20:22) υἱοὶ φωτὸς “Sons of Light” (Jn 12:36) ζωὴν αἰώνιον “eternal life” (Jn 3:15, 16, 36; 4:14, 36; 5:24, 39; 6:27, 40, 47, 54, 68; 10:28; 12:25, 50, 17:2–3)

‫רוח אמת‬ “the Spirit of Truth” (3.18–19; 4.21, 23) ‫ברוח קודש‬ “by the Holy Spirit” (4.21) ‫בני אור‬ “Sons of Light” (3.13, 24, 25) ‫בחיי נצח‬ “in perpetual (or eternal) life” (4.7)

The terminological and ideological relationship between 1QS 3.13–4.26 and the Gospel of John, which has been exposed by the fact that they share four such unique formulae, increases in extension, strength, and depth with the observation that there are seven additional shared literary expressions: 5 6

τὸ φῶς τῆς ζωῆς “the light of the life” (Jn 8:12) καὶ ὁ περιπατῶν ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ “and he who walks in the darkness” (John 12:35) οὐ μὴ περιπατήσῃ ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ “he will not walk in the darkness” (Jn 8:12)

7

ἡ ὀργὴ τοῦ θεοῦ “the wrath of God” (Jn 3:36)

8

τυφλῶν ὀφθαλμοὺς “the eyes of the blind” (Jn 10:21; see also Jn 9:1–2, 13, 17–20, 24–25, 32, 39–41; 11:37) πλήρης χάριτος “full of grace” (Jn 1:14)

9

‫באור החיים‬ “in the light of the life” (3.7) ‫ובדרכי חושכ יתהלכו‬ “and they shall walk in the ways of darkness” (3.21) ‫ללכת בכול דרכי חושכ‬ “to walk in all the ways of darkness” (4.11) ‫באפ עברת אל נקמה‬ “by the furious wrath of the God of vengeance” (4.12) ‫עורון עינים‬ “blindness of eyes” (4.11) ‫ברוב חסדו‬ “in the fullness of his grace” (4.4) ‫ורוב חסדים‬ “and the fullness of grace” (4.5)

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10 τὰ ἔργα τοῦ θεοῦ “the works of God” (Jn 6:28; 9:3) 11 οἱ ἄνθρωποι . . . ἦν γὰρ αὐτῶν πονηρὰ τὰ ἔργα “the men . . . because their works were evil” (Jn 3:19)

‫מעשי אל‬ “the works of God” (4.4) ‫מעשי תועבה‬ “the works of abomination (evil)” (4.10) ‫כול מעשי גבר‬ “all the works of a man” (4.20)

Examples three, five, six, and eight of the shared linguistic expressions show the strong, correlation between the application, meaning, and importance of the light-darkness paradigm in both texts. Concerning example nine, it is important to observe that in 1QS 4.2–5 we find a reference to God’s “abundant grace” combined with the task of the “Spirit of Truth” to enlighten the “Sons of Truth.” In Jn 1:17, we find the statement that “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” (also see Jn 1:14). We now have demonstrated that John’s pattern of thought was influenced by the dualistic paradigm developed in 1QS 3.13ff. The dependence of John on 1QS becomes more certain when one observes that in both texts “abundant grace” is conjoined not with the usual biblical correlative concepts of “glory” (e.g., Ps 84:11; Eph 1:6) or “favour” (e.g., Est 2:17; Gen 6:8ff.; 19:19) but with “truth.” Finally, it is significant that in both texts “the works of God” are antithetical to “the works of a man (or men).” It is important to note that these eleven literary expressions are not shared by John with a voluminous work, but with only one and a half columns of 1QS. Certainly, it is difficult to overlook the probability that John was directly influenced by the Rule. These similarities, however, are not close enough nor numerous enough to prove that John directly copied from 1QS. But on the other hand, they are much too close to conclude that John and 1QS merely evolved out of the same milieu. John may not have copied from 1QS but he was strongly influenced by the expressions and terminology of 1QS.116 Indeed, there is no closer parallel to John’s dualistic mythology either in contemporary or in earlier Jewish or Hellenistic literature.117

4  Conclusion The conclusion to our critical analysis and comparison of the dualism in 1QS 3.13– 4.26 and the “dualism” in John is that John did not borrow from the Essene cosmic and communal theology.118 But this conclusion does not exhaust the possible relation between John and 1QS. We have seen that John has apparently been directly influenced by Essene terminology. Moreover, Qumran concepts would have been refracted by the prism of John’s originality and deep conviction that Jesus is the Messiah119 so that potentially parallel concepts would be deflected into oblique lines. It is precisely this prism effect that explains why there is no “Spirit of Perversity” in John, and why the



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term “perpetual life” appears, because of the cosmic dimension of Jesus’ resurrection, as “eternal life.” These observations lead me to conclude that John probably borrowed some of his dualistic terminology and mythology from 1QS 3.13–4.26.120 If the Rule is behind Johannine “dualism,” then another conclusion appears obvious: it becomes more probable that the Sitz im Leben of many of John’s traditions is Palestine. This probability arises because to our present knowledge there is no evidence that 1QS was read outside Palestine.121 Hence, in contrast to the contention that all we can state is that we no longer have to look outside Palestine for the antecedents of Johannine theology,122 now, it is increasingly more probable that we should look to Palestine for the milieu which gave birth to John’s symbolism and expressions. Of course this conclusion does not prove that John was written in Palestine. It is possible, for example (as Braun, Cullmann, and Brown have speculated),123 that the author of John was formerly a disciple of John the Baptist, who was indoctrinated in Essene thought, or that the author of this Gospel saw the Rule in Palestine, perhaps only through the vivid memory of an Essene who had memorized it to pass the Qumran examination. Conceivably, some Essenes, who had become members of the Palestinian Jesus Movement, made notes on 1QS 3.13–4.26, perhaps only mental ones, and then influenced the composition of John in Ephesus. However, it is more probable at the present time that John was written, perhaps only in a first draft, in Palestine.124

An epilogue of 1 August The above report of research is selective. Many other examples may be marshaled to show what Samuel Sandmel called the careful use of “Parallelism.” My close friend, Sandmel, scolded scholars for pointing to parallels and assuming dependence. He also called for a balanced study of parallels and a scholarly demonstration of influence.125 The parallels between 1QS and John are obvious. Because of parallels, scholars conclude that Matthew and Luke depended on different pre-80 copies of Mark. Are these scholars gifted with scientific methodologies or are they guilty of “parallelomania”? Sandmel’s seminal article is almost always misunderstood and never read; he would be disappointed, seeing how claims of “parallelomania” allow some scholars to avoid strenuous research. We have explored the termini technici shared by 1QS 3-4 (not other Qumran compositions) and John and found gems hidden in the caves. Other links are also evident. For example, I may add the following (not in 1QS 3 and 4): ὁ δὲ ποιῶν τὴν ἀλήθειαν

‫לעשות אמת‬

“but the one doing the truth” (Jn 3:21)

“to do truth” (1QS 1.5; 5.3; 8.2).

The expression in John is found also in 1Jn 1:6, “we do not do the truth.” More than a few scholars will perceive that these expressions are termini technici and that they were minted in the minds of Qumran.

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

Professors who have found students guilty of plagiarism will immediately perceive that the Fourth Evangelist has used expressions he found in the Rule of the Community. Note these three sentences in 12:35–36 (italics highlight terms found in 1QS 3): εἶπεν οὖν αὐτοῖς ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ἔτι μικρὸν χρόνον τὸ φῶς ἐν ὑμῖν ἐστιν. περιπατεῖτε ὡς τὸ φῶς ἔχετε, ἵνα μὴ σκοτία ὑμᾶς καταλάβῃ· καὶ ὁ περιπατῶν ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ οὐκ οἶδεν ποῦ ὑπάγει. ὡς τὸ φῶς ἔχετε, πιστεύετε εἰς τὸ φῶς, ἵνα υἱοὶ φωτὸς γένησθε. Jesus, therefore, said to them: “The light is with you a little longer. Walk as you have the light, so that the darkness may not overtake you. And he who walks in darkness does not know where he goes. As you have the light, believe in the light, so that you may become Sons of Light.”

The source of the italicized words in only column three of 1QS: “the Sons of Light” (3.13, 24, 25) “and he (God) designed for him (the human) two spirits in which to walk” (3.18) “In a spring of light emanates the nature of truth.” (3.19) “And from a well of darkness emerges the nature of deceit.” (3.19) Concerning “all the Sons of Righteousness,” “in the ways of light they walk.” (3.20) Concerning “the Sons of Deceit,” “in the ways of darkness they walk.” (3.21)

In column four, an Essene articulates the relation between darkness or deceit and truth or knowing: “An abomination to truth (are) the doings of deceit” (4.17). This research helps the reader understand why so many experienced and insightful scholars conclude that John inherits this dualistic paradigm from Qumran. The Fourth Evangelist adds the exhortation: “Believe in the Light.” The Light is Jesus. In modern research, Jn 12:35–36 would demand footnotes to 1QS; the influence from Qumran has been perceived by all perspicacious scholars, namely, W. F. Albright, H. Anderson, P. Anderson, P. Benoit, M. Black, M. E. Boismard, F. M. Braun, R. E. Brown, F. M. Cross, R. de Vaux, J. Murphy-O’Connor, O. Cullmann, J. Painter, R. Schnackenburg, D. M. Smith, and J. Strugnell. Few scholars today can match the brilliance, knowledge, and experience of these savants. How did Qumran terminology and lore reach the Fourth Evangelist? Here are some options:

1. John the Baptizer knew Essene lore and terms; he taught them to Jesus. 2. Jesus, an itinerant teacher, learned them from Essenes who lived throughout Palestine.

3. The Fourth Evangelist learned Essene lore from Jesus, from talking to Essenes, and (or) being near the Essene quarter in southwest Jerusalem.

4. The authors and editors of John learned these terms and paradigm from

Essenes who joined the Palestinian Jesus Movement and lived in Jerusalem or in Ephesus.



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Notes 1 This chapter was originally published as “A Critical Comparison of the Dualism in 1QS 3:13–4:26 and the ‘Dualism’ Contained in the Gospel of John,” NTS 15 (1968–9): 389–418 and in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (New York: Crossroad, 1990), pp. 76–106. The chapter has been re-typed, forms corrected, and fonts aligned with this volume. I have issued the work as previously published with many sentences rewritten but no updated notes; it can then be a benchmark in the history of scholarship. For the best images of 1QS, see J. H. Charlesworth, with H. W. L. Rietz, assisted by M. T. Davis and B. A. Strawn, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Rule of the Community: Photographic Multi-Language Edition (Philadelphia: American Interfaith Institute/ World Alliance and New York: Continuum, 1996). The modified dualism in 1QS and John is precisely why I cannot apply H. W. Huppenbauer’s distinction between cosmic and cosmological dualism; see his Der Mensch zwischen zwei Welten (ATANT 34; Zürich: Zwingli-Verlag, 1959), pp. 9–10. In this research I am indebted to the numerous conversations with Professor John Strugnell of Harvard University, Professors D. Moody Smith, Jr., and James L. Price of Duke University, and especially with Professor Hugh Anderson of New College, the University of Edinburgh. 2 It appears that the proper method to be employed is to separate at the outset the Johannine Epistles from the Gospel of John. The separation is necessary both because the old view that all were written by the same person is unpersuasive and because in 1 John, the Epistle closest in thought and expression to the Gospel, one finds different ideas and expressions. For example, in 1 John we find the term ἀντίχριστος in 2:18, a strong strain of brotherhood (4:21) within a community that has, quite like Qumran, withdrawn from the evil world (v. 19), a developed ethic (ὀφείλει . . . περιπατεῖν, 2:6; see also 1:6) and an equation of sin not so much with unbelief as with lawlessness (τὴν ἀνομίαν, 3:4). Not unimportant is the observation that these differences move perpendicularly toward the Qumran compositions. Also, a very striking parallelism is found between 1Jn 4:1–6 and 1QS 3.13–4.26. 3 1QS 3.14–4.26 teaches a dualism representative of the dualism found elsewhere in the Scrolls. While H. W. Huppenbauer (Der Mensch zwischen zwei Welten, 103, 113) has argued that we must speak not of one type of dualism but of many types of dualism in the Qumran Scrolls, he can still conclude that “Der Dualismus der Qumrangemeinde ist also ein relativer, ethisch-kosmischer Dualismus.” It is precisely these three characteristics which our research has found to be emphasized in this treatise. Moreover, five independent examinations have found significant similarities between the dualism in the text and the dualism in other Qumran Scrolls. Professor W. Foerster has noted parallels between this passage and the Hodayot; see “Der Heilige Geist im Spätjudentum,” NTS 8 (1961–62): 129–31. H. W. Kuhn (Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil [SUNT 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966], pp. 121–25) argued that the conception of two warring spirits and resultant predestination which is presented in 1QS 3.13ff. is also found in 1QH. Y. Yadin (The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness [trans. B. and C. Rabin; Oxford: Oxford, 1962], pp. 229–42) has shown that parallels exist between the passages and the War Scroll and suggested that the War Scroll was built upon the dualistic theory of 1QS 3.13–25. Although A. R. C. Leaney (The Rule of Qumran and its Meaning [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1966], pp. 53–55) finds occasional contrasts between the dualistic doctrine of this passage and sections of other scrolls (e.g., 1QM 13.2–6), he suggests that 1QS 3.13–4.26 probably “exerted a

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great influence upon” the other passages and “may have once existed independently of its present context.” The contrast which Leaney finds between 1QS 3.16–18 and 1QM 13.2–6 is not in the texts since in 1QS 3.24 it is clearly stated that God and his “Angel of Truth” work together (see also the implications of 4.19), and moreover, in 1QM 13.2–6 we do not read of God warring against Belial but of God being the object of the sect’s praises and Belial the recipient of the sect’s curses. Finally, A. A. Anderson (“The use of ‘Ruaḥ’ in 1QS, 1QH, and 1QM,” JSS 7 [1962]: 298) argued that the difference between the dualism in 1QM, 1QH, and 1QS is only apparent in, and probably results from, the differences of authorship, date, and nature of the writings. There is basically the same dualism, and “1QS may reflect the thought and practice of the whole community.” If the author of the Fourth Gospel was influenced by 1QS 3.13–4.26, and we shall soon present evidence which convinces most scholars that he was, then he probably knew it in its present context since “one doing the truth” in Jn 3:21 (and “we do not do the truth” in 1Jn 1:6) is paralleled only in 1QS 1.5; 5.3; 8.2. So also W. Foerster, “Der Heilige Geist im Spätjudentum,” pp. 128–29; and G. R. Driver, The Judaean Scrolls (Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1965), p. 545. So also Leaney, The Rule of Qumran, p. 148. So also W. D. Davies, Christian Origins and Judaism (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1962), pp. 163–66; K. Schubert, The Dead Sea Community (London: A. & C. Black, 1959), p. 63; O. Betz, Der Paraklet: Fürsprecher im häretischen Spätjudentum, im Johannes-Evangelium und in neu gefundenen gnostischen Schriften (Leiden: Brill, 1963), pp. 66–67; U. Simon, Heaven in the Christian Tradition (New York: Harper, 1958), p. 173; O. Böcher, Der johanneische Dualismus im Zusammenhang des nachbiblischen Judentums (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus G. Mohn, 1965), pp. 77, 101; K. G. Kuhn, “Johannesevangelium und Qumrantexte,” in Neotestamentica et Patristica (ed. W. C. van Unnik; Leiden: Brill, 1962), p. 119; A. A. Anderson, “The use of ‘Ruaḥ’ in 1QS, 1QH, and 1QM,” pp. 298–99; M. Burrows, More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Viking, 1958), pp. 283–84; and F. Nötscher, “Geist und Geister in den Texten von Qumran,” in Mélanges bibliques: Rédigés en l’honneur de André Robert (Trauvaux de l’Institut Catholique de Paris 4; Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1956), pp. 305–16. Contrast K. Schubert’s contention that this treatise is strongly influenced by Greek thought: “Der gegenwärtige Stand der Erforschung der in Palästina neu gefundenen hebräischen Handschriften,” TLZ 78 (1953): 495–506. W. F. Albright (“The Refrain ‘And God Saw KI TOB’ in Genesis,” in Mélanges bibliques: Rédigés en l’honneur de André Robert [Trauvaux de l’Institut Catholique de Paris 4; Paris: Bloud et Gay, 1956], pp. 22–26) marshaled convincing archaeological evidence that this verse should be translated, “And God saw that the light was very good.” S. Aalen, Die Begriffe “Licht” und “Finsternis” im Alten Testament, im Spätjudentum, und im Rabbinismus (Oslo: J. Dybwad, 1951) see especially pp. 173–75. See Gen 41:32. R. E. Brown, “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament (ed. K. Stendahl; New York: Harper, 1957), p. 190. F. M. Cross, Jr., The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies (Garden City: Doubleday, 1958), p. 93; J. T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea ( trans. J. Strugnell; London: SCM, 1959), p. 119; H. Ringgren, The Faith of Qumran (trans. E. T. Sanders; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1961), pp. 53–54. F. Nötscher (Zur theologischen Terminologie der Qumran-Texte [Bonn: P. Hanstein, 1956], pp. 79–80) argued that there is no determinism in this document but that freedom of the individual is upheld because the two spirits are struggling “um das Herz (wohl nicht: im Herzen) des Mannes (1QS 4:23).” While his translation is accurate,



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his exegesis fails to account for the deterministic statement found in 1QS 3.15–17, the importance of ‫“( גורל‬lot”) in the text (three times), the strong predestinarian tone of ‫ מבני איש‬in 4.20 (“some men,” see Ps 4:3; also ‫ מן‬denotes “some,” especially in late Hebrew, for example, Ezra 2:68, 70; Neh 11:4, 25; Dan 11:35), and would tend to ascribe to the evil spirit the knowledge of who were his targets, that is, some of the “Sons of Light,” an ascription without support in the text. The evil spirit can control all “Sons of Light” because each has a portion of darkness. So also Allegro’s “astrological document” (e.g., 2.1–9); see his “An Astrological Cryptic Document from Qumran,” JSS 9 (1964): 291–94. For example, Leaney, The Rule of Qumran, p. 149; Yadin, The Scroll of the War, p. 236; Betz, Der Paraklet, pp. 66–67; and Burrows, More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 287. See K. G. Kuhn, Konkordanz zu den Qumrantexten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1960). It is significant that in 1QM 13.10–11 and in CD 5.18 the “Prince of Light” is opposed not by the “Angel of Darkness” but by Belial. However, it is surprising to find that in one of the most respected translations of the scrolls ‫בליעל‬ is habitually translated “Satan” (‫)שטן‬. See G. Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1962, 1965). The “Spirit of Truth” may be identified with Michael (1QM 9.15–16; 17.6–7). So also Leaney, The Rule of Qumran, p. 148; Yadin, The Scroll of the War, p. 236; Betz, Der Paraklet, pp. 66–67; and Burrows, More Light, p. 284. Jubilees was known by the covenanters since fragments were found in cave 4. I am indebted in this discussion to D. S. Russell The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964), pp. 249–54. H. Danby, The Mishnah (Oxford: Clarendon, 1933), p. 10. 1QS 3.25: ‫והואה ברא רוחות אור וחושכ‬. Significantly, we find the same peculiar belief emphasized in 1QM but with more responsibility given to God for Belial’s corruption; note 13.10–11: “And you made Belial to corrupt (‫)לשחת‬, the Angel of Hatred, his dominion is in darkness and his counsel is to cause wickedness and guilt.” In the preceding sentence ‫ לשחת‬may be translated either as “for the pit,” taking ‫ שחת‬to be a noun in the dative case. See A. Dupont-Sommer, The Essene Writings from Qumran (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962), p. 89 and Vermes, Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 141. Or ‫ לשחת‬may mean “to corrupt,” assuming the Pi. Inf. Cst. of the root ‫שחת‬. See Yadin, The Scroll of the War, p. 322. The latter translation is preferable because the passage is not referring to Beliar’s destiny but to his tasks, and the infinitive construct with ‫ ל‬clearly expresses purpose. Moreover, this interpretation seems demanded by the causative purposiveness of the two Hiph. Infin. Csts. which also have a prefixed ‫ ל‬in the next line. As. R. Mayer and J. Reuss remarked, there is no teaching in the scrolls that the evil angel fell from the heavenly realm because of some fault; see Die Qumranfunde und die Bibel (Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1959), p. 57. For two excellent discussions of the eschatological expectations of the covenanters, see K. Schubert, The Dead Sea Community, pp. 61–63, 88–112; Mayer and Reuss, Die Qumranfunde und die Bibel, pp. 110–12. The latest examination is by H.-W. Kuhn, Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil (SUNT 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966). There is a minor inconsistency between this idea and the teaching that the “Spirit of Perversity” will be eventually destroyed found in 4.18–19. This inconsistency is minor precisely because there is no mention of the cessation of hatred and it is the counsel not the angel which God abhors. Davies (Christian Origins and Judaism, p. 165) remarks that “it is only here that the spirit [of Truth] is ascribed a strictly eschatological significance at all in the scrolls.”

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24 This phrase means “until the time of judgment which is decreed.” 25 J. Licht, “An Analysis of the Treatise of Two Spirits in DSD,” p. 96. 26 K. G. Kuhn, “Die Sektenschrift und die iranische Religion,” ZTK 49 (1952): 312. C. T. Fritsch, The Qumran Community (New York: Macmillan, 1956), p. 71. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies, p. 210. Dupont-Sommer, Essene Writings, p. 78; idem. The Jewish Sect of Qumran and the Essenes (London: Vallentine, Mitchell & Co., 1954), pp. 118–19. J. M. Allegro, The Dead Sea Scrolls (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1959), p. 128. Nötscher, Zur theologischen Terminologie der Qumran-Texte, p. 80. H. J. Schonfield, Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Vallentine, Mitchell & Co., 1956), p. 13. Davies, Christian Origins and Judaism, p. 164. Leaney, The Rule of Qumran and its Meaning, p. 43. Schubert, “Der gegenwärtige Stand der Erforschung der in Palästina neu gefundenen hebräischen Handschriften,” pp. 495–506; idem. The Dead Sea Community, pp. 62–66. Driver, The Judaean Scrolls, p. 559. J. Licht, “An Analysis of the Treatise of Two Spirits in DSD,” p. 92. Meyer and Reuss, Die Qumranfunde, p. 57. H. G. May, “Cosmological Reference in the Qumran Doctrine of the Two Spirits and in Old Testament Imagery,” JBL 82 (1963): 1–14. Burrows, More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 280–81. 27 P. Wernberg-Møller, “A Reconsideration of the Two Spirits in the Rule of the Community (1QSerek 3:13–4:26),” RevQ 11 (1961): 423. It appears that E. Schweizer would agree with Wernberg-Møller’s interpretation since he emphasizes the ethical concern of this passage and denies the cosmic dimension. See his “Gegenwart des Geistes und eschatologische Hoffnung,” in The Background of the New Testament and its Eschatology (ed. W. D. Davies and D. Daube; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), pp. 482–508, especially pp. 490–91. M. Treves clearly agrees with Wernberg-Møller’s interpretation, for he wrote, “In my opinion these spirits are simply the tendencies or propensities which are implanted in every man’s heart.” It is quite surprising, however, to discover that Treves has examined this Qumran treatise only by means of the interpretation of ‫ רוח‬found in the Old Testament, where it “never meant . . . an incorporeal being, such as an angel, a demon, or a fairy.” But one dare not overlook the additional meanings obtained by this noun during the intertestamental period. See Treves “The Two Spirits of the Rule of the Community,” RevQ 3 (1961): 449–52. After examining the use of ‫ רוח‬in three of the most important scrolls, A. A. Anderson (“The use of ‘Ruaḥ’ in 1QS, 1QH, and 1QM,” p. 293) correctly remarked that “we meet with a further development and a change in emphasis. Thus in the scrolls Ruaḥ is used quite often to denote supernatural beings or angels and this is a considerable development in comparison with what we find in the Old Testament.” 28 So also Allegro’s “astrological document,” 2:7–8: “He has six (parts) spirit in the House of Light and three in the Pit of Darkness.” See also column 3:5–6; “He has [ei]ght (parts) spirit in the House of [Darkness] and one (part) from the House of Light.” “An Astrological Cryptic Document from Qumran,” 291–4. 29 “That ‫ רוחות‬is used here as a psychological term seems clear; and the implication is that the failure of man to ‘rule the world’ is due to man himself because he allows his ‘spirit of perversion,’ that is to say his perverse and sinful propensities, to determine his behaviour. We have thus arrived at the rabbinic distinction between the evil and good yeṣer.” P. Wernberg-Møller, “The Two Spirits of the Rule of the Community,” 422. 30 This Qumran teaching is clearly distinguished from the rabbinic doctrine of the two inclinations in man (Berakot 9.5) precisely because of the cosmic dimension of man’s struggle, and because of the categorical difference between an imposed force and an inward inclination.



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31 As F. Nötscher argued, the “Angel of Darkness” is no abstract concept, “sondern persönlicher Dämon,” the head of the evil spirits and the “kosmologisches Übel.” See his article in Mélanges bibligues: Rédigés en l’honneur de André Robert, pp. 313–15. 32 Wernberg-Møller, “The Two Spirits of the Rule of the Community,” pp. 435–36. 33 A. Dupont-Sommer, Essene Writings, p. 79. O. Böcher, Der johanneische Dualismus, p. 74: “Nicht nur das Menschenherz, sondern die ganze Welt ist durchzogen vom Gegensatz zwischen Licht und Finsternis, Wahrheit und Verführung, Gut und Böse.” 34 P. Wernberg-Møller, “The Two Spirits of the Rule of the Community,” p. 425. 35 F. Brown, S. R. Driver and C. A. Briggs, eds., A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1952), p. 410. See also L. K. W. Baumgartner, eds., Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti (Leiden: Brill, 1958) p. 1021. 36 P. Boccaccio, Regula unionis, seu, manuale disciplinae (IQS) (Fani: Pontificium Seminarium Picenum, 1958) p. 9. 37 P. Wernberg-Møller: “‘mt/’wr and ‘wl/ḥwšk are ethical terms without the dualistic overtones, which are generally placed upon them.” P. Wernberg-Møller, “The Two Spirits of the Rule of the Community,” p. 425. 38 See the following discussion regarding the antecedents of the dualism in 1QS and the observations concerning the similarities of the dualisms in these documents. While different Semitic nouns are employed in T Levi, which is clearly pre-Christian because of the fragments discovered at Qumran, the dualistic overtones have already been given to “light” and “gloomy” since the highest and lowest heaven are respectively characterized by light and gloom. 39 So also Yadin, The Scroll of the War, p. 231; and Schweizer in The Background of the New Testament and its Eschatology, p. 491. In contrast, however, M. Treves observed: “The mention of all the spirits allotted to the single Angel of Darkness (3:24) shows that here the terms ‘spirit’ and ‘angel’ are not synonyms.” But the suggestion that there are many spirits under the command of the “Angel of Darkness” does not dismiss the possibility that the self-same angel is also called the “Spirit of Perversity.” Moreover, it appears that Treves’ suggestion that these two terms are not synonymous weakens the hypothesis of a psychological dualism which he had endeavored to prove, since we would be left with an “angel” which was not a “spirit.” See Treves “The Two Spirits of the Rule of the Community,” p. 450. 40 Davies, Christian Origins and Judaism, p. 164 correctly remarks that the fact that these spirits “are not merely inherent properties of man, as such, emerges clearly from the use of the term “angel” to describe the two spirits: this preserves the “otherness” of the two spirits even when they appear to be merely immanent.” Similarly, Leaney, The Rule of Qumran, p. 43 concludes: “The tendency to personify as the powers which control the stars and to identify God himself with the Urlicht may be paralleled by the identification of the two spirits with personal supernatural beings.” Hence, as Simon, Heaven, p. 173 so aptly put it: “The struggle in the heart of man is inseparable from the cosmic array of powers (1QS 4:18).” 41 A. R. C. Leaney seems to find in 1QS 3.13–4.26 both an idea in harmony with the rabbinic thought of two inclinations in man and the belief that two spirits are cosmic beings. This “inconsistency” seems less to be characteristic of the passage than it is attributable to Leaney’s translation of ‫ לו‬in 1QS 3.18 as “in him” when it should be translated “for him.” 42 J. Strugnell, “The Angelic Liturgy at Qumran—4Q Serek Šîrôt ‘Ōlat Haššabbāt,” VT 7 (1959): 318–45. 43 Note the medial kaph in final position.

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44 See Allegro, An Astrological Cryptic Document from Qumran,” pp. 291–94. 45 Yadin, The Scroll of the War, pp. 237, 241f. 46 Ibid., 232–42. 47 The translation is by S. Holm-Nielsen, Hodayot: Psalms from Qumran (Aarhus: Universitetsforlaget, 1960), p. 64; see also p. 68. 48 M. Delcor, Les Hymnes de Qumran (Hodayot) (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1962), pp. 40–52, see especially p. 41. Schubert, The Dead Sea Community, p. 64 seems to agree with Delcor’s suggestion, for he remarks that the sect’s services and prayers were for them an extension of the celestial liturgy. Hence, Böcher, Der johanneische Dualismus, p. 26 correctly noted: “Die Grenzen zwischen Erde und Himmel sind für die Qumraniten fließend geworden.” 49 K. Kuhn, “Die Sektenschrift und die iranische Religion,” ZTK 49 (1952): 312. 50 Fritsch, The Qumran Community, p. 73. 51 Cross, Jr., Ancient Library of Qumran, p. 98; see also his comments in “The Dead Sea Scrolls,” Int. Bible, vol. 22, 659. 52 Dupont-Sommer, The Jewish Sect of Qumran and the Essenes, pp. 118–19. 53 D. Winston, “The Iranian Component in the Bible, Apocrypha, and Qumran: A Review of the Evidence,” HR 5 (1966): 200ff. 54 Allegro, The Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 128. 55 Ringgren, The Faith of Qumran, pp. 78–79. 56 Nötscher, Zur theologischen Terminologie der Qumran-Texte, pp. 86–92. 57 J. van der Ploeg, The Excavations at Qumran (trans. K. Smyth; London: Longmans, 1958), p. 100. 58 Schonfield, Secrets, p. 113. 59 Böcher, Der johanneische Dualismus, p. 72. 60 R. C. Zaehner (The Dawn and Twilight of Zoroastrianism [London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1961], p. 182) insightfully contends that the earliest account of the Zurvanite myth is recorded by Aristotle’s pupil, Eudemus of Rhodes, and that there is no serious reason to doubt its authenticity. J. Duchesne-Guillemin (Western Response to Zoroaster [Oxford: Oxford, 1958], pp. 18, 60ff.) concludes both that Zurvanism predates Zoroaster (c. 628–c. 551 BCE) and that the Zurvanite point of view was the religion of the common Iranian folk. Also see R. Zaehner, Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955). 61 Long after the above research had been completed, I was delighted to discover that at the colloquium on Gnosticism, which met at Messina in April 1966, H. Ringgren (Le Origini dello Gnosticismo: Colloquio di Messina 13–18 Aprile 1966 [ed. U. Bianchi; Leiden: Brill, 1967], p. 385) remarked: “I think the best parallels to the doctrine of the two spirits are found in Zurvanite texts. My main objection is that it is impossible to explain the doctrine of the two spirits exclusively on the basis of the Old Testament doctrine.” 62 It appears that the first scholar to perceive this connection was H. Michaud, “Un mythe zervanite dans un des manuscrits de Qumran,” VT 5 (1955): 137–47. 63 From the Greater Bundahsin, chapter 1, R. C. Zaehner’s translation; see his Zurvan: A Zoroastrian Dilemma, p. 312. Although Zurvanite manuscripts are late and reflect late Sassanian religion (seventh century CE), the passages quoted represent a much earlier tradition as evidenced by Eudemus’ account. 64 Greater Bundahsin, chapter 1, Zaehner, Zurvan, A Zoroastrian Dilemma, p. 312. 65 Failure to consider Zurvanism led Böcher (Der johanneische Dualismus, p. 119) to contend that the religion of the Old Testament is distinct from the many other



66

67

68 69 70

71

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contemporary religions because the opposition between good and bad or God and Satan never became an absolute dualism since God remained the sole Creator of all things. M. Black contends that the sources and background of the dualistic thought of 1QS should be traced in the apocalyptic writings. The example he gives is from Testament of Judah 20: “Know, therefore, my children, that two spirits wait upon man—the spirit of truth and the spirit of deceit”; see Black, The Scrolls and Christian Origins (London: Scribner, 1961), p. 134. Such passages from Jewish apocalyptic literature did influence the dualistic thought of Qumran; the origin of this influence was probably from Zurvanism. It is generally accepted by almost all scholars “that the Qumran sect was identical with the people known to the ancient historians as ‘Essenes.’” See M. Black, The Essene Problem (London: Dr. William’s Trust, 1961), p. 27. Also see Dupont-Sommer, The Essene Writings from Qumran, pp. 39–67. Contrast G. R. Driver who contends that the Qumran covenanters may be identified in some sense with the Zealots (The Judaean Scrolls, pp. 75, 118–19, 237–51). It might appear to some that Driver’s hypothesis has been proven by the discovery of a Qumran scroll at Masada, the fortress of the Sicarii’s last stand (This fragment is “identical” to the Qumran sectarian scroll 4Q Serek Šîrôt Haššabbāt published by J. Strugnell). However, I agree with Y. Yadin that the scroll probably belonged to one of the Essenes who joined the rebellion. See Y. Yadin, Masada: Herod’s Fortress and the Zealots’ Last Stand (trans. M. Pearlman; New York: Random House, 1966), pp. 72–74. An important examination of this position is by D. Winston, “The Iranian Component in the Bible, Apocrypha, and Qumran,” pp. 183–216. Also see G. von Rad Old Testament Theology (trans. D. Stalker; New York Harper, 1962) 1:150. Cf. Driver, The Judaean Scrolls, p. 551. While J. Jeremias recognizes the cosmic dimension of this dualism, he prefers to isolate three main characteristics: the dualism is monotheistic, ethical, and eschatological. See Die theologische Bedeutung der Funde am Toten Meer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962), pp. 13–15. In line with the logic of existentialism, Huppenbauer, Der Mensch zwischen zwei Welten, pp. 42–44 argues that the point of departure for the dualism of this treatise is “in der lebendigen Situation der Gemeinde zu suchen und zu finden.” This contention appears unlikely for three main reasons. It would ascribe to the origin of the Qumran Community a sociological rather than an ideological or theological cause. Secondly, references to contemporary historical events, found couched in vague phrases in other scrolls, are conspicuously absent. Finally, Huppenbauer’s contention overlooks the fact that this treatise dates from the earliest days of the Community and most likely originally existed independently of its present position. Is it not more likely that the cause of the origin of the Qumran Community was an acting out of a philosophy, which although certainly embryonic, nevertheless adumbrated the sophisticated dualism now found in 1QS 3.13ff.? This suggestion, however, would not weaken the probability, which appears quite certain as H. Anderson contended, that the Essenes believed that “only within the group was there the light of total obedience to the will of God, without there was nothing but the darkness of faithlessness and unrighteousness”; see “The Intertestamental Period,” in The Bible and History (London: Lutterworth, 1968), p. 199. Indeed, implicit in the Rule of the Community is the contention that only the Essenes were the “Sons of Light.” One wonders what relation there is between John and 4 Ezra: “The Most High has made not one world but two” (4Ez 7:50). It appears that John received his concept of

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two worlds from such thoughts in late biblical Judaism. The idea, of course, goes back to Gen 1:1ff. 73 So Böcher, Der johanneische Dualismus, p. 26: “Dadurch wird es möglich, das anōthen in Joh. 3:3 und 3:7 nicht nur temporal (“wiederum”), sondern auch lokal, im Sinne des ‘von oben,’ zu verstehen.” 74 Nils A. Dahl sees the conflict between God and the world in forensic terms, with Jesus as the representative of God and the Jews as representatives of the world. See his article in Current Issues in New Testament Interpretation (ed. W. Klassen and G. F. Snyder; New York: Harper, 1962), pp. 124–42, see especially p. 139. 75 The disciples are contrasted with Jesus. They display need for food “from below” (4:8, τροφάς) but he needs food “from above” (4:34, βρῶμα). In 16:32, it is specified that Jesus must face his suffering alone; yet, I think the Evangelist believed in a higher sense Jesus is never alone (as at the end in the Synoptics) because his Father is with him. 76 W. F. Howard, Christianity According to John (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1946), p. 83; see also M. Meinertz, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Bonn: Hanstein, 1950), p. 286. 77 C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John (New York: Macmillan, 1955), p. 135. 78 J. Becker, Das Heil Gottes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1964), p. 135. 79 Becker, Das Heil Gottes, p. 218. 80 R. Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament [trans. K. Grobel; New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955] 2:18-19) correctly shows that the concept of darkness is provided by the possibility of light and that it originates on man’s side by “shutting one’s self up against the light,” but his exegesis which follows reflects the imposition of existential logic upon this passage and becomes distorted through his Vorverständnis. 81 The verb γινώσκειν, “to know,” appears fifty-six times in John but only fifty-nine times in the Synoptics combined (twelve in Matthew; eighteen in Mark; twenty in Luke). “To know” seems to be equated at times with power and strength (4:32; 7:28, 29). 82 Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John, p. 279. 83 The question of predestination is taken up in the following pages. 84 K. G. Kuhn (“Johannesevangelium und Qumrantexte,” Neotestamentica et Patristica, p. 113), however, contends that in the Fourth Gospel “die Menschen teilt in die beiden antithetischen Gruppen der Leute.” He also finds “einen praedestinatianischen Zug” in this Gospel. 85 Unfortunately, there is as no detailed critical publication regarding the demonology of the Fourth Gospel [as of this writing in 1969]. Dodd and Barrett do not delve into this question and E. Langdon’s otherwise excellent book, Essentials of Demonology (London: Epworth, 1949), allots only two pages to the demonology of John while he assigns seventy-one pages to the New Testament generally and fourteen pages to the book of Revelation. 86 There appears to be no distinction made between these expressions (e.g., compare the equation of τοῦ διαβόλου in 13:2 with ὁ Σατανᾶς in 13:27). While 13:2 and 13:27 may have originally signified a cosmic figure who opposed God, it appears that 6:70 can only have a symbolic meaning since Jesus remarked “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?” 87 V. Taylor (“Does the New Testament Call Jesus God?” ExpT 73 [1962]: 117–18) remarked: “In the Fourth Gospel we approach nearest to the use of θεός as a Christological title. ‘Only-begotten’ is as far as John is prepared to go.” Only a brief observation on this exegesis is pertinent: It fails to do justice to Jn 1:1 where the preexistent Logos is called “God” and Jn 20:28 where Thomas exclaims: “My Lord and my God!” Moreover, in 1:18 we find the following authoritative variant for “only Son”: μονογενης θεος (“only God”).



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88 Hence how different John’s demonology is from that of the Synoptics in which Jesus is portrayed in combat with Satan! See the excellent discussion on this topic by H. van der Loos, The Miracles of Jesus (Leiden: Brill, 1965), pp. 339ff. 89 W. Bousset, Die Religion des Judentums im späthellenistischen Zeitalter (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1926), p. 515. 90 Howard, Christianity According to John, p. 82. 91 See Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:219–21. 92 Barrett, The Gospel According to St John, p. 57 and Howard, Interpreter’s Bible, 8:444 have presented a similar interpretation. Of course our discussion regarding the realizing eschatology of Johannine “dualism” in no way attempts to deal with the multifarious aspects of the contemporary debate concerning the eschatology of the Fourth Gospel. In Die Eschatologie des Vierten Evangeliums [Zürich: Gotthelf-Verlag, 1966) P. Ricca approaches the problem from the Christological paradox that Christ is preexistent, was incarnated, and continues to live in heaven as on earth through his alter ego, the Holy Spirit. Both Jesus’ coming in the flesh and his return in the Spirit are final (endgültig). John both retains the distinction between the various kairoi of the Heilsgeschichte and exposes their essential interconnection since all time is grounded in Christ. Hence, Ricca contends that the Johannine eschatology is a “personalisierte” eschatology precisely because the three acts of the eschatological drama—the end has come, is now, and will come (“der gekommen ist, der da ist, der kommen wird”)—are governed Christ. For an excellent discussion of R. Bultmann’s contention that 5:28–29; 6:39, 40, 44, 51c–58 and 12:48 are the additions of an ecclesiastical redactor, see D. M. Smith, The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel (New Haven: Yale, 1965) especially pp. 134ff. and pp. 217ff. An excellent general discussion of the composition of the Fourth Gospel is found in R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (I-XII). 93 An interesting, and I think accurate, contribution has been made by C. F. D. Moule (“The Individualism of the Fourth Gospel,” NT 5 [1962]: 182). He suggests: “The Fourth Evangelist’s eschatology is much more ‘normal’ than is often assumed; and that, where it is of an emphatically realized type, there the individualistic tendency of this Gospel is also at its most prominent . . ..” 94 Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament, 2:23) argued that “to be born of ” does not attribute man’s conduct to his nature but attributes all specific conduct to a man’s being, in which his conduct is founded. 95 As Brown, The Scrolls and the New Testament, p. 191 accurately remarked: “There is no hint, however, of anyone’s being determined to evil without choice.” 96 G. H. C. MacGregor (The Gospel of St John [London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1928], p. 149) correctly stated that to say a certain number are not drawn to Christ is to say that unbelief in Christ is in many cases unintelligible for a believer like John. 97 So Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, p. 23. 98 Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, pp. 21–22. 99 Contrast J. H. Bernard (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John [Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1928]) who believed that John was: “Written from beginning to end sub specie aeternitatis: the predestined end is foreseen from the beginning” (1:76). “The doctrine of predestination is apparent at every point in the Fourth Gospel, every incident being viewed sub specie aeternitatis as predestined in the mind of God (2:325). 100 As the Gnostic codices discovered at Hammadi in Upper Egypt in 1945 clearly illustrate, for example, Gospel of Thomas. 29: “But I marvel at how this great wealth has

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made its home in this poverty.” See also sayings 87 and 110. However, John’s “dualism” is not physical as the gnostics’ dualism. It is important, nevertheless, to observe that in 3:6 and 6:63 there is not a dualism of two spirits, but a “dualism” of flesh and spirit. The soteriological “dualism” in John only adumbrated Gnosticism and is typical of John. W. F. Howard (Christianity According to St John, p. 83) correctly contends that 1:14 once and for all repudiates the gnostic antithesis of spirit and matter. 101 De Jonge, Milik, and Burrows argue that the document known as Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs was written by a Christian writer, using older Jewish material. Bickermann and Dupont-Sommer conclude that the whole book originated in the Qumran Community before the Christian era. This argument cannot be entered into in this paper; however, it appears that the weight of evidence is against a Christian author, and that a Christian redactor is more plausible. [while this older observation is somewhat dated, some updated treatment of the issue is presented in Chapter 11 of this volume]. 102 So. Böcher, Der johanneische Dualismus, p. 164. For one of the best examinations of the apocalyptic literature, see D. S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964). 103 While the Old Testament, generally speaking, viewed death as being completely cut off from Yahweh (see Psalm 87), a belief in a resurrection from the dead is promulgated in Isa 26:19 and Dan 12:2 (see G. von Rad, Old Testament Theology, 2:350ff.). Of course, one would not want to overlook the resurrection passages in the Old Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (e.g., 2Mac 7:9, 11, 14, 23, 29, 36; 12:43–45). 104 The evolution of this idea was not completed until after the composition of 1QS. R. H. Charles (APOT 2:158–59 believed that the Martyrdom of Isaiah was probably composed in the first century CE. O. Eissfeldt (The Old Testament: An Introduction, trans. P. R. Ackroyd [New York: Harper and Row, 1965], p. 609) suggests that it is much older and probably was composed in the first century BCE. 105 Above we mentioned that F. Nötscher, J. van der Ploeg, H. J. Schonfield, and O. Böcher argue that Qumranic dualism is a further development of biblical thought. We have argued above that Qumranic dualism has cosmic dimensions which reflect the influence of Zurvanism and hence obtained a dualistic belief which is unique in post-exilic Judaism. 106 See S. Mowinckel, He That Cometh, trans. G. W. Anderson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005). 107 Brown, The Scrolls and the New Testament, p. 188 correctly argues both that John does not characterize Satan in the exact terminology of the Scrolls, and that Christ as “the light of the world” is a significant development beyond Qumran’s “created” angel of light. F. M Cross, The Ancient Library, p. 213 rightly argues that the “Spirit of Truth” in 1QS is an angelic creature who is at a greater distance from God than the “Spirit of Truth,” who in John is God’s own Spirit. 108 Professor Reuss, Die Qumranfunde, p. 110 correctly remarked that in terms of their respective angelologies, “müssen wir nicht an eine direkte Abhängigkeit dieser Vorstellungen des Neuen Testaments von den Schriften von Qumran denken.” 109 See Leaney, The Rule of Qumran and its Meaning, pp. 38ff. 110 In Zurvanism, light signifies wisdom and goodness, and darkness connotes falsehood and evil. See Zaehner, Zurvan, pp. 209–10. Much of the light-darkness paradigm, therefore, was already found in Zurvanism. It was the author of 1QS 3.13ff., however, who promulgated the light-darkness paradigm, adding life and eternal life to light, and death and annihilation to darkness. Indeed, the Zurvanites may have denied the existence of rewards and punishments. See Zaehner, Zurvan, pp. 23–24.



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111 Another possible means by which one could examine the relation of John to 1QS is to search for reactions against Qumranic beliefs. This method, however, is too subjective and has not produced any convincing conclusions. 112 P. Benoit (“Qumrân et le Nouveau Testament,” NTS 7 [1960–61]: 276–96, see especially pp. 289–90; English translation in Paul and Qumran, ed. J. MurphyO’Connor [Chicago: Priory, 1968], pp. 1–30) argues that the technical terms “Sons of Light” and “Sons of Darkness” perhaps were coined by the Righteous Teacher, that Paul’s expressions are closely parallel to the light-versus-darkness paradigm found in 1QS, and that John’s connection is even closer. 113 In the following discussion I have been influenced by W. F. Albright’s and F. M. Braun’s observations found respectively in The Background of the New Testament and its Eschatology, pp. 168–69, and in “L’Arrière-fond judaїque du quatrième évangile et la communauté de l’alliance,” RB 62 (1955): 5–44; see especially p. 12. 114 The expression is found in only two other New Testament passages: “for all of you are Sons of Light and sons of (the) day” (1Thes 5:5); “the Sons of Light” (Lk 16:8). The first is not found in a context which is similar to the mythology of 1QS but can be explained as resulting from Paul’s imagery of the dawning eschatological day. The second is peculiarly non-Lucan and appears to belong to his sources. 115 The minor difference between these two similar expressions seems to be due to the difference between the terrestrial eschatology of Judaism and the transcendental expectation of those in the Palestinian Jesus Movement. 116 D. Flusser (“The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity,” SH 4 [1958]: 220) wisely argues that there must be some connection between Early Christianity and Qumran because in Pauline and Johannine theology the question of predestination is presented within a dualistic framework. 117 Although the symbolism of light for the divine is found frequently in the writings of Philo of Alexandria, the light-versus-darkness paradigm is conspicuously absent. As a loyal Jew, Philo probably borrowed this symbolism from the Old Testament (e.g., Ps 27:1, “The Lord is my light . . .”). See F. -N. Klein, Die Lichtterminologie bei Philon von Alexandrien und in den Hermetischen Schriften (Leiden: Brill, 1962). J. Daniélou argued that although Philo thought the Essenes represented the Jewish ideal, the dualism found in 1QS 3.13ff. is foreign to him since his anthropology is not dualistic. However, one should observe Daniélou’s remarks on the ideas, which are odd for Philo, found in Quaestiones in Exodum. Philon d’Alexandrie (Paris: Fayard, 1958), pp. 53–57. While M. Simon finds striking analogies between this text and the Qumran teaching of the two spirits found in 1QS 3.13ff., he also notes important differences (e.g., the two powers have created the world in Philo’s text). See Simon’s comments in Le Origini dello Gnosticismo, pp. 371–72. E. Bréhier has argued that Philo borrowed his angelology from the Greeks; see Les idées philosophiques et religieuses de Philon d’Alexandrie (Paris: Picard, 1950), pp. 126–75. 118 H. Braun (“Qumran und das Neue Testament,” TR 28 [1962]: 194) wrote: “Dazu kommt der für den johanneischen Dualismus typische christologische und eschatologische Rahmen, und dieser Rahmen entfällt in Qumran ganz . . . Daher wird man den johanneischen Dualismus aus Qumran nicht ableiten dürfen.” He holds the same position in Qumran und das Neue Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1966) 1:98. John could have been directly influenced by Qumran and still shifted the meaning in light of his belief that the Messiah had come. 119 K. Schubert (The Dead Sea Community, p. 152) remarked: “One frequently has the impression that a Christology for Essenes is being presented here. Thus one of the

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most important results of Qumran research has been to prove the Jewish origin of the Gospel of John conclusively.” J. Reuss, who has critically compared the Johannine writings with the Qumran Scrolls, clearly agrees with K. Schubert’s judgment. See his discussion in Die Qumranfunde, pp. 114–19. According to our research, although the above observations tend to lead toward this judgment, there is not sufficient evidence to verify such categorical conclusions. 120 Contrast F. C. Grant, Ancient Judaism and the New Testament (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, 1960), p. 20: “To return to the Qumran scrolls for a moment, it is perfectly obvious to scholars familiar with the whole broad world of the first century religion that the contacts between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament are few in number and not really fundamental to either literature.” Our research (and that of the majority of Johannine scholars) shows that the contacts between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament are not insignificant but fundamental. 121 Apart from the scrolls found in the eleven caves near Khirbet Qumran, Qumran Scrolls have been found only at Masada, which is less than 35 miles south of Qumran, and in Cairo, since CD represents Qumran or Essene thought. However, if anyone is tempted to argue that the Essenes migrated to Egypt because copies of CD were found over seventy years ago in the genizah of a Cairo synagogue, he must overcome three formidable objections: The Cairo synagogue only dates from the ninth century, the fragments probably are later than the tenth century CE, and P. E. Kahle has presented a strong argument for the probability that these fragments are to be linked with the manuscripts brought from the Qumran Caves to Jerusalem about the year 800, and only subsequently found their way to Cairo. See his The Cairo Geniza (Oxford: Blackwell, 1959), pp. 16–17. In attempting to say something about the geographical limits of the Essenes, one must consider the meaning of “Damascus” in CD. R. North contends that the “Damascus” of CD does not refer to the city by that name, but probably is an appellation for the Nabataean kingdom from 87 BCE to 103 CE; see North, “The Damascus of Qumran Geography,” PEQ 87 (1955): 34–48. F. M. Cross (Ancient Library, p. 59) holds that “the ‘land of Damascus’ is ‘the prophetic name’ applied to the desert of Qumran.” A. Jaubert (“Le Pays de Damas,” RB 65 [1958]: 214–48) argued that “Damascus” meant the place of refuge where the spiritually exiled will renew the covenant, and in this sense the thesis that the “land of Damascus” represents the region of Qumran is acceptable. N. Wieder (The Judean Scrolls and Karaism [London: East and West Library, 1962], pp. 7–10) contended that it refers to the region of Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon where the prelude to the messianic drama would be enacted and the messianic kingdom inaugurated. These investigations show, it seems to me, that “Damascus” is an essentially religious term for the region in which the Essenes lived. It is important to note, therefore, that Père R. de Vaux, the leading archaeological authority on the Qumran Community, remarked that it is conceivable that the Qumran Community lived in huts and tents scattered along the cliffs adjacent to Khirbet Qumran. See de Vaux’s comments in Les “Petites Grottes” de Qumrân (DJD 3; Oxford: Clarendon, 1963), p. 35, and in Bible et Orient (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1967), p. 323. S. E. Johnson (“The Dead Sea Manual of Discipline and the Jerusalem Church of Acts” in The Scrolls and the New Testament, p. 142) suggested that it is easy to imagine that the members of the Qumran sect lived in Jerusalem. It seems obvious from CD 7.6–8 and 12.19–13.1 that there were Essene camps outside the Qumran Community. It seems, therefore, that 1QS was read elsewhere besides the monastery at Qumran, but so far there is no evidence that it



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was read outside Palestine. Note L. Cerfaux’s speculation that the disciples of John (Acts 18:25–19:4) in Ephesus may have possessed Qumran Scrolls. See his “Influence de Qumrân sur le Nouveau Testament,” in La secte de Qumrân et les origines du christianisme (Louvain: Desclée, 1959), p. 243. 122 To name but two scholars involved in the attempt to understand the relation of the Qumran Scrolls to the New Testament, we have chosen one of the earliest and one of the most recent commentaries (not updated). M. Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Viking, 1956), p. 340. H. Braun, Qumran und das Neue Testament, 1:98: “Das freilich wird man . . . sagen müssen: in Palästina kann der johanneische Dualismus entstanden sein. . .” 123 F. M. Braun argued that the author of the Fourth Gospel, who may have been a disciple of Jesus, possibly borrowed directly from Qumran (emprunts directs), but probably received most of his Qumran influence through the medium of John the Baptist, of whom he may have been a disciple before following Jesus. See Braun, “L’Arrière-fond judaїque du quatrième évangile et la communauté de l’alliance,” pp. 5–44 and in Jean le théologien et son évangile dans l’église ancienne (Paris: Librairie Lecoffre, 1959), pp. 310–19. It is interesting to note that in the same year (1955) O. Cullmann and R. E. Brown independently entertained the same possibility. See their articles in The Scrolls and the New Testament, pp. 24–25, 207. 124 Other studies have increased the probability that the Johannine traditions betray Qumran influences. See especially the following: A. Jaubert’s contention that the Johannine tradition, which records that Jesus was crucified while official Judaism was sacrificing the paschal lambs, is vindicated by the observation that the Last Supper was held according to the Qumran calendar. See Jaubert’s book The Date of the Last Supper (Staten Island: Alba House, 1965). J. de Waard shows that the quotations found in Jn 12:40 and 13:18 are closer to the Old Testament text found at Qumran than they are to the Masoretic Text or to the Septuagint. See J. de Waard in A Comparative Study of the Old Testament Text in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the New Testament (STDJ 4; Leiden: Brill, 1965). Also see E. D. Freed, Old Testament Quotation in the Gospel of John (NovTSup 11; Leiden: Brill, 1965), pp. 122–23. Professor Dodd (Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel [Cambridge: Cambridge, 1963], p. 423) argued that “behind the Fourth Gospel lies an ancient tradition independent of the other gospels, and meriting serious consideration as a contribution to our knowledge of the historical facts concerning Jesus Christ.” A. J. B. Higgins (“The Words of Jesus According to St John,” BJRL 49 [1967]: 384) contended that “there is a certain amount of evidence that Jesus did not only speak as the synoptics report him to have done, but also used ‘Johannine’ phraseology and ideas.” Evidence has been disclosed that the Fourth Gospel is impressively familiar with the topography of Jerusalem and southern Palestine. See Albright’s article in The Background of the New Testament and its Eschatology, pp. 158–60; Dodd’s comments in Historical Tradition, pp. 244–5; and R. E. Brown’s judgments in The Gospel According to John, 1:xlii–xliii. Of the attempts to show that an Aramaic source lies behind some of the Johannine traditions, certainly the most important is the perspicacious research of M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967) see especially pp. 272–74. Black’s judgments, which date from before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, have been supported by three separate discoveries: In Qumran Cave I an important Aramaic document was found which dates from the time of Jesus;

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see E. Y. Kutscher’s critical remarks in “The Language of the ‘Genesis Apocryphon’: A Preliminary Study,” SH 4 (1958): 1–35. On Mt. Olivet Aramaic ossuaries were unearthed which predate the Jewish War; see P. B. Bagatti and J. T. Milik, Gli Scavi del “Dominus Flevit” (Gerusalemme: Tipografia, 1958) part 1, pp. 70–109. Nine of the fifteen letters written in the time of the Bar Kochba revolt (132–135 CE), which Y. Yadin discovered in 1960, were written in Aramaic; see Y. Yadin, “More on the Letters of Bar Kochba,” BA 24 (1961): 86–95. Also see H. Bardtke, Die Handschriftenfunde in der Wüste Juda (Berlin: Evangelische Haupt-Bibelgesellschaft, 1962). Hence, it is no longer a pure conjecture but an established fact that Aramaic was both spoken and written by Palestinian Jews during the first two Christian centuries. Finally, John is strikingly close in terms of Christology, terminology and ideology to the Odes of Solomon, which is probably a late first century Jewish-Christian hymn book. See Chapters 12 and 13 in the present book. 125 S. Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” JBL 81 (1962): 1–13.

8

An Overview of the Dead Sea Scrolls and a Revolutionary New Perspective1

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, some influential scholars judged the Fourth Gospel to be a mid- to late second century composition inspired by Greek philosophy. Today, almost fifty years later, a growing scholarly consensus finds John to be a first century composition. More surprising still, scholars now concur that it is fundamentally Jewish. Elements that were once thought to be reflections of Greek philosophy appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls, revealing unknown concepts among Jews in Palestine and contemporaneous with the origins of John and its traditions. The Dead Sea Scrolls have been a, if not the, major force in this paradigmatic shift in the winds of Johannine scholarship. The earlier view—that John was late and Greek—was first espoused almost 200 years ago as the acids of biblical criticism cut through the cherished assumption that the Gospel of John was written by the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee. F. C. Bauer, the founder of the Tübingen School, the first institution to develop and follow the historical-critical method in exploring the origins of the Gospels, claimed in 1847 that the Gospel of John was written around 170 CE.2 Professor A. Loisy, the distinguished nineteenth century biblical expert in Paris, concluded that John was written sometime after 150 CE. This dating was slowly but widely accepted by leading experts. John was thus regarded not only as the latest of the canonical gospels, but, because of this late date, unreliable historically. Clearly, as a second century composition, it could not have been written by an eyewitness to Jesus’ life and teachings, let alone by an apostle. John’s Logos concept—that Jesus was the Word (Jn 1:1–18)—aligned him with the preSocratics, such as Heraclitus, or with the Stoics. The Fourth Evangelist was a genius, but one who worked alone in his study, influenced by Greek philosophy. His Gospel was obviously the most Greek of the Gospels. This view persisted even into the 1950s. Now almost all of this scholarship must be discarded. Today, many scholars conclude that the Gospel of John may contain the oldest sections of the Gospels, and conceivably some of these oldest sections may be related in some way to an eyewitness (as the Fourth Evangelist claims), perhaps the Apostle John himself.3 Moreover, the Gospel of John is now widely and wisely judged to be the most Jewish of the Gospels. To illustrate this point, I must reiterate and summarize some facts already discussed in-depth and bring forward for perception some correlative facts.

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Even before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, another manuscript discovery ostensibly established that John’s Gospel could not be later than 125 CE.4 Papyrus 52, preserved in the John Rylands Library of the University of Manchester, was acquired by Bernard P. Grenfell in 1920. It consists of fragments from a codex containing Jn 18:31–33 and 37–38. The verses most probably come from a book of the Gospel of John in its final form. It did not come from a source utilized by the author of John. Though some scholars argue that P52 dates to the end of the second century CE,5 other expert palaeographers date P52 no later than 125 CE and perhaps as early as 100 CE.6 If so, P52 indicates that the Gospel of John was already in final form by the beginning of the second century CE. No scholar now would date John after the first decade of the second century CE. Most Johannine scholars agree that it dates from around 100 CE or perhaps a decade earlier. Hence, John is now perceived to be a late first century composition in its present edited form (without 7:53–8:11). With the shifting date of John’s composition also came a revised assessment of the Gospel’s historical reliability. In part this has been the result of archaeological excavations. To reiterate for the present overview and perspective, in Jn 5:2 the author describes a monumental pool with “five porticoes” inside the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem where the sick came to be healed; the pool, we are told, is called Bethzatha or Bethsaida. No other ancient writer—no author or editor of the Old Testament, the Pseudepigrapha, or even Josephus—mentions such a significant pool in Jerusalem. Moreover, no known ancient building was a pentagon, which was apparently what John was describing with five porticoes. It seemed that the author of John could not have been a Jew who knew Jerusalem. As already demonstrated in Chapter 6 of this book, archaeologists dug precisely where the author of John claimed a pool was set aside for healing. Their excavations revealed an ancient pool with porticoes (open areas with large columns) and with shrines dedicated to the Greek god of healing, Asclepius. The pool had porticoes: one to the north, one to the east, one to the south, one to the west, and one transecting the roughly rectangular structure (defining two pools).7 The building thus had five porticoes and was dedicated to healing. The author of John knew more about Jerusalem than we thought. Not long ago, archaeologists were surprised to find the Pool of Siloam. It was not a creation of the Fourth Evangelist to stress Jesus as one sent by God into the world. Since no pool from Jesus’ time was known in or near Jerusalem and placed where John situates it, Siloam, which means “sent,” was imagined to exist to stress Christology. The pool was discovered when a sewer pipe burst (see Figure 8.2) But the major impact of the Dead Sea Scrolls on the origin of John relates to its conceptual world and theology, especially the dualism that pervades it. For emphasis, it is wise to repeat what was concluded in the previous chapter: according to Jn 12:35, Jesus says: “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtakes you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes” (Italics highlight terms also found in the Rule of the Community). Here we clearly see the dualism of light and darkness. In the very next verse Jesus exhorts his listeners to become “Sons of Light”: “Believe in the light, that you may become Sons of Light.”



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Figure 8.1  Bethzatha, a Mikveh from Jesus’ Time, North of the Temple.

We have seen that this same dualism is found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, especially in the text known as the Rule of the Community (1QS). This manuscript indicates what the Master must teach to the prospective Qumranites: “The Master [‫ ]משכל‬shall instruct and teach all the Sons of Light . . .” (1QS 3.13); these are men who were created for such instruction. In contrast, Jesus preaches that all can become “Sons of Light”; he, thus, rejects the predestination of 1QS. In the Rule of the Community, the Master teaches how to behave as “Sons of Light.” As in John, the Rule of the Community contrasts the light and the darkness in this striking eschatological passage: He has created the human for the dominion of the world, designing for him two spirits in which to walk until the appointed time for his visitation, namely, the spirits of truth and deceit. In a spring of light emanate the nature of truth and from a well of darkness emerge the nature of deceit. In the hand of the Prince of Lights (is) the dominion of all the Sons of Righteousness, in the ways of light they walk. But in the hand of the Angel of Darkness (is) the dominion of the Sons of Deceit, and in the ways of darkness they walk. (1QS 3.17–21 [my translation])

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Figure 8.2  The Pool of Siloam, South of the Temple.

The dualism in John cannot be traced back to Platonic idealism, as was once thought. Nor is the dualism in John paralleled in Greek, Roman, or Egyptian thought. Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, it was assumed it could not be found in Judaism, either. What scholars could not find within Judaism, however, has now turned up clearly and boldly in the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the passage from the Rule of the Community already quoted we find a cosmic dualism characterized by two powerful angels. This dualism is expressed in terms of a light-darkness paradigm, with humans at the center of the struggle and divided into two lots: “the Sons of Light” and “the Sons of Darkness.” The quoted passage from the Rule of the Community was so important in the Qumran Community that it probably was among the texts that initiates were required to memorize. The initiates spent two years learning the Community’s rules, were examined in them, and came from a culture in which memorization of large portions of Scripture was characteristic of the learned male. After one year in the Community, the novice who intended to join it was examined “with regards to his insight and his works in Torah” (1QS 6.18). This examination would entail memorizing the Essene lore which obviously would include the explanation of good and evil in the cosmos developed within Second Temple Judaism only in 1QS 3–4. The same contrast we find in the Rule of the Community between light and darkness, corresponding to good and evil, is also found, for example, in the text known as the War Scroll (1QM) which depicts a final eschatological battle between “the Sons of Light” and “the Sons of Darkness.”



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In one of the most famous passages in John’s Gospel, we find not only this same dualism with punishments and rewards, but also the proclamation (kerygma) that Jesus is God’s Son: For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that all who believe in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. He who believes in him is not condemned; he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light, because their deeds were evil. For all who do evil hate the light, and do not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that it may be clearly seen that his deeds have been accomplished through God.8 (Jn 3:16–21; the italicized words signal links, even technical terms, most likely inherited from the Qumran sect.)

Of course no Qumranite would agree that Jesus was the Son of God, but much of the symbolism is the same. The spirit of the Fourth Gospel is peculiarly Johannine, but the mentality was inherited. The source, or at least one of the major sources, is clearly Qumran terminology and symbolism. The passage from John refers not only to “the Son,” but also to “the Son of God.” Not long ago, we would have said that these terms and titles were not to be found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. But fragmentary scrolls reveal a different picture. Of course, the members of the Qumran Community knew from Psalm 2 about the concept of being God’s son, but the Essenes extended the concept of God’s son beyond the adoption of the king as God’s son during a royal enthronement in Psalm 2: “[The Lord] said to me: ‘You are my son; today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage.’” In the Dead Sea Scrolls we find an apocalyptic and perhaps a messianic use of the concept. A fragment called 4Q246 refers to the “Son of God” and also to the “Son of the Most High.” According to Joseph Fitzmyer, these titles apply “to some human being in the apocalyptic setting of this Palestinian text of the last third of the first century B.C.”9 Obviously, the author of John inherited the titles “the Son,” “the Son of God,” and “Son of the Most High” from Palestinian Judaism. Although this fragmentary text from Qumran is not explicitly messianic—no messiah is mentioned in any preserved part of it—it does . . . say that “all shall serve him” and this is reminiscent of another text known as 4Q521. In that text we are told that the heavens and the earth shall obey (or serve) “his Messiah” (‫)משיחו‬. The “Son of God” text from Qumran (4Q246) speaks of “all who believe” and “all who do evil,” reflecting two distinct poles of humanity. This is anthropological dualism; humanity is divided into two camps: those who believe versus those who do evil. These thoughts seem to echo in John. Other concepts are shared by the Qumran Community (‫ )יחד‬and the Johannine community.10 Both were “exclusive” communities. Both apparently lived in social, if not physical isolation.11 Each was a closed Jewish sect. Both vehemently rejected the

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Temple cult. Each saw only its own members as “Sons of Light”; all others, even those heralded as the most pious within Jerusalem, are “Sons of Darkness” who belong to the lot of Belial. Qumran and John were sociological groups with strong barriers against outsiders. Each considers itself living in a liminal period nestled between the Endtime and the messianic age.12 In both communities, love is reserved only for those who belong to the Community (1QS and 1Jn 2:7–11; 3:11–18 [1 John is close to John]). To repeat what was explained in the previous chapter, there are only two main antecedents to Johannine dualism: Qumran and Zurvanism. The latter was developed in ancient Persia by a group within Zoroastrianism. Perhaps through members of caravans traveling from Persia to the West, Zurvanism influenced the Qumran sect, and it, in turn, influenced John.13 Returning to Jn 3:16–21, we are told that all “Sons of Light” will have eternal life. In antithesis, all those who are not “Sons of Light” will perish. These thoughts are most likely influenced by Qumranic dualism developed at least two centuries earlier. Initiates at Qumran were taught that those who are not “Sons of Light” will receive “eternal perdition by the fury of God’s vengeful wrath, everlasting terror and endless shame, along with disgrace of annihilation in the fire of murky Hell” (1QS 4.12–13). Similarly the author of John refers to “the wrath of God” (Jn 3:36), which is reminiscent of 1QS’s reference to “the fury of God’s vengeful wrath” (1QS 4.12). The Qumranites, who regarded themselves as “the Sons of Light” will, by contrast, be rewarded, “with all everlasting blessings, endless joy in everlasting life, and a crown of glory along with a resplendent attire in eternal light” (1QS 4.7–8). Both John and the Qumran text reflect a common belief in the final judgment at the messianic Endtime. The fundamental dualism of Qumran theology is seen in the following paradigm of contrasting concepts that come from a single passage (so important that it probably had to be memorized) in columns 3 and 4 of the Rule of the Community (except for “Sons of Darkness,” which comes from column 1): Light

Darkness

Sons of Light Angel of Light Angel of Truth Sons of Righteousness Spring of light Walking in the ways of light Truth God loves Everlasting life

Sons of Darkness (1QS 1.10) Angel of Darkness Spirit of Deceit Sons of Deceit Well of darkness Walking in the ways of darkness Deceit God hates Punishment, then extinction

Many scholars agree that in some way John has been influenced by this dualism and its terminology. According to the above paradigm, only in the Rule of the Community and in John, in early Jewish texts, do we systematically find darkness contrasted to light, evil to truth, hate to love, and, finally, perishing to receiving eternal life. In fact, only the Rule of the Community and John have the key features of this dualistic paradigm.



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Nowhere in the ancient world do we find the dualism of light and darkness developed so thoroughly as in the Rule of the Community and reflected in the Gospel of John. In both, it is a cosmic and salvific dualism, subsumed under a belief in one and only one God and a conviction that evil and the demons will someday cease to exist. As Raymond Brown observed: “Not only the dualism but also its terminology is shared by John and Qumran.”14 The author of John also refers to the Spirit of Truth (Jn 14:17; 15:26; 16:13; compare with the variant in Jn 4:24), another technical term that appears in the Rule of the Community (3.18–19 and 4.21 and 4.23). The mysterious Johannine Paraclete and the Holy Spirit are strikingly similar to the Qumran concept of “the Spirit of Truth.” Again, Qumran influence on John seems likely. The author of John was not a Qumranite nor did he espouse theology; he was a member of the Palestinian Jesus Movement. The author of John urged his readers to believe in Jesus and took some earlier terms and concepts, reshaping them to proclaim that Jesus was none other than the Messiah promised to the Jews (see, for example, Jn 4:25–26). But, of all ancient writings that have survived, only in the Dead Sea Scrolls do we find a type of thought, a developed symbolic language, and a dualistic paradigm with technical terms that are so close to the Gospel of John.15 In the words of Moody Smith: “That the Qumran scrolls attest a form of Judaism whose conceptuality and terminology tally in some respects quite closely with the Johannine is a commonly acknowledged fact.”16 The Johannine community consisted of some Jews who had been expelled from the synagogue.17 The term ἀποσυνάγωγος appears three times in John (9:22; 12:42; 16:2) and nowhere else in the New Testament. The noun means that members of the Johannine community had been thrown out (ἀπό) of the synagogue (συναγωγή). Scholars are slowly coming to the realization not only that the Johannine community was deeply Jewish, but in many ways it is the most Jewish Gospel in the Christian canon. Thus, for example, the setting of John 7–9 is the Feast of the Tabernacles (Sukkot), one of the three pilgrim festivals when Jews were supposed to ascend up to Jerusalem. As a devout Jew, Jesus makes the required pilgrimage (Jn 7:10) and enters the Temple (Jn 7:14). Johannine Jews who wanted to celebrate Sukkot were being banned from synagogues because of their Christology which identified Jesus with God. That John’s Gospel and the Dead Sea Scrolls share certain concepts and terminology is clear. How this influence occurred is less clear. One possibility is that after the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 CE (having already destroyed the Qumran settlement in 68 CE) the surviving Essenes18 (including those who may have escaped from Qumran) joined a new group within Second Temple Judaism—the Palestinian Jesus Movement. If this occurred, the former Essenes would surely have influenced the members of the new group with their special insights and technical terms. Some scholars have suggested that the influx of former Essenes into Jesus’ community is what is reflected in Acts: “And the word of God increased; and the number of the disciples in Jerusalem multiplied greatly, and a great crowd of the priests followed in the faith (6:7).” The Essenes were certainly a priestly group; they, not the priests in Jerusalem, inherited legitimacy. The Community at Qumran was “a most holy assembly for Aaron” (8.5–6) and “the Sons of Zadok,” are “the priests who keep the covenant” (5.2). According to the author of Acts, this influx of converts occurred before the destruction of the Temple.

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Further support for this contention comes from the fact that Acts refers to the Palestinian Jesus Movement as “the Way.” “Way” is a technical term (see Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22; cf. 2Pet 2:2). Recall Acts 9: Ὁ δὲ Σαῦλος ἔτι ἐμπνέων ἀπειλῆς καὶ φόνου εἰς τοὺς μαθητὰς τοῦ κυρίου, προσελθὼν τῷ ἀρχιερεῖ 2 ᾐτήσατο παρʼ αὐτοῦ ἐπιστολὰς εἰς Δαμασκὸν πρὸς τὰς συναγωγάς, ὅπως ἐάν τινας εὕρῃ τῆς ὁδοῦ ὄντας, ἄνδρας τε καὶ γυναῖκας, δεδεμένους ἀγάγῃ εἰς Ἰερουσαλήμ. Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest 2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. (Acts 9:1–2; NRSV, emphasis added)

Where did the technical term “the Way” come from? It is not typical of the Old Testament, the Septuagint, the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, or the Jewish magical papyri. It is, in fact, the self-designation of the Qumran sect: “These are the rules of the Way (‫( ”)הדרך‬1QS 9.21; cf. 1QS 9.19, 11.11; 1QSa 1.28; 11QTemplea 54.17, emphasis added). The most likely reconstruction of Christian origins is that members of the Jesus’ group were called “the Way” because of the Qumran sect (or the larger group of Essenes). Some or perhaps many Qumranites or Essenes probably joined the Jesus group by the time Luke wrote Acts. While the term “Essene” is not found in the New Testament, because it was not a term they used to refer to themselves, they did claim to be “Sons of Light” and members of “the Way,” and these technical terms are evident in the New Testament writings. The most reliable indication that Essenes, and those familiar with Qumran theology, were entering the Jesus group after the 60s is the paucity of parallels in works prior to that time, namely Paul’s letters,19 and—in contrast—the preponderance of parallels to Essene thought in works postdating the 60s and especially 70 CE, namely Ephesians,20 Hebrews, Matthew,21 Revelation, and, especially, John.22 Another route by which the terminology of the Qumran Community may have entered or at least influenced the early Christian community is via John the Baptizer— although this scenario is less likely. Even before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars had concluded that there had been a rift between the Johannine community and the followers of John the Baptizer.23 The first chapter of John’s Gospel contains a polemic against the Baptizer in which the author of John has the Baptizer state: “I am not the Christ.” The Baptizer, according to John’s Gospel, then denies that he is Elijah or “the prophet” (Jn 1:19–23). The Baptizer’s role is thus considerably diminished. The author of John probably placed these remarks in the Baptizer’s mouth as a retort to those who believed that the Baptizer was the Christ, or at least Elijah, or the eschatological Prophet. The Baptizer’s function in John’s Gospel is only to make straight the way of the Lord as Isaiah prophesied (Jn 1:23) and to proclaim that Jesus of Nazareth is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” (Jn 1:29). According to the Fourth Evangelist, the Baptizer sees and declares that Jesus is “the Son of God” (Jn 1:34).



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The connection between the Baptizer and the Qumran Community was so close that a number of scholars have concluded that the Baptizer actually lived at Qumran before taking his message to a wider community.24 While it is conceivable that the connection between John the Baptizer and Qumran accounts for the Qumran influence on the Gospel of John,25 it is much more likely, however, that the influences from Qumran or the Essenes on the Johannine community involved a process that continued throughout the period when the Gospel of John took definitive shape.26 The Johannine community seems to have been something like a “school,”27 similar to other schools in antiquity. One of the clearest indications of this is the evidence that the Gospel of John was revised from time to time and whole chapters—chapter 1 and 21 and probably chapters 15–17—were added. To illustrate the reasoning behind this conclusion: Chapter 14 ends with Jesus’ exhortation to his disciples: “Rise, let us go from here.” Chapters 15 through 17 consist of long speeches by Jesus appealing for unity. Chapter 18 rather clearly picks up where chapter 14 left off. Note how chapter 18 begins: “When Jesus had spoken these words, he went forth with his disciples across the Kidron Valley . . . .” These words follow chapter 14 much better than they do chapters 15 through 17. Chapters 15 through 17 were probably added in a “second edition” of the Gospel.28 The theme of John 15–17 is Jesus’ appeal to God that his followers be one. Recall John 17: Οὐ περὶ τούτων δὲ ἐρωτῶ μόνον, ἀλλὰ καὶ περὶ τῶν πιστευόντων διὰ τοῦ λόγου αὐτῶν εἰς ἐμέ, ἵνα πάντες ἓν ὦσιν Not concerning these only do I ask, but also concerning those who are believing through their word in me, so that all may be one. (Jn 17:20–21).

The only document prior to John that stresses this theme of oneness is 1QS. And this composite document applies the term oneness (‫—)יחד‬or community—to the Qumran sect. Perhaps Essenes, now converted to the belief in Jesus as the Christ and living in the Johannine School, caused the inclusion of chapters 15–17 in the final edition of John. In short, the Gospel of John was not written by a philosopher working alone. Written in the late first century, utilizing even earlier sources, John’s Gospel is the product of a group of authors and editors, all of whom were probably Jews, who worked without depending on the Synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke.29 The Gospel of John took shape over more than three decades. Some members of the Johannine School may formerly have been Essenes, some of whom may even have once lived in the caves west of Qumran or on the marl terrace to the north. While virtually all scholars agree that the author of John was influenced either directly or indirectly by the Dead Sea Scroll sect, there is no consensus on how this influence made its way into the Gospel that bears John’s name. After decades of thinking on this issue, I am convinced that the most probable scenario is this: Not all the Qumranites died in the Roman attack on their abode in the wilderness in 68 CE. Some were still alive when the Gospel of John was being written. Some of them, as is now widely acknowledged, no doubt became believers in Jesus.30

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The most striking and impressive parallels between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament documents are in those compositions produced by the second generation of “Christians.” Hence, Essene influence did not come most powerfully with Jesus or even with John the Baptizer, although the points of contact here are also impressive.31 The major influence probably came after 68 CE, when the Romans destroyed the Qumran settlement, and many Qumranites fled to Jerusalem to join the Essenes living there. The Dead Sea Scrolls help us understand how the Jews in the Johannine community searched for identity in a world that had become increasingly hostile. The search for identity had been sought earlier by the followers of the Qumranite Righteous Teacher, who led a small band of priests from the Temple in Jerusalem into the “land of Damascus.” Eventually, they settled in an abandoned ruin in the wilderness just west of the Dead Sea. These historical reflections are pertinent for us today. Many discover their own identity by reading the Scrolls, the Gospel of John, and often both. The Dead Sea Scrolls challenge us to think about the source of John’s vocabulary and perspective, and clarify the uniqueness of his Gospel, his Christology, and his theology.

Notes 1 This chapter is a revised and expanded version of “Reinterpreting John: How the Dead Sea Scrolls Have Revolutionized Our Understanding of the Gospel of John,” Bible Review 9, no. 1 (1993): 18–25. 2 See the insightful discussion by M. Hengel, “Bishop Lightfoot and the Tübingen School on the Gospel of John and the Second Century,” Durham University Journal (January 1992): 23–51; see especially p. 24. 3 This possibility cannot be proved, and probably cannot be disproved. 4 See especially A. Deissmann, “Ein Evangelienblatt aus den Tagen Hadrians,” Deutsche allgemeine Zeitung 564 (December 3, 1935) (ET in British Weekly [December 12, 1935]) and E. J. Epp, “Textual Criticism,” in The New Testament and its Modern Interpreters (ed. E. J. Epp and G. W. MacRae; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), pp. 75–126. 5 Notably, see B. Nongbri, “The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel,” Harvard Theological Review 98 (2005): 23–48. P. Orsini and W. Clarysse, “Early New Testament Manuscripts and Their Dates; A Critique of Theological Palaeography,” Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses 88 (2012): 443–74. S. E. Porter, “Recent Efforts to Reconstruct Early Christianity on the Basis of its Payrological Evidence,” in Christian Origins and Graeco-Roman Culture (ed. S. E. Porter and A. Pitts; Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 71–84. 6 In “Der Text des Johannesevangeliums im 2. Jahrhundert,” in Studien zum Text und zur Ethik des Neuen Testaments: Festschrift zum 80. Geburtstag von Heinrich Greeven (ed. W. Schrage; BZNW 47; Berlin: De Gruyter, 1986), pp. 1–10, K. Aland dated the papyrus to the beginning of the second century CE. 7 See J. Jeremias, The Rediscovery of Bethesda; John 5:2 (Louisville: Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1966). 8 Lit. “have been worked in God.” 9 J. A. Fitzmyer, A Wandering Aramean (Missoula: Scholars, 1979), p. 93. 10 The use of capitals only for the Qumran Community is intentional.



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11 See Wayne A. Meeks, “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism,” JBL (1972): 44–72, see especially pp. 70–71. 12 I use liminality in the sense defined by V. Turner, Process, Performance, and Pilgrimage (New Delhi: Concept, 1979), see especially pp. 11–59. Also, see J. Z. Smith, “Birth Upside Down or Right Side Up?” History of Religions 9 (1969–1970): 281–303, and his “A Place on Which to Stand: Symbols and Social Change,” Worship 44 (1970): 457–74. 13 For a discussion of this point, see the introduction in J. H. Charlesworth, ed., John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1991), and also see Chapter 7 in the present book. 14 R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966) 1:lxii. 15 Some of the Hermetic tractates and some of the gnostic codices are intermittently similar to John; but then the influence seems to be from John to them. 16 D. M. Smith, Johannine Christianity (Columbia: South Carolina, 1984), p. 26. 17 J. L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979); R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist, 1979). 18 A consensus still exists among Qumran specialists that the Qumranites were Essenes. L. Schiffman (“The Significance of the Scrolls,” BR [October 1990]) challenges the Essene origins of the Qumran group, but he has affirmed (at least to me on several occasions) that the Qumran group in the first century CE is to be identified as Essenes. After almost fifty years of teaching and publishing on the Qumran Scrolls I have seen that the Qumran group was a sect (it deliberately removed itself, sociologically and theologically from other Jews) and that we should think about Qumran Essenes, Jerusalem Essenes, and other groups living on the outskirts of most of the cities, as Philo and Josephus reported. 19 See J. Murphy-O’Connor and J. H. Charlesworth, eds., Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1992). 20 See J. H. Charlesworth’s introduction to Paul and the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. ix–xvi. 21 K. Stendahl rightly demonstrated that there is a School of Matthew and that the means of interpreting Scripture in this School is strikingly like that found in the Qumran commentaries (the Pesharim). See Stendahl, The School of St. Matthew and Its Use of the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968). Also, see K. Schubert, “The Sermon on the Mount and the Qumran Texts,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament (ed. K. Stendahl; London: SCM, 1958), pp. 118–28; and W. D. Davies, The Setting of the Sermon on the Mount (Cambridge: Cambridge, 1966) see especially pp. 208–56. Davies argues—and I concur—that the Sermon on the Mount “reveals an awareness of the [Dead Sea Scroll] Sect and perhaps a polemic against it” (p. 235). 22 See the contributions by Brown, Price, Leaney, Jaubert, Charlesworth, Quispel, and Brownlee in Charlesworth, ed., John and the Dead Sea Scrolls. 23 See W. Baldensperger, Der Prolog des vierten Evangeliums (published in 1898). Also, see R. Bultmann, The Gospel of John, pp. 84–97. 24 See O. Betz, “Was John the Baptist an Essene?” BR (December 1990). 25 See Brownlee in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls, pp. 165–94. 26 R. Schnackenburg (The Gospel According to St. John [trans. K. Smyth; New York: Crossroad, 1987] 1:134–35) wrote: “There are close contacts between John and Qumran on important points . . . that there were some associations must be seriously considered, however they were set up.” 27 R. A. Culpepper, The Johannine School (SBLDS 26; Missoula: Scholars, 1975). See also G. Strecker, “Die Anfänge der Johanneischen Schule,” NTS 32 (1986): 1–47; and

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E. Ruckstuhl, “Zur Antithese Idiolekt—Soziolekt im johanneischen Schrifttum,” in Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), pp. 219–64. George Parsenios, Departure and Consolation: The Johannine Farewell Discourses in Light of Greco-Roman Literature (NovTSup 117; Leiden: Brill, 2005). Although the author of John may have known one of the Synoptics, especially Mark, he was not dependent on the Synoptics, as Gardner-Smith, Goodenough, Käsemann, Cullmann, Robinson, Smith, and other scholars have demonstrated in different ways. As P. Borgen pointed out, John seems to relate to the pre-Synoptic tradition that is evident, for example, in Paul. See P. Borgen, “John and the Synoptics,” in The Interrelations of the Gospels (ed. D. Dungan; Leuven: Leuven, 1990), pp. 408–37. See now the major study by D. M. Smith, John among the Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992) and its second edition: (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2001). It is conceivable that none of the Qumranites, not more than 150, ever became “Christians.” That still leaves most of the Essenes to account for, since Philo and Josephus reported that 4,000 Essenes were living throughout ancient Palestine. See the contributions in J. H. Charlesworth, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (AYBRL; New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992).

9

John and Qumran: Almost Seventy Years of Research1

1  General remarks 1.1  Date of the Gospel of John Research on the Scrolls composed by the Qumranites or significantly edited by them has helped clarify the date of the Fourth Gospel. As is clear from the previous chapters,2 virtually no scholar now dates this Gospel to the middle of the second century or later. The undeniable similarities between the Fourth Gospel and Jewish thought known to be influential in pre-70 CE Judaism (Second Temple Judaism) indicate that the work took definite shape no later than about 100 CE. Most scholars rightly stress that the Gospel at that time reflects earlier editions and some unique sources. The Fourth Gospel evolved and reflects more than one author. 7:53–8:11 was added much later than 100; perhaps it became part of the Gospel sometime in the third century CE. This pericope is close to Jesus’ setting in Jerusalem and coherent with Jewish concerns prior to 70 CE; hence, one should be open to the possibility that it contains some reliable memory of Jesus’ thoughts and actions. Literary tensions and theological differences in the Gospel lead many Johannine experts to conclude that some sections were added to an earlier form of the Gospel; that is, long sections were probably added to a first edition, as indicated in chapter two. Likely additions include the following: 1:1–18, all of chapter 21, and maybe chapters 15–17, and some verses (esp. 4:2). Did the Fourth Evangelist inherit and adequately reproduce a Signs Source? In the seventies and eighties a consensus seemed to have been reached; it followed from R. T. Fortna’s The Gospel of Signs which appeared in 1970.3 Many experts concluded that we could confidently refer to a written gospel inherited by the Fourth Evangelist. The sequential numbering of “signs” in the Gospel suggests that a Signs Source had been absorbed into it. Note these excerpts: Ταύτην ἐποίησεν ἀρχὴν τῶν σημείων ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐν Κανὰ τῆς Γαλιλαίας [Jn 2:11] This (was the) first of the signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee.

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Τοῦτο [δὲ] πάλιν δεύτερον σημεῖον ἐποίησεν ὁ Ἰησοῦς ἐλθὼν ἐκ τῆς Ἰουδαίας εἰς τὴν Γαλιλαίαν. [4:54] [But] again, this (was) the second sign Jesus did coming from Judea into Galilee.

The reader knows from chapter 4 that Jesus had performed many signs; hence, the Evangelist must have used a source that numbered Jesus’ signs. R. T. Fortna provided the best explanations for the disarming literary and theological aporias. That consensus has either disappeared or been modified, even though Fortna and others (esp. U. C. von Wahlde)4 continue to argue that the Fourth Evangelist employed a written source that stressed the importance of Jesus’ miracles or signs.5 If such a source existed, I would be more willing to call it a source and not a gospel (Fortna’s position), and urge us to ponder the degree to which memory6 and oral traditions7 remained not only normative but reliable for the Fourth Evangelist and his Jewish contemporaries.8 The Signs Source takes us back before 70 CE and maybe earlier.

1.2  Provenience is Palestine Thanks to the study of pre-70 CE Jewish texts, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls, it is now certain that one does not have to look to Iranian texts or Greek philosophy to locate expressions and thoughts typical of the Fourth Gospel. Many terms that were deemed creative dimensions of “Johannine terminology and ideology” are now evident in Second Temple Judaism. Thus, research on the Dead Sea Scrolls has led many experts, like H. Braun9 and J. A. T. Robinson10 to conclude that the Gospel is both early and reflects Palestinian Jewish terms and thoughts. M. Hengel expresses the opinion of many current scholars when he states: “The Qumran discoveries are a landmark for a new assessment of the situation of the Fourth Gospel in the history of religion.”11 Hengel continues by concluding that the Fourth Gospel took shape in Palestine: “Numerous linguistic and theological parallels to Qumran, especially in the sphere of dualism, predestination, and election also point to Palestine” as the provenience of the Fourth Gospel.12 L. Morris voiced the same judgment: The Dead Sea Scrolls “have demonstrated, by their many parallels to this Gospel both in ideas and expression, that our Fourth Gospel is essentially a Palestinian document.”13 F. F. Bruce agreed with these insights: “An argument for the Palestinian provenance of this Gospel which was not available to scholars of earlier generations has been provided by the discovery and study of documents emanating from the religious community which had its headquarters at Qumran, north-west of the Dead Sea, for about two centuries before AD 70.”14 Eschewing any reference to a consensus, which might sink it, I shall add to these solid conclusions that remain valid for today. The primary data we have been discussing prove that the Fourth Evangelist knew the topography of Palestine, the debates over Torah within Second Temple Judaism, the beliefs of the Samaritans, and the costly provisions for the Jewish rites of purification.15 Cumulatively, research proves that the Fourth Evangelist lives in the world of pre-70 CE Palestinian Judaism. Stone vessels, “for the Jewish rites of purification” (Jn 2:6), are an aside in John 2, but we now know that such stone jars almost always antedate 70 CE and have been found not only in Jerusalem’s Upper City but also in Lower Galilee, including both places vying for the Cana mentioned



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in John 2.16 The Fourth Evangelist also seems to know the locations of Caiaphas’ house and the praetorium (18:28). The Herodian Pool of Siloam has been discovered south of the Temple Mount; that is where the Evangelist locates it. The Pool of Bezatha has been discovered north of the Temple Mount; that is where the Evangelist places it; and it does have five porticoes and two pools. Once theological exegesis sufficed to unlock the mysteries of the Fourth Gospel; now, we need to include historiography and archaeology.

1.3  The Fourth Gospel is very Jewish and fundamental for Jesus Research The Jewish nature of the Fourth Gospel is affirmed by most leading scholars. Inter alia, the following have been observed as disclosing the Jewish nature of the Fourth Gospel:

1. Shabbat halakah by some pre-70 CE Jews is portrayed as excessive and fails to

represent obedience to God’s will as revealed in Torah (viz., Jn 5:9–18).17 2. The Fourth Evangelist knows that influential Jews have judged that circumcision overrides Shabbat observance (Jn 7:22–23). 3. The Jewish festivals are integral not only to the composition of the Fourth Gospel but also placard its Jewish background.18 4. Jewish purity concerns appear throughout the Fourth Gospel and are assumed to be meaningful to the intended reader.19 H. I. Harrington explores the functions of ablutions in the Fourth Gospel and the Qumran Scrolls, finds a shared emphasis, and suggests that “Qumran and other texts reveal the rich multi-valence of water purification in Second Temple Judaism.” The “other texts” are CD 5.3, Sibylline Oracles 4, Life of Adam and Eve 6–7, and 4Q274. She shows that “water purification and the eschaton is not an innovation of the Fourth Gospel,” and that at Qumran purification is a fundamental tenet of the sect. 5. Stone vessels designated for the Jewish rites of purification and mikvaot for ritual cleansing appear both on the surface of the narrative (John 2) and just beneath it (John 9). 6. Jesus’ opponents, the Ioudaioi, are not always simply “Jews”; sometimes this Greek noun designates “some Judean leaders.”20 7. The Johannine calendar may be influenced by the solar calendar of Qumran, 1 Enoch, and Jubilees.21 8. The Johannine Jews are prohibited from attending synagogal services by some synagogal Jews.22 Before the 1960s, many scholars were persuaded that the Fourth Evangelist couched Jesus’ words in terms of Greek thought, especially the Stoics’ use of logos. In 1963, P. Borgen demonstrated that the Fourth Evangelist shaped his exegetical discourses according to the ancient midrashim;23 since then we have found the technical term midrash as a title to a pre-70 CE composition (Midrash Sepher Moses). The Dead Sea Scrolls have caused a shift in Johannine studies that is acknowledged by scholars. Note these words of P. Fredriksen: “The Scrolls incontrovertibly show that early first century Judean Jews spoke and thought in similar ways [to the way Jesus speaks in John]. And an earlier, Jewish context of composition for John’s Gospel then reopens the question of its historical value for reconstructing Jesus’ life.”24

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1.4  The Fourth Gospel is fundamental for Jesus Research Fredricksen’s comment brings forward the importance of the Fourth Gospel in Jesus Research (pace Dunn and Wright). Many scholars are now voicing an awareness that the Fourth Gospel preserves history.25 As D. M. Smith states, the Fourth Gospel contains “an array of historical data,” which have as good a claim to be historically reliable as passages in the Synoptics.26 J. P. Meier wisely uses the Fourth Gospel to obtain genuine historical information regarding the historical Jesus.27 To be taken seriously is the advice of G. Theissen and A. Merz. They argue that the Fourth Gospel is independent of the Synoptics and in places preserves “old traditions” that are “not worthless” historically.28 The Qumran Scrolls have been the major catalyst for this perception. Before proceeding further, it is helpful to review again how unique is Qumran dualism, since research on John and Qumran has tended to focus on a “shared” dualism.

2  Specific questions concerning John and Qumran 2.1  How unique is the dualism at Qumran? J. Painter correctly emphasizes that while dualism is regnant in the ancient world, a unique type of dualism is found in John and Qumran: “But we find no developed or systematic expression of a dualistic position in the Old Testament such as we find at Qumran and in John.”29 As D. Dimant states: “One of the most striking elements in the Qumranic documents is the dualistic doctrine expounded by them. Unique in Early Judaism, this doctrine drew the attention of scholars from the earliest days of Qumran research” (italics mine).30 If the dualism is unique to Qumran within the world of Second Temple Judaism, as many scholars have concluded, it is misleading and fruitless to find isolated and similar phrases in other early Jewish (and non-Jewish) texts. What is missing in these other early texts is a cluster of termini technici that constitutes a paradigm. Within the purview of the Fourth Evangelist, this paradigm is developed only in scrolls composed at Qumran and especially in the Rule of the Community.

2.2  How unique is the dualism found in the Fourth Gospel? Jn 12:35–36 was a passage once incorrectly judged to represent the Evangelist’s novel creativity. Here is that excerpt again: Jesus said to them, “The light is with you for a little longer. Walk while you have the light, lest the darkness overtake you; he who walks in the darkness does not know where he goes. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become Sons of Light.” (italics highlight terms inherited; “to believe” is a creative alteration of traditions by the Fourth Evangelist)

What I wish to stress now is that the Fourth Evangelist is obviously not developing and creating termini technici; he is inheriting a dualistic paradigm. Why did the Evangelist



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use such symbolism, such phrases and terms, and from what source did he inherit the technical term “Sons of Light”? While we should avoid what Brooke calls “elaborate theories of literary dependence,”31 we should also note that Jn 12:35–36 raises the possibility to a high degree concerning the origin of the Fourth Evangelist’s dualism, dualistic perception, and technical terms. I prefer to see some “direct” influence from the world of Qumran upon John, but I never imagined the Fourth Evangelist was working from a copy of the Rule of the Community. Since I first published on the relation between Qumran and John, I imagined that the Fourth Evangelist learned this dualism through conversations with Essenes (perhaps some who joined the Palestinian Jesus Movement). The most probable explanation for the dualism in the Qumran Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel is that the Fourth Evangelist, and perhaps those in his own group, were influenced by the light-darkness paradigm, developed only in the Rule of the Community. In that scroll we find an explanation of who are the “Sons of Light” (see 3.13, 24, 25), and we are introduced to the phrase, “and they shall walk in the ways of darkness” (3.21; cf. 4.11). One passage in the Rule contains phrases and words that seem “Johannine” to many that do not know that this scroll antedates John by about two centuries: In the hand of the Prince of Lights [is] the dominion of all the Sons of Righteousness; in the ways of light they walk. But in the hand of the Angel of Darkness [is] the dominion of the Sons of Deceit; and in the ways of darkness they walk. By the Angel of Darkness comes the aberration of all the Sons of Righteousness; and all their sins, their iniquities, their guilt, and their iniquitous works [are caused] by his dominion, according to God’s mysteries, until his end. And all their afflictions and the appointed times of their suffering [are caused] by the dominion of his hostility. And all the spirits of his lot cause to stumble the Sons of Light; but the God of Israel and his Angel of Truth help all the Sons of Light. He created the spirits of light and darkness, and upon them he founded every work. (1QS 3.20–25) [translation by Charlesworth]32

Note the termini technici that are italicized and the resulting dualistic paradigm. Except for “Sons of Darkness,” all the following technical terms are found in a self-contained, short, memorable section of the Rule (e.g., cols. 3–4). Note the contrarieties: Light

Darkness

Sons of Light Angel of Light Angel of Truth Sons of Truth Sons of Righteousness Spring of light Walking in the ways of light Truth God loves Everlasting life

Sons of Darkness [see 1QS 1.10] Angel of Darkness Spirit of Deceit Sons of Deceit Sons of Deceit Well of darkness Walking in the ways of darkness Deceit (or perversity) God hates Punishment, then extinction

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As J. Becker points out in his Das Evangelium nach Johannes, the dualism in the Fourth Gospel is closest in the ancient world to that found in 1QS 3–4. The widespread recognition of some influence of Qumran or Essene thought on the Fourth Evangelist leads to this thesis articulated by Becker: “The Johannine community must, after some undualistic phase, have come under the influence of a type of Qumran dualism.”33 In turn, D. Flusser emphasized that the “flesh-spirit” dualism known to the Qumran authors reappears, and perhaps influenced, the Fourth Evangelist (Jn 3:6).34 R. E. Brown observed: “It will be noted that not only the dualism but also its terminology is shared by John and Qumran.”35 Those who focus only on how dualism operates differently in Qumran theologies than in Johannine Christology need to heed Fitzmyer’s question, which is a warning against such myopic methodology: “[Why] should we expect the light-darkness imagery to function in the same way in both bodies of literature?”36

2.3  How have scholars explained possible Essene influence on the Gospel of John? Adding to what has been presented already in the previous chapters, we need to bring into focus that among all the ancient writings only the Dead Sea Scrolls disclose a type of thought, a developed symbolic language, and a dualistic paradigm with termini technici that are surprisingly close to passages in the Fourth Gospel.37 Recognizing the unique genius and theological creativity of the Fourth Evangelist also leaves room for, indeed demands, exploring what terms he inherited, from whom, and how he inherited them. Was he somehow influenced by Qumran dualistic terms and concepts? It is apparent to many Qumranologists and New Testament specialists that in some ways the Fourth Evangelist has been influenced by Qumran’s dualism and its terminology. He contrasts darkness with light, evil with truth, hate with love, and perishing with receiving eternal life. W. S. LaSor was impressed with numerous phrases unique to Qumran that reappear only in the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles; he offers the following parallels: “to do the truth” (1QS 1.5, 5.3, 8.2; Jn 3:21), “walking in truth” (1QS 4.6, 15; 2 John 4 and 3 John 3), and “witnesses of truth” (1QS 8.6; Jn 5:33 and 18:37).38 D. M. Smith correctly reports that “the Qumran scrolls attest a form of Judaism whose conceptuality and terminology tally in some respects quite closely with the Johannine is a commonly acknowledged fact.”39 J. Painter also astutely concludes that “the context in which the Johannine tradition was shaped . . . is best known to us in the Qumran texts.”40 C. A. Evans rightly judges: “The relevance of the Scrolls for Johannine studies can scarcely be doubted.”41 B. Lindars rightly pointed out that the Qumran Scrolls, especially the Rule, contain “the clearest expression of the contrast between light and the darkness, which is a central theme of John.” Lindars offered the following conclusion: “Some kind of influence of the sect on John seems inescapable.”42 The only early Jewish document in which a dualism similar to Qumran’s appears is the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and in its Jewish original form it may well reflect Essene influence and be related to the liberal type of Essenes that is mentioned by Josephus and represented by the Damascus Document. The experts who conclude that the Fourth Evangelist was influenced by the Dead Sea Scrolls or Essenes have provided many conceivable scenarios. As we shall see, the



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Figure 9.1  The Baptism of Christ mosaic in the dome of the Arian Baptistry, Ravenna. scholarly reconstructions extend from the suggestion that the Fourth Evangelist had been influenced by John the Baptizer, who had some ties to the Qumranites, to the proposal that at one time the Fourth Evangelist had been an Essene. W. H. Brownlee suggested that the influence from Qumran on John came through John the Baptizer,43 who may have been an Essene. Brownlee’s suggestion was supported in part by Bo Reicke and others.44 Admitting this scenario, R. E. Brown contended that the influence from the Essenes on the Fourth Evangelist was “indirect.” Note Brown’s words: “In our judgment the parallels are not close enough to suggest a direct literary dependence of John upon the Qumran literature, but they do suggest Johannine familiarity with the type of thought exhibited in the scrolls.”45 In his essay, “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,” Brown contended that the “ideas of Qumran must have been fairly widespread in certain Jewish circles in the early first century A.D. Probably it is only through such sources that Qumran had its indirect effect on the Johannine literature.”46 In numerous publications, Charlesworth has concluded that the influences are so deep and significant that some “direct” influence is most likely.47 John Ashton, not unfairly, criticizes Charlesworth’s lack of precision: Accordingly it makes little sense to speak, as Charlesworth does, in terms of “borrowing,” however right he may be, against Brown and Schnackenburg, to adopt a theory of direct influence. For what kind of borrowing is he thinking of?

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Does he picture John visiting the Qumran Library, as Brown calls it, and taking the Community Rule out of the repository, scrolling through it, taking notes perhaps, and then making use of its ideas when he came to compose his own work?48

These are good questions and advance the discussion. I never imagined the Fourth Evangelist visiting Qumran, studying the Community Rule, and taking notes from it.49 I may now clarify that most likely Essene influence came to the Evangelist from Essenes who had memorized the dualism developed in the Rule of the Community, were disenchanted when Qumran was burned, and were attracted to the proclamation that Jesus had been raised by God and is the long-awaited Messiah. I find it quite likely that at least a few Essenes, perhaps ones who with disenchantment had left Qumran in 68 CE, found a home in the regions where the Gospel was taking shape. If Barnabas was a Levite (from Cyprus; Acts 4:36), then other Levites, including those who were Essenes, were most likely attracted to the missionary fervor of those, like Peter and Paul, in the Palestinian Jesus Movement. Some experts concluded that the Fourth Evangelist had been an Essene. J. Ashton argued that the author of the Fourth Gospel was a convert from Essenism,50 although he has now changed his mind and no longer desires to push this scenario (although he told me that he did not really change his mind).51 Ashton is correct to emphasize that the Fourth Evangelist had dualism in his bones. E. Rucksthul contended that the Fourth Evangelist may have been an Essene living in the Jerusalem cloister.52 The apparent consensus that the Fourth Evangelist is in some way significantly influenced by Qumran or Essene thought was not supported by those who followed R. Bultmann. Such experts tended to perceive gnosis or early forms of Gnosticism, as in the Dialogue of the Saviour and the Apocryphon of James, as the source of Johannine dualism.53 The consensus that John somehow inherits dualism from Qumran has been challenged by some fine scholars. D. E. Aune is not impressed by the uniqueness of Qumran dualism and sees the Fourth Gospel within its Hellenistic Period.54 Bauckham rightly notes the importance of Genesis on the Fourth Evangelist’s interest in light and darkness.55 It is appropriate now to respond, in a brief way, to this challenge to the consensus. The argument that the Johannine dualism derives from Genesis fails to convince on five accounts. First, Genesis presents only a dualism of light versus darkness, which is the most common dualism in antiquity. As S. Aalen noted long ago, the juxtaposition of darkness and light is the most primordial experience of the human.56 Second, the dualism in Genesis lacks what is so prominent in the Fourth Gospel and in texts composed at Qumran. Genesis contains neither a dualistic paradigm nor a set of termini technici. Third, the text of Genesis and its interpretation evolved over numerous centuries. Within Second Temple Judaism, the final development is reflected at Qumran in many compositions, including Commentary on Genesis (A Through B). Such wisdom teaching clearly influenced the composition of the dualistic paradigm that reached its high water mark in the Rule of the Community (cf. esp. 1QS 3.15 and 11.11). Fourth, one should be aware of the insights derived



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from canonical criticism. One cannot assume that because Genesis is in the latter canon it was better known to the Fourth Evangelist than the dualistic teaching in the Rule of the Community. The dualistic teaching in it was most likely memorized by those who became members of the Yaḥad (or Essenes). These Jews took with them wherever they went all that had been memorized and the paradigm for answering the human’s perennial questions. They would have shared it during heated discussions regarding theodicy, the origin of the human, and the reasons why good people do bad things and bad people do good things. Fifth, it is not helpful to point out how many differences there are between the Qumran Scrolls and the Fourth Gospel. From the outset, those who perceived major similarities between Qumran and John also emphasized the amazing creativity of the Fourth Evangelist. As I stated in the late sixties, his genius forced potentially parallel lines of thought to be diverted as light that passes through a prism. All he inherited, including Genesis and Isaiah, was shifted as a result of his Christological convictions and the perception that the Father has sent his Son into the world to save it, and that all who believe in the Son, Jesus, will have eternal life. Jesus, therefore, not the Spirit of Truth, is the Light of the World. J. A. Fitzmyer thus rightly does not share “the scepticism of Bauckham.”57 With Brown, I wish to emphasize: “The parallels . . . do suggest Johannine familiarity with the type of thought exhibited in the scrolls.”

2.4  How was the Fourth Evangelist influenced by the Essenes? Dualism appears everywhere in the ancient world from Greece and Plato to Persia and Zoroastrianism. In comparing the Qumran Scrolls with the Fourth Gospel, it is imperative to see not only the dualism but also the terms (termini technici) and the paradigm that was developed within the Qumran Community (the Yaḥad). To repeat, since the consensus is being challenged, all these technical terms appear together in one circumscribed section of the Rule; it is columns 3 and 4 of the Rule that were probably memorized by all who wished to cross over into the Community of the “New Covenant,” the Yaḥad. The new recruits were introduced to termni technici and they form a paradigm. If the same terms and paradigm shape the Fourth Evangelist’s dualism, then the most likely source would be some Qumranites or Essenes. It is apparent, even obvious to many scholars, that the Fourth Evangelist inherited this dualistic paradigm and means of thinking to express a reality he experienced. Since we now know John is deeply Jewish, and influenced by pre-70 CE Judaism, he most likely inherited these concepts and terms from other Jews. He did not have to see or read a scroll; there is every reason to imagine that portions of the Rule of the Community had been memorized; it was available where Essenes were living, and Philo and Josephus report that they were virtually everywhere in Galilee and Judea. Can we identify these Jews? Most likely they were Qumranites or Essenes; perhaps the Fourth Evangelist met Essenes who had memorized this lore. The dualism was a part of the Rule of the Community, most likely had to be memorized to pass the examination for entrance into the “Many,” so those who produced the first edition

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of John seem to have discussed dualistic theology with Essenes in Jerusalem before 70  CE.58 Perhaps some Essenes eventually became members of the Johannine community or school.59

3  New avenues for potential exploration 3.1  Election and predestination A. Lange has contributed to our understanding of wisdom and predestination at Qumran.60 The Qumranites are distinguished in Second Temple Judaism by the development of the concept of election and the creation of a new concept in the history of ideas. The latter is double predestination.61 The perception that the Qumranites created the concept of double predestination needs to impact our work on the Fourth Gospel. As Fitzmyer states, in the broader context of creation theology, what the Qumranites ascribed to God’s knowledge “is predicted by the Christian evangelist of ‘the Word,’ and the double formulation is not to be missed.”62 Within John we find echoes of the double predestination created only within the Qumran Community. Even though the Fourth Evangelist stresses free will and urges his readers, intermittently, to believe that Jesus is the Messiah and the Son of Man, he reveals also that he knows Qumran’s predestination. Note this excerpt: ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα θεοῦ γενέσθαι, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ, 13 οἳ οὐκ ἐξ αἱμάτων οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος σαρκὸς οὐδὲ ἐκ θελήματος ἀνδρὸς ἀλλʼ ἐκ θεοῦ ἐγεννήθησαν. He gave to them power to become children of God, (namely) all who received him (and) those who believed in his name. They, neither of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God were born. (Jn 1:12–13) οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐλθεῖν πρός με ἐὰν μὴ ὁ πατὴρ ὁ πέμψας με ἑλκύσῃ αὐτόν, κἀγὼ ἀναστήσω αὐτὸν ἐν τῇ ἐσχάτῃ ἡμέρᾳ. 44

No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, And I shall raise him on the last day. (Jn 6:44)

On the one hand, a reader might think of the Qumran claim that all are born predestined to be “children of God” and the elect one comes to the Community because God “draws him.” On the other hand, the narrative supplied by the Evangelist is clear; those drawn to Jesus are “all those taught by God” and those who have heard and learned from the Father. The “children of God” are those who “received him” and “believed in his name” (1:12). Thus, the Fourth Evangelist stresses the dynamic element in believing and knowing, using the verbs pisteuein63 (“to believe”) and ginōskein (“to know”) more than any other Evangelist. At the same time, as a maestro, he avoids the nouns pistis (faith) and gnōsis64 (knowledge). He thus brings to the fore the verbal element in believing that entails some choice. He seems to argue against those who believe in election or



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predestination. Yet, he uses terms that reflect election and predestinarianism. If the Fourth Evangelist mirrors double predestination, then we should not be blind to what may be reflected in that mirror.

3.2  Unity At Qumran, all members of the Community held possessions in common as we know from the stipulations in the Rule of the Community. Jews who joined the Community turned their backs on all other Jews, labeling them “Sons of Darkness.” They formed a bonded unity, coining a new terminology: the Yaḥad. As H. Stegemann claimed, the Qumranites were “the major Jewish union” within Second Temple Judaism.65 The Qumranites believed they were all created “Sons of Light.” They all shared the only means of understanding Torah, God’s will, since “all the mysteries of the words of his servants the prophets” had been revealed only to the Righteous Teacher (1QpHab 7). They explained why they had “separated” from all other Jews (Some Works of the Torah). This emphasis on separation and adherence to a unity is unique in Second Temple Judaism; it is not advocated by the authors of any book in the Bible, the Apocrypha, the Pseudepigrapha, or the Jewish magical papyri; and it is not recommended by Philo or Josephus. Additional evidence of Qumran influence on John is the discovery of a similar thought articulated in the Fourth Gospel. The concept defines the Farewell Addresses (John 15–17). In chapter 15, the Fourth Evangelist portrays Jesus exhorting his followers to remain attached and united to him; he uses the imagery of a vine from which branches and fruit receive life only so long as they remain one with the vine, namely Jesus. In this chapter we find an odd mixture of “hate” and “love” that is reminiscent of the opening chapters of the Rule of the Community. In chapter 16, the Evangelist urges the believers not to fall away because of those who have insufficient knowledge. He then introduces the concept of the Parakletos and “the Spirit of Truth.” At this point, many scholars rightly hear an echo from the Qumran chorus.66 The Qumranite knows that God created two cosmic spirits and set them for man’s destiny: “the Spirits of Truth and Deceit” (1QS 3.18–19). The use of the Parakletos and the Spirit of Truth in the Johannine community is reminiscent of the Qumran thought. The latter affirmed that “the God of Israel and his Angel of Truth help all the Sons of Light” (1QS 3.24–25). Similarly, the Fourth Evangelist has Jesus state that “the Spirit of Truth” shall “guide you [the Sons of Light] into all the truth” (Jn 16:13). The Fourth Evangelist shifts the theology to stress the importance of believing. Comparing the Fourth Gospel with any forms of Judaism demands recognizing the genius of the Fourth Evangelist and his creative stress on believing that Jesus has come from above and is sent into the world by the Father. The crescendo increases so that in 17:1 the Evangelist portrays Jesus calling upon God “so that all may be one” (ἵνα πάντες ἓν ὦσιν).” As the Father is in Jesus, and Jesus in the Father, so are those who believe in Jesus to be one: “that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (Jn 17:21). We need to contemplate the source of the traditions being reshaped in chapters 15 through 17. In them we find reflected some of the brilliance that enflamed the Qumranites.

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In short, the emphasis on unity is most evident in chapters 15 through 17, which many Johannine experts discern as a part of the “second” edition of the Fourth Gospel. The concern for unity appears also in earlier chapters and there we find possible Qumran influence. As Fitzmyer points out, the commandment “to love one another” in the Fourth Gospel (Jn 13:34–35, 15:12, cf. 1Jn 3:11, 14; 2John 5) is reminiscent of the exhortation to love the Sons of Light found in the Qumran Scrolls (viz., 1QS 1.2–3, 9–10; CD 6.20).67

3.3  Shared exegetical concerns between the Fourth Gospel and Qumran Eschewing any literary relationship between the Qumran corpus and the Fourth Gospel opens up vast areas for a deeper perception of how important scriptural texts, like Genesis and Isaiah, were being interpreted. Why Jews choose the same scriptural text for comment is enlightening and has proved significant for studying the Psalms at Qumran, Habakkuk for the Qumranites and Paul, and Isaiah at Qumran and the Fourth Gospel. Different ways of interpreting scripture are informative of the varieties of text types and the different norms developed for understanding God’s word as recorded in scripture. Similar means of interpreting scripture, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit and through a hermeneutic of fulfillment may raise issues of some influence from Essenes on the Johannine community or school without leading to literary relationships. G. J. Brooke indicates one such avenue for appreciating “shared exegetical concerns” without being burdened by discerning “any kind of literary dependence.” He wisely points out that our understanding of the 153 fish caught by Peter and the 11 disciples, according to Jn 21:21, may be enriched by examining a passage in the Qumran Commentary on Genesis A (4Q252): And the waters prevailed upon the earth (for) one hundred and fifty day(s), until the fourteenth day of the seventh month on the third (day) of the week.68

Brooke observes: “Although the number 153 does not occur in the text of 4Q252, it is clear that the ark comes to rest on Mount Ararat on the hundred and fifty-third day after the start of the flood, on the seventeenth of the seventh month.”69 Brooke’s insight strengthens the argument of the exegetes who have assumed that the number 153 must have had a symbolic or allegorical significance. The meaning of the number 153 takes on deeper meaning when we observe that the Commentary on Genesis A links the number 153 with the Feast of Sukkoth, that this festival included a water libation (t.Sukkoth 3.3–8), and that the Fourth Evangelist mentions “rivers of living water” within a narrative that has a focus on Sukkot (John 7–8). The study of numerology in the Fourth Gospel leads us not to the Pythagoreans, but perhaps in some ways to Judaism, especially the Essenes. It is now obvious that some Qumran Scrolls help us better comprehend the complex background of the Fourth Gospel.

3.4  Christology and eschatology Recognition that the background of the Fourth Gospel is the world of Early Judaism leads to an awareness of the need to re-explore the origin of the titles used by the



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Fourth Evangelist. The growing recognition that the Parables of Enoch are not only Jewish but probably anterior to the Fourth Gospel indicates that a re-examination of the Johannine origins of “the Son of Man” is appropriate.70 The Fourth Evangelist has Jesus declare that he is “the Son of Man” (John 9). What traditions shaped this declaration? The Fourth Evangelist portrays Jesus confessing that he is “the Son of God” (Jn 10:36). This term is very important in Early Judaism, developing out of an exegesis of Psalm 2 (as already illustrated) and exploding with eschatological richness in Daniel Apocryphon ar (4Q246).71 H.-W. Kuhn disclosed that Endtime thought at Qumran is not only futuristic but being realized in the Community.72 The same concept permeates the Fourth Gospel; moreover, in Qumran and the Fourth Gospel “living water” is not only salvific but also eschatological. We need to explore how and in what ways it is best to explain this shared emphasis. The concept of “living water” was widespread in Early Judaism and usually associated with “fresh water” supplied by God alone for the mikvaot. Only within the Essene communities was “living water” developed to be so symbolically rich, meaning that it represented salvation and the Endtime. The Fourth Evangelist portrays Jesus stating to the woman in Samaria: “Believe me, woman, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father” (Jn 4:21). This is a complex claim; the rejection of worship in Jerusalem is startling and reminiscent of Samaritan and Qumran traditions. Jesus’ comment about worship in Jerusalem is unique to this chapter in John. Earlier Jesus refers to the Temple as “my Father’s house” (2:16). What are the traditions that have shaped Jn 4:21? In 1960, A. Guilding indicated that the Fourth Evangelist may have known some Jewish lectionary readings focused on Hanukah.73 The Daniel Apocryphon ar (4Q246) apparently confirms J. VanderKam’s argument that the historical origins of Hanukah, and the claim of Antiochus IV to be “god,” created debates within Judaism that provide the historical background to the debate over blasphemy in John 10.74 This insight helps curb Qumran fever (the desire to focus only on Qumran influences), since the celebration of Hanukah, if it became a celebration of the Hasmonean dynasty, would not have been appreciated by Essenes, who hated the Hasmoneans. The Qumran texts help us comprehend that some Jews in the Johannine community may have imagined Jesus as the Nazarene who will build the new Temple. At least two Qumran Scrolls (4Q161 and 4QpIsaa) indicate that the ṣemah, the “Branch” (see Zech 6:12) is also the nēṣer, the Davidic Branch (the root behind the one from “Nazareth”; cf. Isa 11:1). There should be no doubt that ṣemah and nēṣer obtained messianic overtones by the early first century CE. Since the Fourth Evangelist is the only Evangelist who labels what is written on the cross “a title” a titlon, then perhaps one should explore the possibility of echoes from Qumran on the Evangelist’s Christology. Did some Johannine Jews think that the title declared that “Jesus, the Nazarene” is “the King of the Jews”?75 It is obvious that at Qumran, the Temple was considered defiled and that the Holy Spirit had left the Temple and resided at Qumran, the Holy House in which “the Holy Ones” and “the Most Holy of Holy Ones” lived with the angels (Angelic Liturgy). Recall 1QS 11.8: “With the sons of heaven he has joined together their assembly for the Council of the Community.” And note 1QSb 4.25-26: “[May] you be round about serving in the temple of the kingdom and may you cast lot with the

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Angels of the Presence, and (be) a common council.” By what methods may we more accurately discern echoes of Qumran in the Johannine narrative?

3.5  Sociology of sectarianism The study of temple symbolism in the Fourth Gospel has led K. S. Fugsleth to explore Johannine sectarianism.76 Both the Qumranites and the Johannine Jews (most of those who believe and are opposed by the synagogal Jews) represent sectarian sociological phenomena.77 Each is recognized as distinct by a larger group and indeed persecuted by that establishment. The presence and abuse of power is often the cause of sectarianism;78 and such sociological reasoning helps explain the sectarian nature of Qumran and the Johannine community. We need to be very cautious, however, in postulating any influence from Qumran on John at this point; we may be observing two independent reactions to a similar sociological crisis. As Painter stated: “The Johannine community was born in a bitter schism. Before long that community was itself rent by a schism.”79 Sociological studies provide ample evidence that the Qumran Community and the Johannine community are sectarian. The Qumranites explain why they chose to separate from the Jerusalem priesthood (Some Works of the Torah Composite Text Section C 7–9). The author of 1 John explains the schism that has split his community; he exclaims that those who left them were never part of them (1Jn 2:19). The appearances of ἀποσυνάγωγος in the Fourth Gospel mirror a social setting not only of polemics but also of sectarianism. We probably will never be able to prove to what degree the social setting of the Fourth Gospel derives from the Palestinian Jesus Movement, from some influences from Essenism, or from the tension among Jews after 70 CE; but the parallels with Qumran should not be overlooked. The ingenious reflections by B. Capper provide an important exploration of how and in what ways the concept of “sect” helps us grasp the interrelatedness and uniqueness of the Qumranites, the Essenes, and the Fourth Gospel.80 We will end this section with a caveat about the problems with a sociological study of ancient texts and a putative social setting. T. J. M. Ling argues that a social analysis of the Fourth Gospel indicates that what has been called “Johannine sectarianism” should be re-labeled a “religious order.”81 Perhaps “religious order” may represent the world of Early Judaism and the ascetic practices advocated by Palestinian Jews, including the Qumranites and Essenes. We should first be clear what defines a “sect” and distinguishes it from a “religious order”; and how that precision helps us to obtain a better perception of the social world of Qumran and the Fourth Evangelist.

3.6  Archaeology Those who contributed to the monograph Jesus and Archaeology found that the Fourth Gospel preserves a remarkable number of architectural descriptions and topographical details that are lacking in the other intra-canonical gospels (see chap. 6). Only the Fourth Evangelist mentions gabbatha and lithostrōtos–the large stones that would be typical of the palace (the Praetorium) in which Pilate would have lived, which would have been either the Hasmonean Palace in southern Jerusalem or, more likely, Herod’s



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Figure 9.2 Bethzetha Vase, Discovered by Charles Clermont-Ganneau. Photo by R. L. Chapman. Palace near the Citadel (Jn 19:13). As the archaeologist who seems to know first century Jerusalem best, Dan Bahat, states: “Only in John 19:13 is there . . . a detailed description . . . of the site (the Praetorium).” Bahat then continues to emphasize that even the Fourth Evangelist provides us with a description that “is not sufficiently specific.”82 Why? Because the author is an evangelist with a proclamation; he would not wish to be labeled an archaeologist. As is certainly clear by now, only the Fourth Evangelist notes the two five-porticoed pools of Bethzatha (Bethesda). These were evidently healing pools since devotion to Asclepius (the god of healing) seems apparent from archaeological discoveries, especially the Bethzatha Vase.83 Only this Evangelist mentions the Herodian Pool of Siloam which was most likely the largest mikveh in pre-70 CE Jerusalem.84 These monumental pools are not created by Christological needs; they have been unearthed respectively just north and south of the Temple area. And that is precisely where the Fourth Evangelist locates them. Distinguished Johannine scholars, like Paul Anderson,85 Urban C. von Wahlde,86 and D. Moody Smith,87 have pointed out the need to include archaeology in a deeper probe of the origins and context of the Fourth Gospel. If numerous geographical, topographical, and archaeological notations are found in the Fourth Gospel, and most of them are found only in it, then Johannine scholars need to learn from what is being discovered archaeologically about pre-70 CE Galilee and Judaea, especially Jerusalem. U. C. von Wahlde rightly reports that these references in the Fourth Gospel “are not

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symbolic creations, as was once thought, but are accurate and detailed references that reveal aspects of Jesus’ ministry not otherwise known.”88 Few scholars would need to be reminded that the most sensational archaeological discovery, the Dead Sea Scrolls, enriched our perception of the landscape and context in and behind the Fourth Gospel.

4  Has a focus on Qumran been missing in recent Johannine research? From the fifties to the nineties, scholars habitually used the Dead Sea Scrolls and related Jewish texts to explain the origin of, and the theology found in, the Fourth Gospel. That emphasis has somewhat waned in North-American Johannine scholarship. Why? There is no easy answer. I may here only intimate an explanation. First, the shift in interest is partly due to a lack of confidence in historical-critical methodologies for providing an accurate approach to biblical interpretation. Hence, Johannine experts began to explore the literary techniques used by the Evangelist.89 The shift in Johannine research can be observed in A. Culpepper’s magisterial Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel which appeared in 1983. Yet, Culpepper’s study of literary theory, narrative texture, and rhetorical techniques in the Fourth Gospel was preceded by earlier studies of the rhetoric in the Fourth Gospel.90 Among these studies is the recognition of the literary use of double entendre91 and misunderstanding in the Gospel.92 Subsequent to Culpepper’s book, other Johannine experts deepened our understanding of the Fourth Evangelist’s use of such literary devices as irony (esp. P. Duke,93 C. S. Keener94) and revelation (G. R. O’Day95). Culpepper’s use of “narrative criticism,” however, was not a call for exclusive focus on literary techniques in the Gospel. He continued to recognize the importance of the historical context of the Gospel, and the stimulus to research provided by research on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Culpepper’s continuing interest in history and the background of the Fourth Gospel is evident in his more recent claim: “The theory of a Johannine school still seems to me to be the best explanation for the origin of the Johannine writings.”96 As he has stated, his “aim was never to replace historical criticism.”97 As M. de Boer states: “Historical and literary approaches need not be mutually exclusive.”98 Indeed, the Qumran Scrolls have helped in improving our comprehension not only of the historical context of the Fourth Gospel but also its literary complexities, brilliance, and creativity.99 As we learn about Matthew and Luke’s theological Tendenzen by examining how they have edited a copy of Mark, so John’s creativity, and especially his stress on believing, comes into clearer focus by studying how he edited Qumran traditions. Narrative criticism has proved helpful and at times exciting.100 But, a caveat is fundamental. The Fourth Evangelist did not write a drama or a narrative; he composed a “gospel.” The Gospel points back to the eternal significance of a Galilean Jew who was from Above and who was crucified publicly, but in a triumphant way. Thus, many of the complexities and ambiguities in the Fourth Gospel cannot be solved by resorting to narrative techniques.101 Second, a shift away from a preoccupation with the historical context may also have been caused by a different way of training young gospel experts. Before 1980, students



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interested in mastering the Gospel of John were urged to study numerous ancient languages, Greek, perhaps Coptic, and at least Hebrew and Aramaic. A shift has occurred; many students now attempt to master only Greek. If students find Semitic languages daunting, then they will shy away from Qumranology and tend to avoid the labor-intensive research on this intimidating collection of over 1,000 manuscripts. And to master Qumran palaeography to be able to read the Hasmonean script of 1QS is deemed too much for one interested in the New Testament. Third, perhaps the most important reason for a decline in the study of Second Temple Judaism by students of the Fourth Gospel is the overwhelming demands now made on the serious student interested in historical context. The vast amount of data to master causes a tsunami effect that makes it difficult to focus on the Greek text of the Fourth Gospel. In the early 1970s, at Duke University’s Graduate School, I introduced students to seventeen Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and seven Dead Sea Scrolls. Now, we must include at least sixty-five documents in the Pseudepigrapha and over 1,000 Qumran Scrolls—not including the ancient scrolls found in other caves. If biblical departments are divided between Old and New Testaments, because sixty-six writings cannot be adequately mastered, how much more difficult is it to master the Dead Sea Scrolls and all the apocryphal books (not to mention Philo, Josephus, and Rabbinics). Moreover, virtually all of Qumran Scrolls are incompletely preserved, sometimes even misidentified, in over 200,000 difficult-to-read fragments in unfamiliar handwritings. If graduate students focused on the Gospels (i.e., only the intra-canonical gospels) choose only one gospel, and often a chapter or section in a gospel, is it no wonder that few students or scholars feel courageous enough to try to master the Gospel of John and at the same time all the Qumran Scrolls? That task, after all, demands exploring all the known Hellenistic world, then assessing how and in what ways, if at all, these Jewish texts impinge upon a study of the origins and theology of the Gospel of John?

5  Summary From 1954, when L. Mowry emphasized the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for an understanding of the Fourth Gospel,102 until the present, many scholars have seen the various ways that the Fourth Evangelist has been influenced by concepts, terms, and symbols that are apparently unique to the Qumranites. Some scholars judge that the relation is unimpressive (C. K. Barrett,103 H. M. Teeple,104 Bauckham, Aune).105 Most experts have perceived the Qumran influences to be nigh revolutionary for research on the Fourth Gospel. The influence has been judged to be indirect (R. E. Brown, R.  Schnackenburg,106 J. Fitzmyer107) or direct (esp. K. G. Kuhn,108 Charlesworth);109 but these terms can be misleading until they are adequately defined. And two experts opined that the Fourth Evangelist may have been an Essene (Ashton [who changed his emphasis], and Ruckstuhl). We have seen that while the discussions of the relations between Qumran and John have tended to focus on dualism, there is much more to include as we seek to discern how and in what ways Qumran’s unique thoughts and symbols shaped the mind and writing of the Fourth Evangelist. Generally speaking,

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Painter rightly assesses that “the importance of the Qumran texts [for understanding the Fourth Gospel] is difficult to exaggerate.”110 As D. J. Harrington emphasizes, references to “indirect” influence is frustratingly imprecise, and Brown left us with a question that demands exploring:111 The Johannine writings make Jesus’ teaching on love his commandment par excellence and include followers of John the Baptist, whom the Fourth Gospel describes as the first disciples of Jesus. Did such Baptist disciples who had been Qumranians filter what they heard from Jesus through the prism of their own dualistic outlook?”112

With this question R. E. Brown concluded his final publication on John and Qumran. If there are Qumran influences on the Fourth Evangelist or the Fourth Gospel, then how significant are they, how modified were they by the Evangelist’s creativity, and how were such influences transmitted from Essene circles to the Johannine community? As in most biblical research, sometimes the best answers appear in a polished question. I have now provided my answers for discussion.

6  Conclusion From 1947, when the Qumran Scrolls were discovered, to about 1984, scholars talked boldly about a consensus on such books as Isaiah and the Gospel of John. It was widely acknowledged that Isaiah was shaped by more than one writer, and John was the product of more than one author. Specialists tended to speak about the School of Isaiah and the Johannine School. Now, some scholars conclude that both Isaiah and John are unified writings with only one author; thus, it seems unwise presently to salute any consensus. In biblical research, globally speaking, the only consensus is often the lack of a consensus. It is clearly unwise to imply that the Qumran Scrolls present us with something like a preparation for “the gospel” (a praeparatio evangelium).113 These Scrolls introduce us to a complex world. Before we can imagine the origins of the Palestinian Jesus Movement, let alone a construct such as “Christianity,” we must immerse ourselves in the world of Second Temple Judaism.114 Then we also become sensitive to the problems in reconstructing texts, exploring their origins, and discerning the intentions of their authors. In the process many will discern how and in what ways the Qumran Scrolls have revolutionized our understanding of Second Temple Judaism and the emergence of the Palestinian Jesus Movement. Most experts perceive how the Qumran Scrolls significantly help scholars explore the origins and literary sophistication of the Fourth Gospel and distinguish between the Fourth Evangelist’s inherited traditions and creative Christology. There may be an agreement that the Qumran Scrolls are the most important source for discerning the origins of Johannine thought, but there is no consensus today how significant that was or how it may have occurred. Even if Qumran or Essene influence on the Fourth Gospel may be judged to be “indirect,” that does not mean it is insignificant; for Brown



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the Qumran Scrolls deeply impact an understanding of the Fourth Gospel. This chapter clarifies that point and signals many features in the Fourth Gospel that can be enlightened and clarified by a probing study of all the Qumran Scrolls and related early Jewish texts.

Notes 1 The present chapter is a revised version of “The Fourth Evangelist and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Assessing Trends over Nearly Sixty Years,” in John, Qumran, and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Sixty Years of Discovery and Debate (ed. M. L Coloe and T. Thatcher; SBLEJL 32; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2011), pp. 161–82. 2 We have explained already the consensus that John is influenced significantly by Qumran symbolism and nomenclature; since this consensus is being challenged, it is imperative to repeat with expansive explanations some ideas shared previously. Formerly, focus was on 1QS 3–4; now the discussion is not so delimited. 3 R. T. Fortna, The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the Fourth Gospel (SNTS Monograph Series 11; London: Cambridge University Press, 1970). 4 U. C. von Wahlde, The Earliest Version of John’s Gospel: Recovering the Gospel of Signs (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989). Also, see von Wahlde, The Gospel and Letters of John, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010). 5 R. T. Fortna, “The Gospel of John and the Signs Gospel,” in What We Have Heard from the Beginning (ed. T. Thatcher; Waco: Baylor, 2007), p. 150. 6 T. Thatcher (“The Fourth Gospel in First Century Media Culture,” in What we have Heard from the Beginning, p. 162) rightly states: “All early Christian texts were foundationally oral and equiprimordial and that the Jesus tradition behind all written Gospels was a function of social memory.” Also, see the perceptive work on memory in Second Temple Judaism, by D. Mendels, Memory in Jewish, Pagan and Christian Societies of the Graeco-Roman World (London: T & T Clark, 2004). 7 See especially T. Thatcher, “The Nature of Oral Forms,” in The Riddles of Jesus in John: A Study of Tradition and Folklore (SBLMS 53; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2000), pp. 79–108. 8 See especially W. H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel (Bloomington: Indiana, 1997). Also, see Kelber’s “Rethinking the Oral-Scribal Transmission/Performance of the Jesus Tradition,” in Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions [The Second-Princeton Symposium on Jewish Research] (ed. J. H. Charlesworth with B. Rhea and P. Pokorný; Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2013), pp. 500–30. Sometimes, oral traditions are more stable than written works. The latter leave the desks of the authors and are far more malleable than scholars have imagined (see esp. the images of 1QpHab 7 and 11). 9 H. Braun, Qumran und das Neue Testament (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1966) 1:98. 10 J. A. T. Robinson, The Priority of John (London: SCM, 1985). 11 M. Hengel, The Johannine Question (London: SCM, 1989), p. 111. Idem, Die johanneische Frage (WUNT 67; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), pp. 281–84. Hengel holds that “die Qumranfunde” is “einen Markstein für die religionsgeschichtliche Einordnung.” Note also the words of C. K. Barrett (The Gospel of John and Judaism [trans. D. M. Smith; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975], pp. 7–8): “Two circumstances

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have led to a strong reiteration of the Jewish background and origin of the gospel: on the one hand, the criticism, directed against Bultmann and those who follow him, concerning the relative lateness of the comparative material used to establish a Gnostic background of John; on the other, and more important, the discovery of the Qumran scrolls.” 12 Hengel, Die johanneische Frage, p. 281. 13 L. Morris, The Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 9. 14 F. F. Bruce, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992), p. 2. 15 I also am convinced that in the final editing, the context of the Fourth Evangelist is that of post-70 CE Judaism. This has been illustrated by many experts, including J. L. Martyn, R. E. Brown, D. M. Smith, M. Hengel, and W. Meeks. Their publications have already been cited; see also the bibliography at the end of this book. 16 See especially P. Richardson, “Khirbet Qana (and Other Villages) as a Context for Jesus,” in Jesus and Archaeology (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), pp. 120–44. 17 See M. Asiedu-Peprah, Johannine Sabbath Conflicts as Juridical Controversy (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001). 18 This new perspective has been brilliantly demonstrated by two recent monographs: L. Devillers, La Fête de l’Envoyé: La section Johannique de la fête des tentes (Jean 7,1–10,21) et la christologie (Études Bibliques N.S. 49; Paris: Gabalda, 2002) and M. A. Daise, Feasts in John: Jewish Festivals and Jesus’ “Hour” in the Fourth Gospel (WUNT 2.229; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007). 19 See especially M. Newton, The Concept of Purity at Qumran and in the Letters of Paul (SNTSMS 53; Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985). 20 J. H. Charlesworth, “The Gospel of John: Exclusivism Caused by a Social Setting Different from that of Jesus (John 11:54 and 14:6),” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000 (R. Bieringer et al.; Assen: Royal Van Gorcu, 2001), pp. 479–513. This appears now, with revisions, as Chapter 4 in the present volume. 21 See A. Jaubert, “The Calendar of Qumran and the Passion Narrative in John,” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; New York: Crossroad, 1991), pp. 62–75. 22 See the pioneering work on this subject by J. L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster, 2003). 23 P. Borgen, “Observations on the Midrashic Character of John 6,” ZNW 54 (1963): 232–40. 24 P. Fredriksen, Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), p. 5. 25 See especially the contributions to Jesus in the Johannine Tradition (ed. R. T. Fortna and T. Thatcher; Louisville: Westminster, 2001). 26 D. M. Smith, “Historical Issues and the Problem of John and the Synoptics,” in From Jesus to John (ed. ed. M. C. de Boer; JSNTSup 84; Sheffield: JSOT, 1994), pp. 252–67. Also, see Smith, “John and the Synoptics: Historical Tradition and the Passion Narrative,” in Light in a Spotless Mirror: Reflections on Jewish Traditions in Dialogue (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and M. A. Daise; Valley Forge: Trinity, 2001). 27 J. P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus (New York: Doubleday, 1991) see especially 1:44: “In short, our survey of the Four Gospels gives us three separate major sources to work with: Mark, Q, and John.” 28 G. Theissen and A. Merz, The Historical Jesus: A Comprehensive Guide (trans. J. Bowden; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998), pp. 36–37.



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29 J. Painter, The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Community (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), p. 37. 30 D. Dimant, “Dualism at Qumran: New Perspectives,” in Caves of Enlightenment (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; North Richland Hill: BIBAL, 1998), pp. 55–73; the quotation is from p. 55. 31 G. J. Brooke rightly points out that Bauckham “skates over” the importance of Jn 12:35-36. See Brooke, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005). 32 The critical edition of the Rule, with apparatus, may be found in the Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project: The Dead Sea Scrolls—Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts with English Translations, vol. 1: Rule of the Community and Related Documents (ed. ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994). 33 J. Becker, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, 2 vols. (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1991) 1:176. 34 D. Flusser, Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1988), p. 61. 35 R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966) 1:lxii. Also see Brown’s posthumous publication: “John, Gospel, and Letters of,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1:414-17. 36 J. A. Fitzymer, “Qumran Literature and the Johannine Writings,” in Life in Abundance: Studies of John’s Gospel in Tribute to Raymond E. Brown (ed. J. R. Donahue; Collegeville: Liturgical, 2005). 37 Some of the Hermetic tractates and gnostic codices are strikingly similar to the Fourth Gospel, but the influence seems to flow from the Fourth Gospel to them. 38 W. S. LaSor, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972), p. 198. 39 D. M. Smith, Johannine Christianity (Columbia: South Carolina, 1984), p. 26. 40 J. Painter, The Quest for the Messiah (Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), p. 29. 41 C. A. Evans, Word and Glory: On the Exegetical and Theological Background of John’s Prologue (JSNTSup 89; Sheffield: Sheffield, 1993), p. 55. Also see J. G. Van der Watt, R. A. Culpepper, U. Schnelle, eds., Prologue of the Gospel of John: Its Literary, Theological, and Philosophical Contexts. Papers Read at the Colloquium Ionanneum 2013 (Mohr Siebeck, 2016). 42 B. Lindars, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), p. 38. 43 On the one hand, I find insight in the following comment by Ashton (Understanding the Fourth Gospel [Oxford: Clarendon, 1991], p. 235): “The pervasive and deep-lying dualistic structures . . . are scarcely to be accounted for by the suggestion that the evangelist was a disciple of John the Baptist, unless the latter was himself so deeply soaked in Qumranian ideas as to be virtually indistinguishable from one of the community’s own teachers.” On the other hand, it is possible that the Baptizer had once been a member, or almost a member of the Community. See J. H. Charlesworth, “John the Baptizer and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Waco: Baylor, 2006) 3:1–35. 44 W. M. Brownlee, “John the Baptist in the New Light of Ancient Scrolls,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament (ed. K. Stendahl and J. H. Charlesworth; New York: Crossroad, 1992), pp. 33–53; idem, “Whence the Gospel according to John?” in John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; New York: Crossroad, 1991), pp. 166–94; cf. Bo Reicke, “Nytt ljus över Johannes döparens förkunnelse,” Religion och Bibel 11 (1952): 5–18. 45 Brown, The Gospel according to John, 1:lxiii. 46 Brown, in The Scrolls and the New Testament, p. 206 (originally published in 1955).

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47 Essene affinities with the Fourth Gospel are recognized by the contributors to John and the Dead Sea Scrolls. 48 Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, pp. 236–37 (italics his). 49 For a method to discern how one text may have influenced another, see J. H. Charlesworth, “Towards a Taxonomy of Discerning Influence(s) Between Two Texts,” in Das Gesetz im frühen Judentum und im Neuen Testament: Festschrift für Christoph Burchard zum 75 Geburtstag (ed. D. Sãnger and M. Konradt; NTOA 57; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006), pp. 41–54. 50 See J. Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, pp. 199–204. Also, see J. H. Charlesworth, “The Priority of John? Reflections on the Essenes and the First Edition of John,” in Für und wider die Priorität des Johannesevangeliums (ed. P. L. Hofrichter; Zürich: Georg Olms Verlag, 2002), pp. 73–114. Reworked as Chapter 2 of the present volume. 51 Ashton, “Second Thoughts on the Fourth Gospel,” in What we have Heard from the Beginning (ed. T. Thatcher; Waco: Baylor, 2007), pp. 1–2. 52 E. Ruckstuhl, “Zur Chronologie der Leidensgeschichte Jesu, I,” SNTU 10 (1985): 27–61; idem, “Zur Chronologie der Leidensgeschichte Jesu, II,” SNTU 11 (1986): 97–129; idem, Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), pp. 393–95. 53 The well-known works of Koester, Robinson, and others do not need to be rehearsed again. See the judgment of J. D. G. Dunn in Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith (ed. R. A. Culpepper and C. C. Black; Louisville: Westminster, 1996), p. 303. 54 D. E. Aune, “Dualism in the Fourth Gospel and the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reassessment of the Problem,” in Neotestamentica et Philonica: Studies in Honor of Peder Borgen (ed. D. E. Aune et al.; NovTSup 106; Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 281–303. 55 R. Bauckham, “Qumran and the Fourth Gospel: Is There a Connection?” in The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran Fifty Years After (ed. S. E. Porter and C. A. Evans; JSPSup 26; Sheffield: Sheffield, 1997), pp. 267–79; see especially p. 278. Also see Bauckham, “The Qumran Community and the Gospel of John,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years After their Discovery (ed. L. H. Schiffman et al.; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and The Shrine of the Book, 2000), pp. 105–15. 56 S. Aalen, Die Begriffe “Licht” und “Finsternis” im Alten Testament, im Spätjudentum und im Rabbinismus (Oslo: J. Dybwad, 1951). 57 J. A. Fitzmyer, “Qumran Literature and the Johannine Writings,” in Life in Abundance: Studies of John’s Gospel in Tribute to Raymond E. Brown (ed. J. R. Donahue; Collegeville: Liturgical, 2005), p. 119. 58 For evidence of Essenes living in Jerusalem, see the pertinent chapters in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; New York: Doubleday, 1992). Also see B. Pixner, Paths of the Messiah and Sites of the Early Church from Galilee to Jerusalem (ed. R. Riesner; trans. K. Myrick and S. and M. Randall; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2010). 59 See J. H. Charlesworth, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel According to John,” in Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith, pp. 65–97. Also, see Charlesworth, “A Study in Shared Symbolism and Language: The Qumran Community and the Johannine Community,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Waco: Baylor, 2006) 3:97–152. 60 A. Lange, Weisheit und Prädestination (Leiden: Brill, 1995). 61 See especially M. Broshi, The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Waco: Baylor, 2006) 2:235–46.



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62 Fitzmyer, “Qumran Literature and the Johannine Writings,” p. 121. 63 The verb “to believe” appears ninety-eight times in John, eleven times in Matthew, fourteen times in Mark, nine times in Luke, thirty-seven times in Acts, and fifty-four times in the letters attributed to Paul. See R. Morgenthaler, Statistik des neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes (Zürich: Gotthelf-Verlag, 1982). 64 According to Morgenthaler, the verb “to know” appears fifty-six times in John, twenty times in Matthew, twelve times in Mark, twenty-eight times in Luke, sixteen times in Acts, and fifty times in the Letters attributed to Paul. 65 H. Stegemann, The Library of Qumran (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 140–53. Also see, “Die Eigenheiten der Essener” and “Die Essener als das Gottesvolk Israel” in Die Essener, Qumran, Johannes der Täufer und Jesus: Ein Sachbuch (ed. H. Stegemann; Freiburg: Herder, 1993), pp. 227–31. 66 O. Betz (Paraklet [Leiden: Brill, 1963], pp. 36–116) concluded that the association of the Parakletos and the Spirit of Truth indicates Qumran influence on the Fourth Gospel. J. Zumstein (L’évangile selon saint-Jean [13–21] [Geneve: Labor et Fides, 2007], p. 75) concludes that none of the attempts to explain the origin of the Evangelist’s use of Parakletos have proved convincing. 67 Fitzmyer, “Qumran Literature and the Johannine Writings,” p. 125. 68 See J. L. Trafton, “Commentary on Genesis A,” in Pesharim, Other Commentaries, and Related Documents (ed. J. H. Charlesworth et al.; PTSDSSP 6B; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), pp. 208–09. 69 See G. J. Brooke, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005), p. 286. 70 J. H. Charlesworth, “Can We Discern the Composition Date of the Parables of Enoch?” in Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables (ed. G. Boccaccini et al.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), pp. 450–68. 71 See Charlesworth, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel According to John,” pp. 72–73. 72 H.-W. Kuhn, Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil: Untersuchungen zu den Gemeindeliedern von Qumran, mit einem Anhang über Eschatologie und Gegenwart in der Verkündigung Jesu (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966). 73 A. Guilding, The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship: A Study of the Relation of St. John’s Gospel to the Ancient Jewish Lectionary System (Oxford: Clarendon, 1960). 74 J. C. VanderKam, “John 10 and the Feast of Dedication,” in Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental Judaism, and Christian Origins Presented to John Strugnell on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday (ed. H. W. Attridge et al.; College Theology Society Resources in Religion 5; Lanham: University Press of America, 1990), pp. 203–14. 75 I am indebted to the reflections of M. L. Coloe: “Household of Faith (Jn 4:46–54; 11:1–44),” Pacifica 12 (2000): 326–33 and “Sources in the Shadows: John 13 and the Johannine Community,” in New Currents Through John (ed. F. Lozada, Jr. and T. Thatcher; Atlanta: SBL, 2006) see especially 70–71. 76 K. S. Fugsleth, Johannine Sectarianism in Perspective: A Sociological, Historical and Comparative Analysis of Temple and Social Relationships in the Gospel of John, Philo and Qumran (NovTSup 119; Leiden: Brill, 2005). 77 On Qumran and the Essenes, see A. J. Saldarini, “Sectarianism,” in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2:853–56. On the Fourth Gospel, see G. R. O’Day, “Johannine Theology as Sectarian Theology,” in What is John?: Readers and Reading of the Fourth Gospel (ed. F. F. Segovia; SBLMS 3; Atlanta: Scholars, 1996), pp. 199–203.

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78 See H. Newman, Proximity to Power and Jewish Sectarian Groups of the Ancient Period (Brill Reference Library of Judaism 25; Leiden: Brill, 2006). 79 Painter, Quest, p. 31. 80 B. J. Capper, “Essene Community Houses and Jesus’ Early Community,” in Jesus and Archaeology, pp. 472–502. Also see, Capper, “The New Covenant in Southern Palestine at the Arrest of Jesus,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. J. R. Davila; Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 90–116. 81 T. J. M. Ling, The Judean Poor and the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 82 D. Bahat with C. T. Rubinstein, The Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem (trans. S. Ketko; Jerusalem: Carta, 1990), p. 56. 83 See J. H. Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent (New Haven: Yale, 2008) and D. Bahat, Carta’s Historical Atlas of Jerusalem (Jerusalem: Carta, 1973), p. 33. 84 On numerous occasions, R. Reich has shown me the discovery of a massive mikveh (the Herodium Pool of Siloam) and a monumental stairway leading from it to the temple. 85 I have heard this from P. Anderson, through numerous email exchanges and oral discussions. 86 U. C. von Wahlde, “The Road Ahead: Three Aspects of Johannine Scholarship,” in What We have Heard from the Beginning (ed. T. Thatcher; Waco: Baylor, 2007) see especially 345: “My interests in alleged anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism in the Fourth Gospel, the literary origins of the text, and connections between John and archaeology have continued to dominate my scholarly work.” 87 I have been enriched by conservations with D. M. Smith, from many discussions through emails and viva voce. Such thoughts are found mirrored in D. M. Smith, “The Problem of History in John,” in What We have Heard from the Beginning, see especially 320: “It is all the more remarkable, then, that at just those points where the Fourth Gospel differs from Mark and the other Synoptic gospels, John’s version is often preferable historically.” 88 U. C. von Wahlde, “The Road Ahead,” p. 351. 89 See the reflections by S. M. Schneiders, “Remaining in His Word,” in What We have Heard from the Beginning, pp. 267–68. 90 M. de Jonge, Jesus, Stranger from Heaven and Son of God (Missoula: Scholars, 1977). 91 The literary features of the Fourth Gospel have been stressed for centuries. For recent discussions, see especially B. Olsson, Structure and Meaning in the Fourth Gospel (Lund: Gleerup, 1974) and R. A. Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983). 92 H. Leroy, Rä tsel und Missverstä ndnis: Ein Beitrag zur Formgeschichte des Johannesevangeliums (Louvain: Imprimerie Orientaliste, 1967). 93 P. D. Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox, 1985). 94 C. S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 2 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003) 1:223. 95 G. R. O’Day, “Surprised by Faith: Jesus and the Canaanite Woman,” Listening 24 (1989): 290–301; and Revelation in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Mode and Theological Claim (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986). 96 R. A. Culpepper, “Pursuing the Elusive,” in What we have Heard from the Beginning, p. 111. 97 Culpepper, “Pursuing the Elusive,” p. 113. 98 M. De Boer, “Narrative Criticism, Historical Criticism, and the Gospel of John,” in The Johannine Writings (ed. S. E. Porter and C. A. Evans; Sheffield: Sheffield, 1995), p. 106.



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99 See especially, A. Pilgaard, “The Qumran Scrolls and John’s Gospel,” in New Readings in John: Literary and Theological Perspectives. Essays from the Scandinavian Conference on the Fourth Gospel (Århus 1997) (ed. J. Nissen and S. Pedersen; Sheffield: Sheffield, 1999), pp. 126–42. 100 See especially C. C. Black, “‘The Words That you Gave to Me I Have Given to Them’: The Grandeur of Johannine Rhetoric,” in Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith, pp. 220–39. 101 See the similar thoughts expressed by U. C. von Wahlde, “The Road Ahead,” p. 347. 102 L. Mowry, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Background for the Gospel of John,” BA 17 (1954): 78–97. 103 C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), p. 34 and Barrett, The Gospel of John and Judaism, pp. 56–58. 104 H. M. Teeple, “Qumran and the Origin of the Fourth Gospel,” NovT 4 (1960): 6–25. 105 See the previous notes. 106 R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 3 vols. (New York: Seabury and Crossroad, 1980–82) 1:26–35. 107 Fitzymer, “Qumran Literature and the Johannine Writings,” p. 128. 108 K. G. Kuhn, “Johannesevangelium und Qumrântexte,” in Neotestamentica et patristica (ed. W. C. van Unnik; NovTSup 6; Leiden: Brill, 1962), pp. 111–22. 109 The specialists who hold this position are numerous, even though they often have not used the word “direct.” See the contributions to John and the Dead Sea Scrolls and Fitzmyer, “Qumran Literature and the Johannine Writings,” p. 130 n. 14. 110 Painter, The Quest, p. 35. 111 D. J. Harrington, “Response to Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J.,” in Life in Abundance: Studies of John’s Gospel in Tribute to Raymond E. Brown, p. 136. 112 Brown in Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 1:417. 113 See the judicious reflections by C. D. Elledge, The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls (SBL Archaeology and Biblical Studies 14; Atlanta: SBL, 2005) see especially pp. 115–20. 114 See A. Paul, Les manuscrits de la Mer Morte (Paris: Bayard, 1997), pp. 291–96.

10

John’s Indebtedness to Judaism and the Self-Glorification Hymn

In the preceding chapters, I have predominantly chosen the indicative approach as my method in exploring various issues in biblical research on the Gospel of John. In this chapter, I am launching a new hypothesis: I am persuaded that the Gospel of John clearly derives from a milieu similar to that behind the Self-Glorification Hymn and that conceivably an author of the Gospel of John, or members of the Johannine School, knew and were influenced by the Hymn. To present this hypothesis I must explore nine questions. This hypothesis evolves out of years of preparing texts and translations of all extant manuscripts of the Self-Glorification Hymn, a composite text, and an introduction. In the process, this hypothesis began to impress me as probable or at least intriguing. As I have shown, both in the preceding chapters and elsewhere, the Gospel of John is a complex and multilayered gospel that evolved from the last decade of Second Temple Judaism (530 BCE to 70 CE) until just before the Bar Kokhba Rebellion (132– 136 CE). Long after the fifth version, or what number defines the final edition, perhaps in the third or fourth century CE, John 7:53–8:11 was added. It is not present in many early manuscripts of John.1 The first edition is defined by what is left when we remove what had been added to it: chapter 21, 1:1–18, most likely chapters 15–17, and 4:2. Antedating this first edition of John are sources; the one that has received the most concurrence is the “Signs Source.”2 Here are the nine questions: First, was the Self-Glorification Hymn a well-known document not only at Qumran but also in other Jewish communities? Second, does the document preserve unique ideas? Third, is “glory” both in this Hymn and in the Gospel of John a prominent theological motif? Fourth, do sections of the Gospel of John antedate 70 CE when the Self-Glorification Hymn seems to have disappeared from view due to the Roman conquest of Qumran and Jerusalem? Fifth, do the author of the Hymn and the authors of John emphasize incomparable teaching? Sixth, would an author of John or members of the Johannine School be interested in the ideas and claims in the Self-Glorification Hymn? Seventh, were the author of the Self-Glorification Hymn and the authors and editors of John influenced by the concept of “the Suffering Servant” of Isaiah 53? Eighth, is John’s Christology in harmony with some poetic passages in the Self-Glorification Hymn? Ninth, is there one stunning passage in the Self-Glorification Hymn that causes one to wonder if an author of John or a member of the Johannine School knew this document?



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The composite text of the Self-Glorification Hymn Before we explore these nine questions, we need to read and ponder the meaning and symbolic poetry of the Self-Glorification Hymn. Here is my literal translation of the composite text: [. . .] I, I reckon myself3 together with the Elim (gods). And my established-place (is) in the congregation of holiness. Who was reckoned contemptible with me? And who has been despised lik[e] me? [And who] like me was rejected [by men]? [And who bears]4 evil compared with m[e]? And no teaching is comparable with my teaching. For I, I sat safely in the dwelling of ho[liness]. Who is like me among5 the Elim? And who can cut me off6 when [I] ope[n my mouth]? And the flow of my speech,7 who can measure8 (it)? Wh[o] with language9 can appoint me? And (who) can be compared with my utterance? For I (am) the beloved of the King, a companion of the Holy Ones. And no one may come with me. [And] to my glory it cannot be compared; F[o]r I, (am) with the Elim. [My] rank [and] my glory (is) with the sons of the King. Not with (pure) gold will I cro[wn] myself; And (not with) gold nor with precious stones. Not [together with the sons of de]ceit [shall] he reckon me. Chant, O beloved ones, sing to the King [of glory.] vacat

In the early second century BCE, a gifted apocalyptic Jew imagined a human who was elevated among the Elim, or gods; that is, the most glorified and greatest in God’s celestial throne room. Too many Qumran specialists have concluded that the work is about the enthronement of the eschatological high priest. The text, however, neither mentions an enthronement nor depicts a priest, let alone a high priest. As I edited this Hymn, which is more like a poem, I thought it had a message and claim that I had found in the Gospel of John. In the following pages, I am not seeking to discern any influences from the Hymn on John; I am asking only if it is conceivable that an author of John or someone in the Johannine School could have known this work. I

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am impressed at how unique each is; but I am also astonished by how similar John’s Christology sounds to some claims in this Hymn.

The major questions First, was the Self-Glorification Hymn a well-known document, not only at Qumran but also in other Jewish communities? We scholars have imprecise means to discern how influential or “well-known” documents were within Second Temple Judaism. The Hymn was well known at Qumran, appearing in two copies of the Hodayot (4Q427 frg. 7 col. 1 or 4QHa and 1QHa 26.6–9) and in the War Scroll (4Q491 11 1.13–19 or 4QM1 1.13–19). It was also known by a copy of the Self-Glorification Hymn itself (4Q471 [olim 4QMg]). The date of the original composition seems to antedate Qumran; hence, the Hymn may have been known to more Jews than Essenes living at Qumran. The Hymn was excerpted into Qumran documents and known also by a copy of the work. Since the Hymn was not composed at Qumran, the work represents Jews in other locales, including most likely Jerusalem.10 Second, does the document preserve unique ideas? Yes, all specialists who have devoted time to this amazing document utter surprise at its uniqueness. The author seems to declare self-glorification, to be equal to the Elim or angels. The work mentions neither time nor a priest; hence, the assumption and claim that the work is about the enthronement of an eschatological high priest is a misinterpretation. The mysterious person seems to be intentionally anonymous; again, we need to observe the attractiveness of anonymity at Qumran, in the Gospel of John, and elsewhere (as in the Odes of Solomon).11 Third, is “glory” in this Hymn and in the Gospel of John a prominent theological motif? The author of the Hymn announces “that my glory” (‫ ]ול[כבדוי‬in line 7 and ‫א‬ ‫ ]ו[כבודי‬in line 8) cannot be compared with any other biblical luminary or archangel. His glory is with “the sons of the King.” That claim has echoes in John (‫ = כבוד‬δόξα). Matthew uses the term “glory” seven times, Mark three times, Luke thirteen times, and John eighteen times12; hence, John uses the noun “glory” more than any other evangelist. In both the Hymn and in John the glory is not of this world (recall the words to the triumphant emperor: sic transit gloria mundi). Rather, Jesus’ glory is God’s glory, and as with the anonymous one of the Hymn, Jesus reflected God’s glory in the heavenly court. In the opening of John, those in the Johannine School claim they have seen the glory of the primordial Logos. It is the glory as of the only son from the Father who is God (καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ, δόξαν ὡς μονογενοῦς παρὰ πατρός, πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας. [1:14]). The author of John has Jesus state that he shared God’s glory before the creation of the world, glorified God on earth, and asks to be glorified again on earth: ἐγώ σε ἐδόξασα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς τὸ ἔργον τελειώσας ὃ δέδωκάς μοι ἵνα ποιήσω· καὶ νῦν δόξασόν με σύ, πάτερ, παρὰ σεαυτῷ τῇ δόξῃ ᾗ εἶχον πρὸ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον εἶναι παρὰ σοί. (17:4–5; my poetic arrangement)



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Fourth, do sections of the Gospel of John antedate 70 CE when the Hymn seems to have disappeared from view due to the Roman conquest of Qumran and Jerusalem? Yes; the first edition of John is often dated before 70 CE.13 The sources in John are clearly much earlier, including the Signs Source. The first author knows other historical facts, including incredibly precise architectural and topographical details from Jerusalem that disappeared in 70 CE. Fifth, do the author of the Hymn and the authors of John emphasize incomparable teaching? Yes, the source of the incomparable revelatory teaching is clearly God. In the Hymn, we read: Who is like me among the Elim? And who can cut me of when [I] ope[n my mouth]? And the flow of 6 my speech, who can measure (it)? 5

Wh[o] with language can appoint me? And (who) can be compared with my utterance?

His divine speech and appointed language is beyond measure. He alone has been appointed to make incomparable utterances. The same phenomenon and claim dominates and characterizes John. The Greek word for “father” appears sixty-four times in Matthew, eighteen times in Mark, fiftysix times in Luke, and one hundred and thirty-seven times in John. Jesus is portrayed as one with “the Father.” The prophets were taught by God but never saw him. Jesus is the only one who has seen the Father (οὐχ ὅτι τὸν πατέρα ἑώρακέν τις εἰ μὴ ὁ ὢν παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ, οὗτος ἑώρακεν τὸν πατέρα [6:46]). Jesus declares his speech is from God because he saw God (ἃ ἐγὼ ἑώρακα παρὰ τῷ πατρὶ λαλῶ· καὶ ὑμεῖς οὖν ἃ ἠκούσατε παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς ποιεῖτε. [8:38]). Sixth, would an author of John or members of the Johannine School be interested in the ideas and claims in the Self-Glorification Hymn? Yes, both authors are more interested in spatial dimensions than in eschatology. The anonymous elevated one is “with the Elim (gods)”; that is, the anonymous one is like the gods and presumably in heaven. That claim is in harmony with the opening of John where the Logos is portrayed protologically, before God, and even divine (Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν. [Jn 1:1–2]). The author of the Hymn states that the person imagined has an “established-place” and it is “in the congregation of holiness.” This person is with God as a “friend of the King.” The word “friend” is used once by Matthew, never by Mark, fifteen times by Luke, and six times by John. According to John, Jesus declares that his followers are “my friends” because they know what he is doing and because Jesus shared with them all that he had heard from the Father: οὐκέτι λέγω ὑμᾶς δούλους, ὅτι ὁ δοῦλος οὐκ οἶδεν τί ποιεῖ αὐτοῦ ὁ κύριος· ὑμᾶς δὲ εἴρηκα φίλους, ὅτι πάντα ἃ ἤκουσα παρὰ τοῦ πατρός μου ἐγνώρισα ὑμῖν. (15:15; my poetic arrangement)

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Seventh, were the author of the Self-Glorification Hymn and the authors and editors of John influenced by the concept of “the Suffering Servant” of Isaiah 53? The author of the Hymn uses words taken from Isa 53:3: ‫אישׁים‬ ‫וחדל‬ ‫“ נבזה‬He is despised and rejected by men” (lit. “incompetent men”) and Isa 53:4: “And he bears (‫( )סבלם‬them) our sorrows.” Recall the Hymn: Who was reckoned contemptible with me? And who has been despised lik[e] me? [And who] 3 like me was rejected [by men]? [And who bears] evil compared with m[e]?

In parallel with such thoughts is Jn 12:38: “It was that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: ‘Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?’” The quotation is from Isa 53:1. The Fourth Evangelist’s unique uses of Isaiah 53 emphasize the concept of the forgiveness of sin (Jn 1:29 quotes Isa 53:7; cf. 1Jn 3:5 quotes Isa 53:4ff. and 53:9). Eighth, is John’s Christology in harmony with some poetic passages in the SelfGlorification Hymn? Yes; Jesus is from “above” and others are from “below.” According to John, when Jesus was raised up on the cross he was exalted. Jesus is from the Father and is going to the Father (16:10–28). According to John, Jesus is from the Father, descended to earth, and ascended again to the Father: λέγει αὐτῇ Ἰησοῦς, Μή μου ἅπτου, οὔπω γὰρ ἀναβέβηκα πρὸς τὸν πατέρα· πορεύου δὲ πρὸς τοὺς ἀδελφούς μου καὶ εἰπὲ αὐτοῖς, Ἀναβαίνω πρὸς τὸν πατέρα μου καὶ πατέρα ὑμῶν καὶ θεόν μου καὶ θεὸν ὑμῶν. [20:17; my poetic arrangement]

The author of the Hymn and the authors and editors of John stress the revelatory and incomparable quality, respectively, of the anonymous one and Jesus: “And no teaching is comparable with my teaching.” Most Qumranites would read these lines and think about the Righteous Teacher whom God allowed to know “all the mysteries of his servants, the prophets” (Pesher Habakkuk 7). Throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus’ speech is incomparable, more full of revelation than any other prophet, so that when one heard Jesus’ voice they heard God’s message: I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word. 7 6 

Now they know that everything you have given me is from you; 8  for the words that you gave to me I have given to them, and they have received them and know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me. [Jn 17:6-8, NRSV; my poetic arrangement]



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Ninth, is there one stunning passage in the Self-Glorification Hymn that causes one to ponder if an author of John or a member of the Johannine School knew this document? Yes; the author of the Hymn declares: [F]or I (am) the beloved of the King (God), a companion of the Holy Ones.14 And no one may come with me (‫)ולוא יבוא ביא‬.

Remarkably, John has Jesus state: “Where I am going you cannot come” (τεκνία, ἔτι μικρὸν μεθʼ ὑμῶν εἰμι· ζητήσετέ με, καὶ καθὼς εἶπον τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις ὅτι Ὅπου ἐγὼ ὑπάγω ὑμεῖς οὐ δύνασθε ἐλθεῖν, καὶ ὑμῖν λέγω ἄρτι. [13:33]). The Hebrew ‫ ולוא יבוא ביא‬also means “and no one can [or will] come with me.” Did the first author of John known the Self-Glorification Hymn? The author of the Hymn makes an astounding claim; he is “the beloved of the King (God) [‫]ידי המלך‬.” While the noun “beloved” (agapētos) is never used by the authors of John, they well knew the noun “love (agapē).” Matthew and Mark use it once each; Luke does not have the word. John chooses it seven times. It defines Jesus’ life and is at the heart of Jesus’ new commandment: ἐντολὴν καινὴν δίδωμι ὑμῖν, ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους, καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑμᾶς ἵνα καὶ ὑμεῖς ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους (13:34). The noun “king” is used twenty-two times by Matthew, twelve times by Mark, eleven times by Luke, and sixteen times by John. The authors of John seem to use the noun “king” only with pejorative nuances as the putative “King of Israel” (1:49; 12:13) or the “King of the Jews” (18:33, 39; 19:3, 19, 21 [bis]). Jesus never says God is “the King” in John. The Hymn and the Gospel of John are appreciably different. One is a hymn (really a poem); the other is a gospel with a prefixed hymn that is really a poem. The purpose is different, and they represent divergent aspects of early Jewish apocalypticism. The Hymn represents the spatial perspective of some Jewish apocalypses but is noneschatological. John is also a composition shaped by spatial apocalypticism and with teleological dimensions so that Jesus has completed his mission on earth, and before he ascends to his Father, from the triumphant cross exhales: Τετέλεσται (19:30). Yet, one may imagine that both compositions have the same cosmological and teleological destiny: to be in the celestial throne room with God who has been revealed as King or Father.15 Celestial imagery reminiscent of the Hymn and John is reflected in the Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71).16 At the conclusion, Enoch is heralded as the “Son of Man” (71:14).17 He was born in righteousness and righteousness will always dwell with him. Previously, this cosmic figure is the one who is in “the dwelling places of the holy ones” (39:4). How did the author of the Self-Glorification Hymn and the author(s) of John imagine the place “above”? Was it “a dwelling place underneath the wings of the Lord” (1En 39:7)? Are these luminaries with Wisdom who is “settled permanently among the angels” or Elim (42:2)? That same place, one assumes because of context, is identical to the place of “numerous fountains of wisdom” that offer the thirsty ones a special drink that is filled with wisdom. It is also where “that Son of Man” was given a name “in the presence of the Lord of Spirits” and among the “dwelling places” of “the holy,

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righteous, and elect ones” (48:1–3).18 The Messiah, who is also “the Righteous and Elect One” (53:6) shall “sit on” God’s “throne” (51:3) and be “glorified” (51:3). The Elect One is an “ideal figure” who “sits on the throne of glory and judges” (55:4; cf. 61:8).19 Indeed, “that Son of Man” will be seen “sitting on the throne of glory” (62:5; cf. 69:29). Obviously, such reflections are harmonious with the exploration of how Jesus could become worshipped by early Jews who were monotheistic.20 I stressed the shift of a voice to “the Voice,” even the Bat Qol,21 who is eventually a hypostasis seen as separate from God, as earlier on were Wisdom and the Holy Spirit.22 Charles A. Gieschen rightly emphasizes the appropriateness of the term “hypostases” in research focused on Early Judaism and Early Christianity.23 In seeking to understand the divinity of Jesus, Larry Hurtado explores the various types of divine mediator figures in Early Judaism.24 James R. Davila notes that Deutero-Isaiah’s mysterious “Servant” is reflected in the Parables of Enoch.25 Isaiah’s Suffering Servant is apparent in the Hymn and the Gospel of John. “Metraton,” who is Enoch in 3 Enoch 4 is depicted seated on God’s throne.26 Differences with the heavenly figures depicted in the Self-Glorification Hymn and in the Gospel of John are also apparent. While no suffering Servant is found in the Parables of Enoch, such suffering is prominent in the Hymn and in John, and in both the echoes of Deutero-Isaiah are apparent. In summary, more thoughts in John now seem foreshadowed in Early Judaism. In light of the boasts of this anonymous person in the Self-Glorification Hymn, some claims in John no longer seem so blasphemous. We have observed that some of the links, not echoes, from the Hymn are in the first edition and later additions. Notably, the vision of the Hymn is harmonious with the Logos Hymn. In this way, the Gospel of John may help us imagine what could have been in the mind of the one who composed the SelfGlorification Hymn. If the Logos Hymn had been chanted in the Johannine community or School, then members of that School most likely would have been attracted to and meditated on the Hymn. Since the Hymn was most likely composed in Jerusalem, the author of the first edition of John could well have heard it recited or read aloud in the Temple and also in synagogues. If the Odes of Solomon were composed within the Johannine School, as seems obvious, then there is a conceptual link chronologically from the Self-Glorification Hymn to the Logos Hymn and the Odes of Solomon: (The Spirit) brought me forth before the Lord’s face. And because I was the Son of Man, I was named the Light, the Son of God; Because I was the most glorified among the glorious ones, And the greatest among the great ones. For according to the greatness of the Most High, so She made me; And according to His newness he renewed me. And He anointed me with His perfection: And I became one of those who are near Him.

(Ode 36.3–6)27



John’s Indebtedness to Judaism and the Self-Glorification Hymn

291

These poetic lines, full of double entendre, were composed ex ore Christi. The learned will see undeniable overtones that connect the Self-Glorification Hymn, the Books of Enoch (esp. the Parables of Enoch), the Hodayot, the Rule of the Community, the adoration of Melchizedek (11Q13), and the Logos Hymn as well as much of Jesus’ words in John. As is evident in the previous pages, Semitic poetry defines these connections.

Conclusion In this chapter, I have sought to stimulate awareness of how fully and deeply the Gospel of John is indebted to sophisticated Jewish reflections with a special focus on the Self-Glorification Hymn. I deem this composition to be an exceptionally important composition for the development of messianism and the concept of exalted ones in heaven. We have seen evidence that the Hymn and John share the same apocalyptic type of Judaism. We have even speculated that the Hymn may have been known to an author of John or by someone in the Johannine School. In explaining my hypothesis, we became more perceptive of the spatial dimensions and speculative apocalyptic thought in Second Temple Judaism and how it undergirds the cosmology and Christology of the Gospel of John.

Notes 1 The origin of Jn 7:53–8:11 is now central in David Alan Black and Jacob N. Cerone, eds., The Pericope of the Adulteress in Contemporary Research (London: Bloomsbury T & T Clark, 2010). The chapters in this volume present a variety of viewpoints. Although John David Punch and Maurice A. Robinson imagine that this section is authentic to the Gospel of John, Tommy Wasserman, Jennifer Knust, and Chris Keith take the majority view that this well-known section of John was added eventually to John. For me, the decisive point against authenticity is the absence of 7:53–8:11 in diverse and early Greek witnesses to John (e.g., P66, P75, Vaticanus, Sinaiticus [manuscripts A and C are missing this section of John]), and all the early Syriac witness to John (the Curetonianus, Syrus Sinaiticus, and the earliest copies of the Peshit̜ta). Chris Keith speculates that the addition was made to present Jesus as literate. Conceivably, the insertion dates from the third or fourth century, due to witnesses of and commentaries on John; but the earliest evidence for the addition seems to be the fifth century maverick Codex Bezae. See Keith, The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009). Larry Hurtado wisely opts for the pericope to be an addition; see his “The Pericope Adulterae: Where from Here?” in The Pericope of the Adulteress in Contemporary Research, pp. 147–58. As Bruce M. Metzger reported: “The evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the pericope of the adulteress is overwhelming.” See B. M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (Stuttgart and New York: American Bible Society, 1994 [2nd ed.]), p. 187. 2 Bibliographical data is provided in the preceding chapters. 3 The verb is the Hithpaʾel of ‫ ;חשב‬it means “to reckon oneself.” The verb “reckon” denotes a conclusion derived from contemplation. “To resemble” and “to be

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

compared” denotes “to be like.” The author uses words carefully. Note the restoration. It is conceivable the passage once read: “He reckoned me.” See the same verb in line 10. 4 See Isa. 53:4: “And he bears (‫ )סבלם‬our sorrows.” The same verb appears restored in our text. 5 Lit. “with.” 6 The root seems to be ‫גדד‬. It appears in Ps 94:21 to denote “to gather together” (‫)יגודו‬ and in Jer 5:7 to mean “to assemble themselves” (‫)יתגדו‬. In Rabbinics, in Aramaic, and in Arabic gdd means “to cut off.” In Akkadian gadādo means “to detach” or “to separate.” See DJD 29, p. 430, and Eben Shoshan (1975) vol. 1, p. 158. 7 Lit “lips.” ‫ שׂפה‬denotes the means of speaking, tongue, or vocabulary. See Gen 11:1, 6–7 (the famous account of Babel). 8 The hipʿil impf. of ‫כול‬, “to contain,” “to hold in.” Conceivably, the root is the Aramaic ‫כיל‬, “to measure.” 9 Lit. “tongue.” See Neh 13:24, Isa 66:18. For ‫ שפת‬with ‫ לשון‬see Ps 34:14 and Isa 28:11. 10 For bibliographical data and further discussion, see my introduction in the Princeton DSS Project series. 11 See the discussion of anonymity in J. H. Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1995). 12 In this chapter, statistics are according to Robert Morgenthaler, Statistik des neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes (Stuttgart: Gotthelf-Verlag Zürich, 1958, reprinted in 1973). 13 See especially J. H. Charlesworth, “The Priority of John? Reflections on the Essenes and the First Edition of John,” in Für und wider die Priorität des Johannesevangeliums: Symposium in Salzburg am 10. März 2000 (ed. P. L. Hofrichter; Theologische Texte und Studien 9; Hildesheim, Zürich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 2002), pp. 73–114. 14 The authors of John choose “holy” to signify only “the Holy Spirit” (1:33; 11:48; 14:26; 17:11; 20:22). That exhausts the use of “holy” in John. 15 I use the term “throne room” loosely to emphasize the celestial setting. It is not explicit in either composition. 16 See the contributions to Parables of Enoch (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and D. L. Bock; T & T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies Series; London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2013). 17 All quotations are from E. Isaac in OTP 1 but the italics added for clarity are mine. 18 See J. H. Charlesworth, “The Naming of the Son of Man, the Light, the Son of God: How the Parables of Enoch May Have Influenced the Odes of Solomon,” in “I Sowed Fruits into Hearts” (Odes Sol. 17:13): Festschrift for Professor Michael Lattke (ed. P. Allen, M. Franzmann and R. Strelan; Early Christian Studies 12; Strathfield, NSW: St Paul’s Publications, 2007), pp. 31–43. 19 See also J. H. Charlesworth, “The Portrayal of the Righteous One as an Angel,” in Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism (ed. J. J. Collins and G. W. E. Nickelsburg; Septuagint and Cognate Studies 12; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980), pp. 135–51. 20 See especially Alan Segal, Two Powers in Heaven (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1977) and Donald Juel, Messianic Exegesis (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988). 21 For the Bat Qol, see b. Yoma 9b; b. ‘Erubin 13b. 22 J. H. Charlesworth, “The Jewish Roots of Christology: The Discovery of the Hypostatic Voice,” Scottish Journal of Theology 39 (1986): 19–41. 23 C. A. Gieschen, Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence (AGJU 42; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1998) see especially pp. 36–45. 24 L. W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988).



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25 J. R. Davila, “On Methodology, Monotheism and Metatron,” in The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism (ed. C. C. Newman, J. R. Davila and G. S. Lewis; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1999), pp. 3–18; see especially p. 11. In the same volume, see especially M. Daly-Denton’s study of the Psalms in John. 26 See A. A. Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). 27 For the Syriac and English translation, see J. H. Charlesworth, The Odes of Solomon (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1973; reprinted by Scholars Press in 1977).

John and Enoch

11

Did the Fourth Evangelist Know the Enoch Tradition?1

1  Prefatory remarks Recently, I was asked, “What is the purpose of the Fourth Gospel?” I wondered if this is the proper question. Did the Fourth Evangelist begin by thinking, “What is my purpose?” I would join with those scholars who realize the importance of asking questions that are not founded on unexamined presuppositions. On the one hand, I think that the author of John was focusing on problems he knew Jesus had confronted and the Johannine School was suffering; if so, he would not want to be categorized as another author who had one purpose. On the other hand, when this perspective becomes clear, there should be no doubt that the author of John (or authors and editors) had a Christological purpose: He wanted to proclaim that the protological Jesus is the promised Son of Man and Messiah who was sent by God into the world to save all who believe. What errors in the past were caused by asking the wrong or imprecise questions? Did not asking if God and Jesus were of one substance (homoousia [Latin from Greek]), as at Nicea in 325 CE, rig the exploration of revealed truths in ways inconceivable by the author(s) of John who was deeply Jewish? Through irony the Fourth Evangelist, especially in the presentation of Nicodemus, suggests the problems inherent in asking the wrong questions (see, viz., Jn 3:4). Today, we agree that questions about the Fourth Gospel are better couched in light of what we have learned rather recently about Early Judaism (especially as it was between 167 BCE and 132 CE).2 When one reads the Fourth Gospel (which represents more than one author), one learns that the original author intended to proclaim to believers that the way to understand Jesus is to hear the full story. It begins at creation and has not yet ended. His readers, it seems, needed theological sophistication and correction from erroneous thoughts (i.e., that Jesus’ death revealed he was a failure or conversely that he was not really human).3 The answers are in the story of the One who has been sent from above, but paradoxically is never called “the One from above.” This One is the fleshy human Jesus who brings proof of God’s love for his world (creation) and shows the way to the Father above. Therefore, if the implied readers of the Fourth Gospel are sophisticated and learned in traditions about Jesus and know, or even believe, that he is the Christ, the Son of God,

296

Jesus as Mirrored in John

and the Son of Man, and if they—or most of them—are Jews, then one may assume, at least at the outset, that they knew about, and perhaps some had memorized portions of, the Books of Enoch or 1 Enoch (i.e., the Aramaic traditions behind the Greek and Ethiopic Enoch).4 These Enoch books circulated in more than one scroll—as we know from the Qumran caves—and were composed over three centuries (c. 300 BCE to no later than 70 CE).5 While the purposes of the Fourth Gospel are many, one seems to be to elevate Jesus in contrast to others, especially the ideal figures like Enoch who were revered by numerous early Jews and not only by the Qumranites and the Enoch group. Let us now turn to the texts.

2  Selected parallels According to Jn 1:51, Jesus tells Nathanael that he will see “heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”6 According to Gen 28:12 (LXX), Jacob has a dream at Bethel and sees “a ladder fixed on the earth, whose top reached to heaven, and the angels of God ascended and descended on it.” Scholars need to explore the parallel between this Johannine passage and the traditions preserved in or mirrored by the Ladder of Jacob. The mere order of verbs, ἀνά before κατά, proves some connection with the Jacob traditions, and perhaps through them to Genesis.7 The pseudepigraphon, the Ladder of Jacob, shows the early Jewish interest in Jacob and the ladder but the text is of little help in interpreting John. Now, more importantly for us is the Fourth Evangelist’s affirmation that Jesus is apocalyptically heralded to be the Son of Man. Recall Jn 9:35–38: Ἤκουσεν Ἰησοῦς ὅτι ἐξέβαλον αὐτὸν ἔξω, καὶ εὑρὼν αὐτὸν εἶπεν· Σὺ πιστεύεις εἰς τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου; 36 ἀπεκρίθη ἐκεῖνος καὶ εἶπεν· Καὶ τίς ἐστιν, κύριε, ἵνα πιστεύσω εἰς αὐτόν; 37 εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς· Καὶ ἑώρακας αὐτὸν καὶ ὁ λαλῶν μετὰ σοῦ ἐκεῖνός ἐστιν. 38 ὁ δὲ ἔφη· Πιστεύω, κύριε· καὶ προσεκύνησεν αὐτῷ. 35

Jesus heard that they had cast him (the man born blind) outside, and finding him he said: “Do you believe in the Son of Man.” That one answered and said: “And who is (he), lord, that I shall (may)8 believe in him.” Jesus said to him: “And you have seen him and he is talking with you; that (one) is (the Son of Man). But he said: “I believe, Lord”; and he worshipped him. [The underlying Semitic is clear in my translation.]

Since the Evangelist clarifies that Jesus accepts the title “the Son of Man,” John 1:51 may reflect a polemic against the Jews who had by the time of the Fourth Evangelist arrived at the conclusion that Enoch is “that Son of Man.”9 Note that while the “Son of Man” is not associated with Enoch in the chapters prior to 71:14, the Parables of Enoch conclude with the elevation and declaration that none other than Enoch is the Son of Man (71:14). Note the dominant translations: And that angel came to me (Enoch) and greeted me with his voice, and said to me: “You are the Son of Man (we’etu walda be’si)10 who was born to righteousness, and



Did the Fourth Evangelist Know the Enoch Tradition?

297

righteousness remains over you, and the righteousness of the Head of Days will not leave you.”11 Und er kam zu mir and grüßte mich seiner Stimme und sprach zu mir: “Du bist der Menschensohn, der zur Gerechtigkeit geboren ist, und Gerechtigkeit wohnt über dir, und die Gerechtigkeit des Hauptes der Tage verläßt dich nicht.”12 Il [var. L’ange] est venu vers moi, et m’a salué de la voix. Il m’a dit: “Tu es le Fils d’homme, toi qui es né pour [var. selon] la justice, la justice a demeuré sur toi, la justice du Principe des jours ne te quittera pas.”13 E venne presso me quell’angelo, mi salutò con la sua voce e mi disse: “Tu sei il figlio dell’uomo nato per la giustizia e la giustizia ha dimorato in te e la giustizia del Capo dei Giorni non ti abbandonerà.”14 Llegó a mí aquel angel, me saludó y me dijo: “Tú eres el Hijo del hombre que naciste para la justicia; ella ha morado en ti, y la justicia del ‘Principio de días’ no te dejará.”15

It is easy to imagine the Hebrew (and, of course, Aramaic) and Greek that is conceivably behind 1 Enoch 71:14; they would be somewhat similar to the modern translations.16 The angelus interpres is probably Michael (as the Greek translation indicates).17 Enoch has been elevated above even Michael and the other archangels, namely Gabriel, Raphael, and Phanuel, and he is even depicted as being enthroned (see esp. 1En 69:29). The chapter is a fitting climax to the elevation of Enoch throughout the Books of Enoch and the logical development of Enoch lore since Genesis 5:18 ‫ׁש ָ֔נה ּוׁשְֹל֥ ׁש מ ֵ֖אֹות ׁשָנָ ֽה׃‬ ָ ֙‫ׁשּׁשִים‬ ִ ‫י ִ ְ֖הי ּכָל־י ֵ ְ֣מי חֲנ֑ ֹוְך ח ֵ ָ֤מׁש ְו‬ ‫ֱֹלהים ְואֵי ֶ֕נּנּו ּכִ ֽי־ל ַ ָ֥קח א ֹתֹו֖ אֱֹלהִ ֽים׃‬ ֑ ִ ‫ַוּי ִתְ הַּלֵ ְ֥ך חֲנ֖ ֹוְך אֶת־הָ ֽא‬ And all the days of Enoch were 365 years. And Enoch walked continuously with God and he was no longer because God took him. (Gen 5:23-24)

In the Enoch circles, Jews assumed that Enoch was a perfectly moral person beloved by God and that he did not die. He is alive with God in heaven and returned to earth to inform the faithful. Focusing on 1 Enoch, M. Black rightly claimed that “the plain meaning” of 71:14 discloses that Enoch himself is “divinely designated or called to an even higher celestial role than he already enjoys as immortalized Patriarch, ‘scribe of righteousness,’ namely, the role of the heavenly Man of his earlier vision (46, 48).”19 Virtually no scholar has seen that John 3:13 is a polemical statement, and that it was directed against Enoch. D. R. A. Hare rightly perceives that 3:13 “has polemical import,” but he errs by claiming that the polemic is directed against a human “who claims to have ascended to heaven and to have returned with heavenly information.”20 The major problem with Hare’s analysis is he assumes that humans and angels were distinct categories for Jews, and he fails to cite one person who made such a claim during the time, or before, the time of the Fourth Gospel.21 The possibility that the Fourth Evangelist intends to prove that Jesus, and not Enoch, is the Son of Man is increased by the following observations.

298

Jesus as Mirrored in John

At this point in our study, it is certain that there is the Tendenz in 1 Enoch that helps us perceive the types of Judaism against which the Fourth Evangelist is competing, intermittently. Note these selected examples: 1 Enoch

Gospel of John

. . . the elect one (shall be) in the light of eternal life . . . For the sun has shined upon the earth and darkness is over. (1En 58:2, 5; Isaac in OTP 1:39–40)

“The light shines in darkness” (Jn 1:5) “the light has come into the world” (Jn 3:29) “I am the light of the world.” (Jn 8:12 and 9:5) “How can you say that the Son of Man must be lifted up: Who is this Son of Man?” Jesus said to them, “the light is with you for a little longer” (Jn 12:34–35) “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (Jn 17:3)

“(So) I, Enoch, I saw the vision of the end of everything alone; and none among human beings will see as I have seen.” (1En 19:3; Isaac in OTP 1:23) κἀγὼ Ἑνὼχ ἶδον τὰ θεωρήματα μόνος, τὰ πέρατα πάντων, καὶ οὐ μὴ ἶδῃ οὐδὲ εἷς ἀνθρώπων ὡς ἐγὼ ἶδον. [one of the passages extant in Greek]22

[Jesus to Nicodemus:] “How can you believe if I tell you heavenly things (τὰ ἐπουράνια)?” (Jn 3:12)

“Wisdom could not find a place in which she could dwell; but a place was found for (her) in the heavens.” (1En 42:1; Isaac in OTP 1:33)

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14)23

“For I know this mystery; I have read the tablets of heaven and have seen the holy writings, and I have understood the writing in them; and they are inscribed concerning you.” (1En 103:2; Isaac in OTP 1:83)24 [According to the Fourth Evangelist. Only Jesus has such knowledge]25

Jesus: “If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote of me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe my words?” (Jn 5:47)]26

Recall Enoch’s vision of “the Lord of the sheep” (‫;)מרא ענה‬27 ὁ κύριος τῶν προβάτων [1En 89:42])28 and the seventy evil shepherds in 1En 89–90.29 I would add 1En 89:36, “[And I watched in that dream until] that [Sh]ee[p] was changed; and he (became a) man] ‫)]וחזית בחלצא דן עד די א]מר[א] דן אתהפך והוא) אנוש‬30

[Jesus] “I am the door of the sheep (ἡ θὺρα τῶν προβάτων) . . . I am the good shepherd” (Jn 10:7, 11)



Did the Fourth Evangelist Know the Enoch Tradition?

. . . the name of that (Son of) Man was revealed to them. (1En 69:27; Isaac in OTP 1:49)

Now is the Son of Man glorified (Jn 13:31)

All the days of the righteous “shall be completed in peace” (‫)בשלם ֯ית[מליון‬31 (1 En 10:17) . . . he shall proclaim peace to you . . . (1En 71:15; Isaac in OTP 1:50)

[Jesus to his disciples] “Peace be with you . . . Peace be with you.” (Jn 20:19, 21)

299

Given the intermittent polemical nature of 1 Enoch and of the Fourth Gospel, I am convinced that it is fruitful to ponder to what extent the Enoch traditions have given rise to some expressions and thoughts in John. Would not the Fourth Evangelist have strongly disagreed with the Jews who claimed that Enoch (‫ )חנוך‬was “the wisest of men” (‫)]וח[ כ̇ים אנושא‬32 or that he should be celebrated as the one who at the judgment will be “the scribe of righteousness”33 which is a thought rather contemporaneous with the Fourth Gospel since it appears in the Testament of Abraham: “And the one who produces (the evidence) is the teacher of heaven and earth and the scribe of righteousness, Enoch” (ὁ διδάσκαλος τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς καὶ γραμματεὺς τῆς δικαιοσύνης).34 Four passages are most important: First, according to Jn 3:12, Jesus tells Nicodemus: “If I have told you earthly things you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” Second, in Jn 3:13 the reader is informed that “No one has ascended into heaven but he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.” Third, in Jn 7:27 the reader is told that “when the Christ appears, no one will know where he comes from.” Finally, in Jn 9:35–37 the Fourth Evangelist places in Jesus’ mouth this self-disclosure: “The Son of Man . . . is he who speaks to you” (9:35–37; cf. 12:34–36). One does not need to read Bultmann to know that for the Fourth Evangelist the “Son of Man” is a “Messianic title for Jesus.”35 John 3:12–13 and 9:35–37 together suggest that the Fourth Evangelist may be reacting against the claim that Enoch ascended into heaven and had been named “that Son of Man.” Note 1 Enoch 48: And at that hour that Son of man (zeku walda sab’)36 was named in the presence of the Lord of Spirits, and his name (was named) before the Head of Days. Even before the sun and the constellations were created, before the stars of heaven were made, his name was named before the Lord of Spirits. (48:2–3)37

Why would some Jews choose Enoch above Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, and others? Enoch was a superb choice according to Genesis.38 First, he was “seventh” after Adam (according to the Pentateuchal source P; J makes “Lamech” seventh); that means he was the perfect number in succession. Second, he was morally perfect because “he walked continuously (‫ )ויתהלך‬with God.” Third, he did not die (‫ )ואיננו‬because “God took (‫ )לקח‬him.” Fourth, these cryptic words in Gen 5:24 would have suggested to the Enoch groups that Enoch was still alive (perhaps in heaven) to inspire and guide the elect ones on the earth (cf. Gen 5:21–24). The Qumranites were not the only ones who revered Enoch, at least originally. Many believed Enoch was unusually special. During the composition of the Enochian literature, a Jew, who represented another segment of Early Judaism, claimed that Enoch had indeed ascended into heaven (μετετέθη; Wis 4:10).39

300

Jesus as Mirrored in John

Such extreme veneration of Enoch would have elicited polemics from many other Jews who imagined Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Isaiah, or the Righteous Teacher was the supreme luminary.40 Jewish texts provide ample evidence of such polemics. We have clear textual evidence that Enoch was seen as a threat and that some saw a need to polemicize against his adoration. Such a denigration of Enoch is preserved in Genesis Rabbah. As Joseph Dan states in his monograph on Jewish Mysticism and Jewish Ethics, the traditions preserved in Genesis Rabbah explain that Enoch was “taken by God” not because of his righteousness, but God decided to remove him so he could continue to be only righteous.41 Let us review the evidence. Reflecting on Gen 5:24, “Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him,” R. Hama bar Hoshaia interpreted the text to mean that Enoch was inscribed “in the scroll of the wicked.” R. Aibu argued that “Enoch was a dissembler.” R. Abbahu claimed that Enoch was not “translated into heaven,” but died “a quite ordinary death.” These Rabbis refused to elevate Enoch. They denigrated him, claiming that he was not special for God “removed” him, because he was about to be unrighteous. Their opinions are recorded in Genesis Rabbah (third to fourth century),42 the “first complete and systematic Judaic commentary to the book of Genesis.”43 Although Genesis Rabbah appreciably postdates the Fourth Gospel, it may preserve some traditions that are earlier. Thus, a similar thought, the denigration of Enoch, may appear in Jn 3:13, whose author must have known about the Enoch apocalyptic traditions, and perhaps the books that celebrate Enoch’s ascent into the heavens and his return with “heavenly” wisdom for the elect (esp. 1 Enoch and 2 Enoch). Probably against such Enoch traditions, the author of the Fourth Gospel claimed that “no one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man.”44 The connection with Enoch in John seems assured, since Enoch is hailed as the Son of Man in 1En 71 and Jesus announces he is “the Son of Man” in John 9:35–38.45 This scenario seems possible, perhaps probable, since 1 Enoch 37–71 is now judged to be Jewish and dated to the late first century BCE by most experts.46 The 27th edition of Nestle-Aland’s Novum Testamentum Graece lists the parallels to the Old Testament found by scholars in the New Testament. Under Loci citati vel allegati ex Vetere Testamento are included passages found in the intra-canonical and extracanonical Jewish compositions. One sees 57 references to 1 Enoch in the New Testament. Passages in the Synoptic Gospels are included: 1 Enoch

The Gospels

5:7 15:6s 16:1 22:9ss 38:2 39:4 48:10 51:2 51:4 61:8

Mt 5:5 Mk 12:25 Mt 13:39 Lk 16:26 Mt 26:24 Lk 16:9 Mk 8:29 Lk 21:28 Mk 12:25 Mt 25:31



Did the Fourth Evangelist Know the Enoch Tradition? 62:2s 63:10 69:27 94:8 97:8–10 103:4

301

Mt 25:31 Lk 16:9 Mt 25:31, 26:64 Lk 6:24 Lk 12:19 Mt 26:13

Not one passage in the Fourth Gospel is noted. Is that accurate? Have the traditions in 1 Enoch not helped to shape the present form of the Fourth Gospel? As just shown, nine passages in the Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71) are listed as parallels in the New Testament documents, so the failure to include the Fourth Gospel in the list cannot be due to uncertainty as to the Jewishness or the earliness of this composition, which was the subject of a discussion held during the SNTS congress in Tübingen in 1977.47 Today, many scholars would consider it rather remarkable if no parallels were found between 1 Enoch and the Fourth Gospel.48 Long ago, in his classical work, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, R. H. Charles pointed to similarities between 1 Enoch and Jn 5:22, 12:36, and 14:2; he did so after stressing that “1 Enoch has had more influence on the New Testament than has any other apocryphal or pseudepigraphic work.”49 R. H. Charles missed the influence from 1 Enoch on the Fourth Gospel that I now bring into central focus. The reasons are twofold. He wrote at a time when only positive influences were examined. We have been discerning negative—even polemical— influences. When the Fourth Evangelist argues that καὶ οὐδεὶς ἀναβέβηκεν εἰς τὸν οὐρανὸν “no one has ascended into heaven” (3:13), he is arguing against those who claim someone has ascended into heaven.50 The οὐδεὶς is a strong contradiction; as F. J. Moloney states, the force of the sentence is to reject any validity in the claims that “the great revealers of Israel had been to heaven to learn the secrets they eventually revealed.”51 That is why the Fourth Evangelist then adds the emphatic positive (as in Isa 45:23 LXX and manuscripts F and G in Rom 14:11):52 εἰ μὴ ὁ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καταβάς, “except the one who surely descended from heaven.”53 Then to underscore the point he adds the identity and title of this individual: ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου (which is an epexegetical clarification of “he who descended from heaven”). And to drive home the point more clearly, the author54 or some scribes have added that the Son of Man is ὁ ὦν ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ (viz., manuscripts A (*), Θ, Ψ, syrc,p,h), “the one who is in (or whose being resides) in heaven,” or ὁ ὦν ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ (pc sys), “the one being (or whose being is defined as coming) from heaven.” Only the Son of Man—namely Jesus—can reveal Wisdom and the way to eternal life (the intentionality of 3:13–17).55 Thus, the Fourth Evangelist’s declaration that Jesus is the Son of Man seems to have polemical overtones. E. M. Sidebottom correctly pointed out that only in the Fourth Gospel is the Son of Man portrayed as descending56; this may be the Fourth Evangelist mixing influences from the Jacob cycle (the ascending and descending motif) and the Enoch cycle (the Son of Man concept that is developed beyond Daniel). Brown added the insight that 1En 48:2–6 “portrays the Son of Man as pre-existent in heaven (and this seems to be implied in John), but does not speak of his descent” (1:133). These observations—including the possibility that the preexistence of the Logos presented

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

in John is indebted to 1 Enoch—lead me to speculate that Jn 3:13 seems directed against the Enoch groups and their claim that Enoch is the one who has been named “the Son of Man.” The Wisdom motif clearly raises the question of the source of the Jewish traditions regarding Wisdom that have influenced the shaping of John as it evolved, was rewritten, and edited. Second, Charles lived before the study of the Fourth Gospel was enriched by sociological studies of the community behind the Fourth Gospel, notably in the publications by W. Meeks, J. L. Martyn, and R. E. Brown.57 The studies of ἀποσυνάγωγος (fear of being excluded from synagogal services) in the Fourth Gospel reveal the polemical ambience of the document; the Johannine Jews are in a life-and-death struggle with the Jews who control the synagogue.58 As M. Hengel stated, many New Testament experts have come to the conclusion that the Johannine community was in a bitter polemic with the form of Pharisaic Judaism that dominated after 70 CE.59 Thus, the polemical ambience of the Fourth Gospel has been clarified by other studies that are unrelated to the search for influences from the Jewish apocryphal works on the Fourth Gospel. Apparently, the Jews with whom the Johannine Jews were struggling were not only those who “owned” the synagogue, but also those who revered Enoch as the Son of Man who had the secret of Wisdom and life (and perhaps some Jews in the Synagogue may also have held such views). Another link between the Enoch traditions and the Fourth Gospel should be stressed. According to 1 Enoch, the Son of Man is the eschatological Judge. Note this section from 1 Enoch: And they had great joy, and they blessed and praised and exalted because the name of that Son of Man (we’etu ealda ’eguâla ’emma heyâw)60 had been revealed to them. And he sat on the throne of his glory, and the whole judgement was given to the Son of Man (walda ’eguâla ’emma heyâw), and he will cause the sinners to pass away and be destroyed from the face of the earth. (69:26–27; Knibb; underlining mine) And there was great joy amongst them, And they blessed and glorified and extolled Because the name of that Son of Man had been revealed unto them. And he sat on the throne of his glory And the sum of judgement was given unto the Son of Man, And he caused the sinners to pass away and be destroyed From off the face of the earth, And those who have led the world astray. (69:26–27; Charles in 1912)61

Charles’ translation brings out the poetic structure of the passage. The Righteous One is clearly identified with the Chosen One in 1En 53:6 and the Chosen One seems to be also the Son of Man, since in 61:8–10 he is the enthroned one who judges. Charles claimed that the one who “sat on the throne of glory” according to 69:26 is “the Messiah,” and he pointed out the parallel between the “sum of judgement, i.e. all judgement” and Jn 5:22 πᾶσαν τὴν κρίσιν. This parallel is important, since according to Jn 5:27 Jesus is



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the judge because he is the Son of Man: The Father has given him authority to execute judgment, “because he is the Son of Man (ὃτι υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου).” The Fourth Evangelist brings out his own theology, which is a polemic against the Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish documents that claim God is the judge: “The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son” (5:22; cf. 5:27, 30; 8:16). Before proceeding further we must pause to contemplate the presence of the term “the (that or this) Son of Man” in 1 Enoch. The Ethiopic translator(s) chose three expressions to represent “the Son of Man” in 1 Enoch:

1. zeku (or zentu) walda sab’, “that (or this) Son of Man” (46:2 [B and C], 3, 4; 48:2;

cf. 60:10 [without the demonstrative adjectival pronoun and addressed to Enoch]);

2. zeku (or we’etu) walda ’eguâla ’emma heyâw, literally “that (or this) son the

offspring of the mother of the living (or Eve)”62 (62:7 [without the demonstrative], 9, 14; 63:11; 69:27 [26 in Knibb], 29; 70:1; 71:17); 3. we’etu walda be’si, “this Son of Man” (62:5;63 69:29; 71:14 [without the demonstative]; cf. the variant walda be’sit, “son of woman”64 in Eth. II at 65:2).65 Black concluded: “All three expressions clearly go back to an original ‫האדם‬-‫( בן‬Aramaic ‫בר־אנשא‬, ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου).66 The Untertext of the translation is far from clear. N. Schmidt concluded that three Aramaic expressions had been translated with three Ethiopic terms.67 Walda sab’ = ‫בר נשא‬ Walda be’si = ‫ברה דגברא‬ Walda ’eguâla ’emma heyâw = ‫ברה דבר נשא‬

In my opinion, it may be impossible to ascertain the Vorlage of Ethiopic Enoch; the translators seem to have used not only Aramaic but also Greek manuscripts.68 Since we do not have 1 Enoch 37–71 in Aramaic (or Syriac or Greek) we have no textual basis to make a sure judgment on the text translated with different Ethiopic expressions. However, when comparing so-called 1 Enoch with the Fourth Gospel, we need to remember that if the Fourth Evangelist knew the Enoch text or its tradition, he would probably have known it in Aramaic. Thus, the New Testament scholar must allow for some flexibility in comparing the two texts (or traditions). It is likely that we need to be open to the possibility of influences from the widespread and influential Enoch traditions on the Fourth Gospel.69 Yet, the commentators have not yet been interested in examining a relationship between the traditions in 1 Enoch and the Fourth Gospel.70 S. Schulz indicated the early nature of the Son of Man passages in the Fourth Gospel, and argued that they are pre-Johannine,71 but he did not inform us of the source nor of how these Son of Man traditions reached John. R. Schnackenburg rightly affirmed strong affinities between Qumran and John and claimed that the Son of Man sayings are probably of “apocalyptic” origin, but preferred to imagine that the Fourth Evangelist obtained the Son of Man concept from “Judaeo-Christian circles” and perhaps the Synoptics.72 The latter possibility ebbs in light of the awareness that the Fourth Gospel has traditions that are independent of the Synoptics.73

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

In seeking to discern possible influence from 1 Enoch on the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine School, it is pertinent to draw attention to the Odes of Solomon.74 A section of Ode 36—composed ex ore Christi—celebrates Christ as the Son of Man and the Son of God: (The Spirit) brought me forth before the Lord’s face And because I was the Son of Man I was named the Light, the Son of God. (Ode 36:3)75

This passage is obviously reminiscent of 1En 48:2–4 (italics clarify shared words): At that hour, that Son of Man was given a name, in the presence of the Lord of the Spirits, the Before-Time; even before the creation of the sun and the moon, before the creation of the stars, he was given a name in the presence of the Lord of the Spirits. . . . He is the Light of the gentiles and he will become the hope of those who are sick in their hearts.76

Since the Odes of Solomon are clearly linked somehow with the Fourth Gospel,77 it is wise to recognize that the Jewish thoughts preserved in 1 Enoch are possible sources of influence on our most Jewish Gospel.78 Why have New Testament scholars shied away from digging deeply into the theology of 1 Enoch and following the lead of R. H. Charles by exploring how and in what way, if at all, the writings collected into the Books of Enoch have impacted the authors of the New Testament documents? The main reasons are somewhat obvious. First, J. T. Milik claimed that the most important section for New Testament specialists, 1 Enoch 37–71, is a Christian composition and dates from the third century CE.79 His position is now no longer tenable; the Parables of Enoch were composed in the Herodian period and before Jesus’ crucifixion in 30 CE.80 Most specialists on Enoch now agree that they are certainly Jewish and antedate Hillel and Jesus; it is evident that this claim, well known to the members of the international Enoch seminar, is shocking to some New Testament experts.81 Recently, leading scholars have come to date the last section of 1 Enoch that is similar to what R. Laurence advocated in 1835, even though he was unaware of the composite nature of the Enoch Books: “The reign of Herod was of considerable duration, extending to four and thirty years; at some period of whose reign, probably at an early one, the Book of Enoch seems to have been written.”82 That is accurate for the inclusion of the Parables of Enoch, but the earliest portions of 1 Enoch antedate 200 BCE. Second, New Testament scholars prosecute research with the misconception that the relationship between the Son of Man, the Messiah, the Righteous One, and the Elect One are confused and misleading in 1 Enoch. Thus, research on the Parables of Enoch was seriously hindered by R. H. Charles’ emendation of 1En 71:14. J. C. VanderKam, M. Black, many others, and I have shown that these terms frequently appear to be synonymous in the thought of the author.83 Third, New Testament specialists shy away from the Parables of Enoch because they are not extant in Greek, Latin, or Aramaic—the languages New Testament scholars



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master; they are extant only in Ethiopic. This language factor is major, but today there are excellent translations of “Ethiopic Enoch” in English, German, Italian, French, and Spanish. Most experts on 1 Enoch today conclude that the Parables of Enoch had been composed by the time when the Fourth Gospel was composed. Hence, the major reasons for ignoring the importance of 1 Enoch for the developing thoughts in the New Testament writings are no longer valid. The new era must be perceived by New Testament specialists who tend to be myopic. The present reflections have served us well if they stimulate more scholars to explore how and in what ways the Enoch literature, especially 1 Enoch 37–71, may have shaped the formation of the Fourth Gospel. To discover a polemic that relates 1 Enoch and the Fourth Gospel is not to suggest that the Son of Man in the Fourth Gospel is explained by the Son of Man in 1 Enoch. The Fourth Evangelist, and the New Testament authors, do not proclaim that Jesus is categorically Enoch’s Son of Man. The identity of Jesus is fundamentally linked with God (not with the Son of Man); the Divine Son is progressively revealed in the Gospel story, which is the Good News about the incarnation of the Son on earth and his return to the Father.84 Yet, we have seen that in the Parables of Enoch and in John, the Son of Man is identified with Enoch and Jesus respectively and they are identified as the cosmic and eschatological Judge. Most specialists will now perceive this fundamental point and imagine that the Fourth Evangelist knows the Enoch books, including especially the Parables of Enoch. Long before Origen relegated the book of Enoch, Tertullian considered 1 Enoch (not Ethiopic Enoch, of course) inspired and a witness to Jesus as the Christ: Sed cum Enoch eadem scriptura etiam de Domino praedicavit,85 a nobis quidem nihil omnino rejiciendum86 est, quod pertineat ad nos. Et legimus omnem scripturam aedificationi habilem divinitus inspirari.87 But since Enoch in the same Scripture has preached likewise concerning the Lord, nothing at all must be rejected by us which pertains to us; and we read that “every Scripture suitable for edification is divinely inspired.”88

If early followers of Jesus knew the author of 1 Enoch predicted Jesus to be Lord and divine, and the author of Jude used 1 Enoch to support prophecy, then why would anyone presume that the Fourth Evangelist could not have known 1 Enoch and chapters 37–71? One should not object to my argument by claiming that the Fourth Evangelist treats those whom he rejects differently than he does alleged devotees of Enoch in 3:13. Some experts might contend that he treats Moses and Abraham polemically; hence, there is probably no polemic here against Enoch.89 This objection is miscast or misinformed because Jn 3:13 is a polemic, “no one has ascended into heaven.” The Fourth Evangelist did not polemicize against Moses or Abraham. He affirmed that the Torah (Law) came through Moses (1:17). He also portrayed Jesus arguing against those who claimed to have Abraham as their ancestor; he did not polemicize against Abraham (cf. 8:39–58).

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

3  Conclusion It is now obvious that the Fourth Evangelist was influenced by Jewish apocalypticism.90 He even polemicizes against the apocalyptic claim that Abraham, Levi,91 Isaiah, Baruch, Ezra, and especially Enoch had ascended into heaven.92 In the early half of the twentieth century, Hugo Odeberg offered the sage suggestion that Jn 3:13 “seems to imply the rejection of the traditions of ascensions into heaven made by the great saints, patriarchs, and prophets of old . . . such as Enoch, Abraham, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, and also of the views of those who at the time maintained that they could ascend to heaven and obtain knowledge of Divine Things and therefore had no need of the Son of Man.”93 More recently in “Some Jewish Exegetical Traditions,” Peter Borgen wisely points out the polemic in Jn 3:13. For Borgen it is “a polemic against the ascents of Moses and all others who are said to have ascended into heaven ” (my italics).94 Borgen thus includes a polemic against Enoch. In light of the growing recognition of the power and prestige of the Enoch groups before Bar Kokhba, perhaps the above conclusion may now be refined. What cycle of Jewish apocalyptic traditions was perhaps in the mind of the Fourth Evangelist when, in defending Jesus, he said no one had ascended into heaven except “the Son of Man” who descended? The target of the Johannine polemic is the Enoch group within Second Temple Judaism. They celebrated Enoch as the only one who ascended into heaven and was then exalted as the “Son of Man.” Since ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου in Jn 3:13 is an epexegetical clarification of “he who descended from heaven,” this conclusion seems firm. The Fourth Evangelist contrasts Jesus’ teachings with those of other Jews, represented by “a leader of the Jews,” Nicodemus. In chapter 3, the Evangelist stresses the uniqueness of Jesus as the Son of Man. He (Jesus) alone has descended from above to share God’s word and message to the final generation; hence, it is possible to be born ἆνωθεν (anew, or from above). The canonical John, thus, is defined by the claim. In the words of an admired exegete, this “limited canon” contains numerous claims to “be a testimony of God’s unique revelation through which his general intent, his allembracing grace, and the deepest structure of his creation may be discovered.”95 As the Enoch group heralded Enoch as the Son of Man, the Judge, so the Johannine School proclaimed Jesus as the apocalyptic Son of Man in one of the few “eschatological” passages in John. In summation, the Fourth Evangelist probably knew the Parables of Enoch and argued against the claim that Enoch had ascended to heaven and returned as the Son of Man to convey God’s final word and to judge humanity.

Notes 1 The following chapter is a revised and expanded version of “Did Jesus Know the Traditions in the Parables of Enoch?” in The Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift (ed. Charlesworth and D. L. Bock; London and New York: Bloomsbury, 2013), pp. 173–217. 2 I attempted to follow this principle in The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John? (Valley Forge: Trinity, 1995).



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3 I am not implying that the Fourth Evangelist is intentionally anti-gnostic; but in its final form some passages do seem to be anti-docetic (e.g., 1:14). Some scholars conclude that the Fourth Gospel is naïvely docetic; I find it difficult to call the genius of John naïve; perhaps incipiently docetic might be a better term. The Fourth Evangelist does clearly hold, perhaps in intentional tension, Jesus’ identity with God and his humanity. See especially E. Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus, trans. G. Krodel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968); M. M. Thompson, The Humanity of Jesus (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988); and especially P. N. Anderson, The Christology of the Fourth Gospel (Valley Forge: Trinity, 1996 [revised in 2010]). 4 In the fourth century CE, Christian missionaries created Ge’ez, or Ethiopic, in order to translate the Scriptures. Some Son of Man passages mirror the Hebrew word for Eve ‫חוה‬, “the mother of all the living” (Gen 3:20). 5 See the report of an agreement reached at an international gathering of Enoch scholars in J. H. Charlesworth, “A Rare Consensus Among Enoch Specialists: The Date of the Earliest Enoch Books,” Henoch 24 (2002): 225–34. J. H. Charlesworth, “The Date of the Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71),” Henoch 20 (1998): 93–98. J. H. Charlesworth, “Can We Discern the Composition Date of the Parables of Enoch?” in Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables (ed. G. Boccaccini et al.; Grand Rapids and Cambridge, UK: Eerdmans, 2007), pp. 450–68. Also see the contributions to The Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift (ed. Charlesworth and Darrell L. Bock; London: T&T Clark, 2013). 6 In John, the Son of Man is mentioned for the first time in 1:51. The ἐπί with the accusative indicates that the comparison is not between the Son of Man (or Jesus) and the ladder (which would indicate Jesus is the bridge between heaven and earth). Jesus is the one who brings God’s word to humans. 7 R. Bultmann pointed to the mystical interpretation of Gen 28:10–17. See his The Gospel of John (ed. trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray; Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), p. 105 n. 3. 8 The verb is an example of the future tense used to indicate the subjunctive in Greek. 9 Bultmann, The Gospel of John, p. 7 rightly saw that the Johannine discourses lead us to speculate “the relationship in which the Gospel of John and Gnosticism stand to each other.” Today, I am convinced that Gnosticism needs to be defined broadly so that it includes proto-gnostic thoughts found in the Jewish apocalypses and other texts that predate 136 CE. 10 For the Ethiopic, see the photographs published by M. A. Knibb in The Books of Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978) 1:214 [fol. 9rc]. The Ethiopic noun wald means “son” but also “boy” (as in Arabic). The noun be’si means “man” but also “husband” and “person.” 11 M. A. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978) 2:166. 12 S. Uhlig, Das Äthiopische Henochbuch (Jüdische Schriften aus HellenistischRömischer Zeit 5.6; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1984), p. 634. 13 A. Caquot, in La Bible: Écrits intertestamentaires (ed. A. Dupont-Sommer et al.; Paris: Gallimard, 1987), p. 551. 14 L. Fusella, in Apocrifi dell’Antico Testamento (ed. P. Sacchi; Turin: Unione TipograficoEditrice Torinese, 1981), pp. 571–72. 15 A. de Santo Otero, in Apocrifos del Antiguo Testamento (ed. A. Diez Macho et al.; Madrid: Ediciones Cristiandad, 1984), p. 495. 16 S. Agourides in ΤΑ ΑΠΟΚΡΥΦΑ ΤΗΣ ΠΑΛΑΙΑΣ ΔΙΑΘΗΚΗΣ, ed. S. Agourides (Athens, 1973) 1:334, Οὗτος (Μιχαὴλ) ἦλθε πρὸς ἐμέ, μὲ ἐχαιρέτισε μὲ τἠν φωνήν του καὶ μοῦ εἶπε: Σὺ εἶσαι Υἱὀς τοῦ Ανθρώπου, ὁ γεννηθεῖς διὰ δικαιοσύνην. δικαιοσύνη

308

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κατοικεῖ ἐπὶ σέ καὶ ἡ δικαιοσύνη τοῦ Παλαιοῦ τῶν Ἡμεπῶν δὲν δὲ ἐγκαταλείπει. For modern Hebrew, see A. Kahana, editor, ‫( הספרים החיצונים‬Jerusalem: Makor Publishing, 1978). 17 Although Michael, Raphael, Gabriel, and Phanuel are mentioned twice before 1En 71:14, Michael is always listed first and he is the one who guides Enoch; see 71:3. The first one to clarify this identification seems to be A. Dillman: “Jener Engel kann nur Michael, der höchste Engel, sein nach V.3,” in Das Buch Henoch (Leipzig: L Fr. Chr. Wilh. Vogel, 1853), p. 218. 18 C. P. Van Andel in De Structuur van de Henoch- Traditie en het Nieuwe Testament (Studia Theologica Rheno-Traiectina 2; Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon N.V., 1955), p. 37, argues that 1 Enoch 70 and 71 lead to a clear “climax.” 19 M. Black, The Book of Enoch (SVTP 7; Leiden: Brill, 1985), p. 18. 20 D. R. A. Hare, The Son of Man Tradition (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), p. 85. 21 According to 2Cor 12:1–10, Paul does claim to ascend into the third heaven and have a vision of Paradise, but unlike Enoch he does not claim this experience is the source of his authority or bring back “heavenly” knowledge. For humans as angels in early Jewish texts, see J. H. Charlesworth, “The Portrayal of the Righteous as an Angel,” in Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism (ed. J. J. Collins and G. W. E. Nickelsburg; SBLSCS 12; Chico: Scholars, 1980), pp. 135–51. In translating the Qumran Scrolls, the term elim can denote both “the most holy of holy ones” and transcended Qumranites as angels. The future resurrected body, form, or state seems to be superior to those of angels: “And the excellence of the righteous will then be greater than that of the angels.” (2Bar 51:12 [Klijn in OTP 1:638]; cf. 1En 104:4–6; ctr. 1En 51:1, 5, 10). Also, see 2En 30:11 J: “And on the earth I assigned him (man) to be a second angel, honoured and great and glorious” (Anderson in OTP 1, ad loc.). 22 M. Black, Apocalypsis Henochi Graece (PVTG 3; Leiden: Brill, 1970), p. 32. 23 The noun “wisdom” does not occur in the Fourth Gospel, but “Word” seems in many ways to be synonymous with “wisdom.” 24 Why do none of the canonical evangelists use the word “mystery” or mention “Enoch” (except in Luke’s genealogy; 3:37)? 25 See especially Jn 2:25; 3:11; 7:29; 8:14, 32; 17:7–8, 25; 21:17. 26 I include this quotation not so much because of the appearance of “writing” in each document but to caution against thinking that the Fourth Evangelist is arguing primarily against the Enoch groups. The main opponents are Jews who follow Moses; yet, the Enoch traditions may have also been revered by many of these self-same Jews. 27 The mem is uncertain; the text is preserved on 4QEne 4 ii line 21 (Plate XX); see J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976), pp. 240–41. See 4QEne 4 iii lines 19–20. Also, see the restoration in 4QEnd 2 ii line 27. 28 The Greek is from the margin of the tachygraphical manuscript Vat. Gr. 1809. I am grateful to the librarian of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana for permission to study this unusual manuscript. For some facsimiles and a description of Vat. Gr. 1809, see S. Lilla, Il testo tachigrafico del ‘de divinis nominibus’ (Studi e Testi 263; Vatican: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1970). 29 The reference to “shepherds” appears in 1En 89:59–90:22; this section is not preserved in Greek. 30 4QEnc 4 line 10. Some of the consonants are dubious; see Milik, The Books of Enoch, p. 205 (Plate XIV). 31 4QEnc 1 ii line 6 (Plate X). The taw is dubious; but it is probable because of context. Cf. the Greek (μετὰ εἰρήνης) and Ethiopic (basalâm).



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32 4QEng 1 ii line 23 (Plate XXI). The kaph is not certain but probable. 33 The expression is found in numerous texts; see Milik, Books of Enoch, pp. 103–06. 34 Tab 11:3 (Recension H); translated by E. P. Sanders in OTP 1.900. The Greek text was republished by M. E. Stone, The Testament of Abraham: The Greek Recensions (Texts and Translations 2; Pseudepigrapha Series 2; Missoula: SBL, 1972), p. 78. 35 Bultmann, The Gospel of John, p. 150. 36 Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 1:123 [fol. 6rb]. There are more examples of the pronominal demonstrativa in Ethiopic than in Hebrew or Aramaic (or, for that matter, Greek). The demonstrative “zeku” is a compound of ze- and ku (from ka “there”) that denotes “this there” which means “that.” See A. Dillmann, expanded by C. Bezold, Ethiopic Grammar, trans. J. A. Crichton (London: Williams & Norgate, 1907), p. 330. The noun sab’ is the plural form of be’si, “man” or “person.” 37 Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2:133–34. 38 VanderKam (Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition [CBQMS 16; Washington, DC; Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1984], p. 188) concludes: “Jewish Enoch was originally fashioned in the likeness of the seventh Mesopotamian king Enmeduranki.” 39 Enoch is not named in Wisdom of Solomon; that is because the author deliberately avoids citing names. He rather wishes to break down the barrier between past and present and to affirm the universalism of an event and idea. 40 C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St John (London: SPCK, 1965 [I use this edition because it was my vade mecum in seminary]), pp. 177–78; F. H. Borsch (The Son of Man in Myth and History [NTL; Philadelphia: Westminister, 1967], p. 272) rightly stresses that the Fourth Evangelist is not interested in an ascent. Barrett and Borsch are close to arguing for a polemic against such a belief. 41 J. Dan, Jewish Mysticism and Jewish Ethics (Northvale, NJ: J. Aronson, 1996). 42 The translations are by J. Neusner, Genesis Rabbah, 3 vols. (Brown Judaic Studies 104–06; Atlanta: Scholars, 1985) see 1:271. 43 J. Neusner, Genesis and Judaism: The Perspective of Genesis Rabbah, an Analytical Anthology (Brown Judaic Studies 108; Atlanta: Scholars, 1985), p. xi. 44 Until the Son of Man traditions are included and examined, it is conceivable that other biblical figures, who reputedly ascended into heaven may have been intended by the Fourth Evangelist, including Adam, Abraham (esp. Apocalypse of Abraham), Baruch (2 Baruch), and Ezra (4 Ezra). Among them, however, only Enoch is hailed as the Son of Man (viz., 1 Enoch 37–71; cf. 2 Enoch, and later 3 Enoch). I am convinced that we cannot study 1 Enoch and the Fourth Gospel and ignore the complex literary history of each document (in contrast, Hare studies the function of the Son of Man in the extant Fourth Gospel; Hare, The Son of Man Traditions, p. 79). The Fourth Evangelist is not suggesting that the Son of Man had ascended into heaven. He claims Jesus descended from above (ἆνωθεν). In 3:14, he stresses Jesus’ ascension (lifting up) is on the cross and to Mary Magdalene Jesus intimates that he is about to ascend to the Father (20:17). 45 The expression “that Son of Man” in 1 Enoch 71, if it goes back to an Aramaic or Greek text that would have been known to the Fourth Evangelist, may explain the otiose use of “that” (ἐκεῖνος) in Jn 9:37, which is usually not represented in modern translations; also see Jn 9:36. 46 See Charlesworth, “The Date of the Parables of Enoch”; J. C. Greenfield and M. E. Stone, “The Enochic Pentateuch and the Date of the Similitudes,” HTR 70 (1977): 51–66; C. C. Caragounis, The Son of Man (WUNT 38; Tübingen: Mohr

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51 52 53

54

55

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Siebeck, 1986), pp. 84–94; and G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1 (ed. K. Baltzer; Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001). Nickelsburg is convinced that 1 Enoch 37–71 is “the latest of the Enochic texts and probably dates to the late first century BCE” (p. 7). He means “the latest of the Enochic texts” in 1 Enoch; this is not to be confused with 2 Enoch, 3 Enoch, or the Coptic fragments of Enoch books. M. Black (The Book of Enoch, p. 188) changed his mind on the dating of 1 Enoch 37–73; finally, he advocated a date in “the early Roman period, probably pre-70 CE.” See J. H. Charlesworth, “1977 (Tübingen; Eberhard-Karls Universität): The Books of Enoch,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament (SNTSMS 54; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), pp. 102–06. For example, consult S. Chialà, Libro delle parabole di Enoch (Studi Biblici 117; Brescia: Paideia Editrice, 1997), pp. 327–29. Charles (ed.), The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2:180. Borsch (The Son of Man, p. 274, also see p. 277) claims that behind John 3:13 is a Son of Man myth: “He has the functions or roles both in heaven and yet on earth through the one who represents him.” As is well known, the identity of the implied speaker of 3:13 is unclear; it may be Jesus or the Fourth Evangelist. I agree with R. A. Culpepper (Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987] p. 42) that we are confronted with “a classic instance of the blending of the narrator with Jesus’ voice.” Also, see the linguistic phenomenon of writing ex ore Christi in the Odes of Solomon, and no textual note helps make this distinction. F. J. Moloney, Belief in the Word (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), p. 117. See, N. Turner, “Syntax,” in J. H. Mouton’s A Grammar of New Testament Greek (E­dinburgh: T & T Clark, 1963), p. 333. John 3:13 is an ellipsis, as Sidebottom, Ruchstuhl, Moloney, Hare, and others have claimed; hence, I suggest this rendering of 3:13: “And no one has ascended into heaven (and returned with τὰ ἐπουράνια) except the one who descended from heaven (and alone is able to reveal τὰ ἐπουράνια).” See E. M. Sidebottom, The Christ of the Fourth Gospel (London: SPCK, 1961); E. Ruckstuhl, “Die johanneische Menschensohnforschung, 1957–1969,” in Theologische Berichte (ed. J. Pfammater and F. Furger; Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1972), pp. 171–284; Ruckstuhl, Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgarter Biblische Aufsatzbände 3, Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), pp. 288–90; F. J. Moloney, The Johannine Son of Man (Rome: Las, 1976); Hare, The Son of Man Traditions, pp. 86–87. Langrange, Boismard, Wikenhauser, and some other scholars judge these words to be authentic. Brown (St. John, 1:133) rightly states: “The phrase is so difficult that it may well have been omitted in the majority of manuscripts to avoid a difficulty.” This is clear, but if one weighs the manuscript evidence, the phrase seems redactional. The connection between Jn 3:13 and 3:14 is often lost, because scholars do not grasp the positive symbolism of the serpent. Jesus, as the upraised serpent, brings life through his death and resurrection and he is also the wisest of all (see Gen 3:1 esp. in the LXX). See the major discussion in Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent. E. M. Sidebottom, ‘“The Ascent and Descent of the Son of Man in the Gospel of St. John,” ATR 39 (1957): 115–22. See especially R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist, 1979). See J. H. Charlesworth, “The Gospel of John: Exclusivism Caused by a Social Setting Different from That of Jesus (Jn 11:54 and 14:6),” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel (ed. R. Bieringer et al.; Jewish and Christian Heritage Series 1; Assen: Royal van Gorcum, 2001), pp. 479–513.



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59 “Die ‘johanneische Gemeinde’ bzw. den Evangelisten in eine erbitterte Auseinandersetzung mit dem sich nach der Katastrophe von 70 unter pharisäischer Führung wieder neu formierenden palästinischen Judentum verwichelt sehen und dieses Judentum als den eigentlichen Gegner der Gemeinde betrachten.” See M. Hengel, Die Johanneische Frage (WUNT 67; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993), p. 288. 60 Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 1:207 [fol. 9ra]. Those who are not familiar with Ethiopic grammar may need to know, when studying 1 Enoch, that Ethiopic is defective in the sense that a doubled consonant is not indicated by the script. The collective ’eguâla ’emma heyâw denotes “humankind”; it is composed of ’eguâla (which specifies the young of an animal or human), ’emma (which means “mother”), and heyâw (which denotes “the living” [from the verb haywa, “to live”]). 61 R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1912), pp. 140–41. 62 See Isaac’s philological notes in OTP 1:43 note j. 63 N.B. the variant “that Son of a Woman”; cf. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2:151 and note to 62:5. 64 The noun be’sit (from be’si, see my earlier note) means not only “woman” but also “wife.” 65 Due to the corruption caused by orality and the relatively recent date of the Ethiopic manuscripts of Enoch, there are numerous scribal errors in the manuscripts. On manuscript errors, see T. O. Lambdin, Introduction to Classical Ethiopic (Ge’ez) (HSS 24; Ann Arbor: Scholars, 1978), pp. 13–14. 66 Black, Book of Enoch, p. 206. 67 N. Schmidt, “The Original Language of the Parables of Enoch,” in Old Testament and Semitic Studies in Memory of William Rainey Harper (ed. R. F. Harper et al.; Chicago: University of Chicago, 1908) 2:329–49; Schmidt, “The Apocalypse of Noah and the Parables of Enoch,” in Oriental Studies Dedicated to Paul Haupt (ed. C. Adler and A. Ember; Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1926), pp. 111–13; Schmidt, “Recent Studies on the Son of Man,” JBL 45 (1926): 326–49; Schmidt, “Was bar nash a Messianic Title?” JBL 15 (1896): 36–53. 68 E. Ullendorf claimed that the Ethiopic translator made direct use of Aramaic (and perhaps had access also to a Greek text); see Ullendorf, “An Aramaic ‘Vorlage’ of the Ethiopic Text of Enoch?” in Atti del convegno internazionale di studi etiopici: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Problemi Attuali di Scienza e di Cultura; Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1960), pp. 259–67 (reprinted in his Ethiopia and the Bible [London: British Academy, Oxford University Press, 1968], pp. 61–62); Ullendorf, “An Aramaic Vorlage of the Ethiopic Text of Enoch,” in Is Biblical Hebrew a Language? Studies in Semitic Languages and Civilizations (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1977), pp. 172–80. Knibb is surely correct, because of translation errors in the Ethiopic that can be explained by the supposition of a Greek Untertext (esp. in 101:4), to conclude that the translator(s) of Ethiopic Enoch used, most likely, Aramaic and Greek manuscripts. See Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2:38–46. 69 J. J. Collins thinks 1 Enoch 71 is a redactional addition. His argument is attractive but not convincing, since the flow of 1En 69:26–71 to the final chapters makes sense within the apocalyptic genre that is not a logical development (as M. Hooker claimed in The Son of Man in Mark [Montreal: McGill University Press, 1967], esp. pp. 41–42). See Collins, “The Heavenly Representative: The ‘Son of Man’ in the Similitudes of Enoch,” in Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism (ed. J. J. Collins and G. W. E. Nickelsburg; SBLSCS 12; Chico: Scholars, 1980), pp. 111–33; see especially pp. 121–24. Also, Collins mentions manuscript variants, but we are confronted rather with Charles’ emendation in

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71 72 73

74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81

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70. J. Ashton (Understanding the Fourth Gospel [Oxford: Clarendon, 1991], p. 360) rightly suggested that “the reaction could equally well have been from the Christian, and specifically the Johannine side.” In his commentary, R. E. Brown referred numerous times to Elijah, but not to Enoch. See Brown, The Gospel According to John (2 vols.; Garden City: Doubleday, 1966), pp. 47–50, 101–02. C. K. Barrett discussed Abraham and Moses but not Enoch; see Barrett’s The Gospel According to St John, especially pp. 291–92, 300–01 (Barrett did doubt that 1 Enoch “really illuminates John’s thought which has no room for such an ascent,” pp. 177–78). The influence seems, however, to be negative (a concept not perceived by commentators); yet, to argue against a text is to be influenced by it. I am convinced, that the Fourth Evangelist argued against the claim in 1 Enoch 70–71 that Enoch is the celestial Son of Man. C. H. Dodd saw numerous parallels between 1 Enoch and the Fourth Gospel but he did not focus on the Son of Man traditions; see Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960) see especially. pp. 144–45, 231–32. E. Haenchen concentrated only on the Wisdom motif in 1 Enoch 42 and the Fourth Gospel; see his John I, 2 vols (ed. trans. R. W. Funk; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) see especially vol. 1, pp. 101, 125, 126, and 138. S. Schultz, Untersuchungen zur Menschensohn-Christologie im Johannesevangelium (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1957). R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St John, 3 vols (ed. trans. K. Smyth; New York: Crossroad, 1987) see 1:128–29. See especially D. M. Smith, John among the Gospels (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 2001) see especially 241: “It is reasonable to take seriously the Gospel’s claim to represent a separate and independent witness.” Also, see P. Borgen, “The Independence of the Gospel of John,” in Early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1996), pp. 183–204. Also, see Chapters 12 and 13 in this book. For the Syriac and translation, see J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Odes of Solomon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1973), pp. 126–27. E. Isaac in OTP 1:35. See J. H. Charlesworth with A. Culpepper, “The Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 35 (1973): 298–322. Surprisingly, in De Structuur van de Henoch-Traditie en Het Nieuwe Testament, C. P. Van Andel discusses the concept of the Son of Man in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, but not in John; see especially pp. 91–99. J. T. Milik (The Books of Enoch [Oxford: Clarendon, 1976], p. 96) stated: “In conclusion, it is around the year A.D. 270 or shortly afterwards that I would place the composition of the Book of Parables.” See the strong consensus regarding the pre-70 CE date of the Parables of Enoch defended in Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and D. L. Bock; London: T & T Clark, 2013). B. Lindars lived when the tide had turned and it was clear that the Parables of Enoch postdated the Gospels. See Lindars, Jesus, Son of Man (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1983), pp. 7–8, and 151) on this point and his announcement that “the assumption that the Son of Man could be recognized as a title of an eschatological figure in Jewish thought,” has “now been demolished.” He was adamant, “no such myth existed in the setting in which the gospels were composed.” These claims are now dated. R. Laurence, The Book of Enoch (Oxford: J. H. Parker, 1833), p. xxvii. See my contributions in J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Messiah (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992).



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84 Hare, The Son of Man Tradition, p. 87 wisely contends that it is “incarnation that distinguishes the Son of Man from Gabriel, Michael, and other angels whose itinerary is superficially the same as his. Ho katabas ek tou ouranou is thus John’s shorthand way of referring to the incarnation.” I would add to his list of “angels” Enoch, who obtains angelic status. R. Kyser (John’s Story of Jesus [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989], p. 18) rightly states: “The story of Jesus that the evangelist [John] will sketch out for us is indeed a story of a human on the plane of history; but it is at the same time the story of one who comes from beyond the world and from the beginning of all existence.” 85 This is probably an error for praedicarit. 86 This today would be reiciendum. 87 Tertullian, Opera [now, see de cultu feminarum I.3]; as cited by Laurence, The Book of Enoch, p. xvii [I do represent the words put into italics by Laurence: de Domino and divinitus inspirari]. 88 The English translation of Tertullian’s Opera by S. Thelwall is from ANF 4.16. 89 This objection, or one similar to it, was voiced and discussed when this paper was read at the “Pseudepigrapha and Christian Origins” seminar of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas in Durham, England, August 2002. 90 For further reflections, see Sacra Scriptura: How “Non-Canonical” Texts Functioned in Early Judaism and Early Christianity (ed. J. H. Charlesworth with L. M. McDonald and B. A. Jurgens; T & T Clark Jewish and Christian Texts in Contexts and Related Studies 20; London and New York: T & T Clark, 2014). 91 Cf. TLevi 2:5–12. 92 H. Odeberg (The Fourth Gospel [Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells Moktryckeri, 1929], p. 94) rightly argued “that Jn 3:13 cannot primarily be directed against the Jewish conceptions of the descent and ascent of the Sekînâ.” Of course, Paul’s polemic is also subtle; knowledge of Christ is superior to all knowledge and claims to revelation. 93 Odeberg, The Fourth Gospel, pp. 97–98. 94 P. Borgen, “Some Jewish Exegetical Traditions as Background for Son of Man Sayings in John’s Gospel (Jn 3,13–14 and context),” in L’Évangile de Jean (ed. M. de Jonge; BETL 44; Gembloux and Leuven: J. Duculot, c. 1977), p. 243. Also, see W. Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (NovTSup 14; Leiden: Brill, 1977), p. 141; and S. Schulz, Untersuchungen zur Menschensohn-Christologie im Johannesevangelium, p. 105. 95 P. Pokorný, Jesus in the Eyes of His Followers (Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins Library 4; North Richland Hills: BIBAL, 1998), p. 84.

John and the Odes of Solomon

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The Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John1

The Odes of Solomon are a neglected key for unlocking the historical and theological enigmas of John.2 Despite his misleading hypothesis of a Jewish Grundschrift, Harnack in 1910 correctly sensed that the recovery of the Odes was “absolutely epoch making” (“geradezu epochemachend”) for an understanding of John.3 For the following thirty years the Odes were used extensively in works on John by Bert, Bauer, Odeberg, and Bultmann. They are now, however, essentially ignored by such Johannine scholars as Menoud, Strathmann, Morris, Wilkens, Wiles, Wilkenhauser, van den Bussche, Marsh, Sanders, Dodd,4 Barrett, and Brown.5 This practice apparently evolves from a judicious rejection of Harnack’s redaction hypothesis as well as from the false supposition that the Odes are gnostic and fairly late. Recent research, however, demonstrates that the Odes are neither gnostic nor late.6 It is appropriate, therefore, to reevaluate the relation between the Odes and John. The main issue is not to see if there is a relationship, all specialists have demonstrated that fact;7 the task is to discern how to explain the numerous parallels between the Odes and John. The purpose, therefore, of this article is primarily to encourage and facilitate further study of the relation between the Odes and John by clarifying the issues involved, and by presenting a bibliographical summary of scholarly conclusions.

1  Examination of the evidence As readers examine the parallels below, they should consider that the Odes may have been composed in Greek but were probably composed in Syriac.8 John, in contrast, was composed in Greek. Moreover, the style of the Odes is poetic, while the style of the Gospel of John is usually prosaic. The Odes are a hymnbook;9 John is a Gospel. In addition, both the Odes and John habitually remint inherited traditions. Direct quotations are, therefore, obviated at the outset. We must, therefore, seek to discern and explain shared terms and concepts since both works are products of the Palestinian Jesus Movement.

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1.1  Evidence of a verbal relationship The Odes and John share numerous, striking, and often unique expressions. The following parallels are listed according to their appearance in the Odes.10 1. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

. . .and He loves me, for I should not have known how to love the Lord, if He had not continuously loved me. (3:2–3.; cf. 3:5–7) [See parallel 9.]

. . . and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him (Jn 14:21) We love, because he first loved us. (1Jn 4:19; cf. 1Jn 4:1; Jn 15:16).

This parallel reveals the emphasis upon “love” in the Odes, John,11 and 1 John; the latter two probably come from the same author or school. Harris and Mingana noted the “strongly Johannine cast” of Ode 3, claimed that the Ode’s theme was taken from 1Jn 4:19, and concluded: “Whether we are to recognize actual quotations or distinct references depends on the general decision as to the priority of the Odes to the Fourth Gospel and the Pauline Epistles, or the contrary.”12 Massaux also considered Ode 3 to be a hymn written on the “Johannine” concept of “love,”13 but F. Spitta disagreed. More specifically, Spitta denied a special relation between the Odes and the Johannine writings, and rejected parallels between Ode 3 and 1Jn 4:19 or Jn 14:21, because of his interpretation of “love” in the Odes as not actual or experienced. (In the Odes “ist die Liebe als Forderung und nicht als Tatsache, als Pflicht der Dankbarkeit und nicht als Naturnotwendigkeit hingestellt.”)14 Contrary to Spitta’s opinion, “love” in the Odes, in John, and in 1 John is a present reality for the believer: “I am putting on the love of the Lord” (Ode 3:1). The significance of the first parallel should be seen in terms of the cumulative force of the others that follow; an accumulation of multiple relationships that are impressively strong adds strength to each link. 2. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

. . . And where His rest is, there also am I. (3:5)

. . .for I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you. I come again, and will receive you unto myself; that where I am, there you may be also. (14:2f.) Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am (17:24)

“His rest” is parallel to “place” (monai [μοναὶ in the text]). The latter term seems to denote a caravansary, a night-stop or resting place on a pilgrimage.15 Note the passage in Jn 14:1–4: Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place [τόπον] for you? And if I go and prepare a place

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[τόπον] for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place [ὅπου (where; no noun “place”)] where I am going. [NRSV] Μὴ ταρασσέσθω ὑμῶν ἡ καρδία· πιστεύετε εἰς τὸν θεὸν καὶ εἰς ἐμὲ πιστεύετε. ἐν τῇ οἰκίᾳ τοῦ πατρός μου μοναὶ πολλαί εἰσιν· εἰ δὲ μή, εἶπον ἂν ὑμῖν ὅτι πορεύομαι ἑτοιμάσαι τόπον ὑμῖν; καὶ ἐὰν πορευθῶ καὶ ἑτοιμάσω τόπον ὑμῖν, πάλιν ἔρχομαι καὶ παραλήμψομαι ὑμᾶς πρὸς ἐμαυτόν, ἵνα ὅπου εἰμὶ ἐγὼ καὶ ὑμεῖς ἦτε. καὶ ὅπου [ἐγὼ] ὑπάγω οἴδατε τὴν ὁδόν.

3. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

Indeed he who is joined to Him who is immortal truly shall be immortal. (3:8)

. . .because I live, ye shall live also. (14:19; cf. 10:10; 3:16, etc.)

The language is different, but the thought is similar. In both the Odes and John, the Lord is the source of life and eternal life, which is a present reality resulting from the indwelling of the believer in the Lord, symbolically represented by the drinking of lifegiving water (see parallels 4, 6, 13, 15, 22 and the discussion on “living water” below). 4. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And he who delights in the Life will I am the resurrection and the Life: he that become living. (3:9; cf. 9:4; 10:2; 28:7-8) believeth on me, though he die, yet shall he [See parallel 11.] live. (11:25; cf. 1:4; 5:26, 40; 10:10, 28; 14:6) In both the Odes and John “Life” is a surrogate for Jesus. The expressions “delight in” and “believeth on” may be considered synonymous in the parallel above. In both writings the concept of the present is permeated by the influx of the future promise of life and eternal life, because of the unity between the believer and the “Life” (see parallels 1 and 3, and compare Ode 1 with John 15).16 5. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

This is the Spirit of the Lord, which is not false, which teaches the sons of men to know His ways. (3:10)

. . .the Spirit of truth: (14:17; 15:26) . . .he shall teach you in all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said unto you. (14:26)

This verse in the Odes contains three ideas which parallel the Johannine concept of the Paraclete: “the Spirit” is true, it teaches human beings, and the subject taught is “His ways” or Jesus’ words. A spirit “which is not false” is probably a spirit which is true and that is close to John’s “Spirit of Truth.” The parallel to the Dead Sea Scrolls is also significant (see Chapter 13).17

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6. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

For there went forth a stream, and it became a river great and broad; Indeed it carried away everything, and it shattered and brought (it) to the Temple. . . . Then all the thirsty upon the earth drank, and the thirst was relieved and quenched; for from the Most High the drink was given. Blessed, therefore, are the ministers of that drink, who have been entrusted with His water. . . . And lived by the living waters of eternity. (6:8, 11–13, 18) [See parallels 13, 15, 22.]

. . .if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water. (7:37f.) . . . and he would have given thee living water. (4:10) but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life. (4:14) And when the ruler of the feast tasted the water now become wine, and knew not whence it was (but the servants that had drawn the water knew). . . and when men have drunk freely. . . .(2:9-10)

Both authors emphasize the gift of “eternal life” and describe its presence as “living water”; for the Odist and the Evangelist “living water” is not “fresh water” as in the Jordan River. For them “living water” is salvific (developed in the following pages). R.  H. Strachan suggested that the “ministers” in this Ode are to be related to the servants according to the pericope of the marriage at Cana, and that the strange reference to becoming intoxicated in Ode 11 (see parallel 13 below) is related to the word methusthōsin (“they have drunk freely” [μεθυσθῶσιν]) in Jn 2:10.18

Figure 12.1  The Jordan River, North of the Sea of Galilee: Living Water [JHC].

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7. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

He became like me that I might receive Him. In form He was considered like me . . . the Word of Knowledge. . . . He was gracious to me in His abundant grace, . . . He has allowed Him to appear to them that are His own; In order that they might recognize Him that made them, and not suppose that they came of themselves. (7:4, 7, 10, 12) [See parallels 16, 18, 24, 26]

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and they that were his own received him not. But as many as received him. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. For of his fullness we all received, and grace for grace. (1:10–12, 14, 16)

See the following discussion on “Word.” The strength of this parallel lies in the number of shared termini technici and concepts: Word, the creating function of the Word, appearances to “His own,” receiving Him, and the gift of “abundant grace.” After summarizing this parallel in John, E. A. Abbott concluded: “All this agrees with the thought in the Ode, but in the obscure and condensed language of the latter there is no trace at all of borrowing from the Gospel. The two writers assume the same fundamental axioms.”19 8. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

For I turn not my face from my own, because I know them. (8:12) [See parallel 22 below.]

. . . I know my own. (10:14) All that which the Father giveth me shall come unto me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (6:37; cf. 1:11; 17:6-10)

The similarity between Ode 8:12 and Jn 10:14 does not lead to the hypothesis that one is a quotation of the other. The different context, which is significantly echoed elsewhere, might suggest that the two writings emanate from the same community in which the Logos Hymn and the Odes were experienced liturgically. 9. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And my righteousness goes before them. And they shall not be deprived of my name; for it is with them. (Composition ex ore Christi ceases and the Odist himself now speaks) Pray and increase, and abide in the love of the Lord; And you who are loved in the Beloved, and you who are kept in Him who lives, . . (8:19–21) [See parallel 1.]

Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me. While I was with them, I kept them in thy name. (17:11f.) . . .abide ye in my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. (15:9-10)

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The strength of these parallels lies in the presence of several so-called Johannine concepts in the Ode: abiding in “the love of the Lord,” being kept, and the association of these ideas with His “name.” The parallels are palpable but direct literary dependence, in either direction, is dubious. Most likely both compositions share the same milieu or community. 10. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And also that those who know Him may not perish. (9:7)

. . .that whosoever believeth on him should not perish. . . . (3:16)

Both the language and thought are similar. These expressions may have been common in the Johannine community (Urgemeinde). In both documents “to know” and “to believe” appear often to be synonymous. 11. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And He caused to dwell in me His immortal life. And permitted me to proclaim the fruit of His peace. (10:2) [See parallels 4, 6, 9, 11 and discussions]

He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit. (15:5) Peace I leave with you: my peace I give unto you. (14:27)

The Odist and the Evangelist share the concept of dwelling or abiding in the Lord. That relationship brings not only “fruit” but also “peace.” The documents seem to share the same Sitz im Leben, that is, life setting or context. 12. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And the Gentiles who had been dispersed were gathered together . . . . (10:5)

. . .but that he might also gather together into one the children of God that are scattered abroad. (11:52)

C. F. Burney cited Rev 11:15; 21:3, 24 as well as Jn 11:52 and stated: “Ode 10:5–6 is a passage which illustrates very remarkably the poet’s use of the Johannine writings. His theme is the gathering of the Gentile nations into the church; and he seems deliberately to have selected the outstanding passages on this subject from Jn. and Apoc, and worked them up in a manner which utilizes their most striking phrases.”20 The obvious difference, however, is between “the Gentiles” and “the children of God”; the latter might denote Diasporic Jews and not only Gentiles. The language is noticeably different, and the parallel may be due to the prevalence of this thought in the Jewish apocryphal literature.

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13. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And speaking waters touched my lips from the fountain of the Lord generously. And so I drank and became intoxicated, From the living water that does not die. And my intoxication did not cause ignorance; But I abandoned vanity. (11:6–8) [See parallels 6, 15, 22.]

[See parallel 6 above.] . . .if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water. (7:37f.) . . . and he would have given thee living water. (4:10) but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life. (4:14)

See the discussion on “living water” below. Only the Odist imagines water that intoxicates; but in this instance the “intoxication did not cause ignorance” and foolishness, but it helped the believer to abandon “vanity.” The use of “living water” from the Lord and the quenching of thirst imply some shared images. Most likely a shared community comes into focus. 14. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

Indeed, there is much room in Thy paradise. (11:23)

In my Father’s house are many mansions. . . (14:2)

The thought behind these verses is similar even though the imagery is dissimilar. In support of this parallel P. Smith stated: “The ‘abundant room in Paradise’ (Ode XI, 23) is but another name for the ‘many mansions’ of John xiv.2.”21 15. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And like the flowing of waters, truth . . . whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall flows from my mouth. (12:2; cf. 40:2) give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life. (4:14) [See parallels 6, 13, and 22.] Truth flows from the Odist’s mouth because the Lord filled him with “words of truth.” See the following discussion on “living water.” 16. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

For the dwelling place of the Word is man.(12:12)

And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us. For of his fullness we all received, and grace for grace. (1:14) [See parallels 7, 18, 24, and 26.]

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Harris and Migana contended: “This Ode [12] is a Hymn concerning the Divine Logos, or the Divine Wisdom which becomes the Logos. It is not an easy Ode to translate nor to understand. It comes very close in one sentence to the Gospel of John: ‘The dwelling-place of the Word is Man.’ This thought is very near to the statement in the Prologue that the ‘Logos . . . dwelt among us’”; but the Ode includes neither the personal incarnation nor the assumption of flesh.”22 Moreover, Ode 12 sounds more like Stoicism (the logos in each human) than John (the LOGOS becomes incarnate). Spitta accentuated the difference, claiming that Ode 12 has “nothing to do” with Jn 1:14 (“Der Satz 12:11 [12:12]: ‘Der Wohnsitz des Wortes ist der Mensch,’ hat mit Jn 1:14 nichts zu tun, da es sich nicht um das persönliche Wort und um dessen Wohnen in der Mitte der Menschen handelt.”23 The numerous parallels between the Odes and the Prologue of John, of course, were popularized and emphasized by Bultmann in his commentary. They are now carefully re-examined in a positive light by J. T. Sanders.24 See the following discussion on “Word.” 17. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And let Thy gentleness, O Lord, abide with me, and the fruits of Thy love. (14:6)

He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit. (15:5) Peace I leave with you: my peace I give unto you . . . (14:27) [See parallels 9 and 11.]

Evidence for a parallel lies in the appearance of three symbolic words in the same context in both Ode 14 and John 15: abiding, fruit, and love. The Odist’s “my gentleness” is coherent with John’s “my peace.” 18. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And there is nothing outside of the Lord. Because He was before anything came to be. And the worlds are by His Word. And by the thought of His heart. (16:18-19) [See parallels 7, 16, 24, 26.]

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made through him; and without him was not anything made that hath been made. (1:1–3)

Harris and Mingana commented: “Evidently in this Ode we see the Logos-theology in its making. Some persons will perhaps object and say that we see it already made. But that raises the question as to what it was made of, and takes us back to Prov. 8:22ff.”25 Harris and Mingana26 followed by Massaux27 also observed that the parallel in Col 1:17 may be closer than that in John. The Odist and John, however, mention creation by the Word, and weave preexistence out of a Word Christology. As James Brownson concluded, both the Odes and John have a Christology that is emphatically and fundamentally soteriological and there is a so-called Johannine flavor in the Odes.28 In Colossians 1, however, the terminus technicus is not the Word but “first-born”

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(πρωτότοκος). The Odist, the Evangelist, and the author of Colossians emphasize the invisibility of God who is the sole Creator and Lord (probably Jesus) through whom all was created; recall the opening of the early hymn excerpted in Colossians 1: ὅς ἐστιν εἰκὼν τοῦ θεοῦ τοῦ ἀοράτου, πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς, τὰ ὁρατὰ καὶ τὰ ἀόρατα, εἴτε θρόνοι εἴτε κυριότητες εἴτε ἀρχαὶ εἴτε ἐξουσίαι· τὰ πάντα δι’ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται· [Col 1:15–16] He is the image (icon) of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation. For in him were created all in the heavens and on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All through him was created and in (or for) him.

19. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And nothing appeared closed to me, because I was the opening of everything. (17:11; cf. 42:15–17)

I am the door . . . (10:9; see 10:7; cf. 14:6)

Scholars have differed on the evaluation of this parallel. Bauer29 and Bultmann30 cited it, Massaux claims it is “extremely striking” (“fort frappant”),31 and F. M. Braun observes that according to Jn 10:7, Jesus is the door and that all who pass through it will be saved (“Comme en Jo. x, 7, Jésus est la Porte, à la fois parce qu’il a le pouvoir de pénétrer où il veut (x, 2), et qu’il faut passer par lui pour être sauvé [x, 9]).”32 Odeberg, however, rejected the parallel, claiming that in the Odes the door is before “the house of bondage” but in John it is “the entrance to the innermost abode of the Godhead.” 33 Odeberg ultimately perceived the dissimilarity, but failed to observe that the Ode and John portray Jesus as the door or gate through which the believer enters into salvation.34 The parallel remains even through Ode 42 is probably about the descensus ad inferos.35 20. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

Let not light be conquered by darkness. Nor let truth flee from falsehood. (18:6; cf. 11:11, 19; 15:1f.)

And the light shined in the darkness: and the darkness apprehended it not. [= has not overcome it.] (1:5, et passim)

Harris and Mingana called this a “quasi-parallel,”36 Braun remarks that the idea in the Ode “fits well” (“répond bien”) with the idea in John,37 and Massaux contends that the opposition of light and darkness in Ode 18:6 has “a Johannine tint” (“une teinte johannique”).38 This parallel is impressive and should be viewed in light of the conclusion that both the Odes and John are independently influenced by the earlier Qumranic light-darkness paradigm.39

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21. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And I did not perish, because I was not their brother. Nor was my birth like theirs. And they sought my death but were unsuccessful. Because I was older than their memory; and in vain did they cast lots against me. And those who were after me sought in vain to destroy the memorial of Him who was before them. (28:17–19)

The Jews therefore said unto him, “Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham?” Jesus said unto them, “Verily, verily, I saith unto you, before Abraham was born, I am. They took up stones therefore to cast at him; but Jesus hid himself . . . (8:57–59; cf. 1:1, 15, 27, 30)

These verses in Ode 28 contain several words and ideas found in the passage cited from John: the preexistence of the Lord, and unsuccessful attempt to kill Him, the importance of the verb “to cast,” and the play on “before . . . after.” The parallel between the “I” of this ex ore Christi passage in the Odes and the “I am” of John is significant. A further, extensive examination of such parallels might inform our search for Jesus’ own message.40 22. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

Fill for yourselves water from the living fountain of the Lord, Because it has been opened for you. And come all you thirsty ones and take a drink. And rest beside the fountain of the Lord . . . . Because it flowed from the lips of the Lord, and it named from the heart of the Lord. And it came boundless and invisible, until it was set in the middle they knew it not. (30:1f., 5f.)

[See parallels 6, 8, 13, and 15, and Rev 22:17.] I baptize in water: in the midst of you standeth one whom ye know not. (1:26)

See the discussion on “living water” below. Not only in the Odes (forty-four times) but also in John (fifty-six times), in Matthew (twenty times), in Mark ( twelve times), in Luke (twenty-eight times), in Acts (sixteen times), and in letters attributed to Paul (fifty times)41 there is an unusual emphasis upon the paradigm “to know” vis-à-vis “to be ignorant.” 23. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And He lifted His voice toward the Most High, And offered to Him those that had become sons through Him. And his face was justified. Because thus His Holy Father had given to Him. (31:4f.)

. . .and lifting up his eyes to heaven, he said, Father unto the men whom thou gavest me I pray for them I pray not for the world, but for those whom thou hast given me. (17:1, 6, 9; cf. 1:12)

The parallel is clear and striking; the direction of influence is open to question. Is the Ode recalling the prayer of John 17? Was the elaborate prayer in John, added late in the

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composition of John, composed on the basis of a tradition like that preserved in the Ode? Or, did the two arise independently of each other but dependent on a common tradition or setting? These questions can be answered only within the context of all the parallels, and in light of related literature.42 Massaux’s suggestion that Ode 31:4 is an echo of Jn 17:9 is unlikely,43 as is literary dependence in either direction. This parallel indicates, it seems to me, that both compositions probably evolved within the same community or school. 24. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And the Word of truth who is self-originate, (32:2) [See parallels 7, 16, 18 , 26.]

In the beginning was the Word . . . (1:1; cf. 1:3)

See the above discussions and the following focus on “Word.” 25. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And he stood on the peak of a summit and cried aloud from one end of the earth to the other. Then he drew to him all those who obeyed him, For he did not appear as the Evil One. (33:3f.; cf. 42:2)

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto myself. (12:32) [the subjects are opposite]

The problem in this parallel is whether the Odist is referring to the Lord or “the Evil One.” Strachan cited this parallel, claiming: “The subject is apparently the Messiah. The idea in both passages is the world-wide reign of the Messiah.”44 Harris and Mingana45 cited Prov 8:1–4 as a parallel, and claimed that the Odist identified Christ with Wisdom. These comments are misleading if the subject is “the Evil One,” as I think it is. Regardless the parallel to John does have the strength of a similar progression of ideas: being on a high point on the earth and drawing all (cf. Ode 33:3f. with Jn 1:7, 12; 3:16ff., et passim). 26. The Odes of Solomon

The Gospel of John

And His Word is with us in all our way, the Savior who gives life and does not reject ourselves. The man who humbled Himself, but was exalted because of His own righteousness. The Son of the Most High appeared in the perfection of His Father. And light dawned from the Word that was before time in Him. The Messiah in truth is one. And He was known before the foundations of the world. That he might give life to persons forever by the truth of His name. (41:11–15; cf. 10:1f.) [See parallels 7, 16, 18, 24 and the discussion on “Word” below.]

For the bread of God is that which cometh down out of heaven, and giveth life unto the world . . . and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. (6:33, 37) . . .the glory which I had with thee before the world was. . . for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world. (17:5, 24; cf. 1:1–5, 9, 14)

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Figure 12.2  Light Dawning over the Dead Sea Near Qumran [JHC]. Massaux claims that it is not difficult to see a relation between Ode 41:14 and Jn 1:1.46 The importance of this parallel is heightened by the superabundance of “Johannine” terms and concepts present in the Ode: “Word,” “way,” “The Savior who gives life” and does not reject those who come to him, exaltation in and through humility, “Son,” “Father,” “light,” “preexistence,” and “truth.” The preceding twenty-six parallels are by no means exhaustive. They reveal a relationship between the Odes and John and encourage all to study the Odes and John carefully and ponder possible explanations for this coherence. In fact, the Odes contains more striking parallels to John than any other non-canonical writing prior to Justin Martyr. The mandate, of course, is to discern the most compelling explanation for these parallels, but in attempting an explanation it becomes evident how little is known about some aspects of Christian origins.

1.2  Evidence of a conceptual relationship Do the concepts and images in the above parallels suggest that the Odes depend on John? Or rather, did John depend on the Odes? Or is it possible that the compositions developed in the same community? In the process of comparing the Odes and John we need to bring into focus the fact that the Odes were composed between 30 and 135 CE (terminus a quo and terminus ad quem) and that John reflects compositions from 40 CE to 100 CE. Thus, we should be attentive to influences of the first edition of John on the Odes and then influences of the Odes on the second edition of and additions to John. Some Odes and additions to John may be contemporaneous and within the same circle or School. In an attempt to answer the questions, attention will be focused upon two of the most important themes: “Word” and “living water.”

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1.2.1  Word Parallels 7, 16, 18, 24, and 26 show that the concept of the Word is prominent in both writings. In the following pages I shall summarize the nature, conception, and function of the Word in the Odes and John, and report the observations made by luminaries in the field of Christian Origins. The “Logos” doctrine is very similar in the Odes and John. Both clarify that the Word was in the beginning with God, all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life and light. Nowhere, however, does the Odist explicitly state that the Word became flesh. R. M. Grant, consequently, contended: “The Odist will not take the final step of admitting that the Word became flesh, incarnate. Even the statement in the twelfth Ode, ‘For the dwelling-place of the Word is man,’ is concerned with the Light that lighteth every man, the Logos as reason, rather than with the mode of the incarnation.”47 The Odist is not as concerned as the Fourth Evangelist with the mode of the incarnation, but Grant incorrectly asserts that Word in the Odes means only “the Light that lighteth every man.” The Word in the Odes does sometimes mean reason, as Dodd and others have stated,48 but it is also hypostatic, as J. T. Sanders has emphasized.49 The Odist did not wish to distinguish between the “Word” and the incarnate Lord: “For there is a Helper for me, The Lord . . . . He became like me. . . . And I trembled not when I saw Him. . . . Like my nature He became. . . . And like my form” (Ode 7:3–6). Few will miss the incarnational dimension of Ode 37:3: “His Word came toward me. . . .” Dodd, therefore, correctly wrote about Ode 12: “This is the Word which was incarnate in Christ, as in Od. Sol. xli. 13–14, etc.”50 One should neither exaggerate the similarities here between the Odes and John,51 nor ignore them or explain them away. What historical scenarios help us imagine the relation between the Odes and John? An answer can come only after a careful and detailed analysis of the meaning of the two nouns used by the Odist to express “Word”: mellᵉthā’ and pethghāmā’.52 Harris and Mingana argued accurately that, in the history of early Syriac literature, only the Odist uses pethghāmā’ to express the divine Word and that the noun is inappropriate in the history of ecclesiastical terms. Thus, the Odes must not be appreciably later than John.53 Scholars who have studied these termini technici for “Word” in the Odes correctly conclude that the Odes must be either contemporary with (Bert54) or earlier than (Bultmann,55 Sanders56) John. Either possibility proves the importance of the Odes for an understanding of Johannine theology.57

1.2.2  Living water Not only is “living water” an important concept in the Odes (6:18; 11:7)58 and John (4:10, 11; 7:38), but “water” itself is peculiarly emphasized and developed not merely in the Odes (eleven times) and John (twenty-one times), but also in Matthew (seven times), Mark (five times), Luke (six times), Acts (seven times), in Paul’s letters (once), and in Revelation (eighteen times). “Living water,” however, also occurs in the Old Testament, Qumran Scrolls, Mishnah, Mandaean literature, and the Corpus Hermeticum. The problem, therefore, of identifying a credible conceptual relationship between our two documents is considerable. Spitta questioned the significance of “living water” or discerning the relation of the Odes to John and called for more specific research.59

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A study of any relationship should begin by examining the shared symbolic meaning of “living water.” Brown argues that in John it represents both the revelation and the Spirit which Jesus gives to men.60 He cites or refers to numerous and significant parallels to John in the Old Testament, the apocryphal literature, the Qumran Scrolls, the New Testament, and rabbinic literature. Bultmann, however, provides an exegesis that explains the paradigmatic importance of the Odes for understanding the origin of John: However the idea of “living water,” combined with the water of baptism as a divine power, can be used figuratively, or better symbolically, to refer to the divine revelation, or alternatively to the gift bestowed by the revelation. This usage is to be found principally in the Odes of Solomon. “Draw your water from the life-source of the Lord!” cries the singer (30) . . . [11:6–8]. It is this usage which must give us the clue to Jn 4:10–15.61

A decision whether to follow Spitta’s skepticism or Bultmann’s confidence may be facilitated by the following outline of the symbolic use of water in the Odes and John:

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11.

Water ( = living water) is a gift from God (Odes 6:21; 30:1 and Jn 4:10) Water ( = living water) quenches thirst (Ode 6:11 and Jn 4:14) Living water gives life and is salvific (Ode 6:18 and Jn 4:14) Living water is associated with eternity and eternal life (Odes 6:18 and 11:7, 22f. and Jn 4:14) An invitation is extended to all who are thirsty (Ode 30:2 and Jn 7:37) Water ( = living water) flows from within the Lord (Ode 30:5 and Jn 7:38)62 The flow becomes a river (Ode 6:8 and Jn 7:38) Both in the Odes63 and John64 “living water” has obtained baptismal motifs. The salvific connection between “water” and “rest” is explicit in the Odes (viz., 30:1–6) and implicit in John. See parallels 2 and 22. Both claim that “the living fountain of the Lord” (Ode 30:1 = Jn 4:14, “a well of water springing up unto eternal life”) has been opened for (Odes) or placed in (John) the believer. The Odes and John use water, or living water, to symbolize both the revelation and Spirit which the Lord ( = Jesus) gives to the believer, and the latter is more emphasized in both (Odes 6:7–8, 30:107; Jn 7:39).

The shared symbolism is impressive.65 Is it not significant, both for an evaluation of the relationship between the Odes and John and for insight into the so-called Johannine school, that “living water” or “water of life” is found in the New Testament only in John and in Revelation (7:17; 21:6; 22:1, 7)? The data reveals a significant relationship between the Odes and John, and these eleven shared ideas obviate Braun’s conclusion that the rapport is only in images and not in ideas (“Sans doute, le rapport est-il dans les images plutôt que dans les idées”).66 The concept of water and living water is not necessarily more developed in the Odes, even the Odist contemplates “ministers of that drink” (6:13), the size and power of the

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river (6:8–10), and the effect of drinking it (“intoxication did not cause ignorance” 11:8). Images can be more developed in mystical hymns than in a gospel. It is certain that the careful and subtle use of the water motif in John reflects a sophisticated development. But, is it a development through centuries from Ezekiel or is it a development shared with the Odes because of a shared milieu impregnated with Essene concepts? Distinguished experts, like Jean Carmignac,67 concluded that both the Odes and John inherited the concept of “living water” from the Hymns of Qumran, especially the Hodayot.68 This suggestion may not weaken the argument for a relationship between the Odes and John. Both authors could have borrowed the basic imagery from the same source but then developed it along the same lines because of a shared community.69 The discussion of the impressive parallels between the concepts of “Word” and “living water” in the Odes and in John shows that these two writings are significantly related. The importance of these parallels should be viewed in light of the numerous other shared concepts such as the following:

1. the doctrine of the trinity and the heightened relationship of Father and Son, 2. the manifest tendency toward mysticism, 3. the connection between abiding and the image of the vine,70 4. a developed dualism that contains unique characteristics that are deeply

influenced by apocalyptic literature,71 5. the emphasis upon “love,” “truth,” and the verb “to know,” 6. the identification of the Lord’s crucifixion and exaltation and paronomasia on the verb “to lift up,”72 7. the delineation of the paradigm “to have eternal life” or “to perish,” 8. and the emphasis upon the present experience of the former by those who are united with the Lord.73 Essene influence on the Odes and John, which was apparently obtained independently,74 suggests that both reflect a community influenced by Essene traditions. This conclusion does not demand that the community be identical, but it does limit the time for such variegated and fluid influence to an early and approximately contemporaneous time. Certainly it is now clear that both writings were composed before 125 CE, and probably earlier than that date. In attempting in the future to diagnose more precisely the lines of convergence, one should consider the evidence that the letters of Ignatius of Antioch contain parallels to the Qumran Scrolls, the Odes, and John.75

2  Summary of scholarly conclusions We have seen that the relation between the Odes and John is impressive; the shared dualism, imagery, symbolism, and terms demand recognition of a relationship. Further research is demanded on each parallel. In order to facilitate future research, the remainder of the present article will contain a summary of the major works on the subject.

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2.1  The Odes depend upon John Many scholars have concluded that the Odes depend upon John; yet none of them has published a critical investigation of the relationship; the conclusions suggest only a cursory observation influenced by others. The issue is dismissed in a cavalier fashion, characterized by statements such as that by A. C. Headlam, who after citing verses from Odes 3, 6, 7, 12, 38, and 41 advised: “Now we readily admit that no single passage above can be called a quotation, but we also believe that not one of them could have been written unless the Fourth Gospel had been written and had been known to the writer.”76 J. Wellhausen,77 C. Bruston,78 M.-J. Lagrange,79 C. F. Burney,80 F.-M. Braun,81 R. Schnackenburg,82 and J. H. Bernard83 suggested that the Odes depend upon John. Most of these scholars merely cite parallels; yet, unfortunately, this hypothesis is the one frequent in summaries.84 R. E. Brown apparently places himself in this company by claiming that some passages in the Odes “are possibly dependent on John.”85 W. H. Raney claimed the hypothesis was “suggestive.”86 L. Tondelli argued that the Odes not only borrowed from John but also partook of that living tradition and the same spiritual atmosphere.87 Although H. Gressmann88 and W. Bauer89 did not speak directly concerning the relationship, they popularized this hypothesis in German-speaking circles by means of the claim that the Odes are a second century gnostic hymnbook. Since no conclusive evidence is cited by any of the scholars mentioned, it appears that they reached their conclusions on the basis of a priori judgments, rather than from an analysis of the verbal and conceptual parallels.90

2.2  John depends upon the tradition represented in the Odes The position taken by Harnack is complex. He claimed that the author of John may have once been a Jew from the same circle as the Odist, and that the Christian interpolator of the Odes probably knew John. Consequently, the importance of the Odes for an understanding of John is twofold: Therefore, the original Jewish author and the Christian interpolator of the Odes had the greatest influence on John. Historically, the greatest insight these Odes bring to us for the Fourth Gospel is twofold: to enlighten its religion and theology . . . . One finds in the Odes the quarry from which John’s ashlars were mined. [my free translation] Für “Johannes” hat also sowohl der ursprüngliche jüdische Verfasser als auch der christliche Interpolator die grösste Bedeutung. Das ist geschichtlich die wichtigste Frucht ,welche uns diese Oden bringen dass sie in doppelter Weise das vierte Evangelium, d.h. seine Religion und seine Theologie, beleuchten. Was sie hier lehren, ist ebenso neu wie aufklärend zugleich und wird die Kirchenhistoriker noch lange beschäftigen. Man hat hier den Steinbruch vor sich, aus dem die johanneischen Quadern gehauen sind!91

In 1910 Bultmann, closely following Harnack’s position, contended that “A double light, therefore, shines from our Odes on the Gospel of John: First, we learn about

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a Jewish circle from which derives the Johannine piety and theology. Second, we learn of a ‘Christian’—namely the editor of the Odes—from which John itself originates” (“Ein doppeltes Licht fällt also von unser Oden auf das Johannesevangelium: wir lerned erstens einen jüdischen Kreise kennen, der als die Vorstufe der johanneischen Frommigkeit und Theologie anzusehen is; und wir lerned ferner einen Christen kennen,—nämlich eben den Bearbeiter—der dem Johannes verwandte Züge aufweist”).92 Fifteen years later Bultmann argued that the Odes reflect the kind of “gnostic” and hymnic sources used by the Fourth Evangelist. He claimed that John knew and used sources which contained a “Savior Myth” (Erlösungsmythos) and that evidence of such a myth permeates the Odes. At one time he virtually contended that John used the Odes (“Ich will aber hier schon bemerken, dass mir für einzelne Partien des Joh-Ev. die Benutzung schriftlicher Quellen, Offenbarungsreden etwa in der Art einiger Oden Salomos, wahrscheinlich ist”).93 Bultmann’s general position, however, is that found in his commentary. The Odes are earlier94 than John and best represent the religious background of John.95 J. T. Sanders commented on the relation between the Odes and John. Concluding that it is highly unlikely that the Odes are influenced by John, he suggests that they are earlier than John: “Hypostatization in the Odes of Solomon, particularly the hypostatization of the Word, has proceeded independently of the prologue of John and is in some respects logically prior in its development to the hypostasis of the Logos in the prologue of John.”96 Sanders’ position is conceivable; given the diversity and pervasiveness of the Jewish ideas found in the Odes and John, a scholar could imagine they were shaped independently by oral traditions. Scholars have usually assumed that the Odes are influenced by John. Harnack, Grimme, and Bultmann’s positions on the relation between the Odes and John have been lost in the judicious rejection of Harnack’s interpolation hypothesis, Grimme’s Hebrew hypothesis, and Bultmann’s concept of Gnosticism. None of the above explanations, however, allows for the subtleties contained in the parallels previously discussed. The following hypothesis, therefore, is the scenario that seems probable.

2.3  John and the Odes come from the same religious environment Harnack, as just noted, claimed that the Christian interpolator of the Odes and the author of John probably were members of the same circle. Almost all scholars who have published a detailed comparison of the Odes and John have concluded that it is highly improbable that the Odes depends upon John.97 Harris,98 Massaux,99 Dodd,100 and Bert101 have all correctly concluded that the Odes and John come from the same spiritual environment. Bert, who presented the most complete analysis of this relationship, concluded that we can discern that the Odes and John grew in the same “topsoil.” (“Wir können uns diese Verwandtschaft nur durch erklären, dass beide örtlich, seitlich und geistig demselben Mutterboden entstammen.”)102 Carmignac, who has published several articles on the Odes,103 is impressed by their relationship both to the Dead Sea Scrolls and to John. He concludes that the parallels to each are pervasive and profound. The Odist did more than merely

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study the Dead Sea Scrolls and John. He was so profoundly marked by Quman and Johannine thought, that he must have spent a considerable time in the Qumran and then the Johannine communities, with a desire to assimilate their rich spirituality.” (“Pour être se profondément marqué, il a dû vivre assez longtemps dans de communautés qumrâniennes et johanniques, avec le désir sincere d’en assimiler les richesses spirituelles.”)104

3  Conclusions The first hypothesis, that the Odes depends on John, is the least likely of the three main positions presented by critical scholars. The twenty-six parallels summarized above do not suggest that the Odist was working from John. It is significant, moreover, that no scholar who has systematically examined the parallels between the Odes and John has concluded that the Odist depended on John. It is precisely this hypothesis, nevertheless, that is accepted by the many scholars, and they sometimes even go so far as to present it as a fact.105 The second hypothesis, that John depends upon the tradition represented in the Odes, suffers primarily because it places the Odes appreciably earlier than John. The third hypothesis that the Odes and John come from the same religious environment, circle, or community is the best explanation of the data summarized above. Moreover, it is the conclusion obtained by most scholars who have seriously studied the relation between the Odes and John. This conclusion needs to be modified by the recognition that the composition of John took maybe forty years and that the Odes were not composed in one evening, but that the composing of both was during the same time and perhaps the same circle of School. Thus, these two stellar compositions may show mutual influences in complex ways. Some Odes could be influenced by the first edition of John and the final edition of John could be influenced by the Odes. It is clear that the Odes and John contain numerous and impressive parallels, and that these neither suggest simply that the Odes depends on John nor the reverse.106 Both reflect the same milieu probably somewhere in Western Syria, and both were probably composed in the same circle, community, or school.107 Continued research may strengthen the possibility that the Odist had been an Essene, though perhaps a non-Qumran Essene, who composed the Odes in the “Johannine” community or school. If this reconstruction is correct, the Odes have begun to unlock the historical enigmas of John and promise to be a most important key to many of the theological mysteries of the greatest genius in the New Testament.

Notes 1 The present chapter adds images and adapts my reflections in Critical Reflections on the Odes of Solomon, Volume 1 (JSPSup 22; Sheffield: Academic Press, 1998), pp. 232–60.

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2 Herein John denotes neither the Apostle nor the Evangelist but the Extant Gospel. 3 A. Harnack and J. Fleming, Ein jüdisch-christliches Psalmbuch aus dem ersten Jahrhundert (Leipzig: Hinrichs‘sche, 1910), p. 119. 4 Bultmann correctly criticized Dodd for not considering the Odes, especially in his discussion of the Logos concept and symbolic use of “light” and water. See his review of Dodd’s commentary in NTS 1 (1954/55): 77–91. For the English translation, see Rudolf Bultmann’s Review of C. H. Dodd’s The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel,” Harvard Divinity Bulletin 27 (1963): 9–22. 5 For these publications, see the Bibliography in the present book. 6 J. H. Charlesworth, “The Odes of Solomon—Not Gnostic,” CBQ 31 (1969): 357–69; idem, “Les Odes de Salomon et les manuscrits de la Mer Morte,” RB 77 (1970): 522–29; idem, “Qumran, John and the Odes of Solomon,” in John and Qumran, ed. Charlesworth (London: Chapman, 1972), pp. 107–36; J. Carmignac, “Les affinities qumrâniennes de la onzième Ode de Salomon,” RevQ 3 (1961): 71–102; idem, “Un qumrânien converti au christianisme: l’auteur des Odes de Salomon,” in QumranProbleme (ed. H. Bardtke; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1963), pp. 75–108; H. Chadwick, “Some Reflections on the Character and Theology of the Odes of Solomon,” in Kyriakon: Festschrift Johannes Quasten, 2 vols (ed. P. Granfield and J. A. Jungmann; Münster: Aschendorff, 1970), pp. 266–70. Michael Lattke began his work on the Odes emphasizing their gnostic character; he has now abandoned that emphasis. See Lattke, Odes of Solomon: A Commentary (trans. M. Ehrhardt; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009). Also see Lattke, Die Oden Salomos: Griechisch, Koptisch, Syrisch mit Deutscher Übersetzung (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2011). 7 These attempts are discussed by J. H. Charlesworth with A. Culpepper, “The Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 35 (1973): 298–322. 8 See J. A. Emerton, “Some Problems of Text and Language in the Odes of Solomon,” JTS NS 18 (1967): 372–406; and J. H. Charlesworth, “Paronomasia and Assonance in the Syriac Text of the Odes of Solomon,” Semitics 1 (1970): 12–26. 9 See J. H. Charlesworth, The Odes of Solomon: The Earliest Christian Hymnbook (Eugene, Oreg.: Cascade Books, 2009). 10 This arrangement has been chosen because frequently several themes appear in the same verse, making a topical arrangement difficult. Charlesworth’s translation is followed for the Odes. The American Revised Version of 1901 is used for John because of its mechanical, literal translation of the Greek. 11 See especially M. Lattke, Einheit im Wort: Die spezifische Bedeutung von agapē, agapan und filein im Johannesevangelium (Munich: Kösel-Verlag, 1975). 12 J. R. Harris and A. Mingana, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon, 2 vols. (Manchester: Longmans, 1916–20) 2:218. 13 E. Massaux, Influence de l'Évangile de saint Matthieu sur la littérature chrétienne avant saint Irénée (Universitas Catholica Lovaniensis, Ser. 2, vol. 42; Louvain: Publications Universitaires de Louvain, 1950), p. 210. 14 F. Spitta, “Die Oden Salomos und das Neue Testament,” Monatsschrift für Pastoraltheologie 7 (1910): 95. 15 See R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols. (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966–70), pp. 618–19. For a brief discussion of the connection between knowledge and rest in the Odes, see O. Hofius, Katapausis: Die Vorstellung vom endzeitlichen Ruheort im Hebräerbrief (WUNT 11; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1970), pp. 83–84. 16 R. Borig (Der Wahre Weinstock: Untersuchungen zu Jo 15, 1–10 [Munich: KöselVerlag, 1967], p. 127) correctly notes the imagery shared by the Odes and John

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and remarks: “In keinem dieser Fälle ist jedoch eine direkte literarische Beziehung zwischen der joh. Weinstockrede und dem Text der Oden zu sichern.” 17 See J. H. Charlesworth, ed., John and Qumran (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1972), pp. 130, 132–33. 18 R. H. Strachan, “The Newly Discovered Odes of Solomon, and their Bearing on the Problem of the Fourth Gospel,” ExpT 22 (1910): 11. 19 E. A. Abbot, Light on the Gospel from an Ancient Poet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912), p. 203. 20 C. F. Burney, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1922), p. 169. 21 P. Smith, “The Disciples of John and the Odes of Solomon,” The Monist 25 (1915): 173. A parallel between Jn 14:2 and 1En 61:2 should also be noted. 22 Harris and Mingana, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon, 2:275. 23 Spitta, “Die Oden Salomos und das Neue Testament,” p. 95. 24 J. T. Sanders, The New Testament Christological Hymns: Their Historical Religious Background (SNTSMS 15; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp. 38–39. Also see Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:xxxii, 21. 25 Harris and Mingana, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon, 2:286. 26 Ibid. 27 Massaux, Influence de l'Évangile de saint Matthieu sur la littérature chrétienne avant saint Irénée, p. 212. 28 J. Brownson, “The Odes of Solomon and the Johannine Tradition,” JSP 2 (1988): 49–69. 29 W. Bauer, Das Johannesevangelium (HNT 6; Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1933), p. 139. 30 R. Bultmann, “Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und manichäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums,” ZNW 24 (1925): 135. See also E. Schweizer, Ego Eimi (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1965), p. 34. 31 Massaux, Influence de l'Évangile de saint Matthieu sur la littérature chrétienne avant saint Irénée, p. 210. 32 F. M. Braun, Jean le Théologien, 3 vols. (Paris: Lecoffre, 1959–66) 1:243. 33 H. Odeberg, The Fourth Gospel (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells, 1929), pp. 320–21. 34 See also Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:385, 393–95. 35 See J. H. Charlesworth, “Exploring the Origins of the descensus ad inferos,” in the Bruce Chilton Festschrift, eds. A. Avery-Peck and C. Evans, in press. 36 Harris and Mingana, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon, p. 297. 37 Braun, Jean le Théologien, 1:243. 38 Massaux, Influence de l'Évangile de saint Matthieu sur la littérature chrétienne avant saint Irénée, p. 210. 39 See my discussions of this issue in RB 77 (1970): 524–29 and in John and Qumran, pp. 76–106 and 107–36. On the basis of such parallels as “das Gegensatzpaar Wahrheit und Lüge, das Parallelenpaar Licht und Leben,” M. Dibelius argued that the Odes and John come from the same “Gedankenwelt.” See his “Johannesevangelium,” RGG III, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1929) 3:359. 40 Some of these parallels are discussed by Schweizer. Unfortunately, they are usually ignored when the religionsgeschichtliche background to the “I am” of John is discussed, e.g., P. B. Harner, The “I am” of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Johannine Usage and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970). 41 These and the following statistics from the New Testament are taken from R. Morgenthaler, Statistik des neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes (Zürich: Gotthelf, 1958).

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42 See the discussion in Charlesworth, John and Qumran, p. 128. 43 Massaux, Influence de l'Évangile de saint Matthieu sur la littérature chrétienne avant saint Irénée, p. 212. 44 Strachan, “The Newly Discovered Odes of Solomon, and their Bearing on the Problem of the Fourth Gospel,” p. 12. 45 Harris and Mingana, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon, pp. 376–77. 46 Massaux, Influence de l'Évangile de saint Matthieu sur la littérature chrétienne avant saint Irénée, p. 210. 47 R. M. Grant, “The Odes of Solomon and the Church of Antioch,” JBL 63 (1944): 366. 48 C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1953), pp. 272–73. 49 Sanders, The New Testament Christological Hymns, pp. 115–20. 50 Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, p. 272. Also see parallel 7. 51 L. G. Rylands (The Beginnings of Gnostic Christianity [London: Watts, 1940], p. 226) wrote: “The Johannine Word is precisely the Word of the Odes; a spiritual being capable of becoming immanent in men.” 52 G. Bert (Das Evangelium des Johannes [Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1922], p. 97), after juxtaposing excerpts of the two terms in the Odes, insightfully concludes: “Es kann danach nicht zweifelhaft sein, dass wir in den ‘Oden Salomos’ die Logoslehre selbst unter diesem ihrem Namen in derselben Weise wie im Johannes-Evangelium vor uns haben.” 53 Harris and Mingana, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon, pp. 92–93. Also see Mingana, “Odes of Solomon,” Dictionary of the Apostolic Church (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1918) 2:106, and B. M. Metzger, “Odes of Solomon,” in Twentieth Century Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, 2 vols. (ed. L. A. Loetscher; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1955) 2:812. 54 Bert, Das Evangelium des Johannes, p. 98. 55 R. Bultmann, “Ein jüdisch-christliches Psalmbuch aus dem ersten Jahrhundert,” Monatsschrift für Pastoraltheologie 7 (1910): 23–29; The Gospel of John: A Commentary (trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), pp. 30–31. 56 Sanders, Hymns, pp. 115–20. 57 The importance of the Word in the dualism shared by the Odist and “Fourth Evangelist” shows that it is improbable that the Odist systematically borrowed from John. The most probable solution is that both the author of John and the Odist contemporaneously shared not only the same milieu but perhaps also the same community.” John and Qumran, p. 125. 58 See parallels 6, 13, 15, and 22. “Living water” is found in the following Odes: 6:18; 11:7; 12:2; cf. 6:9, 13; 11:6; 16:10; 28:15; 30:1, 4; 40:1-2. 59 Spitta, “Die Oden Salomos und das Neue Testament,” p. 95. 60 Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:178-79 and 328. 61 Bultmann, Gospel of John, pp. 184–85. Also see the discussion of “living water” by E. E. Fabbri, “El Tema del Cristo Vivificante en las Odas de Salomón,” Ciencia y Fe 14 (1958): 487–95. C. Goodwin (“How did John Treat His Sources?” JBL 73 [1954]: 72) recognizes the parallel between the concept of water in the Odes and John, but concludes that John may or may not have had passages of the Odes in mind. One cannot know because the Fourth Evangelist “was capable of changing his sources beyond recognition.” 62 On the difficulty of interpreting Jn 7:38, see Brown, The Gospel According to John, pp. 319–31. In Ode 30:5 “his heart” means the Lord’s heart. In Jn 7:38 the pronoun “his” may refer to the Lord, certainly the Lord is the source.

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63 J. H. Bernard (The Odes of Solomon [Texts and Studies 8 no. 3; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912], p. 42) introduced the thesis that the Odes are “baptismal hymns intended for use in public worship, either for catechumens or for those who have recently been baptized.” Although Bernard clearly overstated his case, there is a consensus today that the Odes do contain baptismal motifs. Contrast P. Patiffol (“Les Odes de Salomon,” RB [1911]: 44), who claimed that the Odist “n’a pas le baptême en vue. L’eau est un symbole de la foi, de la grâce, de la connaissance, symbolism analogue aux images johannines . . .” 64 See, for example, Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:180. 65 See B. W. Bacon, The Gospel of the Hellenists (ed. C. H. Kraeling; New York: Holt, 1933), p. 179. 66 Braun, Jean le Théologien, 1:242. 67 J. Carmignac, “Les affinités qumrâniennes de la onzième Ode de Salomon,” RevQ 3 (1961): 71–102; idem, “Un qumrânien converti au christianisme: l’auteur des Odes de Salomon,” in Qumran-Probleme (ed. H. Bardtke ; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1963), pp. 75–108. 68 J. H. Charlesworth, “Les Odes de Salomon et les Manuscrits de la Mer Morte,” RB 77 (1970): 534–38. 69 After comparing the symbolism of living water in the Odes, John, and Qumran Scrolls, J. Daniélou (Les Symboles chrétiens primitifs [Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1961], p. 68) arrived at a similar conclusion: Also see J. C. L. Gibson, “From Qumran to Edessa,” New College Bulletin 2 (1965): 9–20, see especially p. 16; and O. Cullmann, “The Significance of the Qumran Texts for Research into the Beginnings of Christianity,” JBL 74 (1955): 222–24. Both Gibson and Cullmann argue for a relation between Qumran, the Odes and John. See footnotes 65 and 104. 70 See Brown, The Gospel According to John, p. 511. See parallels 4, 9, 11, 17. For example, Ode 1 and John 15 share a similar image. In Ode 1 a plaited wreath is described as not only upon the head of the believer but also entwines him so that he exclaims that the wreath has “caused Thy branches to blossom in me.” 71 J. H. Charlesworth, RB 77 (1970): 524–29. Also see Haenchen, Bibel, p. 212. See Michael A. Novak, “The Odes of Solomon as Apocalyptic Literature,” Vigiliae Christianae 66 (2012): 527–50. 72 Compare, for example, Ode 41:12 (“The man who humbled Himself, / But was exalted because of His own righteousness.”) with Jn 12:32 (“And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, shall draw all to myself.”) 73 O. Betz (Der Paraklet [AGSU 2; Leiden: Brill, 1963], p. 215) judiciously remarks that the Odist stresses the present aspect of salvation even more so than the Fourth Evangelist. 74 See the discussion in John and Qumran, pp. 107–36. 75 See Grant, “The Odes of Solomon and the Church of Antioch,” pp. 370ff. C. F. Burney, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1922), pp. 159–66, 170f.; Harris and Mingana, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon, p. 53; C. H. Kraeling (“The Odes of Solomon and their Significance for the New Testament,” Lutheran Church Review 46 [1927]: 228) reached the following noteworthy conclusion: “In the writings of a number of earlier authors . . . particularly Ignatius there has come to light a number of such striking analogies to the thought and expression of the Odes as to make it almost certain that the analogies are the result of free quotation from our text. The lines of patristic evidence converge upon Antioch and require that our Hymns have been in existence prior to the date of the Ignatian letters, that is about the year 100 A.D.”

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76 A. C. Headlam, “The Odes of Solomon,” ChQR 71 (1911): 291. 77 J. Wellhausen, Review of The Odes and Psalms of Solomon, by J. R. Harris, Göttingische Gelehrte Anzeigen 172 (1910): 629–41. 78 C. Bruston, Les plus anciens cantiques chrétiens (Paris: Fischbacher, 1912), pp. 12, 18, 20. 79 M.-J. Lagrange, Évangile selon Saint Jean (Paris: Lecoffre, 1936), p. xxviii. 80 Burney, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel, pp. 132, 169. 81 Braun, Jean le Théologien, 1.245. 82 R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 3 vols (trans. K. Smyth; London: Herder, 1968) 1:145. 83 Bernard, The Odes of Solomon, p. 31. 84 E.g., A. Hamman, Naissance des lettres chrétiennes (Paris: Éditions de Paris, 1957), p. 20; B. Altaner, Patrology, trans. H. C. Graef (Freiburg: Herder, 1958), p. 63; J. Quasten, Patrology (Westminster, MD: Newman; Utrecht-Antwerp: Spectrum, 1962) 1:162. A. Robert and A. Feuillet, Introduction to the New Testament, trans. P. W. Skehan, et al. (New York: Desclée, 1965) p. 633. This position was originally advocated by T. E. Pollard (“The Fourth Gospel—Its Background and Early Interpretation,” Australian Biblical Review 7 [1959]: 50), but he appears to have abandoned it (Johannine Christology and the Early Church [SNTSMS 13; Cambridge: Cambridge, 1970], p. 34). 85 Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:21. 86 W. H. Raney, The Relation of the Fourth Gospel to the Christian Cultus (Giesen: Töpelmann, 1933), p. 58. 87 L. Tondelli, Le Odi di Salomone Cantici Cristiani degli inizi del II Secolo (Rome: Ferrari, 1914), p. 123: “Le Odi non dipendono però solanto dagli scritti giovannei: esse sembrano aver vita e calore direttamente da quella tradizione viva spiritual che in quegli scritti trovò la sua più alta e diretta manifestazione: questi documenti vivono nella stessa atmosfera di idee e di sentimenti.” 88 H. Gressmann, “Die Oden Salomos,” in Neutestamentliche Apokryphen (2nd ed.; ed. E. Hennecke; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1924), pp. 437–72, see especially p. 437. 89 W. Bauer, “Die Oden Salomos,” in Neutesamentliche Apokryphen (3rd ed.; E. Hennecke and W. Schneemelcher; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1964 [3rd ed.]) 2:576–625, see ­especially 577. 90 It is surprising to find this hypothesis stated as fact in the introduction to John in La Sainte Bible (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1956), p. 1396. 91 Harnack and J. Fleming, Ein jüdisch-christliches Psalmbuch aus dem ersten Jahrhundert, pp. 110–11. Harnack later may have changed his mind about the redactional nature of the Odes and their relation to John. Two years later he wrote again about the Odes but neither developed nor reiterated his theory about them. See his review of F. C. Burkitt’s “A New Ms. of the Odes of Solomon,” in TLZ 37 (1912): 530. It is surprising to find that he never again mentioned the relation of the Odes to John, despite such publications as New Testament Studies VI: The Origin of the New Testament (trans. J. R. Wilkinson; London: Williams, 1925); “Zum Johannesevangelium,” Erforschtes und Erlebtes (Giessen: Töpelmann, 1923), pp. 36–43; “Das ‘Wir’ in den johanneischen Schriften,” Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 17 (1923): 96–113; “Johannes,” in Die Entstehung der christlichen Theologie und des kirchlichen Dogmas (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1967 [photographic reprint of the 1927 edition]), pp. 58–59; “Zur Textkritik und Christologie der Schriften des Johannes,” in Studien zur Geschichte des Neuen Testaments und der alten Kirche (Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 19; Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1931), pp. 105–52. 92 Bultmann in Monatsschrift für Pastoraltheologie 7 (1910): 28.

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93 See Bultmann’s review in ZNW 24 (1925): 141. 94 Bultmann often gives the impression that the Odes could be roughly contemporaneous with John. For research that claims to confirm Bultmann’s position, see H. Becker, Die Reden des Johannesevangeliums und der Stil der gnostischen Offenbarungsrede (FRLANT N.F. 50; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1956) see especially pp. 16–18. 95 Bultmann wrote: “The result of this enquiry is that the Prologue’s source belongs to the sphere of a relatively early oriental Gnosticism, which has been developed under the influence of the O.T. faith in the Creator—God . . . The Odes of Solomon prove to be the most closely related.” Gospel, pp. 30–31. Bultmann’s emphasis upon “development” and his qualification of “Gnosticism” generally have been ignored. 96 Sanders, Hymns, p. 119. 97 Note, for example, the comments by Harris and Mingana, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon, p. 120; Mingana, Dictionary of the Apostolic Church, 2:106; Kraeling, Lutheran Church Review 46 (1927): 235–36.; Daniélou, Symbols, p. 48; Sanders, Hymns, p. 118. See also P. Feine, J. Behm and W. G. Kümmel, Introduction to the New Testament (trans. A. J. Mattill, Jr.; New York: Abingdon, 1966 [14th rev. ed]), p. 159: “A dependence of the ‘Odes of Solomon’ upon John (Schmid, op. cit.) is extremely improbable.” H. Jordan argued that the Odist’s belief “ist geflossen au seiner Frömmigkeit, wie sie in den johanneischen Kreisen lebendig war und Ausdruck gefunden hatte im Johannesevangelium. . .” Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig: Quelle, 1911), p. 458. 98 Harris wrote: “It is when we come to the Gospel and Epistles of John that we find the community of ideas to be the most pronounced.” Harris, The Odes and Psalms of Solomon, p. 74. Also see R. Harris, The Origin of the Prologue to St John’s Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1917), pp. 29–30. 99 Massaux, Influence de l'Évangile de saint Matthieu sur la littérature chrétienne avant saint Irénée, p. 214. 100 Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, p. 272. 101 Bert, Das Evangelium des Johannes, p. 98. E. C. Selwyn argued that the Odes and John are contemporaneous, and that the source of their theology, especially baptismal imagery, is Isaiah 60–62 [LXX!], which alludes to the Feast of Tabernacles and the ceremony of bearing water (living water) from Siloam to the Temple. Selwyn, “The Feast of Tabernacles, Epiphany, and Baptism,” JTS 13 (1912): 225–40. 102 Ibid. Loewenich concluded that either the Odist knew John or both come from the same circle (114). Cf. W. F. Howard, The Fourth Gospel in Recent Criticism and Interpretation, rev. C. K. Barrett (London: Epworth, 1955), p. 77. 103 See the previous citations in note 5 and bibliography at the end of this book. 104 J. Carmignac in RevQ 3 (1961): 68. 105 “Déjà, dans la première moité du IIᵉ siècle, nous voyons que le quatrième évangile est connu et utilisé par nombre d’auteurs: saint Ignace d’Antioche, l’auteur des Odes de Salomon, Papias. . .” La Sainte Bible, p. 1396. 106 E. A. Abbott, who published a voluminous work on the Odes, claimed that the thought of the Odes as “not in orthodox or at least not in familiarly orthodox form. But it is not Gnostic. It is poetic. It seems to recognise, as the Fourth Gospel does, a personal Logos or Word who is also incarnate Light and Life, but it recognizes also— an aspect about which the Fourth Gospel is silent—one who is Babe as well as Son, a Messiah born of the Virgin Daughter of Zion to be at once the Lord of Israel and the embodiment or body of Israel. In this body, or in these ‘members’—to use the word employed almost at the outset of the Odes—every true Israelite finds himself

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to be incorporate. This doctrine—or poetic meditation—seems to go back to a time before orthodoxy had crystallized, when Christian thinkers and seers and poets were still in the atmosphere of that stupendous Life, which was also their life, and which they could not analyse or systematically and dogmatically define while they were still breathing it.” Abbott, Light on the Gospel from an Ancient Poet (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1912), pp. xxxvii–xxxviii. 107 Since John is heterogeneous, containing sections that may be separated by as much as fifty years, and since there is no need to assume that the forty-two Odes were composed within the same year or decade, the actual relationship between our two documents may be exceedingly complex. By these statements, however, I do not mean to imply direct literary dependence.

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Qumran, John, and the Odes of Solomon

In the preceding chapters, I have shown why scholars conclude that John is influenced by Essene thought, while debates continue on how to explain such shared dualism, use of Holy Spirit, stress on “Oneness,” and apocalyptic cosmology. Likewise, there has been no question that John and the Odes of Solomon are conceptually related; this time, the question concerns the direction of influence. Research discloses that the Odes are indebted in many ways to the Essenes. It is therefore appropriate to search for an explanation for the relationships between Qumran, John, and the Odes. Since the relationships between John and Qumran and also between the Odes and Qumran are most impressively evident when focus is on dualism, it is wise to limit our present concern to an examination and comparison of the dualism found in these early Jewish compositions and then seek to comprehend relationships. The breadth of the subject and the brevity of this chapter demand that the remarks be merely programmatic. Our eyes will be focused upon the texts; hence consideration of secondary literature will be kept to a minimum.1

1  Analyses The following analyses and comparisons are built upon conclusions published by the experts in the fields of Early Judaism and Christian Origins. Most important of these are the following:

1. The Qumran Scrolls, found in 1947, were in caves when Vespasian burned Jericho and Qumran in 68 CE; hence, the Scrolls must antedate 68 CE.

2. The Dead Sea Scrolls predate both John and the Odes and they were collected by Essenes who composed some of these Scrolls.2 3. The extant Gospel eventually attributed to John, herein abbreviated as John, was originally composed in Greek from numerous sources, some of which were Aramaic.3 4. The Odes of Solomon were originally composed in Greek or Syriac and are contemporaneous with John; both were composed over decades and reached a “final” form around 100 CE (John) and 125 CE (Odes).4



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Figure 13.1  Vespasian: His Roman Troops Burned Qumran in 68 CE [Courtesy of the Hermitage. JHC].

1a  Qumran’s dualism It is well known that the Dead Sea Scrolls are characterized by dualism. In Chapter 7, discussion was limited to the treatise concerning two spirits (1QS 3.13–4.26). In the following examination we will attempt to see to what extent the features of this dualism are contained or modified in the other major sectarian scrolls. Putting aside for the moment the question of the development of dualism in Qumran theology,5 it is necessary to emphasize that dualism appears in each of the major sectarian Scrolls. Observe the following representative excerpts:6 And to love all the sons of light, each according to his lot in the plan of God; And to hate all the sons of darkness, each according to his guilt in the vengeance of God

And He (The God of Knowledge) appointed for him (man) two spirits in order that he should walk in them until

(1QS 1.9–11)

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And then at the time of judgment the sword of God will act quickly, And all the sons of His tr[u]th shall be roused to [destroy the sons of] wickedness; And all the sons of iniquity shall be no more.

For in proportion to the Spirits [Thou has divi]ded them (men) between good and evil.

For formerly Moses and Aaron arose by the hand of the Prince of Lights; but Belial raised Jannes and his brother.

And no one who has entered the Covenant of God shall take from or give to the sons of the Pit except10 through trade.

. . .the war, the beginning is when the sons of light stretch forth their hand in order to begin against the lot of the sons of darkness.

And you have assigned us to the lot of light for your truth. And from of old you appointed the Prince of Light to help us. And you made Belial, the Angel of Hatred, to corrupt, his dominion is in darkness.

(1QS 3.18–19)7

(1QH 6.29–30)8

(1QH 14.11–12)

(CD 5.17–19)9

(CD 13.14–15)

(1QM 1.1)11

(1QM 13.9–11)

The above excerpts from the Qumran Scrolls illustrate Qumran’s dualism. It was not an absolute dualism, however, because it was inferior to and dependent upon an overriding and fervent monotheism and designed to cease at the Endtime. As we look back at the above excerpts we note that according to 1QS 3.18–19 the “two spirits” are under God’s appointment and are to perform their functions only as long as he wills



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it (“until the time of his visitation . . .”). Monotheism dominates the dualism found not only in the Rule but also in the other major sectarian Scrolls (see 1QH 1.1–20; CD 2.2–13; 1QM 1.8–14). The first characteristic feature of Qumran dualism is that it is limited in power and time. In these Scrolls, all composed by Essenes, we find the belief in two warring cosmic Spirits. In the Rule, they are called by various names: the “Prince of Light” and the “Spirit of Truth” vis-à-vis the “Angel of Darkness” and the “Spirit of Perversity.” In the Hodayot, several passages refer to the idea that there are two ruling Spirits, one evil, the other good (1QH 1.9, 17ff.; 4.31; 7.6–7; 11.12–13; 14.11–12; 16.9ff.; 17.23ff.). In the Damascus Document and the War Scroll, the war rages between the “Prince of Lights” (or Light; CD 5.8; 1QM 13.10)12 and Belial (CD 4.13, 15, et passim; 1QM 1.1, 5, 13, et passim) and the “Angels of Destruction (Corruption)” (CD 2.6; 1QM 13.12). Behind the diverse nomenclature lies the belief that the world is divided into two realms ruled by two warring and cosmic spirits. This is the second characteristic of Qumran dualism. Under the sheer brilliance of the dualism promulgated in 1QS 3.13–4:26, we perceive that Essene dualism is a system in which there are two warring spirits, distinguished and separated by their identification either with light or with darkness. J. Daniélou remarked that “the conflict between light and darkness . . . is nothing else but the leitmotif of Qumran.”13 The remark is on target but somewhat misleading because the Rule’s dualism has been read into other documents. The Hodayot do not contain the expression “sons of light,” (‫ )בני אור‬or the term “sons of darkness, (‫)בני חשך‬, nor do they have the terms Prince, Angel, or Spirit of Light. The Essene Damascus Document does not contain the word ‫חשך‬, “darkness.” The light-darkness paradigm,14 however, is the defining feature of Qumran dualism according to the Rule of the Community. The omission of some dualistic terms in the Hodayot probably results from the focus of the speaker or author. The words are directed not to the human’s earthly situation but to God’s cosmic dominance. The speaker apparently assumes the light-darkness paradigm: “. . . and my light shines in your glory. For you have caused the light to shine out of darkness” (1QH 9.26–27). The first two lines of the final column of the Hodayot begin with the expression “Your light.” The author then confesses: “For with you is light” (1QH 18.3). The observation that “darkness” (‫ )חשך‬is not found in the Damascus Document should be combined with the recognition that in this same scroll we read that “the Prince of Lights” (CD 5.18) is opposed by “Belial” (CD 5.18). Since the noun Belial appears frequently in this Scroll (six times) and since the composition is later than the earliest portions of the Rule, it is possible that Belial was a frequent substitute by the later sectarians for the “Angel of Darkness.” The possibility is strengthened by the observation that Belial is a favorite expression in the War Scroll (twelve times), which appears to be the latest of the major sectarian scrolls. Further corroborative evidence is provided by the fact that the term Belial is found only in the preface (1QS 1.18, 24; 2.5, 19) and concluding hymn (1QS 10.21) of the Rule,15 and these sections are dated by J. Murphy-O’Connor to approximately the same date: “The setting in life of the final hymn in 1QS is the same as that of 1QS 1.16–2.25a.”16 The time when these additions were made to the Rule corresponds approximately to the date of composition for the Damascus Document.

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What are we to say about the use of Belial in the Hodayot, where it also appears frequently (twelve times)? Since the substitution of Belial for the “Angel of Darkness” would necessitate the cosmic conception of the former, we must ask another question: “Is Belial conceived of as a hypostatic individual in the Hodayot?” Only in four passages does this term probably have a cosmic dimension (1QH 2.22; 3.28; 3.29; 3.32); in the other eight occurrences it may have a non-cosmic or psychological meaning (1QH 2.16; 4.10; 4.13 [bis]; 5.26; 5.39; 6.21; 7.3). It is impressive to discover that each one of the latter group of passages is taken from sections that G. Jeremias has attributed to the Teacher of Righteousness.17 The passages containing a cosmic meaning probably come from later stages in the life of the Community. Moreover, in his Konkordanz Kuhn reports that the word Belial as nomen proprium does not appear in the Hodayot (q.v. ad loc.). The evidence seems to converge toward the supposition that Belial as a synonym for the “Angel of Darkness” is peculiar to the later sectarian texts. By the time the Damascus Document was composed, “Belial” had become a surrogate for the “Angel of Darkness.” The absence of the word “darkness” in this Scroll is not as stunning as formerly supposed. We may now conclude our discussion of the light-darkness paradigm in the Scrolls. While the paradigm is not emphasized in each of the major sectarian documents, it is nevertheless characteristic of the Scrolls as a collection. This sophisticated schema distinguishes the Qumran Scrolls from most literature with which they were contemporaneous.18 The lone exception is the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.19 This document, however, either originated within Essene circles or was influenced by Essene terminology. It has become clear that the extant Greek translation of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is not only interpolated, but also contains Christian redactions. James Kugel has demonstrated the original composition is Jewish and places the Christian additions in a separate section.20 Therefore the third unique characteristic of Qumran dualism is the light-darkness paradigm. Pervading the Scrolls, as is well known, is the Essenes’ belief that they were living in the last days and that the future had irrupted into the present.21 At times the Scrolls suggest that the post-biblical Jewish division of time between “this age” and “the age to come” (as in 4 Ezra) had clearly dissolved. Often the Essene projects himself into the future and speaks as if the end has already come (1QH 3.23–36). At other times, the Scrolls uphold a division within time. According to P. von der Osten-Sacken, the oldest form of Qumran dualism, found in the War Scroll and the first section of the Rule (1QS 3.13–4.14), emphasizes the imminent eschatological combat (Endkampfdualismus).22 The decisive eschatological act still lay in the future. At the end of the impending conflict the “sons of light” will receive “every continuing blessing and eternal joy in eternal life, and a crown of glory with a garment of majesty in eternal light” (1QS 4.7–8; cf. 1QH 9.25). The “sons of darkness,” however, will be tortured “until they are exterminated without remnant or escape” (1QS 4.14; cf. 1QM 1.4–7). The fourth characteristic of Qumran dualism, therefore, is the eschatological dimension. Each of the major sectarian Scrolls contains the idea that humankind is bifurcated into two mutually exclusive camps. Although the terminology changes, the dualism is clear and pervasive: Men are categorized either as “Sons of Light” (1QS and 1QM), “Sons of Truth” (1QS, 1QH, and 1QM), “sons of Zadok” (1QS and CD), or as “Sons



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of Darkness” (1QS and 1QM), “sons of perversity” (1QS and 1QH), and “sons of the Pit” (CD). Since men are divided according to their virtues and vices, we have running through the Scrolls an ethical dualism. This is the fifth characteristic of Qumran dualism. The ethical dualism is usually expressed in terms of preordination and double predestination. Note the predestinarian strain in the following excerpts: “From the God of Knowledge comes all that is and will be, and before (things) were he established their complete design. And when they exist they fulfil their work according to their assignments23 and his glorious plan” (1QS 3.15–16). “And in all of them he raised up for himself those called by name that a remnant might be left for the land . . . . But those whom he hated he caused to err” (CD 2.11–13). “And you cast upon man an eternal lot . . .” (1QH 3.22; 15.13–21). “And you caused us to fall into the lot of light for your truth. And from former times you appointed the Prince of Light to help us . . . . And you made Belial to corrupt . . .”24 (1QM 13.9–11). A few passages suggest the possibility of conversion from sin (“to pardon them that return from sin”: CD 2.5; cf. 1QS 10.20; 1QH 2.9; 6.6; 14.24), others attribute man’s fate not to God’s foreordination but to his foreknowledge: “For God did not choose them from the beginning, and before they were established he knew their works” (CD 2.7–8).25 There is wide agreement that the authors of the Scrolls held a dualism that contained predestinarian features.26 This is the sixth characteristic of Qumran dualism. The most conspicuous feature of Qumran dualism is the ethical. The cosmic struggle centers around the heart of man. Synonyms for the “Sons of Light” and “Sons of Darkness” are, respectively, the “Sons of Righteousness” and “Sons of Perversity.” The pervasive eschatological tone of the Scrolls clarifies the results of the ethical dualism: eternal life for the “Sons of Piety” (1QH 7.20), extinction for the “Sons of Transgression” (1QH 5.7; 6.30; 7.11). Man’s lot is predetermined. In summation, mankind is categorically divided not according to metaphysical but ethical categories.

1b  John’s “dualism” In the following paragraphs, I shall attempt to illustrate why scholars concur that the most systematic dualism in the New Testament is found in John. A cosmic dualism is assumed by the author of John, not in the sense of two opposing celestial spirits, but in the sense of two distinct and present divisions in the universe. The universe is bifurcated into the “world above,” which is the source of all things, especially power (1:3, 10; 19:11), and the “world below,” which hates the “world above” (7:7) and is similar in meaning to kosmos, which is an inferior and vulgar force in rebellion against God. The cosmic dualism is modified since the two worlds are not two equal and eternal concepts. The “world below” is limited in quality and quantity: “And he (Jesus) said to them (the Judean Jews): ‘You are from below, I am from above. You are from this world. I am not from this world. Therefore, I declared to you that you will die in your sins’” (8:23–24; cf. 6:48–51, 58; 4:13–14; 3:3ff., 31; 11:41; 19:11). The first characteristic of John’s “dualism,” therefore, is a modified cosmic dualism between the “world above” and the “world below.” This dualism is the creation of the author of John.

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

Each world exhibits a force. From above the force is the Son; from below it is the kosmos. The main actors in the drama are Jesus and “the Jews” (sometimes Judean leaders). Hence, while there is no metaphysical dualism (i.e., God is not opposed by an evil angel), there is a cosmic struggle between Jesus Christ and the kosmos (= the Judeans). Since Jesus represents27 God (5:36ff.; 12:50) and since the Judeans symbolize the Devil (8:44) we are justified in calling this aspect of John’s “dualism” an extremely modified metaphysical dualism.28 This is the second characteristic of John’s “dualism.” Pervading John’s “dualism” is the light-darkness paradigm; his penchant for “light” and “darkness” distinguishes him from the other evangelists.29 He uses the word “light” more than three times as much as either Matthew or Luke, and twenty-three times more than Mark (φῶς, “light”: Matthew, seven times/ Mark, once / Luke, seven times / John, twenty-three times).30 His application of the word “darkness” is slightly more frequent than the other evangelists, but his use of σκοτία to designate “darkness” is unique; for example, John uses it eight times but Mark not once (Matthew, twice / Mark, zero times/ Luke, once / John, eight times). The “world above” and the “world below” are, respectively, categorized by “light” and “darkness.” All men are in darkness; however, the appearance of light brought judgment: “But this is the judgment; although light came into the world men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (3:19, italics mine). Ironically, judgment resulted from God’s attempt to save man, since the appearance of Christ, “the light of the world” (8:12; 9:5) was for man’s benefit: “I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness” (12:56, italics mine). Humankind, therefore, is bifurcated into two categories: On one side, there is light, which is associated with belief (12:35–36), truth (3:21; 8:31–32), life (1:4; 8:12), and knowledge (1:9–10); on the other side, there is darkness, which is linked primarily with evil (3:19–20) and ignorance (1:5; 12:35). He who does not believe “walks in the darkness” (12:35); he who follows Jesus “will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (8:12, italics mine). John’s cosmological and soteriological dualism, discussed below, is couched in terms of the light-darkness paradigm. Paul and no other Evangelist is so influenced by this erudite dualism and its elevated nomenclature. This is the third characteristic of John’s “dualism.” An important feature of John’s “dualism” is the division of eschatology into the future that has broken into the present and the future that is about to break into the present. Like a cascading waterfall time has rushed on, leaving behind men who cling to a past revelation, the Law (1:17), and sweeping with it those who grasp the present revelation, Jesus (1:17; 18:12). John’s realizing eschatology is the logical result of his Christology, the hour has come (12:23) and the Devil is defeated (12:31; 16:11), because Christ has overcome the world (16:33). In John, therefore, the distinct eschatological dualism between the present time and a future awaited day (the distinction between “this age” and “the age to come”) has become modified.31 Those who belong to the light have eternal life (3:16);32 those who are of the darkness shall be destroyed (3:16, 18). This modified eschatological dualism is the fourth characteristic. According to John, humankind is not initially divided into two mutually exclusive categories. That is, an individual’s response to Jesus’ call for faith categorizes him either as “from God” (8:47; cf. “children of God” in 1:12) or “not from God” (8:47).



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After the invitation to believe, a man is categorized by his response; he is either “one who believes” (3:16; 12:36) or “one who does not believe” (3:18). The fifth characteristic of John’s “dualism,” therefore, is a soteriological dualism. Consistent with his soteriology is John’s insistence upon man’s ability to choose.33 While some passages tend to suggest preordination (1:12ff.; 6:37–45), the main thrust in John is that the invitation to believe is sent to all humans: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but have life eternal” (3:16, italics mine). Christ’s death on the cross was not for an elect group alone, but for all: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself ” (12:32). The human’s ability to choose is the sixth characteristic of John’s “dualism.” The most important characteristic of Johannine “dualism” is the soteriological dimension.34 Pervading the Gospel is the emphasis upon the result of acceptance or rejection of Jesus Christ. John conceived of everything either being for or against Christ, in light or darkness, truth or error, righteousness or sin, life or death. Though cosmic dualism did not originate from his soteriological dualism, it was reminted and colored by it. Everything is transposed into a higher key because of the arrival of the promised σωτήρ, “Savior”; hence John’s essential “dualism” is soteriological.

1c “Dualism” in the Odes Unlike the Scrolls and John, the Odes of Solomon have not been scrutinized for their dualism. A cursory reading of the Odes would probably give the impression that there is relatively little, if any, dualism in them. In the following pages we shall see that the Odes contain a dualism, even if it is subdued. Like the Scrolls and John, the Odes are monotheistic. There is one Creator upon whom all creatures and created things are dependent. In Odes 4:15 we read “And you, O Lord, made all.” In Odes 6:3–5 the Odist wrote the following: For he (the Spirit of the Lord) destroys whatever is alien, And everything is of the Lord. For thus it was from the beginning, And it will be until the end. So that nothing shall be contrary, And nothing shall rise up against him.

As we saw when considering the Scrolls and John, the dualism is decisively modified by the monotheistic belief. In several verses the Creator is called the “Word” (12:10; cf. 7:7–8; 16:8–12, 19). In Odes 7:7, however, the Creator is specified as the “Father of Knowledge.” The Odist, like John, inherited the Old Testament idea that the universe is separated into two worlds.35 Occasionally the Odist mentions the descent of the “Word” (12:5–6) and the Lord: “And his (the Lord’s) will descend from on high” (23:5). Elsewhere, the ascent of the believer is mentioned: “And I was lifted up in the light . . .” (21:6); “I rested on the Spirit of the Lord, /And she lifted me up to heaven . . .” (36:1). Like John, the cosmic

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dualism of two worlds is modified because the “world above” is so vastly superior and not defined by warfare: The likeness of that which is below Is that which is above. For everything is from above. And from below there is nothing; But it is believed to be by those in whom there is no understanding (Odes 34:4–5, italics mine)

The first characteristic of the Odist’s “dualism,” therefore, is a modified cosmic dualism of the two worlds. Reading through the Odes, we confront a belief in two cosmic spirits. One spirit is true (“the Spirit of the Lord, which is not false . . .”: 3:10; “His (the Lord’s) Spirit”: 16:5, cf. 14:8; 7:3; 8:6; 21:2; 25:2). The other spirit is evil (“the Evil One”: 14:5). The dualism, however, does not mirror a cosmic struggle between the two spirits. In the Odes, the good Spirit (or the Lord) saves or has saved the believer from the evil Spirit (14:4–5). Near the end of the collection we find a clearer expression of this dualism. In Odes 33 the two “spirits” do not fight each other but vie for man’s allegiance. Odes 33:3–7 reads as follows: And he (the Corruptor) stood on the peak of a summit and cried aloud From one end of the earth to the other. Then he drew to him all those who obeyed him, For he did not appear as the Evil One. However the perfect Virgin stood, Who was preaching and summoning and saying: O you sons of men, return, And you their daughters, come. And leave the ways of the Corruptor, And approach me. (italics mine)

The dualism contained in this Ode, including the remaining verses, may be expressed in diagram form as follows: “the perfect Virgin” (33:5)

“the Corruptor” (33:1,7) = “the Evil One” (33:4) “the ways of that Corruptor” (33:7)

“the ways of truth” (33:8) “my (the Virgin’s) ways (33:13) Obey me (the Virgin)” (33:10) “all those who obeyed him” (33:4) “be saved and blessed” (33:11) “destruction” (33:8f.) “possess incorruption in the new world” (33:12) “perish” (33:9)

In Odes 38, we find a dualism between Truth and Error, both of whom are personified and later a dualism between two sets of brides and bridegrooms. Truth is not depicted



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as fighting against Error, but as the protector of the Odist from Error, over whom he is definitely superior (“For Error fled from Him . . .” 38:6). Likewise in the second section of this Ode the “Bride who was corrupting” and the “Bridegroom who corrupts and is corrupted” do not confront but imitate “The Beloved and His Bride.” The dualism contained in Odes 38 may be outlined as follows: Truth (38:1) “light of Truth” (38:1) “the upright way” (38:7) “I walked with him (Truth)” (38:5) “immortal life” (38:3) Truth (38:10) “the Beloved and his Bride” (38:11)

(drink “from the Most High” 6:12; cf. Ode 30 complete) Wisdom and knowledge (38:13) The Truth (38:16)

Error (38:6) (“The way of error”; cf. 15:6) (“walking in error”; cf. 18:14) death (38:8) The Corruptor (38:9) “the Bridegroom who corrupts and is corrupted” (38:9) “the Bride who was corrupting” (38:9) = “the Deceiver and the Error” (38: 10) “cause the world to err and corrupt it” (38:11) “the wine of their intoxication (38:12) Nonsense (38:13) No understanding (38:15) The Deceivers (38:16)

In Ode 38 (and echoes elsewhere in the Odes), therefore, we find emphasis placed upon two ways, each of which is headed by a hypostatic figure. In the Odes of Solomon we have discovered a “dualism” of two opposing creatures. Since the two figures do not confront each other as they do in the War Scroll (viz., 1QM 7.6; 12.8; 16.11; 18.1), this aspect of the Odist’s “dualism” can be called a modified metaphysical dualism. This is the second characteristic. As with the Scrolls and John, the Odes express dualistic ideas in terms of the lightdarkness paradigm (cf. 5:4–6; 6:17; 7:14; 12:3; 25:7; 29:7; 31:1; 32:1; 38:1; 41:6, 14). Note the following symbolic uses of “light” and “darkness” (my italics): “And to walk with watchfulness in his light” (8:2) “the Lord . . . possessed me by his light” (11:11) Blessed are they who “have passed from darkness to light” (11:18–19) “He is the light and dawning of thought” (12:7) the Lord: “He is my Sun . . . And his light has dismissed all darkness from my face” (15:2)

The Odist makes full use of this paradigm in Ode 21; note verse 3: “And I put off darkness, and put on light.” See especially his choice of words in 18:6: Let not light be conquered by darkness, Nor let truth flee from falsehood. (italics mine)

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The synonymous parallelism shows that light is associated with truth (cf. 15:5) and darkness with falsehood. The third characteristic of the Odist’s “dualism” is the emphasis put upon the light-darkness paradigm. Like John, the Odist portrays a realizing eschatology. The Odist believed that the Messiah had come (41:3–4, 11–15), taking human form: He became like me that I might receive him. In form he was considered like me that I might put him on. And I trembled not when I saw him, Because he was gracious to me. Like my nature he became That I might understand him. And like my form that I might not turn away from him. (7:4–6)

The struggle between good and evil still continues (8:7; 9:6; 28:6; 29:9) but the decisive battle has been fought so that “the persecutors” are now “blotted out” (23:20; 42:5), because the Messiah has already captured the world: “I took courage and became strong and captured the world, /And it became mine for the glory of the Most High, and of God my Father” (10:4; composed ex ore Christi; cf. 29:10; 31:1–2), “possessed everything” (23:19), even conquering Sheol and death: “Sheol saw me and was shattered, /And death ejected me and many with me” (42:11; also composed ex ore Christi. The remainder of this Ode concerns the descensus ad inferos). As with John, so in the Odes “eternal life” is not merely a future reward but primarily a present actuality for the believer: “And he [the Lord] has caused to dwell in me his immortal life . . .” (10:2, see 15:10). Some verses in the Odes, however, like John 5:28–29, reflect a futuristic eschatology: “And they who have put me [the Perfect Virgin] on shall not be falsely accused, /But they shall possess incorruption in the new world” (33:12). Nevertheless, throughout the Odes the concept of time is not that of the present versus the distant or even imminent future. The Odist assumes the breaking of the future into the present. The similarities with John are striking, hence we may refer to this fourth characteristic of the Odes’ “dualism” as a modified eschatological dualism. Pervasive in sotto voce throughout the Odes is a soteriological dualism. The Syriac word for “to save,” prq, and its derivatives such as “Savior,” prwq’, are employed no less than thirty-four times. This frequency is remarkable, since it is roughly equal to the number of times “to praise” and its derivatives are used (thirty-five times), and the Odes are primarily “thanksgiving hymns.” Although the noun “Savior” is found in only two verses (41:11; 42:18), the Odist continually praises the Lord for his salvation. His petition is for salvation from the Evil One (“let me be saved from the Evil One” [14:5; cf. 18:7]). Often the Odist declares that he is saved: “And I walked with Him and was saved” (17:4; cf. 17:2, 15; 25:2, 4; 28:10; 35:2, 7; 38:2f., 17). It is important to note that the Odist is saved from the Evil One (14:5), the “way of error” (15:6), and that



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it is because the salubrious salvation from the Lord and “the Son” (7:15) possesses everything (7:16). Occasionally “the Lord” signifies “God” (29:6a), but usually it represents the Messiah (29:6b; 24:1). The Lord is the One that rejects all who do not belong to the truth (24:10–12), the One that dispels darkness (15:1–2), and the Salvation-Bringer (“And because the Lord is my salvation, /I will not fear” [5:11; cf. 31:12–13]). The Lord is portrayed in dualistic terms: The way of error I have forsaken, And I went toward him and received salvation from him abundantly. (15:6; cf. 21:2)

Like John, the Odes reflect the idea that the coming of the Savior has split humankind into two groups, but unlike John, the Odes do not describe the division as “those who do not believe” and “those who believe.” Only implicit in John but prominent in the Odes is the description of the two sections of humankind according to the paradigm error-ignorance vis-à-vis truth-knowledge. On the one hand are those who do not belong to the truth (24:10–12), the “vain people” (18:12), while on the other are those who wear “the crown of truth” (1:2; 9:8ff.) and “the wise” (18:13). The division of men is frequently expressed in terms of two ways: “the way of error” (15:6) “walking in error” (18:14)

“the way of truth” (11:3) “walk in the knowledge of the Lord” (23:4)

The bifurcation of humankind is also expressed in terms of an ethical dualism, although it is less prominent than the error versus truth schema. In two of the passages just cited knowledge is associated with “love” (11:2; 23:3; cf. 3:1–7). Odes 17:2–5 implies that the Odist has been freed from the realm of “vanities” and condemnation and into that of “salvation” and “truth.” In Odes 7:20–21, “knowledge” is not only contrasted with “ignorance” but “hatred” and “jealousy” as well. The ethical aspect is clearest in Odes 20:3–6 in which, to be selective, “the world” and “the flesh” are contrasted with “righteousness,” “purity of heart and lips,” and “compassion.” We may describe the fifth aspect of the “dualism” in the Odes as a soteriological dualism expressed frequently in terms of error versus truth and occasionally in terms of an ethical dualism. Since the question of predestination in both the Scrolls and John has proved prominent or implied, it is appropriate to explore this subject in the Odes. As one would expect in a hymnbook, there is no discussion on this question; however, a few passages reflect that the Odist would have opted for the idea that man has a choice. The Odist apparently advocated universalism; he states that the stream (the spread of the good news; see 6:12ff.) “spread over the surface of all the earth, /And it filled everything. //Then all the thirsty upon the earth drank /. . .” (6:10–11, italics mine). In Ode 33, as we saw previously, “the Corruptor” and “the perfect Virgin” are not playing chess with men as pawns; they are vying for man’s allegiance. Note that “the perfect Virgin” is not described as teasing men, but as “preaching, summoning and saying: /. . . return, /. . . come” (33:5f.). The Odist’s use of the term “the elect ones,” therefore,

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does not mean humans foreordained to election, but those who accept the invitation (see also 8:13–18; 23:2–3).36 In 33:13, “my elect ones” is paralleled by “them who seek me.” The sixth characteristic of the Odes’ “dualism” is that men can choose and have free will. Of these six aspects of the “dualism” in the Odes, the fifth (soteriological dualism) is clearly the most important to the Odist. He composed these Odes to praise God for his recent action in history. Everything tended to be viewed from a soteriological perspective because he was joined to his Savior: I have been united because the lover has found the Beloved, Because I love him that is the Son, I shall become a son. (3:7)

Not only in the entire third Ode but throughout the Odes we find evidence that the Odist is united with his Lord. Frequently it is difficult to discern whether the Odist or “Christ” is the speaker. No forms in the original manuscripts help the editor and translator discern that the Odist stops speaking himself and allows Christ to speak (ex ore Christi). The oneness between the Odist and Christ is palpable. In conclusion, it is necessary to perceive that—unlike the author of 1QS 3.13ff.—the Odist did not promulgate a theory concerning dualism. Unlike John, the Odist did not write a Gospel or develop a theological position. He was a poet who wrote hymns. From this perspective, and from the insight that the authors of the Hodayot softened Qumran’s own developed dualism, a new light is thrown upon the observation that the Odes contain a dualism. The above data are sufficient to show that the Odist held a rather sophisticated dualism. He did not create the dualism; he inherited it from his predecessors or contemporaries. With this thought we enter the second section of the chapter in which the comparisons between the dualisms discussed above will be examined.

2  Comparisons Critics who demand an exact quotation as the only proof that one document is dependent upon another are blind to the manifold influences from other texts, evident in echoes, allusions, and sometimes grounded in intertextuality. To observe influences one needs a mind that is keen and recognizes subtle categories. Early “Christians” who borrowed from the Dead Sea Scrolls were dependent upon them regardless of whether they altered these traditions little or greatly. A priori we should assume that early “Christians” would have reminted an inherited Jewish tradition in line with their shift in eschatology and messianism. For them but not for the Qumranites and Essenes, the end of time has come, the long-awaited Messiah is Jesus of Nazareth. Hence, as a prism refracts light that is parallel into oblique lines, so the belief in the new dispensation would have altered old traditions. During the present comparisons, the problem of deciphering whether there is dependency on the Qumran Scrolls will be inexact precisely because both John and the Odes are characterized by the extent to which they rework their sources.37



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2a  The “dualisms” of the Odes and John Both the Odes of Solomon and John inherit a modified cosmic dualism of two worlds. This similarity, at first glance, is unimpressive because most “Christian” texts written around 100 CE inherited from the Old Testament a dualistic cosmology. On closer examination, however, the similarity with which the Odes and John express this aspect of their “dualisms” raises the possibility that there is some dependence between them. It is significant that the Odes hold the Johannine belief that the universe was created by “the Word.” This striking similarity is evident below (italics mine): John

Odes of Solomon

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God; all things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.38 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (1:1–5 RSV)

For the Word of the Lord searches out anything that is invisible, And reveals his thought. For the eye sees his works, And the ear hears his thought. It is he who made the earth broad, And placed the waters in the sea. He expanded the heaven, And fixed the stars. And he fixed the creation and set it up, Then he rested from his works. (Odes 16:8–12) And they39 were stimulated by the Word, And knew him who had made them, Because they were in harmony. (Odes 12:10)

It is clear that in both the Odes and John, the Creator is called the “Word” (see also Odes 7:7). This striking similarity between the Odes and John is increased by the observation that neither in the Old Testament40 nor in early Jewish literature41 is there a similar emphasis upon the personification of the “Word.” Unlike the other early Christian literature, the Odes and John stand out by their thoroughgoing depiction of the Messiah (Odes 9:3; 41:14; Jn 4:25–26) as the “Word.” Moreover, both of them conceive of the “Word” as preexistent (Odes 32:2; 41:14; Jn 1:1–2), the Creator (Odes 7:7; 12:10; 16:8–14; Jn 1:3), incarnate (Odes 7:1–6; 39:9; 41:11–12; Jn 1:14), equated with light (Odes 10:1; 12:3; 16:14; 32:2; 41:14; Jn 1:4; 8:12), and the essence of love (Odes 12:12; Jn 13:34), truth (Odes 8:8; 12:3, 12; 32:2; Jn 14:6), and life (Odes 41:11; Jn 14:6), especially immortal life (Odes 10:1; 15:9; Jn 3:16, et passim). As experts on the Odes and John have demonstrated, these similarities are too numerous, pervasive, and substantial to be mere coincidence. Many passages, some of which are cited below, are

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

so close as to support the probability that there is some level of dependence between the Odes and John. Numerous scholars, such as R. Schnackenburg, have argued that the Odes are dependent upon John. This conclusion is unlikely, first because the evidence is equivocal: in one passage the Odes seem dependent on John, in others the reverse seems to be the case. It is improbable secondly and chiefly because of the following consideration. The Syriac texts of John use only mellethā’ to represent the divine “Word.” This is true not only of the Peshiṭta and the Curetonian recensions (the first twenty-four verses of John are missing in the Sinaitic Palimpsest), but also of the Syriac commentaries on John.42 In the Odes, however, pethghāmā’ (ten times) as well as mellethā’ (eleven times) both signify the divine “Word.” This observation has not received the attention it deserves; it markedly reduces the possibility that the Odes are dependent on John. If the Odes borrow from John’s use of the “Word” then it is practically impossible to explain why in Ode 12, the only Ode in which both mellethā’ and pethghāmā’ are found: mellethā’ means “speech” but in four separate verses (3, 5, 10, 12) pethghāmā’ denotes the divine Logos, to use the familiar Greek term. The conclusion to this first comparison is that while both the Odes and John have borrowed some of their modified cosmic dualism from the Old Testament, other parts of it are so unique in the history of ideas and so similar to each other as to raise the question of some level of dependence. It is improbable that the Odist systematically borrowed from John. The most probable solution, at this stage in our research, is that both the author of John and the Odist contemporaneously shared not only the same milieu but perhaps also the same community or circle. In the previous discussion we called the second aspect of John’s and the Odes’ “dualism,” respectively, “an extremely modified metaphysical dualism” and a “modified metaphysical dualism.” To reiterate, the struggle in John is between Jesus, who represents God, and the Judeans, who are frequently equated with the kosmos or Satan. In the Odes this aspect of the “dualism” is more pronounced and may be outlined as follows: The Spirit of the Lord The perfect Virgin Truth The Beloved and His Bride

The Evil One The Corruptor Error The Bride who was corrupting The Deceiver

Since the Odist himself equates the Corruptor with the Evil One (33:4) and the evil Bride and Bridegroom with the Deceiver and the Error (38:10), it appears that he assumed the existence of one pair of evil creatures. Likewise, he thought that the good forces were also a pair: the Spirit of the Lord (the Beloved) and the perfect Virgin (his Bride). Here the difference between the “dualisms” in the Odes and John are most extreme. First, in the Odes the imagery is more developed. As with the Scrolls, numerous names are given to the hypostatic creatures, and Truth and Error are clearly personified and juxtaposed. Second, in the Odes the evil creatures never confront the good ones, with the possible exception of Ode 33:1. In contrast to the Rule, the contrasting creatures



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meet only obliquely as they vie for man’s allegiance. In contrast, John portrays the Judeans in confrontation with Jesus. Third, the names given to the opposing figures are strikingly different. The Odist’s imagery of the Bride and Bridegroom is closer to letters attributed to Paul (2Cor 11:2; Eph 5:25–f.) than to John. Fourth, in the Odes the metaphysical dualism is less modified; hence, it is sometimes closer to that of the Scrolls. Some of the above differences could be the result of the poetic aspect of the Odes. The genre contrasts to the “Gospel” character of John. Others can be due to the frequently anti-Gentile characteristic in the Odes,43 which is distinct from the occasional anti-Judean bias in John (esp. 8:12–9:41). However, we must allow that a considerable amount of independence must be accounted for when comparing the Odes and John. Each is defined by a unique creativity. In summary, the Odes are clearly closer than John to the Scrolls’ concept of two warring cosmic spirits. The following observations raise the probability that some of the differences mentioned above between the Odes and John are caused by more direct Essene influences on the Odist. One of the most impressive similarities between the “dualisms” in the Odes and John is that both have woven into the heart of their thought the light-darkness paradigm. Since neither of them develops the schema but presents it at a sophisticated level, it is clear that each has inherited the paradigm from an earlier tradition. Of all the previous dualisms from which the Odes and John could have been influenced, it is only that developed in the Quman Scrolls that comes closest as the source. Only in the Scrolls, the Odes, and John is light associated with truth, knowledge, and everlasting (eternal) life, while antithetically darkness is linked with falsehood, ignorance, and extinction. Both the Odes and John probably inherited this paradigm from the Essenes. Some elaborations of this paradigm, however, come from the fact that both the Odes and John are shaped by the kerygmata of the Palestinian Jesus Movement (the proclamations of Jesus’ first Jewish followers); hence, the schema is soteriological. But the conception that the Messiah (Christ) is “Light” suggests either some level of dependence between the Odes and John or that they both come from the same community. Compare Odes 41:14 (“And light dawned from the Word that was before time in him”) with the prologue to John, and Odes 10:1 (“The Lord directed my mouth by his Word, and opened my heart by his light”), or Odes 15:2 (“Because he [the Lord] is my Sun . . . ; And his light has dismissed all darkness from my face”)44 with John 8:12 (“I am the light of the world). In conclusion, therefore, the data suggest that both the Odes and John have been deeply influenced by the light-darkness paradigm; most likely, the origin of this preoccupation is the Rule of the Community. In employing the paradigm for the new dispensation, they were related dependently in some way, or independently were influenced by a shared community. It is not impressive that both the Odes and John present a modified eschatological dualism since both, as “Christian” documents, affirm that the Messiah has come and that the future has irrupted into the present.45 It is significant that both depict the coming of the Messiah in such similar terms. Odes 12:12 (“For the dwelling place of the Word is man, and His truth is love”) is parallel to Jn 1:14 (“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”).46

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

Two observations raise the probability that there is some relationship between the two documents. First, both clearly accentuate the reward of eternal life as the will of the Lord for all (Odes 9:4; 10:2; 11:16–17, et passim; Jn 3:15–16; 3:36; 4:14, et passim). Second, both describe “eternal life” not as a distant dream but as an experienced reality for those who belong to the light (Odes 3:9; 11:12; 15:8–10; Jn 3:36; 4:14, et passim). The first point certainly does not suggest dependence upon the Scrolls, because of their exclusiveness and lack of any missionary document (viz., 1QS 1.9–10). The second, however, might reflect the Essenes’ contention that the “Sons of Light” will receive “perpetual life”; that is, “eternal life” (1QS 4.7). Finally, most likely from Essenes living nearby or in their community, the Odist and Evangelist believed their community was an antechamber of heaven. There each could experience the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth, and, for John, the Paraklete. We saw that the most important feature of the “dualism” in the Odes and John is the fifth aspect, soteriological dualism. It would be difficult to show dependence between them here precisely because they share this characteristic with other literature emanating from the Palestinian Jesus Movement. A few observations, however, help clarify the possibility of some dependence between the Odes and John or John and the Odes. In contrast to Qumran’s dualism, neither the Odes nor John portrays the bifurcation of humankind as a primordial fact but as the result of each man’s response to the Savior’s call to repent. We mentioned above that both the Odes and John referred to the Creator as the “Word”; likewise, both conceive of the Savior as the “Word.” It is clear that the author of John held this identification although he never says so explicitly, and the parallelism in Odes 41:11 shows that the Odist made the equation: And his Word is with us in all our way, The Saviour who gives life and does not reject us.

Two observations suggest that there is some level of dependence between the Odes and John in terms of the development of the soteriological dualism. First, both put an extraordinary amount of emphasis upon the salvific aspects of “to know”: yd‘ as a verb is employed forty-four times in the Odes, and γινώσκειν occurs fifty-six times in John. In both, “to know” is frequently synonymous with “to follow” or “to belong” to the Savior, Jesus Christ. In Odes 42:3, “those who knew me [not]” is paralleled by “those who possessed me not,” an idea which is similar to the dualistic dialogue in Jn 8:32–58 (cf. 14:20; 17:25). Correlatively, in the Odes and John “Truth” is personified as the Savior: In the Odes, we are told “The Truth led me” (Odes 38:1). In John, we find Jesus’ declaration: “I am . . . the Truth” (Jn 14:6). Quite stunningly, both authors also portrayed “Truth” as the spiritual abode of the believer: The Odist declares: “And (Truth) became for me a haven of salvation” (Odes 38:3). The Evangelist explains; “Everyone who is of (ἐκ) the truth hears my voice” (Jn 18:37; cf. 8:44).47 Second, quite remarkably, both affirm that the distinguishing mark of one who belongs to the Savior is “love.” In Ode 3:3 we read: “For I should not have known how to love the Lord, if He had not continuously loved me.” As anyone who knows the New Testament will grasp immediately, this declaration is strikingly similar to 1 John: “We love him, because he first loved us” (1Jn 4:19). Along with many Johannine scholars,



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I have concluded that the author of 1 John is the author of the Gospel of John. Permeating the Odes is the emphasis put upon love (‘ḥb, twenty-five times; rḥm, twenty-four times). The possibility of dependence, in some direction, is increased by the observation that only John records Jesus’ commandment “to love”: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you” (Jn 13:34; 15:12). As we attempt to discover the level and direction of influences between the Odes and John we should make the following observation. In both compositions the Lord (= the Savior) lifts up His voice (Odes 31:4; in Jn 17:1 Jesus “lifted up his eyes . . . and said”) toward the Most High (Odes 31:4; John 17 passim, especially vv. 9–10), along with those whom his “Holy Father” (Odes 31:5; “Holy Father” in John 17:11) “had given to him” (Odes 31:5; Jn 17:2, 6, 9 et passim), that is, those who now possess “eternal life” (Odes 31:7; Jn 17:2–3). The similarities between Odes 31:4–5 and John 17 are sufficient themselves to raise the question of some dependence. The initial reaction would be to assume that the Odist was influenced by John 17. This hypothesis, however, fails to convince on closer examination; there are too many expressions in these two verses of Ode 31 that are neither attributable to John 17 nor to the peculiar vocabulary of the Odist. Is it improbable that the connection could be traced to the same community from which the Odes and John might have come? I would side with the specialists who confirm this suspicion. The sixth characteristic of the “dualisms” in the Odes and John is that humans have the ability to choose their own way. Here both are farthest from Qumran and its exclusivism and double predestination. Any relationship between the Odes and John at this point would be due not to dependence of one upon the other but to the universalism of burgeoning “Christianity” with its missionary zeal that was directed to all, Jews and non-Jews. In concluding this initial comparison between the “dualism” in the Odes and John we may say that there are numerous and striking similarities. There is clearly some relationship between these two early “Christian” documents. The problems arise when one tries to analyze in which direction the dependence should be traced: Are the Odes dependent on John? Is John developing ideas found in the Odes? Are the similarities the result of a shared community? The last possibility looms large not only in the light of the data amassed above, especially the observation that only the Odes employ pethghāmā’ as a terminus technicus for the “Word,” but also because it now seems highly probable that John is not the effort of a genius working alone but of a school of scholars who edited and expanded a Gospel over four decades.48 There is certainly much yet to be done before we can make sweeping generalizations about the relationship between the Odes and John. Certainly we must become more aware of our presuppositions and perceptions; because John is more familiar to us, because we read it first, and because it is in the canon are not sufficient reasons to proceed as if it must be the source for the Odes.

2b “Dualism” in the Odes and dualism at Qumran Both the “dualism” in the Odes and the dualism in the Scrolls are modified by an overriding monotheism. This idea and the belief that the universe is bifurcated into

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heaven and earth display the Odist’s and Essenes’ Old Testament heritage. A possible relationship between them might be the shared conception of the community as an antechamber of heaven, the dwelling of “the holy ones.” In Odes 22:12 we read the following: And the foundation of everything is your rock. And upon it you built your kingdom, And it became the dwelling-place of the holy ones. (my italics)

This imagery is similar to that of the Scrolls composed at Qumran in which the “heavenly” community” is “the dwelling of perfect holiness” (1QS 8.8, cf. 1QM 12.2; 1QH 12.2; 1QSb 4.25). Moreover, the Community is perceived to be “founded upon rock” (1QH 6.25).49 Now we see how the Odist has inherited and developed ideas and symbols found in the Qumran Scrolls. Both specify the Creator as ‘bwh dyd‘t’, “the Father of Knowledge” (Odes 7:7) or ’l hd‘wt, “the God of Knowledge” (1QS 3.15; 1QH 1.26; 12.10; fragment 4.15). In the history of ideas, these concepts are peculiar. They are not found in the Old Testament; the closest parallels are 1Sam 2:3: ‫אל דעות‬, “God of Knowledge” and Isa 11:2: ‫רוח דעת‬, “the spirit of knowledge”). They are not present either in the New Testament, the Old Testament Apocrypha (contrast the closest parallel in Wis 9:2), and the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (contrast 1En 63:2). The absence of parallels outside of the Odes and the Scrolls raises the probability that the Odist inherited the concept and expression from the Scrolls composed at Qumran; there the terms are found only in the documents for defining self-understanding: the Rule of the Community, the rules for admission, promotion, expulsion, and conduct, and the Hodayot, the Qumran Hymnbook. The two warring cosmic Spirits, which play such a prominent role in Qumran’s dualism, may be disguised in the Odes’ “dualism,” even though the terminology is quite different. Also the cosmic figures in the Odes are not described as warring with each other as they are, for example, in the War Scroll and the Rule. The Odist may have borrowed the broad outlines of the Qumran dualistic imagery, but in so doing he completely reminted the idea so that it is “the perfect Virgin” who vies with “the Corruptor.” Behind this “Christian” garb may lie a disguised Qumran dualism of two warring Spirits, a possibility that should be taken seriously since both in the Odes (esp. 33:3–7) and in the Scrolls (viz., 1QS 3.18; 4.23) the powers struggle for humans and their allegiance. Moreover, the similarity is strikingly expressed in two, almost identical, ways: The Odist’s “the Spirit of the Lord, which is not false” (3:10) may be a reminted “Spirit of Truth” (1QS 3.19, et passim); “the Corruptor” (Odes 33 and 38) corresponds to the Essenes’ “angels of destruction (corruption)” (1QS 4.12; 1QM 13.12; CD 2.6). It is logical to assume that here the Odist knew and was influenced by the Essenes who could be found throughout ancient Palestine and elsewhere. The most striking similarity between the Odes’ “dualism” and the Scrolls’ dualism is the pervasiveness of the light-darkness paradigm in each. In both, “light” which represents “truth” is contrasted with “darkness” which signifies “falsehood.” Compare for example Odes 18:6,



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Let not light be conquered by darkness, Nor let truth flee from falsehood.

with the Rule in 1QS 3.19, In a dwelling of light is the origin of Truth, And in a fountain of darkness is the origin of Perversity.

We mentioned in this chapter and in the previous ones that the development of the light-darkness paradigm is unique to Essene or Essene-influenced documents; it is found neither in the Old Testament nor in other early Jewish literature. We are left with two logical possibilities: Either the Essenes and the Odist developed this paradigm independently, or the Odist has been influenced by Essene promulgations. The first possibility is unlikely, because while the Essenes created the paradigm the Odist inherited the paradigm. The second possibility looms probable and should be viewed in light of other striking similarities.50 Moreover, it is significant that the Odes and the Qumran Scrolls are distinguished from documents with which they were contemporary by the inordinate degree to which they accentuate the importance of the sun (compare Odes 15:2 with 1QH 12.3–9; 11QPsa 26.4; Daily Prayers [4Q503]). The fourth characteristic of the dualistic thought found in the Odes and Qumran Scrolls is respectively the eschatological or Endtime dimension. It would be easy to report only how different are the two “eschatologies.” While the Odist repeatedly praises the marvelous advent of the Messiah, the Essenes yearn for the future coming of two Messiahs; while the Odist proclaims that the decisive battle has been fought and that the Messiah has captured the World, the Essenes look to a future decisive battle. Behind these differences, however, there may be some impressive similarities, and we must not overlook the logic that an early Christian who borrows an idea or symbol from the Essenes is dependent upon them regardless of whether he remits or alters it in line with the eschatological ramifications of the new dispensation and kerygmata. Moreover, in both the Odes and Qumran Scrolls there is a realizing “eschatology”; in both communities the Holy Spirit is proclaimed to be present. Under this fourth characteristic there is the striking similarity of future rewards and punishments. Both stress that those who belong to the light shall receive a “crown” (Odes 1:1–3; 9:8–9; 1QS 4.7–8; 1QH 9.25) and possess “eternal life” (viz., Odes 10:2; 15:10; 1QS 4.7–8), but that those who belong to the darkness shall receive not eternal punishment (cf. Dan 12:2; 1En 10:4–13; 67:4–23) but extinction (e.g., Odes 33:8–9; 1QS 4.14). It is difficult to see these similarities as mere coincidences. While it is conceivable that the Odist received many of these ideas and concepts from the complex Jewish background, some Essene influence on the Odist should be admitted. The fifth and most important characteristic of the “dualism” in the Odes is that it is soteriological, while that in the Qumran Scrolls is ethical. Earlier we noted that, unlike John, the Odes emphasized the bifurcation of humanity according to the paradigm truth-knowledge vis-à-vis error-ignorance. Note, for example, that the Odist and Essenes talk about the way or ways of truth (Odes 11:3; 33:8; 1QS 4.17) and the way of error or unrighteousness (Odes 15:6; 1QH 14.26).51 Occasionally the Odist describes

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the soteriological dualism in terms of an ethical dualism (compare Odes 20:3–6 with the long ethical lists found in 1QS 4.2–11). Here the Odes are closer than John to Qumran dualism. There are tremendous differences between the Odes’ and Qumran’s sixth characteristic feature. It is a difference that results from the universalism and missionary zeal in the Palestinian Jesus Movement. The kerygmata was antithetical to Qumran’s exclusiveness and double predestination (1QS 1.9ff.). The similarities mentioned above are striking and pervasive. Certain of these may be mere coincidences (e.g., the Odist’s description of the soteriological dualism); others might be the result of the Jewish background of the Odes to which Qumran thought belongs (e.g., monotheism, angelology, messianic beliefs, and the concept of future rewards or punishments). Other similarities, however, are caused by ideas and images peculiar to the Qumran Scrolls (e.g., the concepts of the Community as an antechamber of heaven, terminology such as the description of the Creator as the “Father of knowledge,” the development of the idea that there are two opposed cosmic figures, and—most importantly— the dominance of the light-darkness paradigm). The logical conclusion, therefore, is that the Odes are probably influenced by the Qumran Scrolls; indeed, in some passages the Odes may be directly dependent upon them.

2c  John and Qumran The research evident in Chapters 7 through 10 permits us to make this section of the discussion brief. John and the Qumran Scrolls contain a modified dualism; in John it is at first inconspicuous and certainly inherited but in the Qumran Scrolls it is obvious and created. John borrows his dualism, but the author(s) of columns three and four in the Rule promulgates a dualism, employing ideas borrowed from elsewhere (viz., Zurvanism). On the one hand, John inherits the concept of two worlds from the Old Testament, but animates the worlds and casts them as two opposing forces. On the other hand, the Essenes assume the existence of two worlds (viz., 1QH 16.3) and explain the power and presence of two warring cosmic spirits (1QS 3–4). John probably borrowed the light-darkness paradigm from the Essenes; they had developed it.52 John’s modified eschatological dualism, soteriological dualism, and concept of the freedom of the will are clearly distinct from the corresponding concepts in the Qumran Scrolls. These differences, however, are demanded by the affirmation that the long-awaited Messiah has come, and wills to save all men from destruction (viz., Jn 1:14; 3:16; 12:32). The similarities show that John probably has been influenced by Essene thought; this is especially evident by the terminology he employed to present his “dualism.”

2d  Odes, John, and Qumran In the following pages we shall attempt to organize the main observations regarding the relationships among the dualisms found in the Odes, John, and the Qumran Scrolls. The conclusions to the above analyses are conveniently arranged in the following chart (an asterisk marks the most conspicuous emphasis; italics signify the closest parallels):

Odes

Qumran, John, and the Odes of Solomon John

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Qumran

1. modified cosmic 1. modified cosmic 1. modified cosmic dualism of two worlds dualism of two worlds dualism 2. modified metaphysical 2. an extremely modified 2. two warring cosmic dualism metaphysical dualism Spirits 3. light-darkness paradigm 3. light-darkness paradigm 3. light-darkness paradigm 4. modified eschatological 4. modified eschatological 4. Endtime dualism dualism dualism *5. soteriological dualism *5. soteriological dualism *5. ethical dualism (plus ethical dualism) 6. choice 6. choice 6. double predestination First, the Odes, John, and Qumran have inherited their basic cosmology from the Old Testament: there are two worlds, the one above, heaven, and the one below, earth. These two worlds are inherited and implicit in the Qumran Scrolls, explicit in the Odes, and emphasized with new dualistic connotations in John. We have seen that the similarities between the Odes and John on this first point are so impressive, especially in the shared terminology (viz., “Word”), as to warrant the probability that they come from an identical milieu, perhaps even the same community. While John, however, shows little dependence on the cosmology in the Qumran Scrolls, the Odes are apparently influenced by their thoughts and expressions. The conception of the community as an antechamber of heaven and the description of the Creator as the “Father of knowledge” suggest that the Odist has borrowed from the Qumran Scrolls. From the first comparison we see that the Odist may have belonged to the same community as John, but apparently was more influenced by the Essenes than he. These possibilities could be accounted for by the assumption that Essenes lived in the community, by the hypothesis that the Odist has been an Essene before his conversion to Christianity, or both, since the two are not mutually exclusive. Second, we have seen that the Odes, John, and the Scrolls portray a cosmic struggle headed by two hypostatic figures, a concept only in the background of John’s thought; that is, the Evangelist is focused on the Son of Man, the Messiah, who represents God, who battles against the cosmos (the Judeans who are representatives of the Devil). In contrast, a cosmic battle between two forces, differently named, is in the foreground of the Odist’s and Essenes’ metaphysics. We should not be mesmerized by differences; the Odes and Qumran Scrolls share images and expressions that are sufficiently similar as to warrant the hypothesis that the Odist has been influenced by the Essenes. Such a conclusion is not new; it has been advocated by Jean Carmignac and Robert Murray.53 Third, and most significantly, the Odes, John, and the Qumran Scrolls are distinguished by the inordinate degree to which they employ the light-darkness paradigm. No other documents dating from Early Judaism (300 BCE to 200 CE) portray a dualism that is so permeated by termini technici focused on and dependent on the contrast of light and truth with darkness and falsehood. There can be little question that, as “Christian” writings essentially indebted to, and part of, Early Judaism, the Odes

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and John probably inherited the paradigm from the dualistic ideas of pre-Christian Judaism. The most probable source for this paradigm was the Essenes, who—as far as we can detect—promulgated and developed the light-darkness paradigm. It is highly improbable that the Odes have borrowed the schema from John or vice versa; it seems that both independently inherited the imagery from the Essenes. Fourth, the preceding chart shows, on the one hand, that the eschatology in the Odes and John is similar, and on the other, that their eschatology is clearly distinct from that of the Essenes. Here particularly, however, we must allow for the prism effect that would deflect parallel lines of thought caused by the proclamation that the Messiah has come and he is Jesus, the son of Joseph (Οὐχ οὗτός ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς ὁ υἱὸς Ἰωσήφ, οὗ ἡμεῖς οἴδαμεν τὸν πατέρα καὶ τὴν μητέρα; Jn 6:42). Also, the similarities between the Odes and John should not be dismissed as merely one of the characteristics of the Palestinian Jesus Movement. The Odes and John are distinct in their Christology: The coming of the Messiah is described as the incarnation of the “Word,” and victory is assured since the Messiah has already overcome the world (compare Odes 10:4 with Jn 16:33). Both the Odist54 and the Fourth Evangelist are distinguished by their shared emphasis upon the reward of eternal life for those of the light and the punishment with extinction for those of the darkness. Certainly, these striking similarities should be seen in conjunction with the observation that the Essenes taught the salvific and eschatological symbology of “living water” and the same rewards and punishments. Moreover, the Essenes, the Sons of Light, already had eternal life since their Community was an antechamber of heaven in which angels were present.55 Likewise, the Odes, John, and the Qumran Scrolls accentuate that one who belongs to the light possesses now “living water,” a symbolism which frequently connotes the possession of eternal life. In pre-Christian literature the expression “living water” is not peculiar to the Qumran Scrolls, but it is clearly emphasized only in them. Moreover, only in these Scrolls that antedate 70 CE is “living water” both eschatological and salvific.56 Consequently, the presence of this concept in the Odes and John certainly strengthens the probability that they are influenced by the thoughts and technical terms developed in the Qumran Scrolls.57 Fifth, the most conspicuous emphasis in the Odes and John is a soteriological dualism; but that in the Qumran Scrolls is an ethical dualism. In the Odes and John, the bifurcation of humankind is caused by the appearance of the Savior; in the Qumran Scrolls, the division dates from the time the two spirits were created. There seems to be some dependence between the Odes and John because both conceive of the Savior as the “Word,” accentuate the soteriological aspects of the verbs “to know” and “to love,” and either explicitly (Odes of Solomon) or implicitly (John) depict the division in terms of the schema of error-ignorance versus truth-knowledge. Here again we see that the Odes are a little closer to the Qumran Scrolls than John because they occasionally present the soteriological dualism in terms of an ethical dualism. Another aspect of focused research needs reporting at this time. All three—the Qumran Scrolls, the Odes, and John—denigrate the importance of sacrificing in the Jerusalem Temple (Odes 6; 12:4; 20:1–4; Jn 4:21–24; 1QS 9.3–5),58 and accentuate the importance of bearing fruit, which in the Odes and Qumran Scrolls is frequently synonymous with “praise” (Odes 8:1–f.; 11:1; 14:7–8; 16:2; John 15; 1QS 10.6–8).59 As so



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many experts have concluded, these similarities are by no means mere coincidences. When they are taken with the numerous other parallels mentioned throughout this book, it seems likely that the Odes and John are influenced by the Qumran Scrolls. Sixth, the tremendous difference between the Odes’ and John’s belief that the human can choose and the Essenes’ idea that man is predestined should be viewed in light of the missionary aspects of burgeoning “Christianity,” which has clearly left its mark on these two documents (Odes 6, 10;60 Jn 20:31). No dependence can be traced here in either direction between the Odes and John.

3  Conclusion 3a  Retrospect The numerous and pervasive parallels between the Odes and John cannot be explained by literary dependence of the Odist upon John or vice versa. The most likely explanation for the similarities analyzed above is that the Odist and John shared the same milieu, and it is not improbable that they lived in the same community. This conclusion is the one reached by most specialists (see Chapter 12). It is most likely that the Odes and John share not only the same “circle” but also the same “School,” especially if it is relatively certain that the editing evident in John—as well as related compositions, such as 1–3 John and the Apocalypse—disclose “a Johannine School.”

Figure 13.2  Titus: His Roman Troops Burned Jerusalem in 70 CE [courtesy of the Hermitage. JHC].

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No one should doubt that the Odes and John share numerous parallels with the Qumran Scrolls. These similarities are seldom in terms of fundamental, messianic, and eschatological concepts; but they reveal many shared images and especially the same light-darkness terminology.61 Both the Odist and John could have been influenced independently by the Essenes or Essene literature, or could have received these influences at approximately the same time from Essenes living within or contiguous with their community. In the case of the Odist, we should take seriously the possibility that he is an Essene who joined the Palestinian Jesus Movement (perhaps in Jerusalem after Qumran was burned in 68 CE).62 Subsequent research will reveal how possible or probable these conclusions are.

3b  Prospect The discussion shows that we are no longer justified in speaking about the Odes and John as if they were late and gnostic.63 Moreover, if both the Odes and John share the same milieu, as is extremely probable, and if the Odes were originally composed in Syriac, as recent research indicates,64 then it could be well for us to look to Palestine and Syria for the provenience of the Odes and of at least one recension of John.65 Antioch, of course, should be considered as a prime candidate for “the home” of the Odist, and in this connection we must recall the numerous parallels that unite the Odes and John with the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, and the illustration of how these letters frequently resemble the imagery of the Qumran Scrolls.66 These observations raise questions that extend far beyond the scope of this chapter. Before we can adequately answer such questions and learn how and where John and the Odes received their Essene influence, we need to know how geographically widespread the Essenes were, and when the Essenes ceased to be a strong influence upon the Palestinian Jesus Movement. Why have so many New Testament experts, unlike historians, been reluctant to perceive that many Essenes may have joined Jesus’ Movement while readily assuming that some Pharisees became followers of “the Way”? The new perspectives obtained above show how far biblical research has advanced since the discovery of the Qumran Scrolls in 1947. Thanks to research on the Essenes and the Jewish apocryphal books, we are dealing with issues unimagined by our grandfathers. These exciting new insights into the “Origins of Christianity” appear not primarily because of modern methods, but because of the recovery of such compositions as the long-lost Odes of Solomon, and manuscripts, like the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Pseudepigrapha that were actually copied or composed during the lifetime of Jesus from Nazareth.

Notes 1 The following chapter was published in John and Qumran, edited by Charlesworth (London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1972), pp. 107–36; but images are added and references to the Dead Sea Scrolls updated. This chapter has been only partially updated so it can serve as a benchmark in research. I have removed the numerous usages of the word



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“recent” but, unlike others chapters, did not refer to publications that appeared after this chapter was written in the early 1970s—almost all relevant publications are cited in the previous chapters. See J. Carmignac, “Les affinités qumrâniennes de la onzième Ode de Salomon,” RevQ 3 (1961): 71–102. J. Carmignac, “Un qumrânien converti au christianisme: l’auteur des Odes de Salomon,” in Qumran-Probleme, ed. H. Bardtke (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1963), pp. 75–108. F. M. Braun, “L’énigme des Odes de Salomon,” RTh 57 (1957): 597–625. J. H. Charlesworth, “Les Odes de Salomon et les manuscrits de la Mer Morte,” RB 77 (1970): 522–49. 2 This conclusion is held by most scholars. See for example M. Black, The Essene Problem (London: Dr. William’s Trust, 1961). The two major dissenting voices are G. R. Driver and S. Zeitlin. Rejecting the usual inferences from the archaeological (see especially p. 398) and palaeographical (see especially p. 416) data, G. R. Driver (The Judaean Scrolls [Oxford: Blackwell, 1965], pp. 75, 106–21, 237–51) claims that the authors of the Scrolls should be identified with the Zealots. Further, he dates the major scrolls between 46 and 132 CE (p. 373). His hypotheses are highly improbable. See R. de Vaux, “Esséniens ou Zélotes? A propos d’un livre récent,” RB 73 (1966): 212–35. For an English version of part of this article and one by M. Black on Driver’s book, see NTS 13 (1966–67): 81–104. S. Zeitlin’s (The Dead Sea Scrolls and Modern Scholarship [Philadelphia: Dropsie College for Hebrew and Cognate Learning, 1956]) position is extreme and untenable. He claims that the Scrolls were written by a fringe group of the Karaites in the Middle Ages. His articles are found in The Jewish Quarterly Review; see especially his “The Dead Sea Scrolls: Journalists and Dilettanti,” JQR 60 (July 1969): 75–79. Also, see his “The Slavonic Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Exposé of Recent Fairy Tales,” JQR 58 (1968): 173–203. It is significant that an authority on Karaism, N. Wider (The Judean Scrolls and Karaism [London: East and West Library, 1962], p. 253), argues that on purely theological grounds alone (dualistic worldview, predestination) it is extremely unlikely that the Qumran documents emanate from Karaite circles. Under the influence of Driver’s hypothesis, Black (The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Doctrine [London: Athlone, 1966], p. 4) has qualified his position that the sect should be identified with the Essenes. He now holds that “the Essene group who held the fort at Qumran at the outbreak of the First Revolt” had “thrown in their lot with Zealot and Pharisaic groups.” The men who had composed the Scrolls would still have been Essenes; hence, I prefer to agree with F. M. Cross, Jr. (“The Early History of the Qumran Community,” McCormick Quarterly 21 [1968]: 254), who has reaffirmed his earlier opinion that the men of Qumran were Essenes. Some of these Essenes probably took the War Scroll fundamentally and fought against the overwhelming might of Rome. 3 This position is held by most scholars. See especially the following: M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967) especially pp. 75ff., 149–51. M. Black, “Aramaic Studies and the Language of Jesus,” in In Memoriam Paul Kahle, eds. M. Black and G. Fohrer (Berlin: A. Töpelmann, 1968), pp. 17–28. M. Black, “The ‘Son of Man’ Passion Saying in the Gospel Tradition,” ZNW 60 (1969): 1–8. S. Brown, “From Burney to Black: The Fourth Gospel and the Aramaic Question,” CBQ 26 (1964): 323–39. H. Ott, “Um die Muttersprache Jesu: Forschungen seit Gustaf Dalman,” NovT 9 (1967): 1–25. M. Wilcox, “The Composition of John 13:21–30,” in Neotestamentica et Semitica: Studies in Honour of Matthew Black (ed. E. Ellis and M. Wilcoms; Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1969), pp. 143–56. R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols. (AB 29-29a; Garden City: Doubleday, 1966-1970) 1:xxiv–xl, cxxix–cxxxvii.

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6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14

15 16 17

Jesus as Mirrored in John

There has been keen interest in recovering the sources behind the Fourth Gospel. See R. Fortna, The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the Fourth Gospel (SNTSMS 11; London: Cambridge, 1970). Also see his more recent article, “Source and Redaction in the Fourth Gospel’s Portrayal of Jesus’ Signs,” JBL 89 (June 1970): 151–66. Some of E. Haenchen’s ideas regarding the Evangelist’s sources are conveniently collected in his Gott und Mensch: Gesammelte Aufsätze (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1965) and Die Bibel und Wir (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1968). See Chapter 12 in the present volume. Obviously this is not the place to discuss the date of composition for the instruction concerning the two spirits (1QS 3:13–4:26) or for potions thereof (especially 1QS 3:13–4:14). P. von der Osten-Sacken (Gott und Belial: Traditionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zum Dualismus in den Texten aus Qumran [SUNT 6; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1969]) and J. Murphy-O’Connor (“La genèse littéraire de la Règle de la Communauté,” RB 76 [1969]: 528–49) conclude their minute examinations by the contention that 1QS 3:13–4:26 is a later addition to the Rule. However, see also the position of A.-M. Denis, “Évolution de structures dans la secte de Qumrân,” in Aux Origines de l’Eglise (RechBib 7; Louvain: Peeters, 1965), pp. 23–49. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are by me. See the critical edition of the Rule of the Community in the Princeton Dead Sea Scrolls Project. See my edition of the Thanksgiving Hymns in the Princeton Dead Sea Scrolls Project. See the critical edition of the Damascus Document in the Princeton Dead Sea Scrolls Project. The Hebrew literally means “except hand for hand.” The idiom clearly means that the member of the covenant of God must receive payment for what he gives and pay for what he receives. See the critical edition in the Princeton Dead Sea Scrolls Project. H. Ringgren (The Faith of Qumran: Theology of the Dead Sea Scrolls [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963], p. 75) argues that in 1QM 13.2–4, “it is not a question of two spirits under God’s supremacy but of God and Belial.” It would not be wise to build too much on the observation that the Levites (et al.) bless God but curse Belial. The War Scroll depicts a war between the Spirit of Light and Belial; they are warring against each other and are subordinate to God. The “Prince of Light” is not mentioned in 1QM 13.2–4. J. Daniélou, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Primitive Christianity (New York: New English Library, 1958), p. 107. The light-darkness paradigm means more than that there is a dualism sometimes expressed in terms of light and darkness. It signifies that there are two cosmic opposites primarily described as light (which symbolically represents life, truth, knowledge, and eternal life) and darkness (which tends to represent death, falsehood, ignorance, and extinction). “Belial” in 1QS 10.21 does not denote the cosmic evil Spirit. This observation alone, however, is not sufficient to place the hymn in the time of the Righteous Teacher. J. Murphy-O’Connor, “La genèse,” p. 545. G. Jeremias, Der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit (SUNT 2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963). G. Jeremias argues that in the Hodayoth “Belial” means “Bosheit, Ränke, nicht der Eigenname des göttlichen Gegenspielers. . .” (194). M. Delcor (Les Hymnes de Qumran (Hodayot) [Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1962], pp. 44; also see pp. 37 and



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185–86) also remarks : “Ce terme y sert à désigner des personnes ou des êtres mauvais ou qui veulent du mal, mais non le Démon lui-même.” 18 This is certainly not the place to discuss the concepts of light and darkness in early Jewish literature. Suffice it to state that in this literature “darkness” is not always portrayed as something intrinsically bad: for example in the “Song of the Three Children” (v. 48) light and darkness are exhorted to bless and praise the Lord. The authors of the Qumran Scrolls, Odes, and John would never have conceived such an exhortation for darkness. The light-darkness paradigm is also not found in the rabbinic tradition. It may, however, be behind some portions of 1 Enoch (e.g., 58:3ff., 92:4ff.). The uniqueness of the light-darkness paradigm to Qumran (in contrast to other sects of preChristian Judaism) has been rightly emphasized by H. Kosmala (“The Parable of the Unjust Steward in the Light of Qumran,” in Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute [ed. ed. H. Kosmala; Leiden: Brill 1964] 3:114–21 [115]): “Previous to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls such expressions as ‘the children of light,’ ‘light’ and ‘darkness,’ ‘enlightened,’ and many, many others were thought to be exclusively terms of the theological language of the New Testament and early Christian literature.” F. Nötscher and O. Böcher discuss some of the peculiarities of Qumran’s dualism in Zur theologischen Terminologie der Qumran-Texte (BBB 10; Bonn: P. Hanstein, 1956), pp. 103–48. 19 For example, TLevi 19:1–2, “choose . . . either the light or the darkness, either the law of the Lord or the works of Beliar” (cf. TNaph 2:7–10); TJos 20:2, “the Lord shall be with you in light, and Beliar shall be in darkness with the Egyptians.” Even in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, as F. Nötscher (Zur theologischen Terminologie, p. 114) and O. Böcher (Der johanneische Dualismus im Zusammenhang des nachbiblischen Judentums [Gütersloh: Mohn, 1965], p. 97, also see pp. 96–101, 115) observed, the paradigm is not combined with the idea that there are Two Ways. That concept appears only once (TAsh 1:3–5). A succinct comparison of the dualism contained in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs with that in the Scrolls is found in P. von der Osten-Sacksen, Gott und Belial, pp. 197–205. Although Jubilees contains dualistic thought (e.g., “sons of perdition” [10:3] and “sons of the righteous” [10:6]), it does not contain the light-darkness paradigm. 20 The last two sentences were added in 2016. See James Kugel’s contribution to Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, 3 vols. (ed. L. H. Feldman, J. L. Kugel and L. H. Schiffman; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press and Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 2013); see my reviews in BAR (May 12, 2014). 21 This point is developed by H.-W. Kuhn, Enderwartung und gegenwärtiges Heil (SUNT 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1966). J. Carmignac (“La notion d’eschatologie dans la Bible et à Qumrân,” RevQ 7 [1969]: 17–31) has seriously questioned the appropriateness of the term “eschatology.” 22 von der Osten-Sacken, Gott und Belial. 23 Ringgren, The Faith of Qumran, pp. 53–54 argues that ‫ לתעודותם‬means “according to his predestination.” 24 This idea frees Belial of responsibility for his sins. 25 E. Cothenet (Les Textes de Qumran (II) [Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1963] p. 152) entitles the section CD 2.2–13 “Prédestination des Justes et des Impies.” According to our interpretation, the heading is misleading because some verses in the section intimate foreknowledge not foreordination. That is, for the Essene, God knew what a human would do before being created; on the basis of this foreknowledge God damned the doer of evil. For the Essene, “time” does not qualify or delimit God. Humans cannot understand that time applies only to humans, and such thoughts are comprehensible only to those who have “revealed knowledge.”

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The omission of the word ‫ חושך‬and the presence of passages that are not “predestinarian” have led me to entertain the idea that CD was not directed to those in the Community. This idea is now developed by J. Murphy-O’Connor, “An Essene Missionary Document? CD II, 14–VI, 1,” RB 77 (1970): 201–29. Nevertheless, I would not label CD 2 a “missionary document.” 26 Contrast A. Marx (“Y a-t-il une prédestination à Qumrân?” RevQ 6 [1967]: 163–81), who argues that when talking about the Scrolls we ought to avoid “le terme de ‘prédestination’ et de parler tout simplement de grâce!” 27 Jesus is sent from God; it is not Jesus alone who speaks but God speaking through him, not Jesus himself who heals the sick but God’s power manifest in and through him. The concept of Jesus as one sent and its relationship to the Old Testament and gnostic literature is presented by J. Kuhl, Die Sendung Jesu und der Kirche nach dem Johannes-Evangelium (Siegburg: Steyler Verlag, 1967). 28 Some verses reflect the idea that Jesus has already fought and defeated the devil (e.g., Jn 12:31; 16:33). 29 So also F. Nötscher, Zur theologischen Terminologie, p. 123. 30 For these statistics I am indebted to R. Morgenthaler, Statistik des neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes (Zürich: Gotthelf, 1958), loc. cit. Also see Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:515–16. 31 There are exceptions posed by Jn 5:28–29; 6:39, 40, 44, 51c–58; and 12:48. 32 S. Vitalini (La nozione d’accoglienza nel Nuovo Testamento [Fribourg: Edizioni Universitarie, 1963], pp. 68–69) correctly notes that for John the reception of light signifies participation in “la vita divina” and the presence of eternal life. 33 Contrast E. Käsemann (The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in Light of Chapter 17 [London: SCM, 1968], pp. 64, 60) who claims that for John faith is restricted to the elect: “To decide in favour of Jesus is a divine gift and possibly only for the elect.” This interpretation became possible because Jn 3:16 was judged to have come not from the Evangelist himself but from a “traditional primitive Christian formula,” which was employed solely “to stress the glory of Jesus’ mission, that is to say the miracle of the incarnation.” If so, Essene influence through double predestination should be pondered. However, it is quite likely that Jn 3:16 is from the Evangelist; 3:1-21 is a well-organized discourse (as demonstrated in this book; see the chapters on symbolism and symbology). See also Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:136–37, 147. 34 Perhaps this is what Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus, p. 63 meant when he declared: “The Johannine dualism marks the effect of the Word in that world in which the light has always shone into the darkness . . . The decisions for or against the Word constantly take place on an earth which has already been separated into two hostile spheres through the event of the Word.” Cf. A. Wilkenhauser, Das Evangelium nach Johannes (Regensburg: Pustet, 1961), p. 176. 35 Böcher, Der johanneische Dualismus, p. 23 correctly argues that according to the Old Testament the universe is divided into the world above, heaven, and the world below, earth (Gen 1:1ff.; 14:19, 22). Sheol, the so-called “underworld” and abode of the dead (cf. especially Isa. 14:9), is not a world separate and beneath the Earth, “but apparently on the Earth itself.” Seen from this perspective, Odes 22:1-2 does not reflect belief in a trifurcated universe. It is also possible that these verses reflect the Odist’s belief that Christ descended from heaven, lived on the earth, died, descended into hell, and then ascended into heaven again (Odes 42:11-20 is clearly about the descensus ad inferos). According to Odes 29:4, Sheol is the abode of the dead on the earth.



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36 Odes 8:13-18 refers not to foreordination but to foreknowledge; recognition (v. 13) precedes election (v. 18). 37 This feature of John is well known and discussed in most of the commentaries. For the Odes of Solomon, see my comments in “Les Odes de Salomon et les manuscrits de la Mer Morte,” pp. 522–49. Early “Christians” sometimes deliberately altered a passage borrowed (e.g., cf. 1En 1:9, ἔρχεται, “he is coming,” with Jude 14, ἦλθον, “he came”). 38 Compare also 1QS 11.11: “And through his (God’s) knowledge all is brought into being, and through his thought all life is established, and without him nothing is made.” S. Schulz (“Die Komposition des Johannesprologs und die Zusammensetzung des 4. Evangeliums,” in Studia Evangelica (ed. K. Aland et al.; Berlin: Akademie, 1959], p. 356) also sees a strong relationship between Jn 1:3 and 1QS 11:11. Also, compare Jn 1:3 and 1QS 11:11 with Odes 16:18 (“And there is nothing outside of the Lord, / Because he was before anything came to be”) and Odes 6:3 (“And everything is of the Lord”). 39 “They” are “the generations” mentioned in v. 7. 40 Contrast the Odes and John with Gen 1:1ff. and Ps 33:6 (“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made. . .”). The authors of Genesis 1 and Psalm 33 did not imagine a Word Christology, as did the Odist and the Fourth Evangelist. 41 The Prayer of Manasseh 3 (“Who hast bound the sea by the word of thy command. . .”) is closer to Gen 1:1ff. than to Jn 1:1ff. Jubilees 12:4 (“. .  the God of heaven. . . has created everything by his word. . .”), however, is closer to John and the Odes. The idea of creation by the word is also reflected in Ps 148:5, 2Pet 3:5, and possibly 2Bar 21:4. Compare Acts of John 101. The translations from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha are those found in R. H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913). 42 L. A. Herrick informed me that his work on Moses bar Kepha’s commentary on John (MS Add. 1971 [Cambridge]) proves that the terminus technicus for the divine Word in this MS is mellethā’. The noun pethghāmā’ is used exclusively in the sense of “text” or “phrase.” 43 Odes 10:5, “And the Gentiles. . . /I was not defiled by my love (for them) . . .” R. H. Charles (The Times Literary Supplement 430 [April 7, 1910]: 124) correctly remarked that “Christ apologizes after a fashion for His reception of the Gentiles into the Church.” 44 Of all the variegated aspects of sectarian Judaism that we know today only the Essenes prayed toward the sun (not Jerusalem), and accentuated the symbolic importance of light. 45 O. Betz (Der Paraklet [AGSU 2; Leiden: Brill, 1963], p. 215) states that the Odes stress the present aspect of salvation even more so than John. Betz’s insight should be explored. 46 Also, see Odes 39:9–13 and especially 41:11-15. 47 Frequently the Odist’s use of “truth” has a “Johannine” ring to it. In one verse (12:12), he conceptually combines “Word,” “truth,” and “love.” In Odes 32:2, he writes, “And the Word of truth who is self-originate. . .” 48 In my judgment, the core of John may ultimately go back to the disciple John the son of Zebedee, but the present form is the result of a Johannine school. 49 See Charlesworth, “Les Odes de Salomon et les manuscrits de la Mer Morte,” pp. 529–32. 50 Ibid., pp. 522–49. 51 We should expect the Syriac t’ywt’ (Odes 15:6) to correspond to the Hebrew ‫תועה‬. Both mean “error”; but the Syriac noun is very close to the Hebrew ‫עולה‬, which means “unrighteousness” or “wrong” (1QH 14.26).

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52 Contrast Bakotin, who argued that John inherited the paradigm from the Old Testament; however, he wrote before the Scrolls were discovered. Bakotin correctly saw that John’s “dualism” should not be traced to Gnosticism (De notione lucis et tenebrarum in Evangelio S. Joannis [Dubrovnik: 1943], pp. 84–87). See R. E. Murphy, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible (Westminster: Newman, 1956), pp. 71–79. 53 R. Murray, Symbols of Church and Kingdom: A Study in Early Syriac Tradition (London: Cambridge University Press, 1975 [revised and updated by T & T Clark in 2006]). 54 E. Schweizer (Ego Eimi [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965], p. 76) correctly remarks that in the Odes the Redeemer is frequently identified with the redeemed. He also notes the terminological relationship between John and the Odes (p. 56). One of the difficulties confronted in translating the Odes is to decide when the Odist begins or ends composing ex ore Christi. 55 Contrast the surprising conclusion obtained by A. Feuillet, “La participation actuelle à la vie divine d’après le quatrième évangile: les origines et le sens de cette conception,” SE 1 (1959): 295–308; see especially p. 307: “More than all the other writings in the New Testament, it [John] seems turned toward the Greek world.” Clearly such a statement is anachronistic. Also, contrast our position with that of J. Carmignac, QumranProbleme, p. 89 and note 42. 56 See Charlesworth, “Les Odes de Salomon et les manuscrits de la Mer Morte,” pp. 534–37. 57 O. D. Szojda (“Symbolika Wody w Pismach Sw. Jana Ewangelisty iw Qumran,” RocT 13 [1966]: 105–21) compared the symbolism of water in the Scrolls with the self-same imagery in John, and concludes that John probably knew the Essene symbolic and ritualistic use of water. He cautions, however, that John has completely reworded the symbolism of water so one must not claim that John is “directly dependent” on the Scrolls. 58 O. Cullman contends that the type of Christianity represented by John is as old as that of the Synoptics primarily because there is such strong similarity between the nonconformist Jewish sects (Qumran), the Johannine group, and the Stephen-led branch of the Palestinian Jesus Movement. All three denigrate the present Temple cultus. See Culmann’s chapter in Neutestamentliche Studien für Rudolf Bultmann (Berlin: Töpelmann, 1954), pp. 35–41, and his article in ExpT 71 (1959–60): 8–12, 39–43. Also see J. Carmignac, “Les affinités qumrâniennes de la onzième Ode de Salomon,” pp. 100–01. 59 These parallels are discussed by R. Borig, Der Wahre Weinstock: Untersuchungen zu Jo 15, 1–10 (SANT 16; Munich: Kosel, 1967). Borig correctly reports that there is no literary borrowing between the Odes and John; the relationship is probably through a shared milieu (p. 127). 60 A. A. T. Ehrhardt (SE 1 [1959]: 586–87) compared Odes 10 with 1QH 7.26–33 and claims that in particular what is new in the Ode is “a strong missionary spirit.” 61 E. Best (“New Testament Scholarship Today,” Biblical Theology 20 [1970]: 22) holds that “The Qumran material has led to a re-opening of the question of the background from which John was issued; for a dualism similar to John’s appears in Qumran as well as in Hellenistic Judaism and in Gnosticism.” I must disagree; the dualism in the Scrolls is dissimilar to that in Gnosticism, but it is similar to that in John. 62 See also J. Carmignac, “Un qumrânien converti au christianisme: l’auteur des Odes de Salomon,” pp. 75–108. 63 See J. H. Charlesworth, “The Odes of Solomon—Not Gnostic,” CBQ 31 (1969): 357– 69, and H. Chadwick, “Some Reflections on the Character and Theology of the Odes of Solomon,” in Kyriakon: Festschrift Johannes Quasten, 2 vols. (ed. P. Cranfield and J.



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Jungmann; Münster: Verlag Aschendorff, 1970), pp. 266–70. See also B. Reicke, “Da‘at and Gnosis in Intertestamental Literature,” in Neotestamentica et Semitica: Studies in Honour of Matthew Black, pp. 245–55. Permit me to raise a question: Is it insignificant that the Righteous Teacher is anonymous in the Scrolls, the Beloved Disciple is unnamed in John, and anonymity characterizes the Odes? See an interesting attempt at answering part of this question by J. Roloff, “Der johanneische ‘Lieblingsjünger’ und der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit,” NTS 15 (1968): 129–51. Roloff concludes: “[D]ass das Johannes-Evangelium seine Wurzeln in dem gleichen sektiererisch-täuferischen Milieu am Rande des palästinischen Judentums hatte, in dem auch die Qumran-Sekte beheimatet war” (p. 150). I explore this question in The Beloved Disciple. 64 See J. A. Emerton, “Some Problems of Text and Language in the Odes of Solomon,” JTS N.S. 18 (1967): 372–406; see also my edition of The Odes of Solomon and my “Paronomasia and Assonance in the Syriac Text of the Odes of Solomon,” Semitics 1 (1970): 12–26. 65 Although T. E. Pollard’s treatment of this issue is too brief, he tends toward the same conclusion. See T. Pollard, Johannine Christology and the Early Church (SNTSMS 13; Cambridge: Cambridge, 1970), p. 34. Consult the intriguing suggestion by J. N. Sanders that the numerous parallels between the Scrolls and John strengthen the indications that John Mark, “a member of the priestly aristocracy in Jerusalem,” wrote the Fourth Gospel; but that he composed it at the end of his life in Ephesus; see A Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John (ed. B. A. Mastin; New York: Harper and Row, 1968) see especially pp. 50–51. Also contrast our position with Irenaeus’ comment (Adv. Haer. III, xi, 1), recently developed by F. Neugebauer, that connects the origin of John with the imminent division in Christianity caused by Cerinthus’ “heretical” cosmology and Christology (Die Entstehung des Johannesevangeliums [Stuttgart: Calwer, 1968]). F. L. Cribbs (“A Reassessment of the Date of Origin and the Destination of the Gospel of John,” JBL 89 [1970]: 28–55) is certainly correct in urging us “to make a reassessment of this gospel in the direction of an earlier dating and a possible origin for John against the general background of Palestinian Christianity” (p. 39). 66 V. Corwin argues that Ignatius knew some of the Odes. She also illustrates some of the frequent parallels between Ignatius, the Odes, and John in St. Ignatius and Christianity in Antioch (New Haven: Yale, 1960) see especially pp. 71–80.

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14

Jewish Purity Laws and the Identity of the Beloved Disciple1

1  The purpose of the present chapter The purpose of this chapter is to venture into threatening waters. For centuries, scholars have found this search to be frustrating. “Who is the Beloved Disciple?” “Is he one of Jesus’ Twelve or is he an ideal student?” The author of the Gospel of John bewitches and then disappoints all who undertake this search. Often I have experienced D. M. Smith’s evaluation that in search for the identity of the Beloved Disciple: “John alternately mystifies and tantalizes the reader and defies the historical investigator.”2 To venture into this area, to use M. Hengel’s words about his own exploration, is to “find ourselves on the thin ice of hypotheses which are difficult to prove.” So with Smith and Hengel, all my comments toward a solution are “no more than very hypothetical considerations.”3 But, that is the task of historical research: With scientific historiography, we must dive into unknown areas of history and with only the depleted sources left to us. The present is a propitious time to once again seek to discern who might be the “Beloved Disciple.” This construct refers to the anonymous disciple known only as the disciple “whom Jesus loved” (ὃν ἠγάπα ὁ Ἰησοῦς). It is time to assess the research presented in the monographs devoted to this subject published by A. Kragerud in 1959, J. Colson in 1969, R. Schnackenburg in 1970, T. Lorenzen in 1971, R. E. Brown in 1979, V. Eller in 1987, J. Kügler in 1988, K. Quast in 1989, R. S. Kaufman in 1991, W. Eckle in 1991, J. A. Grassi in 1992, R. A. Culpepper in 1994, and, of course, in the major commentaries on the Gospel of John.4 It is imperative to rethink our work and all conclusions. Why? It is because specialists in search of the Beloved Disciple’s identity, like Schnackenburg and Brown, have reversed their opinions. In fact, Schnackenburg warns us that his own climactic contribution of 1970 “should not be the last word.”5 It is also important to focus again on the meaning of the pericopes that feature the Beloved Disciple. Were Jülicher, Scholten,6 Käsemann, and Kragerud correct to conclude that the Beloved Disciple is not a historical person but an ideal disciple; that is, “he” is only a narrative creation? Is the Beloved Disciple only a fiction created by the Evangelist; is there no connection between narrative and history? Is Kügler correct in concluding that all the passages that mention the Beloved Disciple are creative editorial additions (“der narrativen Kreativität der Redaktion”)?7 Was the Beloved Disciple only a “fictional historical authority,” a fiction of the author (“Verfasserschaftsfiktion”)?8

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2  Is the “Beloved Disciple” a literary týpos? The Greek noun τύπος (týpos) means pattern; it signifies the ideal paradigm. Is the Beloved Disciple a týpos and what would that mean? Could it mean “ideal pupil”? As we proceed with such questions, let it be obvious that the study of the Beloved Disciple is an exegetical problem. But, does that lead us into narrative theology or historical research? The two are not clearly distinct in the following research, since to examine the function of the Beloved Disciple in John means to at least enter the mind and community that has given us the Gospel; that is, exegesis demands intense historical research even if it concludes that the author of John created the Beloved Disciple as fiction, for whatever reason (polemical, political, sociological, to bolster the authority of the special tradition, or to prove the superiority of the Johannine tradition, story, and Christology). The central question now before us is discerning if the Beloved Disciple is a literary type. Is “he” like the fictional characters in Joseph and Aseneth, which was composed within a couple centuries of the Fourth Gospel but in Egypt?9 Or, is the Beloved Disciple more like the Righteous Teacher of Qumran?10 Although “he” was a powerful symbol for the Qumran Community, “the ‫יחד‬,” this priest was nevertheless a real historical person, who may once have been a high priest officiating in the Jerusalem Temple.11 In 1937, H. Lietzmann contended that if we look only at the Gospel of John itself, it comes to light that the Beloved Disciple is not a historical figure. Lietzmann argued that the author of the Gospel intended the Beloved Disciple to be a pure literary construction, an ideal bearer of the apostolic witness, which connected the heart of the reader with the heart of Jesus. Lietzmann concluded that there was no eyewitness to Jesus’ life and teaching in John, and that the author of the Gospel was “the Godinspired interpreter of a supra-historical process.”12 Many scholars have concluded that the Beloved Disciple is indeed only a narrative fiction or a symbol. It is clear to me that according to the editor who appended chapter 21, the Beloved Disciple must be a real historical person,13 since the members of the Johannine community are disturbed by his death.14 To judge that the portrayal of the Beloved Disciple is highly interpreted, whether or not he is to be identified with the Evangelist, does not mean he cannot be an eyewitness to Jesus. Interpretation and the symbolic meaning of persons—like Jesus’ anonymous mother, Mary Magdalene, and Peter—do not mean that they never were historical figures. This insight is shared by many of the scholars who have worked on the Gospel of John. For example, both Hengel and Painter have pointed out that symbolic meaning does not indicate narrative fiction; they have also correctly warned that reasoning otherwise merely moves us within twentieth century scholarly academies and not back into first century communities.15 That warning needs to be repeated over and over; our first task is to indwell the world that created the mind of the Fourth Evangelist. Not only Schnackenburg and Brown,16 but many other specialists on the Gospel of John—who have mastered not only historical exegesis but also narrative techniques— have concluded that the Beloved Disciple surely mirrors a real historical disciple.17 I use the verb “mirror” because we are not by any means provided with anything like a portrait. Mirrors cannot give us perfect images.



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The author of the Gospel of John is attentive to details and is concerned with historical accuracy. There is no evidence that he created a character and labeled him “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” As Cullmann rightly states, the “evangelist never invents an event or a person for allegorical ends.”18 At the outset, therefore, it becomes clear that we must work, inter alia, with narrative exegesis of the Fourth Gospel. But, since the Beloved Disciple is not merely a literary fiction, our questions will lead us into the Johannine community of the last half of the first century CE. These initial decisions will be substantiated in the appropriate places, notably in the exegesis of the major passages and in the review of scholars’ opinions, which will necessarily include reflections on the reasons some scholars have contended that the Beloved Disciple is a fictional creation. It is important to clarify the road ahead. Our search is not primarily or only a literary or narrative study of the Fourth Gospel. That work is necessary and will continue. But the Beloved Disciple was an actual historical person. At least some members in the Johannine community were devastated by his death. And the Evangelist portrays a disciple of Jesus, the Beloved Disciple, lying on his chest and speaking with a real human, namely Peter, ἦν ἀνακείμενος εἷς ἐκ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ κόλπῳ τοῦ Ἰησοῦ, ὃν ἠγάπα ὁ Ἰησοῦς. νεύει οὖν τούτῳ Σίμων Πέτρος πυθέσθαι τίς ἂν εἴη περὶ οὗ λέγει (Jn 13:23–24). A fictitious symbol does not have such life and habits. To miss the point that the Beloved Disciple represents one of Jesus’ first followers is, as Eckhardt stated, “offensichtlich absurd.”19

3  Eight reasons for reopening the search for the beloved disciple The major reasons for opening what some scholars may assume is a futile issue are paradigmatic improvements in the study of Christian Origins—especially regarding the original setting of the Johannine traditions (as the previous pages prove). Since the early seventies at least eight paradigm shifts in methodologies and perceptions warrant a new search for the possible identity of the Beloved Disciple. These shifts tend to disclose that inexact presuppositions and reasoning formerly shaping the thinking by scholars need to be refocused in the search. First, after more than 100 years of research, scholars concur that the Gospel of John was not composed by the Apostle John, as so many of the early scholars of the Church had contended. This valid insight unfortunately led to the conclusion by many specialists that John was not historically reliable. Now, thanks to archaeological discoveries in Israel—especially in Jerusalem—and topographical references in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as previously demonstrated, we know that the author of the Gospel was familiar with Jerusalem during the time of Jesus. This insight needs to be added to the issue of whether any part of the Gospel of John might derive, as the Evangelist claims, from an eyewitness to the events of Jesus’ life. Could that eyewitness have been the Beloved Disciple? Second, some influential scholars about 100 years ago contended that the Gospel probably postdated 150 CE. Now, however, scholars admit that the author of

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the Gospel wrote before 100 CE and depended upon earlier sources; moreover, new insights indicate that the first edition probably antedates 70 CE. Although the final edition of this Gospel probably dates from about 95 CE, some of its sources surely antedate the burning of Jerusalem in 70 CE. Are any of these sources related in some way to the search for the identity of the Beloved Disciple? Among the gospels, it is clear that the Gospel reached its final form near the end of the first century CE. Hence, is it not conceivable that behind the earliest strata is an eyewitness to some of Jesus’ activities? Or, is the author’s claim to base his account on a trustworthy eyewitness merely a narrative device or an aspect of early “Christian” apologetics? Do the Beloved Disciple pericopes fundamentally function as the final redactor’s attempt to establish the apostolicity of the Johannine tradition? Third, the Gospel of John was once thought to be a composition influenced significantly by Greek philosophy. Now, however, scholars affirm that it is a very Jewish composition, perhaps the most Jewish of the Gospels in the New Testament.20 Behind the Gospel of John lie Jewish sources, such as the Signs Source, which clearly antedate 70 CE.21 Scholars now recognize that in light of our increased knowledge of the origin of the Gospel,22 of Judaism before 135/6 CE (when Bar Kokhba was defeated), and of Judea and Galilee prior to 70 CE (thanks to unexpected and astounding archaeological discoveries),23 it is misrepresentative to brand the Gospel of John as theological speculation and the Synoptics as history. Thus we come to the following question: How has the search for the possible identity of the Beloved Disciple been improved by the significant advances in understanding the many types of “Judaism” during Jesus’ time (prior to 70 CE), and the emergence of rabbinic Judaism after 70 CE?24 It is clear that pseudepigraphy was an essential means for grounding the truths of new insights within Early Judaism. Pseudepigraphical attribution is surely one of the crucibles of Johannine thought. Pseudepigraphical writing, as is well known, shaped many early Jewish documents for over three centuries prior to 70 CE. It is also clear from the brilliant writings of more than five books that are now abbreviated into what we call 1 Enoch. To what extent are we confronted with pseudepigraphical attribution in the Gospel of John? That is, does the author of 21:24 pseudepigraphically assume the Apostle John is the Beloved Disciple? It is certain that anonymity was also a major method that had both literary and historical roots. The intentional and pervasive presentation of the Righteous Teacher as anonymous among the Qumran Scrolls may well be related to the Evangelist’s desire to shroud the Beloved Disciple in the mantle of anonymity, as J. Roloff suggested.25 This anonymity is, of course, at least partly removed by the editor who added chapter 21. As already demonstrated, the influence from Qumran upon John is certainly not limited to the shared dualism. And the influence from Qumran is probably to be explained neither by indirect influence, as Brown thinks,26 nor by the hypothesis that the author of the Gospel was an Essene converted to Christianity, as Ashton suggests.27 While each of these suggestions is conceivable, it is much more likely that there were converted Essenes living in the Johannine community (a Qumranic concept [‫)]יחד‬. It may well have been a school (as Culpepper contends),28 and have attracted Jewish scholars, including Essenes, the great writers of Early Judaism, as we know from the more than 400 non-biblical documents found in the eleven Qumran Caves.29 From such



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converted Essenes many Qumranic ideas and concepts would have influenced the composition and shape of the Gospel, even if these are only barely discernible.30 Is it not conceivable, as E. Ruckstuhl concludes, that the Beloved Disciple was a Johannine Christian who was formerly an Essene monk who had lived in the Jerusalem Essene Community?31 Could one of these Qumran influences have been anonymity? Fourth, a few decades ago most scholars admitted that, unfortunately, it is now impossible to recover Jesus’ words and to reconstruct his life. Now, however, most experts admit that we know far more about Jesus than about most pre–70 CE Palestinian Jews, and that some of his sayings and actions are reliably reported in the gospels.32 The new study of Jesus within his time and place is distinguishable as “Jesus Research,” because it is not distorted by theological agendas. Jesus Research is demonstrated in numerous books, especially in E. P. Sanders’ Jesus and Judaism,33 my own books (notably Jesus within Judaism and The Historical Jesus),34 and J. Meier’s monumental A Marginal Jew.35 How does the impressive shift in the historical study of Jesus help us in the quest for the identity of the Beloved Disciple? What is the meaning of the claim of the redactor of chapter 21 that the Beloved Disciple was an eyewitness to what is recorded in the Gospel of John (the Beloved Disciple is ὁ μαρτυρῶν περὶ τούτων according to 21:24)? Fifth, decades ago it was affirmed by most New Testament experts that the author of John derived his data from the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Now it is apparent that he did not base his work on them, as D. M. Smith in John among the Gospels lucidly demonstrates.36 Since the Fourth Evangelist has sources that are historical and also independent of the Synoptics, his narrative might depend on the eyewitness of a disciple. Is he the Beloved Disciple (one of the Twelve), as chapter 21, in fact, claims? Do the author of the Gospel of John and the Johannine believers derive their historical insights into Jesus’ life and teachings from one of the Twelve who was with Jesus? This question makes allowance for the shaping of the traditions, their symbolical development, and for the grounding of Jesus’ life in a pre-70 CE Palestinian setting, which moves beyond mere verisimilitude to at least occasionally reliable tradition (even history).37 Among the latter, as already shown in Chapters 5 and 6, are the following: ll ll

ll ll

The knowledge of Jerusalem (especially the Pool of Bethzatha); The recognition of the significance of stone vessels and the pre-70 CE Jewish preoccupation with purity; Jesus’ three-year ministry, especially his lengthy ministry in Judea; And Jesus’ frequent visits to Jerusalem, which the Marcan chronology will not allow but seems to presuppose.38

Sixth, the study of Christian Origins, in which the exploration of a person who may be the Beloved Disciple is alone possible, has been enriched over the last two decades by insights obtained from anthropologists and especially sociologists. It is clear that three major social crises rocked the Johannine community. First, the Johannine Jews were being expelled from the synagogue, so there was a rift with other Jews. Second, the Johannine community was divided by a schism, which seems to have been centered

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

on the claim that Jesus did come in the flesh, and which resulted in some leaving the community (1Jn 2:18–25). Third, the death of the Beloved Disciple (the guarantor of the validity of the tradition in the Gospel) was unexpected and traumatic. Obviously, some Johannine believers expected him to remain alive until Jesus came again (21:20–23), but he did not. Would survivors of the Essene sect, who possessed some insights into the traumas caused by the death of the Righteous Teacher, and former followers of John the Baptizer who joined Jesus’ group (1:35–42), who lived through the anguish of his martyrdom, have helped the Johannine sectarians to cope with the death of “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (clearly their honorific title for one of Jesus’ Twelve)? There is a noticeable tension between the Beloved Disciple and Peter. Chapter 21, which is a unity (as Ruckstuhl has shown),39 first reestablishes Peter who is worthy to feed Jesus’ lambs and tend his sheep—which are certainly symbolical and ecclesiastical terms. But, he is then made somewhat lower in prestige than “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (which certainly excludes Peter as the disciple beloved by Jesus and may mirror an anti-Petrine polemic). Obviously, by the end of the first century CE (the time when chapter 21 was probably added), Peter would represent to many “Christians” the church in Rome. John is now rightly (in my opinion) situated in the East, perhaps in western Syria which would include Upper Galilee (a region we now know was distinct from Lower Galilee as is obvious from archaeological research and the Mishnah). Is it conceivable that the Gospel reflects some political or sociological rivalry between West and East in earliest Christianity?40 Seventh, Bultmann and many other distinguished biblical scholars tended to separate the Gospel into strata, redactional layers, and putative sources.41 These publications led to the assumption that the Gospel was in disarray and perhaps not in its original order (especially with chapters 5 and 6). Now it seems that Jn 1:1–20:30 represents a “second edition” with the expansion of chapters 1, 15–17, and some other verses (especially 4:2).42 Later, another writer added chapter 21 as an appendix, and much later a scribe inserted the pericope concerning the adulteress (7:53–8:11). The literary unity of the first edition with the so-called “second edition,” however, has been demonstrated by E. Schweitzer and E. Ruckstuhl.43 Also, the new study of the Gospel stresses this literary unity and the author’s use of such paradigms as “above” and “below,” the employment of double entendre (such as “living water” [for ordinary life and for salvation], “again” [the Greek of which can also denote above], “raised up” [which denotes both Jesus’ crucifixion and his exaltation]), along with the mastery of rhetoric. These insights into the coherency of the Gospel have helped us understand the beautiful narrative skills of the author of John.44 The Beloved Disciple is not to be categorized as another narrative creation. Intensive research demonstrates that the Beloved Disciple is contrasted with Peter, certainly a real historical person who also was accorded powerful symbolical meaning (See John 21 and Matthew 16). Hence, there was a trauma within the Johannine community because a real person died (a symbol does not “die” that way or cause such a crisis). The published research by Schnackenburg and Brown illustrate quite conclusively that the Beloved Disciple was a real person who was the bearer of tradition—the eyewitness— for the Johannine community. Also, the rivalry between the Johannine community (represented in the pericopes in which “the disciple whom Jesus loved” dominates)



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and the Petrine group would become unintelligible if the Beloved Disciple was only a literary fiction. Eighth, from the beginnings of Christianity, Christian polemics and dogmatics and even systematic theology bracketed, and sometimes dictated, what a biblical scholar was allowed to conclude to support the church. Now, however, New Testament experts are not charged with defending “the faith”; they are free to explore issues and examine questions with as much freedom as any other historical scholar. To what extent has the search for the identity of the Beloved Disciple been hindered by the claim that Jesus was born of a Virgin and could not have had a biological brother or sister, and certainly not a fraternal twin? The Roman Catholic assumption is that the Beloved Disciple must be none other than John the son of Zebedee. How has that powerful assertion stifled creative reflections on focal pericopes? These are eight major paradigm shifts in New Testament research that directly affect the search for the possible identity of the Beloved Disciple. How is this search improved by the recognition that the Gospel of John may preserve reliable historical information, that there are sources in it that are as early as those in the Synoptics, and that the Judaism of Jesus’ time and the time of the Fourth Evangelist was not defined by “orthodox Judaism” as most scholars once thought? How is our investigation aided by the perception that research on the historical Jesus has been surprisingly rewarding, that John is independent of the other gospels, that one of the social crises confronting the Johannine community was the death of its “eyewitness,” that he was a real person and not narrative fiction, and that Jesus may well have had (and in my judgment certainly did have) real (not just symbolical) brothers and sisters? We may now begin an open search for the identity of the Beloved Disciple. Who was this person? Why do the authors and editors of this literary masterpiece not state clearly who he is? Does the author gradually remove the mask of secrecy, which hides the identity of the Beloved Disciple? The following will present the inductive search for answers to these focused questions. Exegesis has eventually lead me to conclude that the author not only knew the identity of the Beloved Disciple, but intentionally, in extremely subtle ways, allowed his perceptive readers to discern that identity. Only one requisite seems necessary: To listen without preconceptions only to the words of the authors and editors, in seeking to discern the meaning veiled within the deeply symbolical language.

4  Questions and first insights H. Thyen sees a consensus among the best specialists on the Gospel of John regarding the Beloved Disciple, a figure mentioned, as is well known, only in the Fourth Gospel. This “growing and by no means uncritical consensus,” according to Thyen, is that the references to the Beloved Disciple may all be redactional45 and literary but they “must correspond with a concrete person on the level of the real history of Johannine Christianity.”46 Are all the references to the Beloved Disciple editorial additions to the Gospel, or are only some of them to be ascribed to the redactor (as Bultmann concluded)?47 In my

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

judgment, at least chapter 21 is an addition by an editor who cannot be the Evangelist; that observation is based on an assessment of the different meanings sometimes given to terms and the attempt to align the Fourth Gospel with the Synoptics (e.g., mentioning “the sons of Zebedee”; but what are their names and how many are they?). In seeking to discern the identity of the Beloved Disciple, I gradually became convinced that the references to this person were not part of the first edition of John, and that they were added by the author when he edited his own work, producing a second edition, or by the editor who supplied chapter 21. Eventually, I became convinced that the founder of the Johannine community, which incorporated a school, was perhaps the Beloved Disciple; what seems certain is that he or she is a real historical person whom many of the Johannine believers knew and saluted as “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Perhaps for guidance through the rapids ahead it might be helpful to indicate that I finally realized that I was in full agreement with the gifted and inter-confessional scholars who produced Mary in the New Testament.48 They agreed that

1. the Beloved Disciple was a real person thought to accompany Jesus, 2. he was fundamentally significant for the Johannine community, 3. he is the ideal disciple, 4. he is the special witness who alone guarantees access to the historical Jesus.

5  The collapse of the original thesis In the Gospel of John the authors or editors refer five times to “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”49 From the second through the present twenty-first century scholars have sought to identify this “disciple,” traditionally concluding that he is the author of John, and indeed none other than John the son of Zebedee. This is rather a remarkable accomplishment since “John” is not mentioned nor named in Jn 1–20, and this Apostle is obliquely included in the Appendix, but only in an ambiguous “those of Zebedee” (οἱ τοῦ Ζεβεδαίου; 21:2). Yet from Irenaeus to the influential commentaries by R. E. Brown and R. Schnackenburg (vol. 1, but not vol. 3) the Beloved Disciple is uncritically heralded as John the son of Zebedee. In the last phase of research on the identification of the Beloved Disciple the arguments in favor of equating the Beloved Disciple with John the son of Zebedee have been exposed as weak and indeed unpersuasive. As Brown and Schnackenburg have stated, P. Parker published the most complete list of objections against the hypothesis that the Apostle John was the author of the Gospel.50 Over sixty years ago, Parker51 argued that the Apostle John cannot be the author of the Gospel, according to the picture of John the son of Zebedee found in Paul, the Synoptics, and Acts, because,

1. He was a Galilean but John shows “little interest in Galilee.” 2. He was a fisherman but the Gospel of John shows virtually no interest in fishing (except in chapter 21, the Appendix).

3. He had a brother James; yet there is no evidence of this in John.52



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4. According to Mk 3:17 Jesus called the sons of Zebedee “sons of thunder”; yet the Gospel of John is the most tranquil of the four gospels.

5. Acts 4:13 calls John “illiterate and ignorant”; although that can have more than 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21.

one meaning, none would fit the gifted thinker who authored John (the Greek is “good” as both Dionysius of Alexandria and Deissman showed). Acts 4:13 also shows that John the Apostle was a bold man of action, but the Fourth Gospel is a contemplative work by an intellectual. According to several passages in the Synoptics (esp. Mk 9:38), John was interested in demon exorcism; but John “never mentions the subject.” Mark 10:35ff. and Mark 13 (and par.) show that John, unlike the author of the Gospel of John, was interested in apocalypticism. According to Mk 10:35ff., John and his brother attempted to put themselves above the other disciples; yet John treats the disciples with “uniform kindness and respect.” John showed a violent disposition toward the Samaritans, according to Lk 9:54, but in the Gospel of John the Samaritans are treated with respect. According to Acts (1:13ff., 3:1–7, 8:14–24), Peter and John were missionaries together, and the former was the spokesman; but in the Gospel of John Peter’s companion, the Beloved Disciple, “takes the initiative.” Unlike the Beloved Disciple, the Apostle John in the New Testament is portrayed in a “subordinate position” in relation to the other disciples. The Apostle John is “never named in this gospel.” The collective “sons of Zebedee” appears only once and that is in the Appendix.53 The author of John knows the geography only of Samaria and Judea, yet John was from Galilee. Unlike the Synoptics and Acts in which Peter is the leader of the Twelve and close to John, the Gospel of John shows virtually no interest in, or knowledge of, Peter’s activities in Galilee. It is simply impossible that John would have been known to the high priest as is the case of the other disciple in chapter 18. While Lk 24:12, according to some manuscripts, has only Peter visit the empty tomb, John 20 has Peter and the Beloved Disciple race to the tomb. Moreover, it is not easy to reconcile the prominent and highly spiritual events in which the Apostle John appears in the Synoptics with the complete absence of such events in the Gospel of John. While according to the Synoptics, John witnessed Jesus’ agony in Gethsemane, the “Gethsemane agony is not so much as hinted at in the Fourth Gospel.” According to Lk 22:8, John and Peter made the preparations for the Last Supper, but in John no such preparation is made by any disciple. According to Mk 5:37–42 and Lk 8:51–55, John observed Jesus raise Jairus’ daughter, an event that would have been very appealing to the Evangelist; but it is not mentioned in the Gospel of John. Most significantly, according to Parker, John was present at the Transfiguration as reported by each of the Synoptics; but the event is not mentioned, or even alluded to, in the Gospel of John.

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The cumulative thrust of these observations is devastating to the hypothesis that the Beloved Disciple is both the author of John and also the Apostle John. However, there are many unattractive features of these objections; among them are the tendency to give documents other than the Gospel of John priority in discerning the meaning of John, and the propensity to impute historical accuracy to documents that were not primarily intended to present uninterpreted facts (bruta facta), and assuredly are not, by genre, histories. Unfortunately, virtually irrelevant details are mixed with highly significant points (e.g., number 13, and perhaps numbers 1, 10, 14, 15, and conceivably 5 [number 16 may not involve the Beloved Disciple]). The list is not conveniently ordered (numbers 1, 14, and 15 should have been discussed under one heading), and thus the overall force is dissipated. Most importantly, the internal evidence within the Gospel of John should have been given precedence. Four prominent hypotheses are now defended by the experts. First, Brown, Schnackenburg, and many others favor the conclusion that the Beloved Disciple is to be identified with one of the unnamed disciples mentioned in 21:2. This conclusion is surely on the right track, since the Beloved Disciple is to be identified with one of the disciples noted by the author of 21:2. I have slowly come to the conclusion that the Beloved Disciple is one of the disciples mentioned in this verse, but I am not satisfied with identifying him everywhere in the Fourth Gospel as an anonymous disciple. If the author of chapter 21 was attempting to clarify without specifying the Beloved Disciple’s identity, then he certainly failed if he was only linking the Beloved Disciple with one who was anonymous. Second, more and more scholars are defending the viability of Lazarus as the Beloved Disciple. The specialists who have presented evidence in favor of Lazarus represent a wide range of positions, from the conservative W. Brownlee to the liberal V. Eller who devoted his monograph, The Beloved Disciple: His Name, His Story, His Thought, to defend this hypothesis. It is remarkable that, despite the impressive list of experts who conclude that the Beloved Disciple is surely Lazarus, a scholar of M. Goulder’s reputation can offer the opinion: “No one believes that he was Lazarus or John Mark.”54 Goulder meant that in his opinion no one competent would continue to make such a foolish claim. Third, some scholars have claimed—too soon—that a consensus exists among scholars. Some report that there is a consensus among the best scholars that all the references to the Beloved Disciple are additions to John (i.e., they are redactional). Others even claim that there is a consensus that the Beloved Disciple does not represent a real historical figure, arguing instead that “he” is a narrative fiction or type.55 There is no such consensus. Fourth, some Johannine specialists still suggest that the Beloved Disciple is John the son of Zebedee. This possibility is indeed conceivable—only at the outset—but the best and most influential commentators (notably Brown, Schnackenburg, and Haenchen) have abandoned it because of the paucity of internal evidence for it. To only a certain extent have Parker’s observations been influential. Far more significant is the attention to the Tendenzen in John. Both have been devastating for the claim that the Beloved Disciple is the Apostle John. After some extended research it became clear to me that the primary texts in the Gospel of John and the reflections of the leading scholars indicate that any identification



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of the Beloved Disciple—whether with one of the disciples specified in John, with one who is anonymous in this Gospel, or with some symbolic theme—must fulfill eight requisites. These are as follows: First is the criterion of love. The identification should be able to explain why the author described the Beloved Disciple as the disciple “whom Jesus loved”; note the three occurrences in John and the two in the Appendix: εἷς ἐκ τῶν μαθητῶν αὐτοῦ . . . ὃν ἠγάπα ὁ Ἰησοῦς (13:23) τὸν μαθητὴν παρεστῶτα ὃν ἠγάπα (19:26) τὸν ἄλλον μαθητὴν ὃν ἐφίλει ὁ Ἰησοῦς (20:2) ὁ μαθητὴς ἐκεῖνος ὃν ἠγάπα ὁ Ἰησοῦς (21:7) τὸν μαθητὴν ὃν ἠγάπα ὁ Ἰησοῦς (21:20) “One of his disciples -the one whom Jesus loved …” (13:23) “the disciple whom he loved standing beside …” (19:26) “the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved …” (20:2) “That disciple whom Jesus loved …” (21:7) “the disciple whom Jesus loved …” (21:20)

These excerpts also prove that the Fourth Evangelist uses philō and agapō synonymously. In the following search the net must be cast wide and far, since the concept of “disciple” in John includes far more men and women than just the Twelve. The latter term in the Gospel is attached to only two disciples: Judas Iscariot and Thomas the Twin (and by implication to Peter, as we shall see). This criterion of “love” is one of the main reasons some specialists are suggesting that the Beloved Disciple is most likely Lazarus of Bethany, because he is introduced in a word from the “sisters,” Mary and Martha, to Jesus: “Lord, he whom you love is sick” (ἀπέστειλαν οὖν αἱ ἀδελφαὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν λέγουσαι, Κύριε, ἴδε ὃν φιλεῖς ἀσθενεῖ. [11:3]). Second is the criterion of anonymity. Any proposed identification should be able to explain why the Beloved Disciple is not given a name in the Gospel of John. Why does the leading character appear only as “the disciple whom Jesus loved?” The criterion of anonymity does not indicate that the Beloved Disciple is never unmasked and given a name in John (despite the opinion of some specialists); it denotes only that the name of the Beloved Disciple is not explicitly stipulated in the pericopes in which we find the phrase “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Our search, therefore, is to seek to discern if some link may be found between the Beloved Disciple and a disciple presented by name elsewhere in the Gospel. Hence, before beginning our search it should be noted that it is conceivable that the Beloved Disciple is either a female—Mary, Martha, Mary Magdalene56—or a male—John the son of Zebedee, Lazarus, or another. He or she cannot be Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, Pilate, or the anonymous Samaritan woman; these do not fit the author’s and editor’s criterion for discipleship. The individual must clearly be one who believes in Jesus and who is openly willing to live and die for believing that Jesus is the one who was sent by the Father. The criterion of anonymity indicates that the name of the Beloved Disciple is not pellucidly evident in the Gospel. But we should not forget that his (or her) name was known to the Johannine community. Members in this community were traumatized

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by the death of this disciple to whom they had looked for spiritual guidance, teaching, and most importantly, for trustworthy witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This criterion also helps us comprehend why the identity of the Beloved Disciple has been the focal point of intensive scholarly searches for almost 2,000 years and has given rise to so many mutually exclusive hypotheses. What is the function of anonymity in John? Why are both Jesus’ Beloved Disciple and his mother presented anonymously in the Gospel, and how does anonymity function in this Gospel? Brown offers these acute observations: At the foot of the cross there are brought together the two great symbolic figures of the Fourth Gospel whose personal names are never used by the evangelist: the mother of Jesus and the Disciple whom Jesus loved. Both were historical personages, but they are not named by John, since the primary (not sole) importance is in their symbolism for discipleship rather than in their historical careers.57

While anonymity helps us understand the narrative concept of an implied reader,58 does it not also serve as a catalyst in understanding our own relationship with a literary figure (who also represents a historical person), enticing us to embody somatically the universal magnetism of symbolism? It seems evident to me that in dramas of mythic proportions like the Gospel of John, anonymity enables a character to transcend time and place, stimulating the reader to identify with him or her in ways not possible with someone who is limited by a personal name.59 For example, if I said “Jean” taught me love; readers hear about me but obtain little empathy. If I said “Mother” taught me love; readers hear about their own umbilical relation with the one in whom they dwelt for nine months, gave them birth, and nurtured them (especially when she defined the whole world). As this research concluded, I became convinced that anonymity moves to an epithet and finally to a revelation of the identity of the Beloved Disciple. The model disciple is not really anonymous; he is an enigma that is gradually disclosed. The delicate disclosure of the identity of the leading character is concurrent with the basis—the trustworthy witness—for identifying with (and even returning to) the One from above. The narrative development of the Beloved Disciple masks a relationship between profundity and anonymity.60 In subtle ways the master Evangelist lets light sparkle from the actions of the Beloved Disciple so that his real identity is intimated. Ultimately the careful reader learns what was experienced within the Johannine community: The harmony and oneness of a great literary masterpiece in which kerygma is proved trustworthy because of the witness of one of Jesus’ disciples. Third is the criterion of closeness or authority. Any identification of the Beloved Disciple should be able to explain why he or she was allowed the seat of honor during the Last Supper. The Beloved Disciple enters the narrative of the Gospel (which does not imply by any means that he or she is only a narrative fiction) at the scene of the Last Supper. The reader is introduced to this disciple with these words: “One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was lying close to the breast of Jesus” (13:23).61 Noticeably, Peter turns to him to obtain information and insight (13:24). This scene indicates that the author wants to stipulate that the Beloved Disciple must be able to explain why he or she is the faithful witness, as the authors and editors of the Gospel of John stipulate in 19:35 and an editor adds in 21:24.



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An identification of the Beloved Disciple should be able to explain why Mary Magdalene, upon seeing that the stone had been moved away from the tomb of Jesus, ran to Simon Peter and the Beloved Disciple. “Why did she seek them to report this news?” “Why are Peter and the Beloved Disciple elevated in importance among the Twelve?” “Why are Peter and the Beloved Disciple apparently in a place together and not with the other disciples?” “How does the identity of the Beloved Disciple help explain these questions?” Fourth is the criterion of lateness. That is, why is the Beloved Disciple not mentioned until chapter 13 in which the Last Supper is described? Why is he or she not mentioned in the following significant episodes (many of which occur in Judea and even within Jerusalem): At the wedding feast at Cana, during the discussions in Samaria with the woman, during the episode at the Pool of Bethzatha inside the Sheep Gate of Jerusalem, during the feeding of the five thousand by the Sea of Tiberias, during the Feast of Tabernacles back in Jerusalem when Jesus was in the Temple teaching (7:14), during Jesus’ debate with “the Pharisees” (8:13) in the Temple (8:59) over the validity of his testimony, during the central and major scene not far from the Pool of Siloam just south of the walls of Jerusalem when the man “born blind” (9:1) sees first physically and then spiritually, during the winter Feast of Dedication in Solomon’s Portico on the eastern side of the Jerusalem Temple (10:22–23), during the raising of Lazarus near Bethany just east of Jerusalem (11:1), during Jesus’ escape to Ephraim (11:54) and return to Bethany (just east of Jerusalem) for Passover (12:1) when Mary (either during or after supper) anointed Jesus’ feet with “a pound of costly ointment of pure nard” (12:3), and during the triumphal entry into Jerusalem? Some experts in the search for the Beloved Disciple claim that his introduction only late in the Gospel indicates he must be a disciple from Judea. Have they adequately accounted for the numerous passages in the Gospel before chapter 13 (noted above) in which the Beloved Disciple is not mentioned—many of which are in Judea? The fifth criterion is the cross. Why has the narrator placed the Beloved Disciple at the cross? Why does he not state that other disciples are present? Why does Jesus turn to his mother who is depicted at the cross with the Beloved Disciple and state: “Woman, behold, your son!” (19:26)? Then why does the author have Jesus reciprocally turn to the Beloved Disciple and exclaim: “Behold, your mother!” (19:27)? What is the historical meaning or narrative function of “And from that hour the disciple [the Beloved Disciple] took her [Jesus’ mother] within his own things [or to his own home]” (19:27)? Does this episode help us in searching for the identity of “the disciple whom he [Jesus] loved” (19:26)? Any identification should help us answer these questions and meet all the criteria. As J. A. Grassi points out in his The Secret Identity of the Beloved Disciple,62 John portrays an intimacy between Jesus’ mother and the Beloved Disciple. Indeed, the Beloved Disciple is almost “a twin” for Jesus. Is the intimate relationship between Jesus’ mother and the Beloved Disciple merely a formal adoption? How can any identification of the Beloved Disciple satisfy all these issues? What is the meaning of the pericope in which the Evangelist describes the Beloved Disciple seeing water and blood exuding from Jesus’ side above “him”? Why is “he” described standing by “himself,” alone with no other from the Twelve narratively in view?

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The sixth criterion is commendation. Why does the author of chapter 21 feel compelled to endorse the credibility of the Beloved Disciple? Why did he write: “And we [the members of the Johannine community] know that his witness [or testimony] is true” (21:24)? What is the meaning of the statement that the Beloved Disciple’s witness is trustworthy? Does the need to endorse the Beloved Disciple’s testimony eliminate from consideration all well-known and celebrated disciples, including John the son of Zebedee? Would not such a commendation demand that none of the leaders in the Palestinian Movement before 70 CE can be candidates? Such a list would include James (Jesus’ brother), James and John (the sons of Zebedee), Peter, and perhaps Mary Magdalene. The seventh criterion is fear and death. Why did the Johannine “Christians” express concern and anguish at the death of the Beloved Disciple? Apparently they had access to an otherwise unknown saying of Jesus that they took apocalyptically: “The word spread abroad among the brethren that this disciple [the Beloved Disciple] was not to die” (21:23). The author of chapter 21 instructs the readers of the expanded Gospel that the meaning of Jesus’ words are not apocalyptic; that is, Jesus did not intend his words to mean that the Beloved Disciple would remain alive until he returned at the Parousia: “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?” (21:23). Hence, any identification of the Beloved Disciple must account for the threefold fear mirrored in chapter 21: The fear caused by the death of the Beloved Disciple (which was not a martyrdom as with Peter [21:18–19]), the fear that Jesus’ words were false and that he might not return, and the fear that the witness of the Beloved Disciple was invalid. These points seem to make it impossible to conclude that the Beloved Disciple is merely a narrative fiction. The eighth criterion is Peter. The Beloved Disciple is closely linked with Peter in the Gospel of John. But there is much more. At the Last Supper Peter must turn to the Beloved Disciple not only for insight, but also for access to Jesus. The Beloved Disciple arrives before Peter at the empty tomb, not because he is younger (as some commentators speculate); he outruns Peter because he is “first” in importance. The Beloved Disciple and not Peter is celebrated as “that disciple whom Jesus loved” (21:7). Peter is made to ask Jesus who is the betrayer through the Beloved Disciple 21:20 and now about the identity of the Beloved Disciple: “Lord, what about this [man]?” (21:21). There is almost a polemical rivalry between Peter and the Beloved Disciple. How is that to be explained? Is it only a lost aspect of the Palestinian Jesus Movement in which there was a rivalry between the West or Rome and the East or Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, and Edessa? These eight requisites will guide us as we seek to answer one focused question: Can we identify the Beloved Disciple? A convincing case for the identity of the Beloved Disciple should be persuasive not only to the one making it, but to at least some of the readers of such a claim, especially to those trained to offer a sane and balanced judgment. Each of these criteria is important and should be used in assessing each argument. Certainly they are not of equal weight, but scholars will not agree which are most important. All criteria serve as guides for keeping us on the trail of the Beloved Disciple. In a particular passage one may seem more important than another because of narrative flow or context. I have presented them in line with the development of the Gospel of John.



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6  Confirmation and verification The following insight is impressive: According to the Johannine narrative, the Beloved Disciple confirms Jesus’ death and Thomas verifies Jesus’ resurrection. In both passages the author of the Gospel of John stresses the physical aspect of the event in the sense that his resurrection was no purely spiritual experience or emotional hallucination. The Beloved Disciple witnesses Jesus’ crucifixion (19:26); of him the author reports: “He who saw it has borne witness. His testimony is true; and he knows that he tells the truth” (19:35). What the Beloved Disciple witnessed was that when a soldier pierced Jesus’ side with a spear, “blood and water” came out (19:24). The narrator leaves the reader with no doubt that Jesus really died, and that Jesus’ death was not faked or only illusory (as in the Acts of John 97).63 In a similar way, Thomas does not see a mirage or vision of Jesus. He refuses to believe his colleagues’ report. Like a good pupil, he demands to see the marks of crucifixion, especially the wound in the side caused by the lance. Standing before the resurrected Jesus, he is shown the marks of crucifixion—and these wounds are described as belonging to the resurrected Jesus only in John, chapter 20.64 According to the Johannine narrative only one disciple, the Beloved Disciple, sees (i.e., witnesses) the lance enter Jesus’ corpse. Although the narrator does not identify the witness of 19:35 as “the disciple whom Jesus loved,” it seems obvious he is the one intended. He is the only male disciple described as present at the crucifixion. And the formulaic claim that “his witness is true” links 19:35 with 21:24 in which the Beloved Disciple is certainly meant (cf. 5:32). The narrator indicates that Thomas is not informed of this event by anyone. Indeed, to conclude that anyone—Jesus’ mother, the soldier, the two men who buried him— informed Thomas of the thoracic wound, would be impossible in terms of narrative criticism. That is to say, the text does not allow the exegete to draw such conclusions. Since only the Beloved Disciple witnessed the thrust of the lance, only he could report it to Thomas; but he exits the scene in 20:10 “going back” to his home. The corpse is buried before it is seen by the disciples, and after they see the resurrected Jesus, they merely say to Thomas: “We have seen the Lord.” The narrator does not allow them to describe the resurrected Jesus for him. If the Beloved Disciple is Thomas, then all these problems are solved. Thomas knows this one distinguishing mark of Jesus’ crucifixion. How is that possible? The best, indeed the only explanation, is that he saw it as the Beloved Disciple. Although both the Beloved Disciple and Thomas are dominant in the narrative, they never meet and never talk to each other. Is that observation not revealing in the honest search for the identity of the Beloved Disciple? That they would converse with the other and inform him of Jesus’ wound would be impossible, and unnecessary, if they are the same person, since that is now becoming rather obvious. If Thomas is the Beloved Disciple who was emotionally shaken when he witnessed Jesus’ side being penetrated, then Thomas knows what to ask to distinguish Jesus’ resurrected body from others. He knows precisely how he died, because he had witnessed it as the Beloved Disciple. The conceptual link between what the Beloved Disciple witnessed at Golgotha and what Thomas saw in Jerusalem is significant. It also has a sociological and

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Christological function. The claim in a physical death and a physical resurrection would be powerful blasts against the Docetists who were undermining the faith of the Johannine community. These pseudo-Christians, in the judgment of the Evangelist and author of chapter 21, caused the schism, which is so clearly reflected in the Johannine Epistles and in the addition of chapters 15–17. The latter chapters were added to stress unity, either just before or just after the schism. As the addition in 1:14 makes certain, Jesus was a Jew with human flesh. Hence, the literary genius who wrote the Gospel of John presents the Beloved Disciple so as to stress the “fleshly” existence of Jesus both before and after the resurrection. The author urges us to believe that his witness is trustworthy. It grounds the trustworthiness and fundamental solidarity of the community’s beliefs. In the New Testament only Thomas makes a personal confession when confronted by a physically resurrected Jesus. Using personal pronouns, he is depicted as uttering the final words of a disciple in the Gospel: “My Lord, and my God.” Thomas verifies the Beloved Disciple’s confirmation; both serve as a witness. Thomas’ grounding of believing in careful reflection and pragmatic observations illustrates the continuity between the crucified one and the Resurrected Lord.

7  Narrative and history While it is apparent that a case can be made for identifying the Beloved Disciple with Thomas, it is far from evident how the exegete can move from narrative to history. Is it possible to move from our Greek text back into some historical context? Few critics will conclude that we have been working only within the Johannine School, which is behind the Gospel of John, and most will agree that in many places it is obvious that we have moved further back into the first century CE. Are we able to see back through redaction and traditions into the life of a disciple called Thomas? To what extent can we today trust John’s account of Jesus’ life and words? Obviously, we are not left only with tradition or redaction. There can be no doubt that both are “historical.” But can tradition be traced back, with some reliability, to the period before Jesus’ crucifixion? That seems to be the central question that has intermittently been posed by our research up until now. I would prefer to let the reader achieve a personal evaluation; after all, it demands some form of believing in Jesus. It surely deserves exploration with the same thoroughness and carefulness as our search for the identity of the Beloved Disciple. We will need to struggle with the evaluation of tradition within redaction. As D. M. Smith stated: “The Johannine community conceived of itself as linked directly to Jesus and the original circle of disciples through the Beloved Disciple, however that linkage may have been understood and whatever may be its validity as a historical claim.”65 Our task is not so much to test the claim of the Johannine believers; it is to sift the claims and the insights to see how and in what ways they transport us back into the period before Easter, when “over there” and “back then” action swirled around “Jesus son of Joseph” (6:42). A consensus exists among experts that the Johannine “Christians” lived in a community, which linked itself directly to Jesus and the original disciples through



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the Beloved Disciple. The agreement is worldwide and virtually unanimous, but this unanimity must not be confused with the search for the identity of the Beloved Disciple. There is certainly no agreement about whether he was really an eyewitness to Jesus’ life and teaching. The historical validity of the traditions associated with him is also sub judice. This chapter contributes to the clarification of these issues, but it attempts only to suggest, with as much insight and force as data will permit, to resolve a dilemma of nearly two millennia: Who is the Beloved Disciple? Obviously, we are much closer to Jesus’ life and teaching with the realization that Thomas is the Beloved Disciple than we are with the conclusion that the latter is merely an ideal figure or a literary fiction. Even if we were left with the latter option, we would have some insight into the Johannine community and its struggle for self-understanding and legitimation in confrontation with synagogal Jews, docetic Christians, the early gnostics, and the powerful western Peter establishment. Perhaps within the Johannine School we find some traditions, obviously in edited form, that derive ultimately from the man of Nazareth. In searching for the identity of the Beloved Disciple—and certainly if we are correct that this technical phrase represents the eyewitness record of the disciple Thomas—we are freed from our Western parochialism to see another time and another place, from which many of our values, beliefs, and dreams derive.66

8  A comparison In summation, it might prove helpful to compare my position with that of Brown, who incidentally came to the end of his The Community of the Beloved Disciple by contrasting his viewpoint with Cullmann’s position.67 Obviously, in many ways my own reconstruction is similar to Brown’s perception. We both share the following conclusions: ●● ●

●

●

●

● ● ●

The identity of the Beloved Disciple was well known to the Johannine community. The members of that community and the authors or editors of the Gospel of John saw him as the founder of the community and the trustworthy witness of Jesus’ life and teachings. The Beloved Disciple is the anonymous one of chapter 1, and he was formerly a disciple of John the Baptizer. There is a historical core to the Gospel, which has been exposed from excavations, not only archaeological, but also textual. The Beloved Disciple cannot be the author of John; the Fourth Gospel cannot have been written by an eyewitness of Jesus’ life and teaching. The Gospel of John took shape over decades; there were editions and additions. These reflect struggles with synagogal Jews and with other “Jewish Christians.” The Beloved Disciple is a real person and one of Jesus’ disciples.

My disagreement with Brown is primarily on the identity of the Beloved Disciple, and since that is the focal purpose of this chapter, the difference is not unimportant. Brown now thinks the Beloved Disciple is one of the anonymous disciples of 21:2.

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For me, Thomas is the hero of the Gospel of John, the one who boldly exhorts his fellow disciples to follow Jesus even if it means martyrdom. He asks the key question, which elicits Jesus’ disclosure of the way to the One above.

9  A fresh approach Thomas refuses to believe lightly or accept what may be enthusiastic and wishful beliefs even if they are espoused by his close associates and friends. He alone confesses affirmatively before the One who is from above and now free from this constricting life. This confession is a personal affirmation that is the culmination of this brilliantly composed dramatic and symbolic masterpiece. For me, Thomas well deserves the title “the Beloved Disciple.” He is “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Thomas refused to believe his possibly too enthusiastic co-disciples, but that is not “doubting” Jesus. He is a well-trained disciple who demands some proof, criteria, and an experience. Thomas does not doubt Jesus; he doubts the disciples. Thomas wisely doubts the disciples who seem intoxicated by an absurd claim. Let us not forget the profound truth in Miguel de Unamuno’s The Agony of Christianity: “A faith which does not doubt is a dead faith.”68 Before continuing, one episode must come into focus. Where was Thomas that he appears only after eight days (20:26)? The answer is obvious if one knows first century Jewish rules of purification (discussed intermittently in the preceding chapters). Peter rushes into the tomb. The Beloved, as “the other disciple” according to almost all experts (20:4–10), waits outside, knowing that entering the tomb would make him impure, as we know from halakot in the Qumran Scrolls (viz., the Temple Scroll and Some Works of the Torah) and in Rabbinics. He enters Jesus’ tomb, so he can be a witness, and then must be sequestered for eight days. On the evening of the eighth day he can again appear to his friends: “Eight days later (Καὶ μεθʼ ἡμέρας ὀκτὼ), again his disciples were inside (the house), and Thomas was with them” (20:26). Jewish jurisprudence, as we saw with Jesus’ alleged trial, clarifies what causes impurity and what must be done for eight days. The Evangelist also seems to display paronomasia with “outside” and “inside” in italics above. Long ago the German genius, Goethe, wrote of a thinker who lived long before him. Of Copernicus, Goethe offered these arresting reflections: The world had scarcely become known as round and complete in itself when it was asked to waive the tremendous privilege of being the center of the universe. Never, perhaps, was a greater demand made on [humankind]—for by this admission so many things vanished in mist and smoke! What became of Eden, our world of innocence, piety and poetry; the testimony of the senses; the conviction of a poetic—religious faith?69

Something creative, and anything against the stream of scholarship will seem threatening in similar ways. It is all too frequently unwelcome. Change in a comfortable faith can be too difficult.70



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Did the author of John intend to portray the Beloved Disciple as the model of faithful discipleship and Thomas as the paradigm of unfaithful discipleship? That is the implication I have found in many of the distinguished commentaries on the Gospel of John. Did the Johannine narrator intend for the reader to conclude that one of the Twelve was in fact a doubter? Did he portray a “Doubting Thomas”? Experts have suggested that the Beloved Disciple is Andrew, Ananda, Apollos, Benjamin, John Mark, John the Apostle, John the Elder, Judas Iscariot, Judas James’ brother, Lazarus, Matthias, Nathanael, Paul or a Paulinist, Philip, the Rich Young Ruler, an unknown disciple, one of the anonymous disciples of 21:2, Mary Magdalene, or a purely symbolic literary figure, as I illustrated in The Beloved Disciple.71 No scholar before me has attempted to argue and demonstrate with the exegesis focused on the Gospel of John that the Beloved Disciple is to be identified as Thomas. But what if it is true? How would Johannine studies and Christian Origins appear then? Let me summarize my observation and conclusion. First, John is one of the most dramatic compositions in the Bible. When one removes chapter 21, which is a later appendix, then the Gospel closes with only two men on stage. The searchlight focuses on the two men: One is the resurrected Jesus. The other is Thomas. The drama is complete. Surely this dramatic episode implies, perhaps proves, that the two heroes of the Gospel are the same person: The Beloved Disciple is unmasked as Thomas. Second, the Fourth Evangelist attempts to demonstrate how to confess belief in Jesus. The Baptizer’s confession that Jesus is “the lamb of God” (1:29 and 1:36) is initially attractive because he is introduced as “a man sent from God” (1:6). But the confession is devoid of the deep cosmic significance of John’s Christology and it is too strongly shaped by the now-defunct Temple cult that was the origin of Jesus’ enemies. Nathanael’s confession that Jesus is “the son of God” is linked with the misleading “the King of Israel” (1:49). Similar confessions are exposed by the Evangelist until we come to the final scene. Thomas must be the Beloved Disciple because he alone knows how to confess: “My Lord and my God” (20:28). Jesus’ approval is riveting and punctuated by a “Beatitude.” Thomas must be the Beloved Disciple; recall Jn 20:28–29: ἀπεκρίθη Θωμᾶς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ, Ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου. λέγει αὐτῷ ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ὅτι ἑώρακάς με πεπίστευκας; μακάριοι οἱ μὴ ἰδόντες καὶ πιστεύσαντες. Thomas answered and said to him [Jesus]: “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said to him: “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those not seeing and (yet) believing.”

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Notes 1 My following reflections are based on revisions of “The Gospel of John: Exclusivism Caused by a Social Setting Different from That of Jesus (Jn 11:54 and 14:6),” in AntiJudaism and the Fourth Gospel, edited by R. Bieringer, et al. (Jewish and Christian Heritage Series 1. Assen: Royal van Gorcum, 2001), pp. 479–513. 2 D. M. Smith, John (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), p. 42. 3 M. Hengel, The Johannine Question (trans. J. Bowden; Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1989), p. 124. 4 A. Kragerud, Der Lieblingsjünger im Johannesevangelium (Oslo: Osloer, 1959). J. Colson, L’énigme du Disciple que Jésus aimait (Paris: Beauchesne et Ses Fils, 1969). R. Schnackenburg, “Der Jünger, den Jesus liebte,” in Evangelisch Katholischer Kommentar zum Neuen Testament (Vorarbeiten, Heft 2; Zürich: Benziger Verlag Zürich, 1970). T. Lorenzen, Der Lieblingsjünger im Johannesevangelium (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1971). R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist, 1979). V. Eller, The Beloved Disciple (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987). J. Kügler, Der Jünger, den Jesus liebte (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988). K. Quast, Peter and the Beloved Disciple: Figures for a Community in Crisis (JSNTSup 32; Sheffield: JSOT, 1989). P. S. Kaufman, The Beloved Disciple (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1991). W. Eckle, Den der Herr liebhatte—Rätsel um den Evangelisten Johannes (Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovač, 1991). J. A. Grassi, The Secret Identity of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist, 1992). R. A. Culpepper, John, the Son of Zebedee (Columbia, SC: USC Press, 1994). 5 R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 3 vols (trans. K. Smyth; New York: Herder & Herder, 1968–82) 3:375. 6 Some authors have claimed that B. W. Bacon (The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate [New Haven: Yale, 1910]) also thought the Beloved Disciple was pure literary fiction, but he did not hold that view. That erroneous thought might have come from a perfunctory reading of p. 320: “The view many times advanced since Scholten that the Beloved disciple is a purely ideal figure is surely more in accord with the nature of his entry on the scene in the three individual contexts.” But Bacon definitely argues against that position: “The ‘disciple whom Jesus loved’ is something more than a purely ideal figure. A very real man has sat for the portrait; although, as already stated, this is not a self-portraiture.” For a judicious assessment of Bacon’s overall views on the Gospel of John, see D. M. Smith, “B. W. Bacon on John and Mark,” in Johannine Christianity (Columbia: South Carolina, 1984), pp. 106–44. 7 Kügler, Der Jünger, p. 420. 8 Ibid., p. 488. 9 See the study on Joseph and Aseneth by Chris Burchard in the OTP. 10 See J. Roloff, “Der johanneische ‘Lieblingsjünger’ und der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit,” NTS 15 (1968–69): 129–51. 11 See especially G. Jeremias, Der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit (SUNT 2; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963) and J. H. Charlesworth, “An Allegorical and Autobiographical Poem by the Moreh haṣ-Ṣedeq (1QH 8:4–11),” in Sha‘arei Talmon (ed. M. Fishbane et al.; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1992), pp. 295–307. 12 H. Lietzmann, The Beginnings of the Christian Church (trans. B. Woolf; London: Lutterworth, 1937), p. 233. See his Geschichte der Alten Kirche (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1975) 1:247–48. 13 So also many scholars, notably Schnackenburg, St. John, 3:376.



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14 Bultmann argued that the Beloved Disciple was a fiction created by the Evangelist, and that the redactor misunderstood this point of the narrative of the Gospel and strove to make the Beloved Disciple an eyewitness to Jesus, thereby giving apostolic authority to the Gospel. See the pertinent bibliographical data and insightful discussion of Bultmann on this point by D. M. Smith, The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel (New Haven: Yale, 1965), pp. 220–21. 15 Hengel, The Johannine Question, p. 91. 16 See especially Schnackenburg, St. John, 3:374-87, and Brown, Gospel, 1:xcv. 17 See for example, J. Blank, “Der Lieblingsjünger (21,20–24): Die zweite Schlussbemerkung (21,25),” in Das Evangelium nach Johannes (Düsseldorf: Patmos Verlag Düsseldorf, 1988) Part 3, pp. 208–15; see especially pp. 212–13. 18 Cullmann, The Johannine Circle, trans. J. Bowdon (London: SCM, 1976), p. 74. 19 K. A. Eckhardt, Der Tod des Johannes: Als Schlüssel zum Verständnis der Johanneischen Schriftem (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1961), p. 14. 20 See J. H. Charlesworth, “Reinterpreting John: How the Dead Sea Scrolls Have Revolutionized our Understanding of the Gospel of John,” Bible Review 9 (1993): 18–25, 54. 21 Among the numerous publications see R. Fortna, The Gospel of Signs (SNTSMS 11; Cambridge: Cambridge, 1970) and U. C. von Wahlde, The Earliest Version of John’s Gospel (Wilmington, DE: Michael Glazier, 1989). 22 This fact will be obvious as the monograph develops. One of the articles that has been missed unfortunately in recent Johannine studies is D. Flusser’s discovery of sources behind John; see his “What was the Original Meaning of Ecce Homo?” in Judaism and the Origins of Christianity (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988), pp. 593–603. 23 See, for example, N. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1980) and especially the four-volume masterful The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (ed. E. Stern et al.; New York: Simon & Schuster, 1993). 24 The early rabbinic literature has often been unduly neglected in light of the excitement caused by research on the Pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls. See the major publications by J. Neusner on early Rabbinics and the shaping of Judaism in the Mishnah. Now we have two important translations of the Mishna into English: H. Danby, The Mishnah (Oxford: Oxford, 1933) and J. Neusner, The Mishnah (New Haven: Yale, 1988). 25 J. Roloff, “Der johanneische ‘Lieblingsjünger’ und der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit,” NTS 15 (1968/69): 129–51. 26 R. E. Brown, “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,” in The Scrolls and the New Testament (ed. K. Stendal with J. H. Charlesworth; New York: Crossroad, 1992), pp. 183–207. Brown’s article first appeared in 1955. 27 J. Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), p. 237: “The evangelist may well have started life as one of those Essenes who were to be found, according to Josephus, ‘in large numbers in every town.’” Ashton told me when we were together in Princeton that he continued to hold this insight but he was tired of the opposition that focused only on this aspect of his research. 28 R. A. Culpepper, The Johannine School (Missoula: Scholars, 1975). 29 These documents are now ordered, first by number and then by name, in each volume of the Princeton Theological Dead Sea Scrolls Project. See J. H. Charlesworth et al., eds., The Rule of the Community and Related Documents (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1994) 1:180-83. 30 J. H. Charlesworth, John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1991) see especially the 1989 “Foreword.” Also, see Schnackenburg’s conclusion that the author

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of the Gospel of John may have learned from Qumran Essenes “who later entered Christian, Johannine communities.” St. John, 1:135. See E. Ruckstuhl, “Der Jünger, den Jesus liebte, ein Essene?” in Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgarts: Katholiches Bibelwerk GmbH, 1988), pp. 393–95. See his clear statement on p. 393: “The disciple, whom Jesus loved, may have been a monk in the Essene Community in Jerusalem.” It is lamentable that specialists, who knew that historical research can at best provide us with a probable reconstruction that needs constantly to be improved, ignored such a primordial perception and attempted to guide generations of students and scholars in the search for Jesus’ uninterpreted bruta facta and to isolate his own voice and his pure words (ipsissima verba Jesu). Now, scholars wisely seek to discern the meaning of Jesus’ message (and in the jargon of phenomenologists like M. Merleau-Ponty, his authentic intentionality). E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985). J. H. Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism: New Light from Exciting Archaeological Discoveries (ABRL 1; New York: Doubleday, 1988) and J. H. Charlesworth, The Historical Jesus (An Essential Guide; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2008). E. P. Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985); Charlesworth, Jesus within Judaism; J. Meier, A Marginal Jew (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1991). D. M. Smith, John among the Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). Verisimilitude must not be confused with historicity, but an historical account that lacks verisimilitude to what could or would have occurred can scarcely be judged “historically” reliable. See especially Mk 11:2-11, 14:13-16. E. Ruckstuhl, “Der Jünger, den Jesus liebte,” pp. 355–401. And perhaps, I might add, a tension between northern Palestine, in which there was in many locales (notably Sepphoris) little cultural discontinuity after 70 CE, and the burning of Jerusalem (especially the Temple) and the direct imposition of Roman rule. The burning of Qumran is a stunning example of this discontinuity (otherwise the Qumranites would have returned and retrieved the Dead Sea Scrolls). For further reflections, see my The Beloved Disciple. See Bultmann, The Gospel of John (trans. G. Beasley-Murray; Oxford: Blackwells, 1971) passim; Smith, Composition, passim. Additional redactional verses or phrases will be isolated in the detailed exegesis of the Beloved Disciple passages. E. Schweizer, Ego Eimi: Die religionsgeschichtliche Herkunft und theologische Bedeutung der johanneischen Bildreden, zugleich ein Beitrag zur Quellenfrage des vierten Evangeliums (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965). See also E. Ruckstuhl and P. Dschulnigg, Stilkritik und Verfasserfrage im Johannesevangelium (Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1991). See especially R. A. Culpepper, The Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983); P. D. Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: Scholars, 1985); G. M. O’Day, Revelation in the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986). Also, see Ashton, “Revelation,” Understanding, pp. 381–553. Quite distinct from other approaches is that of T. L. Brodie, who sees the contradictions and abrupt shifts (as between chapters 14 and 15) as the author’s attempt to warn the reader that he is not writing a biography but a composition focused “on the mind-surpassing realm of the spirit.” Thus, he stresses the unity of the Gospel. See Brodie, The Gospel According to John (New York: Oxford, 1993), p. 19.



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45 J. Kügler (Der Jünger, den Jesus liebte [Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk GmbH, 1988] p. 434; italics his) concluded: “Die Lieblingsjüngertexte sind nicht nur alle in ihrem Kontext sekundär, sie sind auch alle Produkt der Endredaktion.” See also W. Schmithals, Johannesevangelium und Johannesbriefe (BZNW 64; Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1992) and P. B. Boshoff, “Walter Schmithals en die Johannese Geskrifte,” Hervormde Teologiese Studies 49 (1993): 728–41, and especially “Die Lieflingsdissipelredaksie,” pp. 737–40. 46 H. Thyen, “Aus der Literatur zum Johannesevangelium,” Theologische Rundschau N.F. 42 (1977): 212–70; see p. 223, especially his words just quoted, “eine konkrete Person auf der Ebene der realen Geschichte des johanneischen Christentums entsprechen muss.” Here is one of the places in which Kügler (Der Jünger, p. 478) parts company with Thyen; he contends that the Beloved Disciple “war auch kein historischer Jünger Jesu.” 47 J. K. Thornecroft (“The Redactor and the ‘Beloved’ in John,” ExpT 98 [1986–87]: 135–39) also argued that the final redactor added “in certain places” the “title.” The Beloved Disciple, according to Thornecorft, is “indeed the author of the Gospel.” 48 R. E. Brown et al., eds., Mary in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1978), p. 211. Obviously, one of the leading minds in this summary of the Beloved Disciple is Brown, whose own personal conclusion is very similar to that outlined above. See Brown, Community, p. 31. 49 All translations are my own, and in different discussions I sometimes translate the same passage in different ways in order to bring out a nuance in the Greek that may be lost in a previously acceptable translation. Occasionally, I have used other translations: e.g., TANAKH: A New Translation of the HOLY SCRIPTURES According to the Traditional Hebrew Text, published by the Jewish Publication Society, and the New Revised Standard Version. 50 R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:xvii; R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St. John, 1:92. 51 P. Parker, “John the Son of Zebedee and the Fourth Gospel,” JBL 81 (1962): 35–43. 52 Parker more than once states that the expression “sons of Zebedee” appears only in 21:2 but the Greek has only “those of Zebedee” (which can mean the family of Zebedee and no one is named). 53 In fact, this is misleading, yet it appears virtually everywhere in secondary literature. As shown in the previous note, only “those of Zebedee” are mentioned (see 21:2). We do not know “sons” is intended and no number is provided. 54 M. Goulder, “An Old Friend Incognito,” Scottish Journal of Theology 45 (1992): 488. 55 This noun, from Greek τύπος, does not suggest an archetype as in Plato’s Republic 379A; it denotes a “pattern” as in Acts 7:44. Hence a literary pattern, paradigm, or model is intended. In searching for the possible identity of the Beloved Disciple we should comprehend that biblical characters are virtually never described as they are today; thus we have no idea what Abashag or Bathsheba really looked like. See A. Berlin, Poetics and Interpretation of Biblical Narrative (Sheffield: Almond, 1983), p. 34 and H. C. Brichto, “Character and Characterization,” in Toward a Grammar of Biblical Poetics (New York: Oxford, 1994), pp. 6–8. 56 See R. Griffith-Jones, Beloved Disciple: The Misunderstood Legacy of Mary Magdalen, the Woman Closest to Jesus (New York: HarperOne, 2008). 57 R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist, 1979), p. 196. 58 See the stimulating reflections by W. S. Kurz, “The Beloved Disciple and Implied Readers,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 19 (1989): 100–07. Also see D. J. Hawkin,

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“The Function of the Beloved Disciple Motif in the Johannine Redaction,” Laval Théologique et Philosophique 33 (1977): 135–50. As Joseph Campbell (The Hero with a Thousand Faces [Princeton: Princeton, 1968], p. 46) saw, great world-shaping myths are often “suffused with the joy of a transcendent anonymity regarding itself in all of the self-centered, battling egos that are born and die in time.” As F. Nietzsche (Basic Writings of Nietzsche [trans. and ed. W. Kaufmann; New York: Modern, 1992], pp. 240–41) in a moment of lucidity and perspicacity stated: “Whatever is profound loves masks; what is most profound even hates image and parable . . . . Every profound spirit needs a mask.” Also see the contributions in Secrecy in Religions (ed. K. Bolle; Leiden: Brill, 1987). As R. A. Culpepper (Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983], p. 215) insightfully contends, there is a subtle difference between “one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved” in 13:23 and “the disciple whom Jesus loved” in 19:26, 20:2, and 21:7, 20. The introduction of the Beloved Disciple is couched so that the reader is not supposed to know his (or her at this point) identity. J. A. Grassi, The Secret Identity of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist, 1992). According to the Acts of John Jesus says to John, who is distressed when he sees Jesus suffer on the cross: “John, for the people below in Jerusalem I am being crucified and pierced with lances and reeds and given vinegar and gall to drink.” See contribution of K. Schäferdieck in New Testament Apocrypha (ed. W. Schneemelcher; trans. R. M. Wilson; London: 1963 and 1965) 2:184. The variant in Mt 27:49 is an intrusion from the Gospel of John. D. M. Smith in The New Testament and its Modern Interpreters (ed. E. Epp and G. MacRae; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989), p. 285. R. Bauckham indicates how we should again reevaluate the importance and validity of early eyewitness. See his “Gospel Traditions: Anonymous Community Traditions or Eyewitness Testimony?” in Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and B. Rhea; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), pp. 483–99. With Brown, I eschew distorting labels like “heterodox Jews” which Cullmann used. M. Pepper, ed., The Harper Religious & Inspirational Quotation Companion (New York: Harper & Row, 1989), p. 156. The original has “mankind.” See R. B. Downs, Books that Changed the World (New York: The New American Library, 1956), p. 141. When I originally wrote these words, and before six months of polishing this chapter, I was convinced that no scholar would react positively to my suggestion, which seemed “outlandish” at times. Now, I am buoyed up by the positive support I have received privately from Hugh Anderson, Peder Borgen, John Meier, Hans Martin Schenke, Moody Smith, and Walter Weaver. Each began with serious reservations, but after listening to my questions and search for answers, each offered helpful advice, and—most importantly—voiced support and approval of some of my exegetical moves. The widespread opinion that until recently virtually all New Testament scholars thought that the Beloved Disciple was John the son of Zebedee is simply inaccurate. This opinion may derive from classes in which professors use primarily the commentaries by Brown and Schnackenburg and point out that each of them changed their minds from concluding that the Beloved Disciple is John the Apostle to holding that the Beloved Disciple is one of the anonymous disciples of 21:2.

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Symbolism of the Serpent in John1

Words are phenomenological symbols.2 Art and illustrations in conjunction with words enhance and often clarify reflections on the meaning. Illustrated manuscripts are famous in the Armenian Bibles, but these illustrated biblical manuscripts postdate the origins of Christianity. While colored letters have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, broadly defined, no illustrated manuscripts are present. The earliest Jewish symbols and art are found in the third century CE Dura-Europos Synagogue in eastern Syria on the Euphrates.3 Most scholars concur that the earliest Christian symbols and art are in the Roman catacombs and date from the second century CE. In the last four years, I have been involved in examining tombs beneath high-rise apartments in south Jerusalem via remote control. Ossuaries placed there before 70 CE (at the latest, because of the Roman destruction of the area), which remain in the closed tomb, have images. I announced the discovery of an inscribed fish, the depiction of “Jonah” and the name: “Jonah.” I have no reason to doubt that this artwork was created by Jews who believed Jonah symbolized resurrection. Only Jesus’ followers were Jews who read the book of Jonah with an interpretation denoting resurrection: since Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days, and was resurrected, so Jesus was in the belly of the earth for three days and was resurrected. Recall Matthew 12: ὥσπερ γὰρ ἦν Ἰωνᾶς ἐν τῇ κοιλίᾳ τοῦ κήτους τρεῖς ἡμέρας καὶ τρεῖς νύκτας, οὕτως ἔσται ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ τῆς γῆς τρεῖς ἡμέρας καὶ τρεῖς νύκτας. (Mt 12:39) For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. (NRSV)

No encyclopedia of art and symbolism in Early Judaism has been published. The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols is dated and focused neither on the Jewish world from 300 BCE (the earliest portions of 1 Enoch, especially 1 Enoch 1–36) to 200 CE (the codification of the Mishnah)4 nor on Christian Origins (before 200 CE). Thus, the following study must depend on literary sources and images provided by archaeological research.

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Figure 15.1  Dura-Europos Synagogue, murals, third century.

The symbolism of the serpent in the Gospel of John From the beginnings of Christianity, scholars recognized the complex symbolic language in John. Recently, C. R. Sosa Siliezar studied creation symbolism in John and concluded it explained Jesus’ relation with his Father, elevated Jesus above previous biblical luminaries (we would add other gods like Asclepius), and galvanized past, present, and in-breaking future worlds.5 As I demonstrated in The Good & Evil Serpent,6 the symbol and concept of the serpent in the Gospel of John is not simply negative as it is in the Revelation of John (12:9). In sayings attributed to Jesus in the New Testament, the serpent may have positive meanings, as in the famous saying attributed to Jesus: “Be wise as serpents” (γίνεσθε οὖν φρόνιμοι ὡς οἱ ὄφεις; Mt 10:16). Unfortunately, too many readers of John today, including leading New Testament experts, assume the serpent, or the snake, is a negative symbol. They missed H. Gerhard’s observation, published in 1847 that no animal symbolism has such importance and diversity, even contradictory meanings, as the serpent.7 We need an open and inquisitive mind to find scientific answers to this question: “How is the symbol of the serpent portrayed in the Gospel of John?” There are forty-one nouns in ancient Greek to denote various types of snakes. Only five of these nouns appear in the Greek New Testament.8 This proportion, 5/41, should not seem surprising. The documents in the New Testament are theological works. They should not be imagined to be quasi-zoological treatises (like De Natura Animalium). Moreover, the Greek in the New Testament was used to convert the masses. Only on rare occasions (as in Luke’s Prologue) was New Testament Greek directed to highly educated persons. This observation should be combined with the recognition that many New Testament authors knew and did occasionally use sophisticated Greek



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(e.g., Lk 1:1–4, Romans, and Hebrews; contrast Revelation, whose author thought in Aramaic and Hebrew but wrote in Greek). The five Greek nouns for snake or serpent that appear in the New Testament corpus are “asp” (ἀσπίς, Rom 3:13), “dragon” (δράκων, Rev 12:3, 4, 7 [bis], 9, 13, 16, 17; 13:2, 4, 11; 16:13; 20:2),9 “snake” (ἑρπετόν, Acts 10:12; 11:6; Rom 1:23; Jam 3:7), “viper” (ἔχιδνα, Mt 3:7; 12:34; 23:33; Lk 3:7; Acts 28:3),10 and “serpent” (sometimes “snake”; ὄφις, fifteen times in the New Testament [including Mk 16:18]).11 Perhaps the most interesting insight regarding ophidian symbolism in the New Testament is the fact that the common word for serpent in Greek (ὄφις) is the usual word for serpent in the New Testament corpus. Surely this insight helps us grasp the desire of the New Testament authors to use common words, as had Jesus of Nazareth; that is, these authors chose simple language that was devoid of pretense or ostentation.

John 3:14 Initial observations The Gospel of John was composed and edited over at least four decades, reaching its present form, without the story of the adulterous woman (7:53–8:11) which was inserted later, about 95 CE.12 The work may have been first composed in Jerusalem in the mid-60s CE, and later edited and expanded elsewhere, perhaps in Antioch or Ephesus.13 For almost 2,000 years, Christians have assumed that the Fourth Evangelist, of all the Evangelists, was the one most influenced by Greek thought, dependent on the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, Luke), and that the Beloved Disciple who appears only in the Fourth Gospel as the disciple “whom Jesus loved” (Jn 13:23) is the Fourth Evangelist, namely the Apostle John. From the preceding chapters, it should now be clear that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and related documents, prove that the Fourth Gospel is the most Jewish of the Gospels.14 P. Borgen, D. M. Smith, and other Johannine experts have rightly pointed out that the Fourth Evangelist may have known one or more of the Synoptics, but wrote “independently” of them.15 In the past fifty years, Johannine experts have demonstrated why the Fourth Gospel is probably not apostolic and connected with the Apostle John. Among the most important insights is the perception that this John and his brother—the sons of Zebedee—never appear in the Fourth Gospel, and it would be inexplicable why the Transfiguration which was witnessed by John, and which would be so appropriate for the Fourth Evangelist’s cosmic theology, would be ignored.16

Text and translation There can be little doubt that the passage on which we are focusing was carefully composed by the Fourth Evangelist and reflects the culture of the first century. Here is the text and translation, with key symbolical words italicized in the translation: καὶ καθὼς Μωϋσῆς ὕψωσεν τὸν ὄφιν ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, οὕτως ὑψωθῆναι δεῖ τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων ἐν αὐτῷ ἔχῃ ζωὴν αἰώνιον.17

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And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up in order that all who are believing in him may have eternal life. (Jn 3:14–15)18

Arriving at this point in the study of ancient serpent symbolism, many readers might assume that the author of Jn 3:14 makes some connection between “the Son of Man,” Jesus, and the serpent. That is the understanding that slowly impressed me. But, why would any Jew want to compare Jesus to a serpent? That question guides the following search. Was serpent symbolism multivalent before 100 CE when John was being written and shaped?19 Obviously, the Gospel of John cannot be interpreted by focusing on the Apocalypse of John and its portrayal of the serpent as Satan.

Questions In 3:14, the Fourth Evangelist interprets Numbers 21 to make a point. Why? Why does he attribute the teaching to Jesus? Was he thinking of Moses’ serpent as a “preChristian” symbol of Jesus? Was he thinking of Moses’ serpent as a type of Jesus? If so, what meaning was the author attempting to communicate and why? Does the Fourth Evangelist in Jn 3:14–15 only make a comparison between the serpent and Jesus in terms of the verb “to lift up”? That is the usual advice of commentators.20 Is it accurate, partially correct, or misleading? Does “to lift up” refer to the lifting up on a cross, and if so why does the Greek verb never have that meaning, except in John? Does the verb denote Jesus’ being lifted up into heaven and returning to the Father? What is the meaning of the “as” and “so” that begin the first and second stichoi? And why do many experts miss the poetic structure and parallelismus memborum? What is the precise meaning of the passive verb “be lifted up”? Who is the Son of Man? What is meant by “believing in him”? Does the author imply some connection between “the serpent” and “eternal life”? Was the serpent a symbol widely used in Early Christianity as it was in the Asclepian cult—and was serpent symbolism fundamental for Christology in some communities? Why has virtually no Johannine scholar seen that Hellenistic and early Jewish serpent symbolism may also clarify and enrich our understanding of the serpent in Jn 3:14–15? One answer to the main question would be that the serpent was misperceived as a symbol of evil. Another reason for the failure to perceive the richness of serpent symbolism in antiquity is that the serpent and its symbolism are surprisingly absent in many reference works. For example, there is no entry for “serpent” or “snake” in G. Cornfeld, et al., eds., The Pictorial Biblical Encyclopedia (1964).

Scholars’ reflections Do Johannine experts see a connection between Jesus and the serpent in John 3? Specialists on John obviously do not imagine Jesus as an evil or poisonous snake. The closest to this absurdity would be the suggestion that the Son of Man represented poison. In fact, J. G. Williams argued the “Son of Man who is lifted up was accused of being ‘poison.’” He continued: “Unlike the serpent Moses held up, he [Jesus] is not poison.”21 Nowhere in early Jewish thought or in traditions that have shaped or



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appear in the New Testament can I find textual support for the supposition that anyone imagined Jesus symbolized poison, except the Sadducees. M. Claudius, by his own admission, loved to study the Bible, and especially (“am liebsten”) the Gospel of John. Using the exegetical method that was acceptable in his time, but which is today recognized as relying on inappropriate conflation (e.g., the mixing of Moses’ ideas with those of the Fourth Evangelist), Claudius argued that Moses, in the upraised serpent of the wilderness period, perceived what would transpire centuries later and in Jerusalem; that is, the crucifixion of the Son of Man.22 Johannine scholars are more diachronically sophisticated than Claudius; they do not make the mistake of assuming Moses saw Jesus. Yet, we must ask again: Do scholars see a connection between the serpent and Jesus? The answer is clearly “No”; they either miss the poetry that makes “the serpent” parallel to “the Son of Man” (see the following discussion) or they assume no comparison was intended by the Fourth Evangelist. Commentators usually fail to include ophidian symbolism in an exegesis of Jn 3:13–16. The commentators have unanimously opted for another comparison, observing that the grammar demands a comparison (note “as” followed by “so”). Johannine experts conclude that the comparison in Jn 3:14–15 applies only to the verb “to lift up.” Note again some pertinent comments: The phrase “to be lifted up” refers to Jesus’ death on the cross. This is clear not only from the comparison with the serpent on the pole in vs. 14, but also from the explanation in xii 33 . . . (Brown, 1966)23 . . . the deepest point of connection between the bronze snake and Jesus was in the act of being “lifted up.” (Carson, 1991)24 And, just as that snake was “lifted up” in the wilderness, so, Jesus says, “the Son of Man must be lifted up.” This must refer to his being “lifted up” on the cross. (Morris, 1995)25 Und wie Gott in der Wüste seinen Zorn gegen das rebellische Volk durch die Rettungsgabe der erhöhten Schlange überwunden hat, so hat er Jesus . . . durch seine Hingabe und Erhöhung an das Kreuz—zu retten. (Wilckens, 2000)26 Indem Johannes den “erhöhten” Menschensohn . . . gibt er den gekreuzigten Jesus als Zeichen zu verstehen, das auf Gott weist. (Wengst, 2000)27

R. R. Marrs published an erudite and insightful study of Jn 3:14–15, but he showed no interest in serpent iconography or symbolism. He also missed the comparison between Jesus and the serpent.28 For him, the immediate point of comparison is the lifting up that “occurs in both scenes” (146). One of the most distinguished and gifted Johannine experts, and one who is probably the most informed specialist on what is a consensus in the study of John, has served us well. D. M. Smith summarizes the consensus on the meaning of Jn 3:14. Note his words: The biblical scene in view here is Num 21:8–9, where the Lord instructs Moses to make an image of a serpent and elevate it on a pole, so that the rebellious Israelites,

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against whom the Lord had actually sent serpents in the first place, might, if snake bitten, look on it and live. The analogy with the work of the crucified Jesus, the Son of Man who is lifted up, is very striking indeed. It is a classic typology. The element that is new in John, and characteristically Christian, is the emphasis on belief, which is absent from the story in Numbers. (Of course, comparisons of Jesus with the serpent are misplaced; the analogy applies only to being lifted up.)29

Succinctly, and accurately, Smith reports what we surmised in the beginning of this chapter. There is a consensus among Johannine scholars: in commenting on Jn 3:14–16, either they fail to see the possibility of the parallel between the serpent and Jesus, or they deny any “comparison” between Jesus and the serpent. In Smith’s clear assessment of the consensus several questions arise: (1) Does the Fourth Evangelist offer us a classic typology whereby Jesus, as the Son of Man lifted up, is portrayed as Moses’ upraised serpent? If so, how can “comparisons of Jesus with the serpent” be “misplaced”? (2) While an element added by the Fourth Evangelist is the reference to “believing,” should serpent symbolism be categorized as a “new” element when the Hebrews who look up to the metal snake in the wilderness must trust in God’s promise to heal them so they may live? (3) Would the Fourth Evangelist have agreed that “the emphasis on belief ” is a “new” element and “absent from the story in Num 21”? (4) Does “the analogy” apply “only to being lifted up”? The research summarized in the following pages casts doubt on each of these claims. Before proceeding further, I must record some concern, having checked over 600 commentaries on the Fourth Gospel. It is astounding how focused some of the best exegetes are on philology; yet they show no interest in symbolic language. Jn 3:14–15 is not problematic philologically; it is complex symbolically. That has become pellucid. No commentator on John over the past 100 years explores the symbolism of the “serpent” in Jn 3:14. Contrast, however, the brilliant and focused exegesis of John Chrysostom (c. 347 to September 14, 407 CE) [italics mine]: “That whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” Seest thou the cause of the Crucifixion, and the salvation which is by it? Seest thou the relationship of the type to the reality? There the Jews escaped death, but the temporal, here believers the eternal; there the hanging serpent healed the bites of serpents, here the Crucified Jesus cured the wounds inflicted by the spiritual dragon; there he who looked with his bodily eyes was healed, here he who beholds with the eyes of his understanding put off all his sins; there that which hung was brass fashioned into the likeness of a serpent, here it was the Lord’s Body, built by the Spirit; there a serpent bit and a serpent healed, here death destroyed and a Death saved. But the snake which destroyed had venom, that which saved was free from venom; and so again was it here, for the death which slew us had sin with it, as the serpent had venom; but the Lord’s Death was free from all sin, as the brazen serpent from venom. . . . For as some noble champion by lifting on high and dashing down his antagonist, renders his victory more glorious, so Christ, in the sight of all the world, cast down the adverse powers, and having healed those who were smitten in the wilderness, delivered them from all venomous beasts that vexed them, by being hung upon the Cross. Yet He did not say, “must hang,” but,



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“must be lifted up” (Acts xxviii. 4); for He used this which seemed the milder term, on account of His hearer, and because it was proper to the type.30

It is impressive how many times John Chrysostom mentions the serpent, the dragon, and the snake. If Chrysostom’s insight were regnant among specialists on John, the present exploration would not be so difficult.

Serpent symbolism and exegesis Despite insights into the positive symbolism of the serpent by the early scholars Ephrem Syrus, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Augustine, and more recent experts like Calvin, the prevailing mood of New Testament exegetes who turn to Jn 3:14 is that snakes, or serpents, are vile animals who are simply pejorative symbols. Perhaps, the turning point in the exegesis of Jn 3:14–15 toward the serpent as a symbol of evil came in the writings of Eusebius (c. 260–340 CE). In introducing Philo of Byblos’ alleged excerpt from Sanchuniathon, which celebrates the mythological importance of the serpent, Eusebius cannot restrain himself. This genius, often celebrated as the “Father of Church History,” prejudices the reader with these comments: snakes are “creeping and venomous beasts” which certainly perform nothing beneficial for humans, but rather effect ruin and destruction for whomever they strike with deadly and cruel venom.”31 Under such denigration of the serpent and its symbolism, which became characteristic of the church, subsequent interpreters of Jn 3:14 will miss the rich symbolism provided by the culture in which the Fourth Gospel took shape. It was filled with positive images of the serpent as the source of life, health, rejuvenation, new life, and resurrection. Recall again the epic of Gilgamesh, which was an ancient well-known legend a millennium and more before the Fourth Evangelist. According to Tablet XI a snake, the “lion of the ground,” steals from Gilgamesh the plant called “The Old Man Becomes a Young Man.” Having obtained the plant, the snake “sloughed off its casing” and became eternally youthful.32 About the same time as Eusebius, the Christian apologist Arnobius (who died about 330 CE) ridiculed those who portrayed Asclepius as a serpent. He argues that “a serpent” crawls over the earth “as worms are wont to do, which spring from mud. . . .” The serpent “rubs the ground with his chin and breast, dragging himself in sinuous coils. . . .”33 In this section of his seventh book, Arnobius reveals how powerful was the cult of Asclepius and what a threat it was for the success of Christianity. Being contaminated by such a setting, so different from the time in which the Fourth Gospel took shape, it will be difficult to grasp the original intention of the symbolism in Jn 3:14–15. The backdrop for this stage of history was even set earlier by Tertullian (c. 160–225 CE). He was sidetracked from developing his own insights on the typology of the serpent for Christ because of the Ophites who exaggerated the literal meaning of 3:14–15, stressing Christ as a crawling serpent.34 The time of the first Council of the Church—at Nicea in 325 CE—seems to be a barrier that separates a period when the serpent was predominantly a positive symbol from one in which it is almost always a negative symbol. It is obvious, both from a study of Christian thought from the late second century CE to the fourth century CE, and from conversations with learned colleagues in New Testament research, that the

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exegete is now prejudiced against the serpent symbolizing something positive. That attitude causes a misreading and a misinterpretation of New Testament passages. The habit of assuming that the serpent symbolizes only evil has been a hallmark of Christian exegesis since about the fourth century. For example, even though Theodoret (c. 393–466 CE), a bishop in Syria, grasps that the Fourth Evangelist drew a parallel between Jesus and the serpent, the serpent must symbolize something negative. Note the following excerpt from Theodoret’s Dialogues (the characters are fictitious: “Eranistes” represents the opponent of “Orthodoxus,” the one who argues on the basis of apostolic decrees): Eranistes: Do you not think it irreverent to liken the Lord to goats? Orthodoxus: Which do you think is a fitter object of avoidance and hate, a serpent or a goat? Eranistes: A serpent is plainly hateful, for it injures those who come within its reach, and often hurts people who do it no harm. A goat on the other hand comes, according to the Law, in the list of animals that are clean and may be eaten. Orthodoxus: Now hear the Lord likening the passion of salvation to the brazen serpent. He says: “As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life.” If a brazen serpent was a type of the crucified Saviour, of what impropriety are we guilty in comparing the passion of salvation with the sacrifice of the goats? Eranistes: Because John called the Lord “a lamb,” and Isaiah called Him “lamb” and “sheep.” Orthodoxus: But the blessed Paul calls Him “sin” and “curse.” As curse therefore He satisfies the type of the accursed serpent; as sin He explains the figure of the sacrifice of the goats, for on behalf of sin, in the Law, a goat, and not a lamb, was offered. So the Lord in the Gospels likened the just to lambs, but sinners to kids; and since He was ordained to undergo the passion not only on behalf of just men, but also of sinners, He appropriately foreshadows His own offering through lambs and goats.35

Far too often biblical scholars tell me, over and over, that they hate snakes and are afraid of them. That viewpoint seems myopic—even unreflective. These scholars celebrate the power of the bull and with admiration hold a bronze bull artifact from the second millennium BCE; they exuberantly exclaim what a powerful and appropriate symbol is the bull for god’s power. They never seem to grasp how dangerous and destructive the bull is. The same scholars write about the lion and admire it as the quintessential symbol of the king and the Messiah.36 They seem to forget that “the king of beasts” is far more dangerous and fearful than a snake. Such scholars’ research is corrupted by unperceived presuppositions and nurturing (i.e., instruction that presupposes snakes are always to be feared, hated, and killed).



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Indeed, the serpent is perceived to be feared not because of experience with nature but from nurturing. We do not obtain a fear of serpents only, or primarily, from experience or nature. The point I am making was popularized in M. Ridley’s “What Makes You Who You Are,” Time (June 2, 2003):37 Fear of snakes, for instance, is the most common human phobia, and it makes good evolutionary sense for it to be instinctive. Learning to fear snakes the hard way would be dangerous. Yet experiments with monkeys reveal that their fear of snakes (and probably ours) must still be acquired by watching another individual react with fear to a snake. It turns out that it is easy to teach monkeys to fear snakes but very difficult to teach them to fear flowers. What we inherit is not a fear of snakes but a predisposition to learn a fear of snakes—a nature for a certain kind of nurture.

We should avoid the error of positing a false dichotomy between nature and nurture. Is it not clear that we are taught to hate snakes, and have “a predisposition to learn a fear of snakes?” In light of the history of humanity’s adoration of serpent, this fear is not a native disposition inherited. To appreciate ancient serpent symbolism we must be constantly aware to avoid the nurturing that placards snakes as dangerous, evil, and fearful. If we are to comprehend successfully the symbolism inherited by and developed by the Fourth Evangelist, we must immerse ourselves in his time and appreciate the symbolic world that shaped his Gospel. We must indwell the culture that influenced his cosmic Christology and provided the symbolism and metaphors by which he could articulate his own thoughts. His context provided perceptions and symbolism by which he crafted his challenging insights. With erudition and sensitivity, G. Theissen illustrates how immersing oneself in the cultural, sociological, and political context of a text creates new insights for reflection.38 During the period when the Fourth Gospel was taking shape, and for the next three centuries, the Asclepian cult and its bewitching serpent symbolism was a threat to Christian theologians and church leaders. In A Plea for the Christians, the second century Athenagoras, the Athenian Christian apologist, reported that Hesiod said the following of Asclepius: The mighty father both of gods and men Was filled with wrath, and from Olympus’ top With flaming thunderbolt cast down and slew Latona’s well-loved son—such was his ire.39

Tertullian helps us understand Hesiod’s cryptic verse. Citing the lyric poet Pindar, Tertullian commented that “Aesculapius,” the god of medicine, was “deservedly stricken with lightning for his greed in practicing wrongfully his art.” A wicked deed it was of Jupiter who hurled the bolt at his grandson, “exhibiting envious feeling to the Physician.”40 Asclepius was thus killed by Zeus’ thunderbolt, but Asclepius’ story did not end with his death.41 His devotees claimed to experience him alive again, as Origen reports

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in Against Celsus 3.24. Such beliefs and hopes challenged the kerygma (proclamation) in the Christian movement (cf. esp. Augustine, The City of God 7.23 and 10.16). Asclepius remained very popular, especially for all who were sick or injured.42 In his On the Incarnation of the Word, Athanasius lists some of the parallels between Asclepius and Christ and denies that there is any conceivable parallel. Note his reflections: You call Asclepius, Heracles, and Dionysus gods for their works. Contrast their works with His, and the wonders at His death. For what man, that ever was born, formed a body for himself from a virgin alone? Or what man ever healed such diseases as the common Lord of all? Or who has restored what was wanting to man’s nature, and made one blind from his birth to see? Asclepius was deified among them, because he practised medicine and found out herbs for bodies that were sick; not forming them himself out of the earth, but discovering them by science drawn from nature. But what is this to what was done by the Saviour, in that, instead of healing a wound, He modified a man’s original nature, and restored the body whole. Heracles is worshipped as a god among the Greeks because he fought against men, his peers, and destroyed wild beasts by guile. What is this to what was done by the Word, in driving away from man diseases and demons and death itself? Dionysus is worshipped among them because he has taught man drunkenness; but the true Saviour and Lord of all, for teaching temperance, is mocked by these people.43

Quite significantly, the noun “Savior” appears more than once in this passage; that is because devotes of Asclepius and Christ each proclaimed the uniqueness of their god, choosing the appellations “Savior.” It is possible that the prior use of “Savior” by the devotees of Asclepius influenced Christology; what is certain is the clash between the two “Roman cults.” Both Asclepius and Jesus could not be the only Savior of the world. Recall the choice of words by the Samaritans who believed Jesus’ words: τῇ τε γυναικὶ ἔλεγον ὅτι Οὐκέτι διὰ τὴν σὴν λαλιὰν πιστεύομεν, αὐτοὶ γὰρ ἀκηκόαμεν καὶ οἴδαμεν ὅτι οὗτός ἐστιν ἀληθῶς ὁ σωτὴρ τοῦ κόσμου. (Jn 4:42) They said to the woman, “It is no longer through what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

Most likely the Fourth Evangelist remembered that Asclepius was the one heralded at Bethzatha as the Savior of the world (see the pericope of the “Healing at the Pool” in the following verses: John 5); he urges his readers to comprehend Jesus alone as the Savior of the world. Even Clement of Alexandria, who has some harsh things to report about Asclepius, recorded the claim that “the Phoenicians and the Syrians first invented letters; and that Apis, an aboriginal inhabitant of Egypt, invented the healing art before Io came into Egypt. But afterwards they say that Asclepius improved the art.”44 A vast number of Greeks and Romans agreed with Pindar that Asclepius was the “gentle craftsman who drove pain from the limbs that he healed—that hero who gave aid in all manner



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of maladies.”45 Tertullian’s comments mirror the threat of the Asclepiads toward Christians. Note his words: Let that same Virgin Caelestis herself the rain-promiser, let Aesculapius discoverer of medicines, ready to prolong the life of Socordius, and Tenatius, and Asclepiodotus, now in the last extremity, if they would not confess, in their fear of lying to a Christian, that they were demons, then and there shed the blood of that most impudent follower of Christ.46

This confusing excerpt is chosen to make only one point. The words of Tertullian mirror the threat of Asclepius (Aesculapius) for Christ; the former seems merely to be an “impudent follower of Christ.” In The Chaplet, Tertullian rejects the claim that Asclepius was “the first who sought and discovered cures.” Tertullian claims that much earlier “Esaias (= Isaiah) mentions that he ordered Hezekiah medicine when he was sick. Paul, too, knows that a little wine does the stomach good.”47 Origen knew the claims that Jesus’ death was similar to Asclepius’ death. He rejects such claims and similarities between the two most famous miracle workers before the time of the Fourth Evangelist. Note Origen’s words: But we, in proving the facts related of our Jesus from the prophetic Scriptures, and comparing afterwards His history with them, demonstrate that no dissoluteness on His part is recorded. For even they who conspired against Him, and who sought false witnesses to aid them, did not find even any plausible grounds for advancing a false charge against Him, so as to accuse Him of licentiousness; but His death was indeed the result of a conspiracy, and bore no resemblance to the death of Aesculapius by lightning.48

The threat to Jesus’ followers from the devotees of Asclepius was due not only to the popularity of the Asclepian cult but also because Asclepius’ life was virtually a mirror of the story of Jesus. Asclepius was perceived originally as a human. In Homer and other early authors, Asclepius is a human. He is the great physician. He dies, and appears again in dreams, and according to some of his devotees, he is alive again. He becomes a god equal to Zeus, an elevation that seems to have taken place during the time when the Fourth Gospel was being composed and edited.49 Note these reflections by Justin Martyr: In that we say it was possible for Jesus Christ to make “whole the lame, the paralytic, and those born blind, we seem to say what is very similar to the deeds said to have been done by Aesculapius.”50 The similarities between the story of Asclepius and the gospel about Jesus are thus undeniable. The followers of Jesus were challenged not only by the Asclepiads and their devotion to Asclepius, but also by the story of Asclepius and his promise of health and everlasting life.51 Two of the most significant publications comparing Christ with Asclepius were published in the 1980s. In 1980, E. Dinkier focused on the Christ typology reflected in a polychromatic scene of a meal and healings. The scene is found in high relief on a broken plaque in the Mesa National Romano.52 Dinkier points out that the sculpture seems to depict Christ in light of Asclepius. In 1986, R. J. Rüttimann, in a dissertation

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at Harvard University, examined The Form, Character and Status of the Asclepiads Cult in the Second Century CE and Its Influence on Early Christianity (available privately). Rüttimann has missed two of the major publications on Asclepius and Jesus. He seems not to know about Dinkier’s publication, which appeared eight years earlier. He also has missed a major study by K. H. Rengstorf that is devoted to the beginnings of the clash between Christians and devotees of Asclepius.53 While Rengstorf dates the beginnings of this sociological and religious confrontation to the middle of the second century CE, there are reasons to assume it may already be present earlier. We have obtained some insight into why the serpent ceased to be a positive symbol for most early Christians. Those alongside whom Christians were struggling to survive and develop a normative self-understanding had appropriated the positive symbol of the serpent. It would have made an appropriate symbol also for Christians, however, in light of Numbers 21 and John 3. In the following pages, we shall focus with more concentration on this question: Why have Johannine experts not perceived the positive parallel between Jesus and the serpent according to Jn 3:14? Are comparisons between Jesus and the serpent “misplaced?” Does the analogy in John 3 apply “only to being lifted up?” What is the “classic typology” to which D. M. Smith refers? How can the typology apply only to lifting up? Does not Jn 3:14–15 imply the full typology: Moses’ serpent placed on a pole represents Jesus’ “exaltation” on the cross? In Jn 12:32–33, the Fourth Evangelist makes it clear that to lift up refers to Jesus’ crucifixion. What relevance has chapter 12 for chapter 3? Is only crucifixion intended by the complex symbolic language in Jn 3:14–15? What is the intentionality of the symbolism hidden in the collage of Moses, serpent, wilderness, Son of Man, “be lifted up,” “believes in him,” and “eternal life”? Each of these nouns appears in Jn 3:14 and each has deep symbolic meaning. Is Smith correct to report that “comparisons of Jesus with the serpent are misplaced; the analogy applies only to being lifted up”?54 How could the Evangelist think only about lifting up and never about the lifting up of Jesus and how he is being symbolized? Are such comparisons misplaced, if Jesus, like the serpent, is then portrayed to be the one who brings life abundantly? There should be no doubt, as illustrated abundantly in The Good and Evil Serpent (pp. 250–51), that in John’s symbolic world the serpent frequently signifies new life, and even continuous life. For over 50,000 years in the Levant, Homo sapiens observed that the serpent symbolized life because it could shed its old skin and remain attractive and youthful through new skin. This phenomenological wedding of “serpent” and “life” is reflected in languages; for example, in Arabic ḥayya is the noun for “serpent” and analogically ḥayāh means “life.” In Syriac, close to the Aramaic of Jesus and John, ḥewyâ means “serpent” and ḥayyê is “life.” The interpretation of Jn 3:14 entails searching for the Evangelist’s meaning of a multivalent symbol: the serpent. Four components are involved: the symbol maker (the Fourth Evangelist), the symbol, the meaning of the symbol, and the interpreter of the symbol (in antiquity and today). Clearly, the central concern for us is the third component part: the meaning of a symbol. Does it reveal or point toward meaning? To establish the point that the Fourth Evangelist thinks about Jesus as Moses’ upraised serpent that brought life to those bitten with poison, and to forge against the stream of Johannine research, we need to demonstrate eight points:



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1. The serpent was a powerfully positive symbol in the evangelist’s culture. 2. The grammar of Jn 3:14 relates Jesus and the serpent. 3. The syntax indicates that Jesus and the serpent are parallel symbols. 4. The poetry of the passage draws a parallel between the serpent and Jesus. 5. The Son of Man traditions in Jn 3:14 are rich with Christological overtones. 6. Johannine symbolic theology implies that Jesus, like the serpent, brings life. 7. Intertextuality; that is, Numbers 21 is a key to the meaning of Jn 3:14. 8. The Evidence of an Underlying Anguine Christology in the Gospel of John.55 We have already intimated that the Evangelist’s Jesus in John 3 is a mirror reflection of Moses’ serpent on the pole. Both Jesus and the serpent demand belief and promise “life.” This dominant symbolic meaning of the serpent in the first century CE is evident

Figure 15.2  Statue of Asklepios, Greek God of Healing, second century.

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in the Asclepiads’ claimed that Asclepius could heal and bring new life. And this god was symbolized as the serpent in dreams and was shown with a serpent on his staff in paintings and sculptures. The following explorations will help clarify to what extent the Fourth Evangelist imagined Jesus as a type of Moses’ serpent, and that ophidian symbolism is found in Jn 3:14–15. For over a decade, I have asked research assistants and colleagues: What do you think when you hear “Jesus, the serpent”? They answer “Jesus, the Devil.” Their response is immediate and no reflection seemed required. If we were able to ask members of the Johannine community what they might think if they heard that a man was thought of as a serpent, they most likely would answer that he was divine and had the secret of life. At the outset, we need to be aware of the vast differences between two cultures: the present world of the twenty-first century and the culture of the Fourth Evangelist in the first century CE. Studying ancient serpent symbolism is revealing. The first emperor of Rome, Augustus (63 BCE–14 CE), was considered a god, even if he suffered occasionally from diarrhea. The Roman historian Suetonius (c. 69–140 CE) in his only extant work, The Twelve Caesars, recorded the following startling account of the birth of Augustus Caesar:56 Then there is a story which I found in a book called Theologumena, by Asclepiades of Mendes. Augustus’ mother, Atia, with certain married women friends, once attended a solemn midnight service at the Temple of Apollo, where she had her litter set down, and presently fell asleep as the others also did. Suddenly a serpent glided up, entered her, and then glided away again. On awakening, she purified herself, as if after intimacy with her husband. An irremovable coloured mark in the shape of a serpent, which then appeared on her body, made her ashamed to visit the public baths any more; and the birth of Augustus nine months later suggested a divine paternity.57

The spirit of the time, during the Fourth Gospel’s evolution, was imbued with the belief that serpents were positive life-giving symbols. The story of Augustus’ birth from a serpent (although it was also acknowledged that he was the son of a novus homo) was well known and widely assumed to be accurate.58 Augustus’ miraculous god-aided birth shaped beliefs, myths, and reflections on other individuals who seemed divine. Augustus was none other than the son of Apollo, the son of Jupiter and Latona. In evaluating this story of Augustus’ “divine paternity” by the great god, ApolloZeus, it is imperative to observe that Suetonius’ account of the lives of the Caesars continues until the death of Domitian in 96 CE. That is, about the time the Fourth Gospel reached its completion, or second edition.59 During the time the Fourth Gospel was taking shape and moving through two editions,60 the divinity of Augustus was widely expressed in terms of serpent imagery. It is thus prudent to ponder how and in what ways the Fourth Evangelist sought to stress Jesus’ divinity by interpreting Numbers 21 so that Jesus is presented like Moses’ upraised serpent. The Fourth Evangelist completed his second edition of the Fourth Gospel about 95 CE, at which time he added the Logos Hymn (Jn 1:1–18), which was most likely



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chanted in the Johannine “School,” and other sections of his Gospel, especially chapter 21. Also about 95 CE Philo of Byblos was working on his compositions. As we have already seen, he discusses the divine nature of serpents. Philo of Byblos emphasizes that the serpent sheds its skin and so is immortal. Philo of Byblos refers to his own monograph, called Ethothion. In it, he claims to “demonstrate” that the serpent is “immortal and that it dissolves into itself . . . for this sort of animal does not die an ordinary death unless it is violently struck. The Phoenicians call it ‘Good Demon’ [Agathadaimon in Greek]. Similarly the Egyptians give it a name, Kneph, and they also give it the head of a hawk, because of the hawk’s active character.”61 We can read portions of the Ethothion, which is lost, because Eusebius, the first Christian historian cites it. According to Eusebius’ citation, Philo of Byblos calls the serpent “exceedingly long-lived, and by nature not only does it slough off old age and become rejuvenated,62 but it also attains greater growth. When it fulfills its determined limit, it is consumed

Figure 15.3  Bacchus wearing bunches of grapes pouring wine to a panther, fresco from the Casa del Centenario, Pompeii, 68–79 CE, Museo Archeologico.

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into itself, as Taautos himself similarly narrates in his sacred writings. Therefore, this animal is included in the rites and mysteries.”63 The excerpt from Philo of Byblos, regardless of his sources, is of paradigmatic importance for discerning Johannine symbolism. First, it informs us of the mythology and symbolic theology of the contemporaries of the Fourth Evangelist. Second, there can be no doubt that this perspective of the serpent was thought to belong not only to the Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, and Phoenicians, but also to the Israelites and Jews. Third, and most importantly, as shown in The Good and Evil Serpent, the serpent was lauded for its ability to symbolize life-without-end (Pos. 27), new life (Pos. 20), rejuvenation (Pos. 26), and immortality (Pos. 27).64 The Fourth Evangelist and those in his circle, community, or School, were reminded almost daily that the serpent symbolized immortality, reincarnation, and perhaps resurrection. If Jn 3:14–15 portrays Jesus as a type of the serpent raised up by Moses, it is imperative to explore the possibility of a remnant of ophidian Christology in the Fourth Gospel. Is it not likely that the Fourth Evangelist and those in the Johannine Circle were influenced by ophidian symbolism? Surely serpent symbolism may have been intended or seen in such words as the following: “I am the way, the truth and the life” (14:6). And also: “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and whoever lives and believes in me shall never die” (11:25). The Fourth Evangelist’s favorite word for “life” is zōē (ζωή). While Mark uses the noun four times, Matthew uses it seven times, and Luke uses it five times, the Fourth Evangelist highlights it thirty-six times.65 Since in the Evangelist’s time the serpent was the quintessential symbol for “life,” we dare not be blind to possible ophidian symbolism in his use of “life.” A study of the serpent at Pompeii helps us grasp the culture of the Fourth Evangelist. The serpent was extremely popular at Pompeii. It looms large in murals painted on the outside walls of houses. It appears within houses in small temples. It defines elegant gold rings, bracelets, and armlets. At Pompeii there was a cult of the serpent (see Appendix III in The Good and Evil Serpent). The serpent almost always symbolized life, beauty, and protection at Pompeii. In 79 CE, Pompeii was destroyed; the archaeological remains help us contemplate the world of serpent symbolism that shaped the Fourth Evangelist’s symbolism. In light of what we have learned already about the concept and symbolism of the serpent in the first century CE, and in light of the Fourth Evangelist’s accurate knowledge of the pools in and around Jerusalem (demonstrated in Chapter 6), it is necessary to think about the possible meaning of “the Serpents’ Pool” in Jerusalem. This statement needs unpacking. The Fourth Evangelist knows about two pools in Jerusalem. As demonstrated already, the Fourth Evangelist knows about “the Pool of Bethzatha (Bethesda, or Bethsaida)” (John 5) and “the Pool of Siloam” (John 9). Did he also know about “the Serpents’ Pool” which is mentioned by Josephus?66 Where was this purification pool?67 Why was it linked with “serpents”? What does “the Serpents’ Pool” disclose to us about serpents and cults in Jerusalem during the life time of Jesus and that of the Fourth Evangelist? These are questions that need examination; it is clear now that at Bethzatha there was a shrine to Asclepius. Was there a cult of the serpents near or in “the Serpents’ Pool”?



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How significant and influential was serpent symbolism in Jerusalem before 135/6 CE, when it became a Roman city? Before proceeding further to examine the theological symbolism of key words in Jn 3:14–15, we should attend to the meaning poured into the grammar and the syntax by the Evangelist. Both in English and in Greek grammar “as” (καθὼς) and “so” (οὕτως) indicate a comparison of a word (noun, adjective, or verb), phrase, or clause.68 To avoid a discussion of the relation between Jesus and the serpent could lead to hesitancy concerning what being was on the cross. To be satisfied with a focus only on the verb “to lift up” violates the Fourth Evangelist’s narrative that leads to the One lifted up on the cross. The One on the cross was the Messiah, the Son of Man, Jesus, the Son of the Father, who is moving back to the place from which he originated: above. The full drama of sending (a clear Johannine motif) is climaxed as Jesus ascends from the earth on the cross. The moment of death is the moment of life; those appreciating ophidian symbolism will find John’s narrative rich with symbolic language. The leading commentators, as we have just seen, assume that “as” denotes only the verb. Grammatically, it can describe the verb but it can also define a verb with a noun, or a clause. One must argue which of these was probably intended by the implied author or comprehended by the reader. It seems unlikely that the stress of “as” is placed only on “lifted up.” The Fourth Evangelist did not place the adverb “as” before the verb both times, and in the second clause he changed the verb from the active to the passive voice. He did not write “as lifted up . . . so lifted up.” If he had, then the adverb would govern the verb. The Fourth Evangelist is a careful writer; he wrote: “And as Moses lifted up . . . so to be lifted up it is necessary. . . .” The Fourth Evangelist three times mentions Jesus’ being “lifted up” (3:14, 8:28, and 12:32–34). Too many commentators assume or even argue that the verb refers only to Jesus’ being lifted up on the cross. Prima facie, the argument appears very impressive.69 In 8:28, Jesus tells “the Pharisees” that they “will lift up the Son of Man.” That cannot refer to God’s exaltation of Jesus as in Acts 2:33 and 5:31. In 12:32–34, Jesus states: “When I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all to myself.” The Evangelist adds: “He said this to show by what death he was about to die.” The meaning of the verb “lifted up” in 8:28 and in 12:32–34 clearly refers to Jesus’ death. Do they provide the only, or best, basis for understanding 3:14? Should we read 8:28 and 12:32–34 back into 3:14? That method violates the integrity of the unique symbolism in Chapter 3 and misses the double entendre: Jesus was lifted up on the cross and thereby exalted on his way to heaven and back to his Father. As T. Zahn explained in 1921 in Das Evangelium des Johannes, “The lifting up is to be understood as the elevation into heaven, the return of Jesus from the earthly world to the otherworldly realm of God.”70 It must be stressed again, against the tide of recent research, that “to lift up” in the Fourth Gospel does not denote only lifting up on the cross; it is a lifting up on the cross that symbolizes Jesus’ exaltation and return to heaven. R. Schnackenburg stressed this point clearly: “As the uplifted serpent in the wilderness typologically shows, on the cross and throughout (Jesus is shown with) heavenly lordship” (“Wie es die eherne Schlange in der Wüste typologisch anzeigt, am Kreuz, und dann und dadurch auch in der himmlischen Herrlichkeit”).71 A study of the ophidian symbolism in 3:14 helps protect the exegete from missing the full meaning of the verse and focusing only on “lifting up.”

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Immediate context determines a text’s meaning. The context of 3:14 thus is shaped by 3:13. That verse clarified that the Son of Man, as R. Bultmann observed, is “the one who has come down from heaven and who must again be exalted. That is stated explicitly in vv. 14f.” Bultmann continued: “V. 14 mentions only the exaltation;72 this is the fulfillment of the Son’s mission, and by this alone is it made effective (cp. 13.31f.), for it is the exalted, glorified Lord who is the object of Christian faith. Yet the necessary condition of his exaltation is his humiliation, as verse 13 has already said.73 The saving event embraces both these elements.”74 As M. Hengel points out, the Fourth Evangelist makes more references to Jesus’ death as salvation than the other gospels.75 Beasley-Murray wisely discloses the “simple fact that the Evangelist views the death and resurrection of Christ as indissolubly one. The redemptive event is the crucifixionresurrection of the Son.”76 H. Weder rightly saw that the “point de comparison” is not primarily to the “mode” of this elevation; verse 15 indicates the “sens” of this elevation: the elevation of the Son of Man.77 Likewise, F. Hahn, in his Theologie des Neuen Testaments, stresses correctly that the Son of Man in Johannine Christology is revealed to be shaped by “lifting up” and “glorification.”78 Thus, certainly not crucifixion alone is meant by verse 14; both crucifixion and resurrection collapse into one event for the Fourth Evangelist: the raising up of the Son of Man as an antitype of Moses’ serpent.79 In On the Spirit, St. Basil “the Great” (c. 330–379 CE) rightly perceived that the serpent in John 3 typified Christ. Note his reflections on typology: “The manna is a type of the living bread that came down from heaven; and the serpent on the standard of the passion of salvation accomplished by means of the cross, wherefore they who even looked thereon were preserved.”80 Though Augustine missed the positive symbolism of the serpent, he did see the typology: the serpent lifted up signifies Jesus’ death on the cross. Augustine argues that as death came into the world through the serpent, its abolishment was fittingly symbolized by the image of a serpent on the cross.81 Some scholars recognize the brilliant typology of the Fourth Evangelist; though it is missed by the mass of commentators who simply repeat the threefold claim that 3:14 denotes only Jesus’ crucifixion, that only “lifting up” is implied, and that there is no connection between the serpent and the Son of Man—in fact, most commentators tend to ignore the serpent symbolism. Note, however, the following exceptions to this misleading exegesis. E. Haenchen wisely pointed out that the Fourth Evangelist avoids mentioning the crucifixion, except in the Passion Narrative. He refers rather to “its divine meaning, the exaltation.”82 Long ago in his commentary on the Fourth Gospel, B. F. Westcott astutely perceived that the words of 3:14: “Imply an exaltation in appearance far different from that of the triumphant king, and yet in its true issue leading to a divine glory. This passage through the elevation on the cross to the elevation on the right hand of God was a necessity . . . arising out of the laws of the divine nature.”83 As R. J. Burns states, in “Jesus and the Bronze Serpent,” the Evangelist uses “lifting up” to refer “not only to Jesus’ death by crucifixion but to his resurrection as well.”84 Beasley-Murray correctly claims: “To the lifting up of the snake on a pole that all may live corresponds the lifting up of the Son of Man on a cross that all may have eternal life.”85 The narrator indicates what is lifted up; note the active verb chosen for serpent and passive verb for Son of Man. One should not exclude what is lifted up: Moses’ serpent



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and the Son of Man, Jesus. As Bernard stated, “Those who looked up in faith upon the brazen serpent uplifted before them were delivered from death by poison; those who look upon the Crucified, lifted up on the cross, shall be delivered from the death of sin.”86 Neither the author of Numbers 21 nor the Fourth Evangelist expected the reader to look only at the verb. Yet, contemporary Johannine experts conclude, en masse, despite the brilliant insights of earlier commentators and the vast weight of serpent symbolism, that the Evangelist placed the emphasis only on the verb, “lifting up.” While the eyes of the Hebrews who trust God’s promise look up at the copper serpent and the eyes of Johannine Jews train their upward gaze toward Jesus, the Son of Man and Son of God, there is a difference. In Num 21:8 (LXX), the stake on which the copper serpent is raised is called a “sign” (probably of God’s healing power).87 The “signs” in the Fourth Gospel, Jesus’ mighty works (Jn 5:31–47), correspond to the miracles of the Synoptics. Each of the signs (σημεῖον [Jn 2:23]) witnesses to Jesus who is not a sign but the One to whom the signs point, according to God’s plan (Jn 2:11, 23; 3:2; etc.). Recognizing the stress on Jesus’ incarnation and physical nature—only in the Fourth Gospel does Jesus collapse from exhaustion and thirst and later cry—it seems difficult to comprehend how Johannine experts can miss the narrative force of Jn 3:13–16. The Fourth Evangelist is not interested only in drawing attention to the verb, “lifting up.” He is focusing the readers’ mind on things above (Jn 3:12) and proclaiming that Jesus’ crucifixion was not a failure but his hour of triumph as he begins to ascend above the earth. While Luke trifurcates the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, the Fourth Evangelist stresses, against polemical Jewish groups (some of whom control the local synagogue) that Jesus’ crucifixion was his exaltation. Resurrection and ascension tend to be refocused on Jesus’ lifting up on the cross; he will return to his Father finally according to John 20. As is well known, the Fourth Evangelist stresses more than the Synoptics that Jesus is God’s Son. That perspective is central to our concentration on Jn 3:13–16. More in the Fourth Gospel than elsewhere in the New Testament Jesus is portrayed as talking about God as Father (cf. esp. Jn 5:19–47). To comprehend that for the Fourth Evangelist Jesus is God’s Son brings us back into first century serpent symbolism. As we have seen, Caesar Augustus was portrayed as a god’s son because a serpent impregnated his mother. The simile includes a necessity: it is necessary (δεῖ) for the Son of Man to be lifted up. The implied author appeals to the divine plan of salvation, and employs the word “necessary” which is used in apocalyptic literature to stress that certain events must take place before the Endtime, when all normal time will cease. The reader already knows, or will soon learn from the narrative, that Jesus will die beneath the walls of the Holy City, Jerusalem. Commentators have assumed or argued that the very use of the word “necessary” (δεῖ) makes it obvious that 3:14 must refer only to Jesus’ crucifixion. They point to the use of “necessary” in 3:13 and 12:34. The use of “necessary” (δεῖ) near the conclusion of the Fourth Gospel may prove them wrong. According to the Fourth Evangelist, the Scriptures prove that “it is necessary (δεῖ) for him [Jesus] to rise from the dead (20:9).” Jesus goes willingly to his death, according to the Fourth Evangelist. Jesus’ death is unlike the concept of the hero like Socrates who dies as an example for others. Jesus’

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death is not the result of the evils of men. Jesus’ crucifixion is a necessity; it is according to Scripture and according to God’s will and love.88 What has the Evangelist chosen as a parallel to “in the wilderness?” This dative phrase is followed by the dative phrase in the result clause: “in him.” Hence the theological thought develops out of the grammar: As the believers in God’s exhortation looked up at the upraised serpent in the wilderness and did not die, so all believers who look up to the exalted (upraised) Christ will live eternally “in him” (ἐν αὐτῷ). Precise grammar helps to indicate a connection between serpent in the wilderness and the Son of Man, Jesus. More may be learned by the implied author’s use of “must” or “it is necessary” (δεῖ). The Fourth Evangelist did not write: “As Moses lifted up, so the Son of Man is lifted up.” The implied author draws attention to more than the connection between the serpent and the Son of Man. According to the author of Numbers 21, it is neither Moses’ act of lifting up that saves the people nor the serpent on the pole. What saves the people in Numbers and the Fourth Gospel is God, and this saving power is available because of the commitment of the people who follow God’s directive to look up to the serpent— and in the process turn their gaze toward heaven and God. The Fourth Evangelist clarifies the importance of believing (a fundamental word emphasized by him), but the concept is not entirely new in the typology; it seems implied in Numbers 21. Crucial to the author of Numbers is the commitment or belief of the people in God’s word. God will save them when they heed God’s word and look up to the serpent as a sign of God’s power to save. Recall Numbers 21: The people came to Moses and said, “We have sinned by speaking against the Lord and against you; pray to the Lord to take away the serpents from us.” So Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and set it on a pole; and everyone who is bitten shall look at it and live.” 9 So Moses made a serpent of bronze, and put it upon a pole; and whenever a serpent bit someone, that person would look at the serpent of bronze and live. (Nm 21:7–9; NRSV)

In the Fourth Gospel, the Son of Man, Jesus, tends to take on the role of God. That is, it can be argued that Jesus is the one who saves through his incarnation and crucifixion. Note Jn 3:16, which follows 3:14–15: “For God so (οὕτως) loved the world that he gave his only son, that all who are believing in him may not perish but have eternal life.” This verse (16) begins with “so”; thus in Greek the parallel thought continues. Note the following constructions: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, So it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up; That all who are believing in him may have eternal life; So did God love the world that he gave his only son, That all who are believing in him may not perish but have eternal life. (3:14–16)

By seeing the serpent as representing the Son of Man, one comprehends the intention of the Fourth Evangelist. No New Testament author, except perhaps Paul, puts Jesus in such central focus. The Evangelist’s theology is focused to serve his Christology.



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It seems difficult to agree that the one who endorsed “and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” (Jn 1:14) would have intended to stress only the verb and not the verb and the noun. That is, the Evangelist was interested in both the lifting up and the lifting up of the Son of Man. In the Fourth Evangelist’s time and culture (whether he wrote in Jerusalem, Alexandria, or Ephesus), the serpent symbolized precisely what the Son symbolizes in the Fourth Gospel: life and eternal life, as demonstrated in The Good and Evil Serpent. Hence, perceiving this point, one begins to see that the intention of the Evangelist is most likely to draw a parallel between the serpent and the Son of Man, Jesus. The “lifting up” is crucial and should not be minimized. The Fourth Evangelist’s own Christology does become apparent when he stresses that the Son of Man must be lifted up (exalted) on the cross. The full meaning must not be lost by looking only at the verb and not the divine person. The Fourth Gospel is “good news” about a celestial yet fully human male. That means, according to the Fourth Evangelist, that the image of Christ in Numbers, by God’s foreshadowing, is the serpent who symbolizes God’s salvation.89 As Saint Augustine (354–430 CE) stated, in his homilies on the Fourth Gospel: “Just as those who looked on that serpent perished not by the serpent’s bites, so they who look in faith on Christ’s death are healed from the bites of sin.”90 One cannot look at a verb; one looks up at the serpent or up at the Son of Man.91 Next, the Evangelist’s syntax is also attractive and impressive, as we have already seen. The simile is followed by a purpose clause, which signifies the necessary result of the comparison. The clause is a result clause: “so that (ἵνα) all (πᾶς) who are believing (ὁ πιστεύων) in him may have eternal life (ζωὴν αἰώνιον).” Two details are important to explore here. First off is the attribution of Jn 3:14–15 to Jesus. We must observe if the words have the authority of the Evangelist or of Jesus. It is clear that the Evangelist wanted to stress that the interpretation of Numbers 21 was cosmically authoritative; it was not his own creation. It was divinely sanctioned. The Fourth Evangelist attributes the claim to the only One from above, Jesus. Jesus is informing “a ruler of the Jews” that the Son of Man must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent. Next, the setting of verses 14 and 15 is placed at a crucial point in the narrative. Jesus has been conversing with Nicodemus and the two verses contain the closure of that pivotally significant dialogue.92 That is, the verses come both as the climax of Jesus’ words to this Pharisee and at the close of Jesus’ first revelatory discourse—a pattern of thought that characterizes and distinguishes the Fourth Gospel. And 3:14–15 immediately precedes one of the most stunning passages in the New Testament, which bears repeating since it concludes the thought: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him would not perish but have eternal life” (3:16; KJV). In this narrative context the Fourth Evangelist turned to Numbers 21 to explain that Jesus must be lifted up as Moses lifted up the serpent. A penetrating analysis of the Greek syntax helps clarify that serpent symbolism discloses the point that Jesus is the one who brings “eternal life” (3:14). As we have seen, the Greek (and the English) sentence employs the adverb as a conjunction to begin a sentence. “As” does not indicate only a comparison between single words. The full sentence needs to be observed. By looking at the full sentence, we should ask if the Evangelist has emphasized a major Christological point by using

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a simile that compares the Son of Man with the serpent. To reverse the order of the clauses makes the point perhaps more apparent to those who have memorized the verse: The Son of Man must be lifted up As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness.

Too often lost or unobserved by New Testament critics is the poetic structure of Jn 3:14–15. The thought is structured harmoniously in parallel lines of thought so that each word is then echoed by a following word (parallelismus membrorum).93 As repetition (or echoing) of thought or sound is the heart of all poetry, so parallelism is the hallmark of poetry in biblical Hebrew and was observed and given a technical name by R. Lowth in 1753 and 1778.94 Only two psalms will be cited for clarification of the poetic attractiveness of parallelismus membrorum. The first is from Ps 145:13–14. Here is my translation: Your kingdom is a kingdom for all eternity, And your dominion is for all generations. The Lord upholds all who fall, And raises up all bowed down.

The thought in line (stichos) one reappears in the second line; “your kingdom” is synonymous with “your dominion.”95 The fourfold repetition of “all” in each of the stichoi, often not represented in translations, helps to clarify the parallel thoughts. That is, each is a universalistic statement; it is good for “all eternity,” “all generations,” “all who fall,” and “all bowed down.” The second passage is from Ps 8: What is man (‫ )אנוש‬that you are mindful of him, And the son of man (‫ )בן־אדם‬that you care for him? (Ps 8:5[4])

The poetry is crafted so that lines of thought are in parallel lines. As in the previous example, the poetic form is synonymous parallelism (parallelismus membrorum). The first two beats in each line are synonymous: the “man” in the first line is synonymous with “the son of man” in the second line. The two beats at the end of each line are also synonymous: God is “mindful” of the human and does “care” for him. The Fourth Evangelist, as M. Hengel demonstrated,96 knew well the “Old Testament” and its literary forms. It is not a surprise, therefore, to find poetic forms appearing in the Fourth Gospel, especially in the words of Jesus. As D. N. Freedman has shown, poetry is central to the biblical message; prose and poetry can be, and must be, distinguished.97 The Fourth Evangelist chose parallelismus membrorum to emphasize the divine words directed by Jesus to Nicodemus. The poetic form is synonymous. Note the poetic structure of Jn 3:14–15, following the Greek order: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so it is necessary to be lifted up the Son of Man that all who are believing in him may have life eternal.



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The parallelism is so clear as to need no discussion. It is also synonymous. “And as Moses lifted up” is synonymously parallel to “it is necessary to be lifted up.” Most importantly, “the serpent in the wilderness” is synonymously parallel to “the Son of Man.” The poetic structure of the passage is carefully organized to clarify the virtual identity of “the serpent” to “the Son of Man.” The passage reflects careful thought and composition. Observe how the Evangelist has constructed his simile: Numbers Allusion Symbolism

Johannine Symbolism

As Moses lifted up (active) the serpent (objective case) in the wilderness (dative)

So it is necessary [God, according to the divine passive] be lifted up (passive) the Son of Man (objective case) [see “in him” in 3:15 (dative)]

The two parallel columns raise the question of the appropriate parallel to “Moses.” The passive voice “be lifted up” in the Fourth Gospel needs no ruling noun to specify who is the one who has caused or allowed the lifting up, but the attentive reader is stimulated to ask: “Who is the actor?” Could the passive verb “be lifted up” be a divine passive? That means, when a passive voice is employed in the New Testament and the antecedent actor is not clear, the actor is often “God.” Thus, the passive verb in Mk 16:6 “he has been raised”98 means that God raised Jesus from the dead. God is the actor. That selection of a passive meaning was most likely a common theme of the early Christian preachers and prophets, and it makes excellent sense here in the Fourth Gospel, if we take “he was lifted up” (ὑψόω) to denote not only crucifixion but also, as its literal meaning indicates, “to be exalted.” God has exalted Jesus and raised him “above.” This exegesis rings harmoniously with the opening play on the double meaning of anōthen (ἄνωθεν): “again” and also “above.” Jesus informed the ruler of the Judeans,99 Nicodemus, that he must be born “from above.” Nicodemus misunderstands; that is, one of the great teachers of the Judeans is one who is characterized by misunderstanding.100 Nicodemus thinks Jesus means he must be born “again”; that is, to enter again into his mother’s womb. The use of one adverb (ἄνωθεν), which signifies not only “again” but also “above,” makes sense within the context of Jn 3:12–15. Note the structure of thought:101 Earthly things

descended from heaven

Moses lifted up the serpent

Heavenly things

ascended into heaven

The Son of Man must be lifted up

Again the “serpent” and “the Son of Man” are parallel. In this context, the lifting up on the cross is the Evangelist’s method of presenting Jesus’ highest hour on earth. The unbelievers see only a dying man. The Sons of Light see the exaltation of Jesus, who is from above and returning again to his Father.102

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The Christological issue, however, is even more complex. The verb “be lifted up” may also have a literal meaning. But who would be those who literally lift Jesus up on the cross? That is the unique meaning given to this verb (ὑψόω) by the Fourth Evangelist. It means “lift up” or “raise.” In early Greek texts, only in the Fourth Gospel does the verb imply crucifixion. As we have seen, the verb is used twice in 3:14, first as an active verb and then as a passive verb. Since the parallel is “Moses” the most likely suggestion would be that those who crucify Jesus are those who belong to Moses, or the followers of Moses. Does that possible interpretation make sense for Johannine theology? The name “Moses” appears more often in the Fourth Gospel than any other gospel (seven times in Matthew, eight times in Mark, ten times in Luke, and twelve times in John).103 It is clear from 5:46 that Jesus’ antagonists are those who set their hope on Moses; quite significantly they are also those who refuse to come to Jesus that they “may have life” (5:40). It is easy to hear an echo from 3:15; specifically, all those who look to Jesus as the upraised one, like the serpent in the wilderness, “will have eternal life.” Our search for the ones who, according to the Fourth Evangelist, lift Jesus up on the cross is rewarded by the Judeans’ declaration in 9:28: “We are disciples of Moses.”104 Here the Fourth Evangelist makes it unmistakably clear that Jesus’ opponents are “the disciples of Moses.” After this verse the name “Moses” never appears again in the Fourth Gospel. It is at least conceivable that this use of words is intentional by our gifted writer. The antagonists in the Johannine drama are specified. The disciples of Jesus (9:27) are opposed by the disciples of Moses (9:28). Moreover, this clarification comes in the famous and pivotal passage in which the Judeans caustically interrogate the man born blind, because Jesus healed him on the Sabbath. Observe that “the disciples of Moses” (9:28) claim: “We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from” (9:29). The use of irony should not be missed. The members of the Johannine School and the one who comprehends the Fourth Gospel know where Jesus “comes from”: Jesus is “from above.” The irony of 9:29 is simply another example of the author’s rhetorical skill. He has mastered the art of irony and misunderstanding.105 These two aspects of the Fourth Evangelist’s narrative art are first presented in the Fourth Gospel in the dialogue between Jesus and Nicodemus which ends in 3:15.106 Jesus speaks not only about anōthen, he also speaks about the Son of Man being a type of the serpent raised up by Moses. The use of irony in John is an aspect of his narratology. How do we locate irony in a document? As G. O’Day points out, “Signals to irony are often difficult to detect, because the essence of irony is to be indirect. A straightforward ironic statement would be a contradiction in terms. The ironist’s challenge is to be clear without being evident, to say something without really saying it.”107 Herein lies the problem: the Fourth Gospel does contain narrative irony, but we cannot be certain where it is and where it is not. How should we recognize irony in the Fourth Gospel? One of the best means is to feel the literary jar caused by a contradiction when the symbolic is taken literally. This happens in the narrative when one of the dramatis personae misses the symbolical



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meaning.108 Examples help clarify this point; here are the clearest examples of irony revealed through the narrative of the Fourth Gospel: 2:21–22 Jesus tells the Judeans that the Temple if destroyed will be raised; they understand him to mean the Temple. In this first appearance of irony, the narrator tends to clarify what he means by the use of irony. The Evangelist points out that Jesus was talking about his body. 3:4 Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born “anew,” anōthen; Nicodemus thinks Jesus means he must reenter the womb of his mother. 4:15 Jesus offers the Samaritan woman “living water”; she thinks she will not need to return to the well. 7:27 Some Jerusalemites claim Jesus may not be the Christ, because they know his origins. 11:50 Caiaphas prophesies that it is expedient for one to die for the people (laos).

Irony and misunderstanding help the Fourth Evangelist make several major theological points. Misunderstanding is an aspect of irony; it clarifies revelation.109 Along with the Evangelist and Jesus, only the reader who knows the “end” of the story and has received the enlightening insights of the Holy Spirit can understand the drama of salvation. The representative disciple seems to be Thomas, who provides the final and perfect confession. The Evangelist links 20:29 with 1:1. As Moody Smith states, “What is said in 1:1 about the word is based on post-resurrection knowledge and confession of Jesus.”110 For the Evangelist, irony and misunderstanding are not primarily rhetorical techniques. They are chosen to reveal that only one who is born from above can comprehend why it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up like Moses’ serpent. Those who misunderstand Jesus’ crucifixion as the end of a good man miss the rhetoric of salvation language. Jesus’ crucifixion is placarded as his triumph so he, in contrast to the Synoptics can claim: “It is finished.” Moses, who lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, cannot be contrasted with Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. Moses is the one through whom God gave the Torah (Law) according to 1:17 and 7:19. He is the one through whom God gave the manna (6:37).111 This verse is a significant link with 3:14–15; both verses lead the reader to interpret the Torah so that Moses is seen foreshadowing the ministry of Jesus.112 Most importantly, not only does Jesus refer to what Moses did, according to 3:14–15, but the Fourth Evangelist also stresses that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Philip announces to Nathanael: “We have found him of whom Moses in the Torah . . . wrote (1:45).” This episode precedes and helps frame the theologoumenon of 3:14–15. Who then raises Jesus up onto the cross in the Fourth Gospel? According to Mark we come across the clause: “And they crucified him” (15:24). To whom does this refer? It seems to refer back to “the soldiers” (15:16) who are emphasized in the Markan narrative because they are associated with “the whole battalion” (15:16). According to the Fourth Gospel we also find the possibly ambiguous verbal clause: “They crucified him” (19:18). To whom does the pronoun “They” refer? It is remarkable to discover

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that the antecedent is “the Judeans” in 19:14. John has interpolated into an earlier story of the Passion, somewhat represented by Mark, an account of the Judeans and the chief priests who are explicitly mentioned in 19:15. The Johannine addition to the Passion occupies two significant sections: The Judaeans’ altercation with Pilate in 19:12–16 and Jesus’ crucifixion in 19:17–22. In neither of these sections are the Roman “soldiers” mentioned. According to Jn 19:16, Pilate hands Jesus over “to them to be crucified.” Who are these people hidden behind “them”? They are the “chief priests” mentioned in 19:15. According to 19:20, “They crucified him.” According to a following verse, Jn 19:23, it is “the soldiers” who “crucified Jesus.” The “soldiers” are reintroduced in this verse. They had not been mentioned since 19:2. But, who are “they” in Jn 19:18? The context of this verse gives the impression that it is the “chief priests” and “the Judeans.” Finally, it is none other than “the chief priests and the officers” who, according to the Fourth Evangelist, cry out to Pilate: “Crucify him, crucify him!” (19:6).113 How do we explain this tension in the Johnanine account? Who crucified Jesus? The Johannine narrative implies that the disciples of Moses, the Judeans, are those who crucified Jesus (unfortunately, the noun for “Judeans” is usually translated simply, and incorrectly, as “Jews”). The point is not lost on all who have already grasped that Nicodemus is none other than “a ruler of the Judeans” (3:1). Hence, we see the thought implicit in the carefully structured sentence in 3:14: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up. . . .” The Fourth Evangelist has clarified through his narrative those who have lifted up the serpent, Jesus, on the cross. It is the Judean leaders. And he has implied who has “exalted” Jesus. It is his Father, God. In summation, it seems shocking to imagine that the passive verb, “be lifted up”— which refers, according to most commentators, only to Jesus’ crucifixion—can be a divine passive. In one sense the verb “be lifted up” is a divine passive denoting the divine plan (“it is necessary”) and Jesus’ exaltation by God. In another sense, the passive verb reflects the reason for the crucifixion. It was due to the hostility from some Judean leaders. Most importantly for our present research, a study of the poetry of Jn 3:14–15 establishes the parallel between “the serpent” and “the Son of Man.” Moreover, grammar also points out this fact. Both “serpent” and “the Son of Man” are clearly in the objective case (accusatives) and conclude the thought: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, So it is necessary to be lifted up the Son of Man.

Moreover, grammar, syntax, and poetic structure support the conclusion that the Fourth Evangelist has paralleled the serpent in thought and symbolism with the Son of Man.114 In his Reply to Faustus the Manichaean, Augustine perceived this insight: “Thus also, the serpent hung on the pole was intended to show that Christ did not feign death, but that the real death into which the serpent by his fatal counsel cast mankind was hung on the cross of Christ’s passion.”115 What Augustine missed was the positive



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serpent symbolism: The uplifted serpent according to the authors of Numbers 21 and John 3 symbolized life. According to the Fourth Evangelist, the Son of Man is Jesus. Recall Jn 9:35–37, in which Jesus tells the man born blind, who now not only sees but perceives, that Jesus himself is the Son of Man. Thus, the serpent is a type of Jesus, the Christ according to the Fourth Evangelist. Ophidian symbolism helps ground the insight, since the serpent symbolizes liberation from death and new life,116 as well as rejuvenation, and immortality and even resurrection. John 3:14–15 is a significant passage. The unit is carefully composed, and reflects, most likely, long and in-depth discussions in the Johannine School of the meaning of Jesus’ death and his relation to Moses. John 3:14–15 is shaped by a sociological context that has separated Johannine Jews from the Jews who claim to be Moses’ disciples. The latter introduce the Johannine narrative and are echoed repeatedly throughout the narrative theology that follows after 3:14–15. Why did the Evangelist use the prepositional phrase “in the wilderness” (Jn 3:14)? First, it is an echo of John’s self-declaration in this gospel, quoting Isaiah: “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord” (ἔφη, Ἐγὼ φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, Εὐθύνατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου (Jn 1:23; quoting Isa 40:3). Second, a focus on 3:14 awakens something that the Jews in the Johannine community knew well. The phrase “in the wilderness,” would, most likely, remind them of the name of the book we call “Numbers.” The heading of the fourth book of the Torah (= Pentateuch), in Hebrew, it is ‫במדבר‬, “In the Wilderness.” The opening words of the Hebrew text are: “And Yahweh spoke to Moses in the wilderness . . . (‫ְהו֧ה אֶל־מ ֶ ֹׁ֛שה ְּבמִדְ ּבַ ֥ר‬ ָ ‫) ַוי ְדַ ֵּ֨בר י‬.”117 This observation reveals another careful use of words by the Fourth Evangelist, and it would certainly have been noticed by some of the Jews who read the Book of Numbers as Scripture. In summation, the serpent raised up “in the wilderness” appears in the Hebrew document called “In the Wilderness.” More than one typology from Numbers is evident in the Fourth Gospel.118 The serpent was a type and Jesus the antitype; that seems indisputable in light of the preceding research.119 This typology from Numbers is developed within a larger typology. The final editor of Numbers recounts, with a ritual celebration of God’s mighty acts in history, how Israel journeyed through the wilderness successfully. They lived in tents and God’s tabernacle was a tent. The people saw God’s glory as a cloud by day and fire by night. Such imagery has shaped the Prologue of the Gospel of John, especially in the climactic verse 14: “And the Word flesh became, and pitched a tent among us. And we beheld his glory.” The continuing presence of God, God’s glory, and the imagery of God tenting among us were most likely derived by the Fourth Evangelist from the Book of Numbers. It is no wonder, then, that he was fond of this book of Scripture and obtained from it his typology of the serpent for Jesus’ final day on earth to proclaim that Jesus’ crucifixion was also his exaltation. The Book of Numbers apparently supplied two journeys for the Fourth Evangelist. First, it supplied the concept of Jesus’ journey from above to the earth and his return above to the Father. Second, it provided a paradigm: The journey of Jesus’ followers through the wilderness of life, and drinking in the desert “the living water” that provides eternal life. Thus, Jesus’ followers were to perceive that Jesus’ way led to the

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necessity of the cross on which Jesus was exalted like a serpent (the symbol of new life), and from which he was freed to return to his Father. The Book of Numbers is not the only source of the Evangelist’s thought in 3:14. The verb “to lift up” does not derive from Numbers 21. The Fourth Evangelist inherited this verb either from the kerygmata in the Palestinian Jesus Movement or from a study (perhaps his own) of Isa 52:13 (esp. in the LXX): “My Servant . . . shall be exalted” or “lifted up.”120 The fact that the passages in the Fourth Gospel in which the verb “to lift up” occurs (3:14–15, 8:28, 12:32–34) are linked traditionally with the Synoptic passion predictions (viz., Mk 831, 9:31, 10:32–33) should not suggest that the Fourth Gospel is dependent on the Synoptics. All four Gospels were preceded not only by the early proclamations (kerygmata) but also by the beginnings of teaching and research (didache) in the Palestinian Jesus Movement. One final word on “as” (καθὼς) and “so” (οὕτως) in Jn 3:14 seems prudent. We have seen that “as” most likely modifies a clause: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so it is necessary for the Son of Man to be lifted up. . ..” This grammatical construction is used again by the Fourth Evangelist in 5:21 and 5:26. Each time it seems to echo the leading thought of 3:14–15; that is, this unit of thought stresses that Jesus is the source of life. Note the construction: For as (ὥσπερ) the Father raises the dead and gives life (ζῳοποιεῖ), So (οὕτως) also the Son gives life (ζῳοποιεῖ) to whom he will. (5:21) For as (ὥσπερ) the Father has life (ζωὴν) in himself, So (οὕτως) he has given to the Son also to have life (ζωὴν) in himself. (5:26)

Developing the thought of 3:14–15, these passages stress the belief that resurrected life is possible now through Jesus (cf. Jn 5:21 and 25). He, Jesus, conveys to the Johannine Jews what the symbol of the serpent in the Asclepian and other cults conveyed to their devotees. The serpent symbolized life, renewed life, and for the Johannine Jews immortality and resurrection. Those who believe shall have eternal life now. Recall the conclusion of the result clause in Jn 3:15, “that all who are believing in him may have eternal life.”

Notes 1 The following reflections are edited from my publication The Good and Evil Serpent: The Symbolism and Meaning of the Serpent in the Ancient World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010). 2 See my reflections in “Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenological Description of ‘Word,’” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 30 (1970): 609–13. 3 See Clark Hopkins, “The Excavations of the Dura Synagogue Paintings,” in The DuraEuropos Synagogue: A Re-evaluation (1932–1992) (ed. J. Gutmann; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1992). The discovery of the Dura-Europos synagogal art changed the history of the origins of Jewish art and the influence on Judaism of non-Jewish cultures. See Jacob Neusner, “Judaism at Dura-Europos” History of Religions 4 (1964): 81 and Neusner, Symbol and Theology in Early Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991).



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4 E. Frankel and B. P. Teutsch, eds., The Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1992). 5 C. R. Sosa Siliezar, Creation Imagery in the Gospel of John (Library of New Testament Studies 546; London: Bloomsbury, 2015). 6 J. H. Charlesworth, The Good & Evil Serpent (AYBRL; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010). 7 H. Gerhard, “Über Agathodämon und Bona Dea,” Akademie der Wissenschaften (1847): 463–99. 8 See K. Aland, Vollständige Konkordanz zum Griechischen Neuen Testament, 3 vols (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1983). 9 See P. Joüon, “Le Grand Dragon,” RSR 17 (1927): 444–46; W. Foerster, “δράκων,” TDNT 3:281–83. The nouns ἀσπίς and ἑρπετόν do not receive a separate entry in TDNT. 10 See Foerster, “ἔχιδνα,” TDNT 3:815–16. 11 See Foerster, “ὄφις,” TDNT 5:566–71. 12 R. E. Brown concluded that the Fourth Gospel reflects five stages of composition. See Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols (Garden City: Doubleday, 1966) 1:xxiv–xxxix. He modified his position to appease scholars but he was convinced he had been on target. 13 See the contributions in P. L. Hofrichter, ed., Für und wider die Priorität des Johannesevangeliums (Zürich: Georg Olms Verlag, 2002); J. H. Charlesworth, “The Priority of John? Reflections on the Essenes and the First Edition of John,” in Für und wider die Priorität des Johannesevangeliums (Zürich: Georg Olms Verlag, 2002), pp. 73–114. Although M. Slee (The Church in Antioch in the First Century CE [JSNTSup 244; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2003]) focuses on the Didache and Matthew, she clarifies the importance of Antioch for Jesus’ followers in the first century CE. 14 See especially the contributions in J. H. Charlesworth, ed., John and the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Crossroad, 1991); also see Charlesworth, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel According to John,” in Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith (ed. R. A. Culpepper and C. C. Black; Louisville: Westminster, 1996), pp. 65–97; J. Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1991), p. 237; and E. Ruckstuhl, Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgarter Biblische Aufsatzbände 3; Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988), p. 393. 15 P. Gardner-Smith concluded that the Fourth Evangelist did not know any of the Synoptics; see his Saint John and the Synoptic Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938). Now, see especially D. M. Smith, John among the Gospels (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). 16 See J. H. Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John? (Valley Forge: Trinity, 1995). 17 I am influenced by the division of texts provided by M. É. Boismard and A. Lamouille, Synopsis Graeca Quattuor Evangeliorum (Leuven: Peeters, 1986), p. 29. 18 Translation and italics mine. 19 X. Léon-Dufour has written an insightful study of symbolism in the Fourth Gospel, but he does not discuss the symbol of the serpent in Jn 3:14; see his “Spécificité symbolique du langage de jean,” in La Communauté Johannique et son Histoire (ed. J.-D. Kaestli et al.; Geneva: labor et Fides, 1990), pp. 121–34. 20 W. Thüsing concluded that “lifting up” referred not to the resurrection of Jesus (cf. Bultmann); it denoted only Jesus’ crucifixion. This exegetical error arises by his missing the symbolism and focusing myopically on only one theme. See his Die Erhöhung und Verherrlichung Jesu im Johannesevangelium (Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen 21; Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1960), pp. 7–8.

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21 J. G. Williams, “Serpent and the Son of Man,” The Bible Today 39 (2001): 22–26; see especially p. 26. 22 M. Claudius, Der Wandsbecker Bote (ed. W. Weber; Zürich: Manesse Verlag, 1947), p. 259; for a discussion of the serpent in biblical theology, also see pp. 255, 344. 23 Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:145-46. 24 Carson, The Gospel According to John, p. 201. 25 Morris, The Gospel According to John, p. 199. 26 U. Wilckens, Das Evangelium nach Johannes (Das Neue Testament Deutsch 4; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000), p. 71. 27 K. Wengst, Das Johannes-Evangelium, 2 vols. (Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Tetament 4. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2000) 1:134. 28 R. R. Marrs, “John 3:14–15: The Raised Serpent in the Wilderness: The Johannine Use of an Old Testament Account,” in Johannine Studies: Essays in Honor of Frank Pack (ed. J. E. Priest; Malibu: Pepperdine, 1989), pp. 132–47. 29 Smith, John, p. 98. 30 John Chrysostom, Homilies on St. John 27 (NPNF 14.94). 31 PE 1.10.45; for the Greek and English see H. W. Attridge and R. A. Oden, Jr., Philo of Byblos: The Phoenician history (CBQ Monograph Series 9; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1981), pp. 62–63. 32 See M. G. Kovacs, The Epic of Gilgamesh (Stanford: Stanford, 1989), pp. 106–7. 33 Arnobius, Against the Heathen Book 7, 44 (ANF 6.536). Since the present work is directed toward those who are not specialists in Early Church history, I shall cite the early Christian texts according to the popular and easily available ANF and NPNF. 34 B. J. Brooten (Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism [Chicago: University of Chicago, 1996], p. 338 n. 145) thinks rightly that the Naasenes (or Ophites) did not see the serpent as “the downfall of humanity,” but rather “as a giver of wisdom and knowledge. . . .” For a succinct introduction to the Ophites, see A. Schramm, “Ophiten,” Paulys Realencyclopädie 35 (1939) cols. 654–59; E. F. Scott, “Ophitism,” Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics 9:499–501; and G. Quispel, “Ophiten,” Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche 7 (1962) cols. 1178–79. 35 Theodoret, Dialogues 3 (NPNF2 3.226). 36 See the images and insightful research published in J. H. Charlesworth, ed., The Messiah (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992). 37 I am grateful to Professor Dr. Arthur T. Charlesworth for this citation. 38 See especially G. Theissen, The Gospels in Context (trans. L. Maloney; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991). 39 Athenagoras the Athenian, A Plea for the Christians 29, 10 (ANF 2.144). 40 Tertullian, Apology 14 (ANF 3.29–30). 41 See also Tertullian, Apology 15 (ANF 3.29–30). 42 On how Asclepius healed a youth that had been mortally wounded, see Lactantius, The Divine Institutes 1.17. 43 Athanasius, On the Incarnation of the Word, 49 (NPNF2 4.63). My italics. 44 Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata 16 (ANF 2.317). 45 Pindar, Pythian Odes 1.6-7. For the Greek and English translation, see J. Sandys, The Odes of Pindar (LCL. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard, 1968), pp. 184–85. 46 Tertullian, Apology 23 (ANF 3.37). 47 Tertullian, The Chaplet 8 (ANF 3.97). 48 Origen, Against Celsus, 3, 23 (ANF 4.472). 49 See the texts cited in Appendix IV on the Rotas-Sator Square in Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent.



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50 Justin Martyr, First Apology 22 (ANF 1.170). Also see Justin Martyr, First Apology 14 and 60. 51 S. Angus, The Mystery Religions and Christianity (New York: Dover, 1925), pp. 307–9. 52 E. Dinkler, Christus und Asklepios (Sitzungsberichte der Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften; Philosophisch-historische Klasse 2; Heidelberg, 1980) see Tafel II. 53 K. H. Rengstorf, Die Anfänge der Auseinandersetzung zwischen Christusglaube und Asklepios frömigkeit (Münster: Aschendorff, 1953). 54 Smith, John, p. 98. 55 One of the major studies on typology is by L. Goppelt. However, he does not discuss the serpent in Jn 3:14. See Goppelt, Typos (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1969). Although G. W. Buchanan has focused only on the Synoptics, his work is helpful; see his Typology and the Gospel (New York: University Press of America, 1987). 56 Suetonius, “Augustus” 100. 57 Suetonius Gamberini, Nei Legami del vangelo: L’analogia nel pensiero di Eberhard Jüngel (Alosiana 27; Rome: Gregorian University Press and Brescia: Morcelliana Editrice, 1994). M.-L. Henry, “Schlange,” Biblisch-Historisches Handwörterbuch (1966) 3:1699–1701; see especially col. 1701. Arnobius, Against the Heathen, Book 7. 44 in ANF 6.536. For “Augustus,” 94, see Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars (trans. R. Graves, rev. M. Grant; London and New York, 1979, 1989), pp. 104–5. 58 It is possible that Suetonius’ statement, “Everyone believes this story,” refers not only to the astrologer’s claim about Augustus, which immediately precedes it, but also includes the story of the birth of Augustus from a snake. Suetonius, “Augustus,” 94 (in Graves and Grant, Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, p. 105). 59 Later, sometime after the second century CE, some words were altered and 7:53–8:11 was interpolated. 60 On the date of the first edition of the Fourth Gospel, see J. H. Charlesworth, “The Priority of John? Reflections on the Essenes and the First Edition of John,” in Für und wider die Priorität des Johannesevangeliums, pp. 73–114. Also, see Chapter 2 in this book. 61 For the Greek and English see Attridge and Oden, Philo of Byblos, pp. 64–65. 62 The Greek verb means “become young again.” 63 For the Greek and English see Attridge and Oden, Philo of Byblos, pp. 64–65. 64 For these categories, see Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent. 65 Paul (and his school) used it thirty-seven times. See R. Morgenthaler, Statistik des Neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes (Zürich and Frankfurt am Main: Gotthelf-Verlag, 1958), p. 103. 66 Josephus, War 5.108; H. St. J. Thackeray, Josephus (LCL 210; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968). 67 The pool is not yet identified. It may be the Birket Mamilla which is the Pool of Suleiman the Magnificent that is west of the western walls of Jerusalem. See J. J. Rousseau and R. Arav, Jesus and His World: An Archaeological and Cultural Dictionary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995), p. 180. Serpent’s Pool is not the “Dragon Well.” See J. Simons, Jerusalem in the Old Testament: Researches and Theories (Leiden: Brill, 1952), pp. 162–63. 68 The use of καθὼς and οὕτως to clarify a comparison appears elsewhere in the New Testament; often in the first line Jonah or Noah appears and in the second the Son of Man Christology (see esp. Lk 11:30, 17:26). 69 The argument was presented by J. H. Bernard, Gospel According to St. John (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1928), pp. 112–13.

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70 T. Zahn, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Wuppertal: Brockhaus Verlag, 1983), p. 204. 71 My translation is intentionally idiomatic. R. Schnackenburg, “Die ‘situationsgelösten’ Redestücke in Joh 3,” ZNW 49 (1958): 95 [italics mine]. 72 The translation seems misleading. Bultmann wrote “Jn V. 14 ist allein die Erhöhung genannt. . . .” In light of other comments by him, Bultmann may be including both the crucifixion and the exaltation in the ambiguous German noun that means “raised” or “elevated.” See Bultmann, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1959), p. 110. 73 I agree with Bultmann that there is a discernible flow of thought from 3:13 to 3:16. Other scholars see 3:14–15 either as originally a separate logion (Colpe, Schulz) or as a dialogue with a loose structure (Meeks). See the insightful discussion in H. Maneschg, Die Erzählung von der ehernen Schlange (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1981), p. 388. 74 Bultmann, The Gospel of John, pp. 151–53. 75 M. Hengel, The Johannine Question (London: SCM, 1989), p. 189 n. 69. 76 G. R. Beasley-Murray, John (Waco: Word Books, 1987), p. 50. 77 H. Weder, “L’Asymétrie du salut: Réflexions sur Jean 3,14-21 dans le cadre de la théologie Johannique,” in La communauté Johannique et son histoire (ed. J.-P. Kaestli et al.; Le Monde de la Bible. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1990), pp. 155–84; the quotation is on p. 161. 78 F. Hahn, Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002) 1:631. Hahn correctly claims that “lifting up” includes not only the crucifixion but the exaltation: “Hier ist mit dem ‘Erhöhtwerden’ nicht nur der äußere Akt der Befestigung am Kreuz gemeint, sondern das ‘Erhöhtwerden von der Erde,’ die Aufnahme in den Himmel, die mit Jesu Tod beginnt” (1:650; also see 2:246–47). 79 As L. Zani states, “L’evangelista Giovanni e i primi cristiani utilizzino l’Antico Testamento per riflettere sul mistero della vita, della morte e della risurrezione del Signore.” Zani, “Il serpente di rame e Gesè,” in La storie de Jesu (Milan: Rizzoli Editore, 1984), p. 1339. 80 Basil, On the Spirit 14.31 (NPNF 28.20). In Letters 260.8, Basil again takes up the typos of the serpent for Christ; each time he is clearly influenced by the LXX’s σημεῖον for “staff.” 81 Augustine, On the Gospel of St. John 12.11–13; see also Augustine, On the Psalms 74.4 and 119.122. 82 Haenchen, John, 1:204. 83 B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John (London: John Murray, 1919), p. 53. 84 R. J. Burns, “Jesus and the Bronze Serpent,” The Bible Today 28 (1990): 84. Perhaps Burns sees this connection because she is primarily an Old Testament specialist. They tend to take archaeology and iconography more seriously than New Testament scholars do. 85 Beasley-Murray, John, p. 50. 86 Bernard, Gospel According to St. John, p. 113 (italics mine). 87 The Lord said to Moses: “Make yourself a serpent and put it on a staff.” Most likely, Justin Martyr is influenced by the LXX when he interprets Jn 3:14–15; cf. Dialogue with Trypho 92 and 94. 88 J. Frey, “Die ‘theologia crucifixi’ des Johannesevangeliums,” in Kreuzestheologie im Neuen Testament (ed. A. Dettwiler and J. Zumstein; WUNT 151; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002), pp. 169–238; see especially pp. 223–24. 89 J. Asurmendi (“En Torno a la Serpiente de Bronce,” Estudios Bíblicos 46 [1988]: 283–94; see especially p. 294) contends rightly: “En el evangelio de Juan, la serpiente sirve de tipo para simbolizar la nueva y definitiva salvación.”



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90 Augustine, “On the Gospel of John,” 12.11; the quotation is from NPNF 7. 85. 91 As P. Th. Calmes (L’Évangile selon Saint Jean [Paris: Lecoffre, 1904], p. 187) perceived, there is a clear “relationship between Jesus’ crucifixion and the elevation of the serpent in the wilderness” (“rapprochement entre le crucifiement de Jésus et l’élévation du serpent d’airain . . .”). 92 The symbols of an anchor, a shore, a harbor, a sunset, the completion of an inclusio in writing, and a concluding summary by a chorus in a Greek tragedy all portray or indicate closure. See D. H. Roberts, et al., eds., Classical Closure (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). 93 Paralellismus membrorum, or isocolon, is a thought, written or oral, that is focused on coordinated lines of similar length within an isolated linguistic group of words. See the reflections by W. G. E. Watson, “Hebrew Poetry,” in Text in Context (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 253–85; see especially pp. 260–61. 94 See now the excellent study by K. Seybold, Poetik der Psalmen (Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 2003); see especially pp. 83–127 and the publications cited by him. 95 I shall not discuss meter, since Freedman has convinced me that Hebrew poetry has quantity but not meter (as in Greek and Latin and today in English and other modern languages). See Freedman, “Another Look at Biblical Hebrew Poetry,” in Directions in Biblical Hebrew Poetry (ed. E. R. Follis; JSOTSup 40; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1987), pp. 11–27; see especially p. 27. F. W. Dobbs-Allsopp shares the same insight in his On Biblical Poetry (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). 96 M. Hengel, “Die Schriftauslegung des 4. Evangeliums auf dem Hintergrund der urchristlichen Exegese,” in “Gesetz” als Thema Biblischer Theologie (Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie 4; Neukirchen-Vluyn, 1989), pp. 249–88. 97 D. N. Freedman, “Pottery, Poetry, and Prophecy: An Essay on Biblical Poetry,” in The Bible in Its Literary Milieu (ed. V. L. Tollers and J. R. Maier; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1979), pp. 77–100. As Freedman states: “Prose and poetry are basically two different ways of using language. Each has its own rules of operation, and it is obligatory to understand each category according to its own pattern, even if the dividing line is not always certain” (pp. 78–79). 98 The translators of the RSV (2nd edition) erred; it does not mean: “He has risen.” The verb is a divine passive that is correctly translated in the NRSV: “He has been raised.” 99 Often Ioudaioi in the Fourth Gospel should be translated as “Judeans.” See J. H. Charlesworth, “The Gospel of John: Exclusivism Caused by a Social Setting Different from That of Jesus (John 11:54 and 14:6),” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel (ed. R. Bieringer et al.; Leuven: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001), pp. 479–513. 100 See especially H. Leroy, Rätsel und Missverständnis: Ein Beitrag zur Formgeschichte des Johannesevangeliums (BBB 30. Bonn, 1968). Also see T. Nicklas, Ablösung und Verstrickung (Regensburger Studien zur Theologie 60. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2001), pp. 232–37. 101 Also, see the discussion by Y. Simoens in Secondo Giovanni (trans. M. A. Cozzi; Bologna: Centro Editoriale Dehoniano, 2002), p. 255. Simoens sees a triple entendre in anōthen: “The new, the first (or beginning), and the above” (“di nuovo, dal principio, dall’alto,” p. 251). 102 As J. Frey states, crucifixion and exaltation in the Fourth Gospel are not two events; they are one. Frey, “Die ‘theologia crucifixi’ des Johannesevangeliums”; see especially p. 259: “Die Erhöhung des Menschensohns wird hier in eine Analogie zur Erhöhung der Schlange durch Mose in der Wüste (Num 21,8f) gesetzt. Vergleichspunkt ist der Erhöhung, ihre Art und Weise . . . sowie ihre Ausrichtung auf die Menschen, vor denen sie geschieht.” Since there is no “lifting up” in Numbers 21, it is clear that the

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link between the two texts, Numbers 21 and John 3, is the image of the upraised serpent. 103 That is, seven times in Matthew, eight times in Mark, ten times in Luke, but twelve times in the Fourth Gospel. 104 According to the Acts of John 94, “the lawless Jews,” who are governed by “the lawless Serpent,” are responsible for Jesus’ death. This passage is only another example of anti-Judaism in the NTAP. 105 See especially Jonsson, Humor and Irony in the New Testament, Leroy, Rätsel und Missverständnis, Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design, and Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel. 106 That Jesus’ words end in 3:15 seems likely though not certain. Schnackenburg opined that the monologue ended in 3:12 and that verses 13–21 are the theological reflections of the Fourth Evangelist. Schnackenburg, “Die ‘situationsgelösten’ Redestücke in Joh 3,” ZNW 49 (1958): 90. 107 G. O’Day, Revelation in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Mode and Theological Claim (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986), p. 25. 108 See O’Day, Revelation in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Mode and Theological Claim, pp. 25–27; Muecke, “Irony Markers,” Poetics 7 (1978): 365; Booth, The Rhetoric of Irony; Duke, Irony in the Fourth Gospel, chap. 4. 109 Smith, The Theology of the Gospel of John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 114. 110 Smith, The Theology of the Gospel of John, p. 115. 111 See B. J. Malina, The Palestinian Manna Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 1968). 112 See especially P. Borgen, Bread from Heaven (NovTSup 10; Leiden: Brill, 1965), W. A. Meeks, The Prophet-King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology (NovTSup 14; Leiden: Brill, 1967), and S. Pancaro, The Law in the Fourth Gospel (NovTSup 42; Leiden: Brill, 1975). 113 According to the Gospel of Nicodemus 1:1-2, Pilate tells the Jews no one casts out demons, except by the name of Asclepius. 114 Commentators habitually miss the parallelismus membrorum of Jn 3:14–15. J. Mateos and J. Barreto (Il Vangelo di Giovanni, trans. T. Tosatti [Assisi: Cittadella Editrice, 2000], p. 184) rightly understand the poetic form, and its importance for revealing the synonymity of the serpent and the Son of Man: “Tutta via il parallelismo è chiaro: al serpente del primo membro corrisponde ‘l’Uomo’ del secondo . . .” 115 Augustine, Reply to Faustus the Manichaean 14.7 (NPNF 4.209). Also see Augustine, On Forgiveness of Sins, and Baptism 1.61. 116 As Maateos and J. Barreto (Il Vangelo di Giovanni, p. 184) state: “The uplifted ­serpent” signifies “liberation from death.” 117 Not only the Fourth Evangelist but also many of his readers knew by heart, in Hebrew or Greek, the text and interpretations of Numbers 21. So also Marrs, “John 3:14-15: The Raise Serpent in the Wilderness,” p. 139. 118 As I. Nowell (“Typology: A Method of Interpretation,” The Bible Today 28 [1990]: 73) states, “Linking of a complex of traditions is illustrated by the relationship between the Gospel of John and the Book of Numbers.” 119 As J. Barr (“Typology and Allegory,” Old and New in Interpretation [London: SCM, 1966], p. 104) stated, typology when controlled and informed is “wholesome and viable.” Allegory is not. Note Barr’s insight: “Typology is based on historical ­correspondences and thus related to the Bible’s own historical emphasis; while, judged by that same emphasis, allegory is non-historical and anti-historical.”



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Maneschg (Die Erzählung von der ehernen Schlange, p. 400) sees the “Typus und Antitypus,” but he fails to explore or show any interest in the serpent imagery and symbolism. 120 P. Borgen shows how Isa 52:13 and Dan 7:13–14 shaped the thought of Jn 3:14; both were joined to indicate an “installation in a royal office.” Borgen also brilliantly demonstrated how traditions later found in the Midrash to Psalm 2 (“you are my son”) were interpreted in light of Isa 52:13 and Dan 7:13–14 to reveal enthronement. See Borgen, “Some Jewish Exegetical Traditions as Background for Son of Man Sayings in John’s Gospel (Jn 3:13–14 and Context,” in M. de Jonge, ed., L’Évangile de Jean (BETL 44; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1977), p. 252.

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Symbology in Johannine Christology1

In the preceding chapter, John’s symbolism was explored with a focus on the concept of the serpent. In this chapter, ophidian (serpent) symbolism in John is examined further. Symbology is a word that first appeared, to our knowledge, in 1840.2 Symbology can denote the art of expressing symbols; that is generic but germane to our use. Symbology can also mean the interpretation of symbols, but we have chosen “symbolism” to denote that meaning. Symbology signifies finally a system of symbols. That is how I have been using it for decades. That is, we learn more about a symbol by studying, for example, what other symbols often appear with it. The serpent and the tree appear in many images (e.g., Hercules in Hesperides) and texts (e.g., Genesis 3). What could that symbology mean? I discovered that it often signals that the tree and serpent can go where the human is not allowed, deep into the earth. Perhaps, that combined image demonstrated to the early cave dwellers the source of water, food, and life. The tree and serpent can delve deep into the earth, the only region forbidden to humans, from which water mysteriously flows and from which plants rise up. What does, then, ophidian symbology mean in John? Why does the serpent appear with the Son of Man?

Son of Man traditions in John Publications on the “Son of Man” concept usually focus only on Daniel, Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The term, which has become a title, also is evident in the Fourth Gospel. Jesus is portrayed referring to himself as the “Son of Man.” The Son of Man concept, not a title, appears for the first time in Dan 7:13. The seer Daniel has a dream in which he sees “one like a Son of Man” who is “coming with the clouds of heaven.” Scholars have assumed this figure represents collective Israel, but in Middle Aramaic, in combination with the picture of one coming on clouds, it seems to indicate a cosmic person. This mysterious vision or dream in Daniel influenced the author of the Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71). We now know that this text was composed by a Jew and probably sometime in the late first century BCE or even the early decades of the first century CE.3 The term, “Son of Man,” symbolizes Enoch, but only in the conclusion of chapter 71. The Fourth Evangelist inherits this traditional designation, but only after it had become an established title within the Palestinian Jesus Movement. E. Ruckstuhl rightly perceives that the “Son of Man” title in the Fourth Gospel does not originate in



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Figure 16.1  Statue of Hygeia, the goddess of good health and daughter of Asclepius; the State Hermitage Museum. gnostic circles; for him it appeared within early Jewish wisdom traditions.4 O. Hofius correctly stresses that the theme of Jn 3:14–15 is the way of the Son of Man; and as we have shown, the symbol denotes more than the crucifixion.5 More likely these wisdom traditions were shaped within Jewish apocalypticism, since 1 Enoch, the composition in which the “Son of Man” is fully developed, is one of the most distinctive and influential apocalypses before 70 CE. The apocalyptic background of the Son of Man in the Fourth Gospel is shown by the verses immediately preceding Jn 3:14–15. The term “Son of Man” first appears in the Fourth Gospel in 1:51. The meaning is clearly apocalyptic; the reader is informed he will see “heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.” The Fourth Evangelist, in contrast to most thinkers in Early Judaism, is highlighting neither “heaven” nor “the angels.” He shines the search light upon the Son of Man, that is, Jesus, who is the origin of the angels’ cosmic activity. Just prior to 3:14 the reader is informed that no one has ascended into heaven; this is a rejection of the claims made in many Jewish apocalypses, notably 1 Enoch. The Fourth Evangelist then claims that the only One from above is the one “who descended from heaven: the Son of Man (3:13).” The Fourth Evangelist is stressing that the Son of Man—assumed to be identical with the Word defined in 1:1–18—is the bearer of God’s Wisdom. The Son of Man

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brings God’s Wisdom to earth.6 Since the serpent, especially in Judaism and in Jesus’ teachings, is the symbol of Wisdom, the Evangelist may be symbolizing Wisdom. Most likely, many of John’s readers will know that the serpent symbolizes Wisdom. The cosmic dimension of the Son of Man in Daniel, 1 Enoch, and the Fourth Gospel is clear and needs no elaboration. According to the Fourth Evangelist, the Son of Man, Jesus, is from “above” and is returning to his Father who is above. The Fourth Evangelist seems to present 3:14–15 with the cosmic dimension of the serpent. Cosmology is also apparent in the portrayal of the Son of Man, as the serpent, who is to be “lifted up.” Even if John did not initially intend to bring forward the cosmic dimension of ophidian symbolism, many of his readers nevertheless would understand that the Son of Man, as the serpent that is “lifted up,” has cosmic power (as the images I have been supplying indicate). What are the consequences of such reflections? Two are most important. First, the reflection is significant because it exposes the error of the biblical experts who refuse to see any relation between Jesus (the Son of Man) and the serpent mentioned in Jn 3:14. Perhaps these scholars assumed that God was never symbolized as, or by, a serpent in the Hebrew Bible. They miss the fact that the serpent was indeed a symbol of God. According to Numbers 21, the upraised copper serpent signifies not only the power of God to heal; it also symbolized the presence of God. Those who lifted up their eyes for God’s help received it, because the upraised serpent symbolized the presence of God. As L. Ginzberg stated: It was not, however, the sight of the serpent of brass that brought with it healing and life; but whenever those who had been bitten by the serpents raised their eyes upward and subordinated their hearts to the will of the Heavenly father, they were healed.7

Likewise, the passage in 2 Kings 18 points back to Numbers 21; both use the serpent as a symbol of God. Those who worshipped God or Yahweh through Nechushtan (or even worshipped the image directly), most likely, would have taken this image of a serpent as a symbol of the Creator and Protector. As Augustine said, in The City of God, Moses’ serpent, “a symbol of the crucifixion of death,” was preserved in memory by the Hebrews and Israelites and later was “worshipped by the mistaken people as an idol, and was destroyed by the pious and God-fearing king Hezekiah, much to his credit.”8 The Tanakh (Old Testament) records that Moses, through divine intervention, was able to turn his rod into a serpent. The serpent (ὄφις) clearly signals that “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has appeared to you” (Exod 4:5). Thus, it is unwise to claim the Hebrews, Israelites, and Jews never depicted God with serpent symbology. The farsighted vision of the Creator degenerated into the nearsighted worship of Nechushtan. Hezekiah wisely had the image of the serpent taken from the Temple. The Seventh Ecumenical Council seems rightly to have understood that those in Jerusalem (anachronistically called “Jews”), or at least some of them, began to worship the symbol of God’s healing. They became idolaters. Note the wording of Quaesto LVI: Why was he praised in the Old Testament who broke down the brazen SERPENT (2Kgs 18:4) which long before Moses had set up on high? Answer: Because the



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Jews were beginning an apostasy from the veneration of the true God, venerating that SERPENT as the true God; and offering to it incense as the Scripture saith. Therefore wishing to cut off this evil, lest it might spread further, he broke up that SERPENT in order that the Israelites might have no longer that incentive to idolatry. But before they honoured the SERPENT with the veneration of adoration, no one was condemned in that respect nor was the SERPENT broken.9 (his capitals)

Second, the reflection is significant because it reveals the error of scholars who assume or conclude that Jn 3:14–15 refers only to Jesus’ crucifixion. For example, in Herrenworte im Johannesevangelium, M. Theobald contends that the focus of the Son of Man sayings in the Fourth Gospel, “without doubt” (ohne Zweifel), is on the death of Jesus.10 Serpent symbology helps us see this claim as erroneous. We have pointed out that crucifixion and exaltation (resurrection) are also foreshadowed in 3:14–15. These crucial verses are framed by the cosmic dimensions of Jesus, the Son of Man, and God’s unique son. In 3:13, the Fourth Evangelist stresses that only the Son of Man has been in heaven and descended to earth. In 3:16 he again emphasizes the cosmic dimension of 3:14–15: “For God so loved the cosmos that he gave his unique Son, that all who are believing in him may not perish but have eternal life.” Jesus is intending to teach Nicodemus “heavenly” insights (3:12). The Fourth Evangelist seeks to inculcate the poetic vision of the crucifixion, an earthly event, as a heavenly event. Some readers of the Fourth Gospel, and perhaps the author, might have imagined the cross of Jesus, symbolized by Moses’ upraised serpent, as the pillar that once again united heaven and earth (axis mundi) and the way for Jesus to return to his Father. Perhaps, the Fourth Evangelist imagined that some believers would comprehend that the cross was Jacob’s cosmic ladder on which angels ascended and descended upon the triumphant Son of Man (1:51; cf. LadJac).

Symbology in Johannine theology John 3:14–15 contains a collection of the Fourth Evangelist’s technical terms (termini technici). Highly charged with Johannine symbology are the following: “Moses,” “lifted up,” “wilderness,” “it is necessary,” “Son of Man,” “all who are believing,” and “eternal life.” These have already been discussed; perhaps it is necessary now only to point out the well-known fact that the Fourth Evangelist puts more stress on the verb “to believe” than any other New Testament author; it appears eleven times in Matthew, fourteen in Mark, nine in Luke, but ninety-eight times in the Fourth Gospel.11 The author of the Epistle of Barnabas, perhaps reading Numbers 21 through the lens of Johannine Christology, emphasizes that if one were to be healed by the serpent he must have faith: “Moses said to them, ‘Whenever one of you . . . is bitten, let him come to the serpent that is placed upon the tree, and let him hope, in faith that it though dead is able to give life, and he shall straightaway be saved.’”12 This passage is a good example of symbology; note the collage of symbols: “Moses,” “the serpent that is placed upon the tree,” “hope in faith,” “life,” and “saved.” As in a marvelous symphony where each sound enhances those contiguous with it, so in the Epistle of Barnabas each symbol

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echoes the scriptural sources and enriches all aspects of the symbology. It is likely that the author of the Epistle of Barnabas knew the Fourth Evangelist’s interpretation of Numbers 21. He adds, “Moses makes a representation of Jesus” to show that Jesus must suffer, and thereby reveals how Jesus “shall himself give life.”13 The Semitisms in 3:14–15 indicate that this saying of Jesus antedates the Greek of the Fourth Gospel. It may have originated in the preaching of Jesus’ earliest Jewish followers. It is unlikely that it can be taken back to Jesus himself; since all the evidence suggests that he imagined he might be stoned. Recall Jesus’ words: “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you!” (Mt 23:37; Lk 13:34). Jesus thought he was a prophet. He also felt sent to Jerusalem, and that he, like Honi, would be stoned there. I agree with the numerous scholars who (perhaps disappointingly) have been forced to conclude that no authentic saying of Jesus indicates he contemplated that he would be crucified. The double entendre of “to exalt” and “to lift up” on a cross is an Aramaism,14 since the Aramaic ’ezd eqeph15 denotes not only “to be erected” but also “to be crucified.”16 The paronomasia is not possible in Hebrew or Greek. In 1936, G. Kittel, in a major article unknown to many leading Johannine experts,17 argued persuasively that the knowledge of this Aramaic verb indicates that the Fourth Gospel was composed in Palestine or Syria.18 In the preceding chapter, we began to examine nine points:

1. The serpent was a powerfully positive symbol in the Evangelist’s culture. 2. The grammar of Jn 3:14 relates Jesus and the serpent. 3. The syntax indicates that Jesus and the serpent are parallel symbols. 4. The poetry of the passage draws a parallel between the serpent and Jesus. 5. The Son of Man traditions in Jn 3:14 are rich with Christological overtones. 6. Johannine symbolic theology implies that Jesus, like the serpent, brings life. 7. Intertextuality; that is, Numbers 21 is a key to the meaning of Jn 3:14. 8. The Possible Remnants of a Synagogal Sermon. 9. The Evidence of an Underlying Anguine Christology in the Gospel of John. Having already discussed the first six, we may now explore the remaining three issues: (7) Intertextuality, (8) The Possible Remnants of a Synagogal Sermon, and (9) The Evidence of an Underlying Anguine Christology in the Gospel of John.

Intertextuality John 3:14–15 is shaped by intertextuality, although no text appears within another text. As almost all experts note, there is an echo of Number 21 in these verses. What version of the text was in the mind of the Fourth Evangelist? That is impossible to discern, for two reasons. First, no text is quoted. Second, while he usually prefers the Greek translation of Israel’s Scriptures (the Septuagint), he is intermittently dependent on the Hebrew text (as in 19:35; perhaps in 12:41 he is influenced by a lost Targum).19 As Gabler urged long ago, we must ask if the Evangelist is supporting an argument “from the sayings of the books of the Old Testament, and even accommodating them



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to the sense of the first readers?” (141). When we hear the echoes of Scripture, we perceive that the serpent symbolized not only wisdom, but also life, renewed life, and eternal life. Each of these was demonstrated in my The Good and Evil Serpent. The importance of the allusion to Numbers 21 in the Fourth Gospel is brought into bold relief by the recognition that the Fourth Evangelist is unusually attracted by the vivid scenes and images from the Exodus narrative.20 Especially influential on his thought are the theologically significant symbology of the paschal lamb (1:29), the manna (6:16–21), and the elusive quotation from some scripture in 7:38.21 This verse, as R. E. Brown suggested, may allude to the psalmic celebrations of the incident when, according to Numbers 21, Moses struck the rock and water flowed to quench the thirst of those dying from lack of water in the wilderness.22 The pole on which Moses hung the metal serpent (ὄφιν) is described in the Septuagint as a “sign” (σημείου). This noun reflects the Evangelist’s tendency to stress that Jesus’ miracles are “signs.” Was the Evangelist drawn to Numbers 21 because it was a “sign” that pointed to Jesus? The source of this use of Numbers 21 could be the lost Signs Source used by John. Thinking about how and why the Fourth Evangelist has interpreted Numbers 21 suggests that he imagines that Jesus is like the serpent. Both were raised up. Both provide healing and life. And both point to the source of life: God. What is the most important meaning of the serpent in the Fourth Gospel? The symbol of the serpent most often represents life, but it also symbolized eternal life, as in some ophidian images and texts. I am convinced that the Fourth Evangelist put the accent on the symbolism of eternal life; that is, Jesus is raised up symbolically like Moses’ serpent. And while Moses’ serpent gave life, Jesus guarantees eternal life for those who believe. The grammar proves the points; the conclusion to the two final purpose clauses is “eternal life”: And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, So must the Son of Man be lifted up; In order that all who are believing in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his unique Son; In order that all who are believing in him may not perish But may have eternal life. (3:14–16)

According to Jn 3:14, Jesus compares himself, as the Son of Man, to the serpent raised up by Moses. According to Mt 10:16, Jesus told his twelve disciples: “Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, therefore be wise as serpents23 and innocent as doves.” The only parallel is in the Gospel of Luke, and it has only: “Go out, behold, I send you as lambs in the midst of wolves” (Lk 9:3). It seems to me that this saying belonged to Q, the putative lost source of Jesus sayings, and that Luke, due to a disdain for the symbol of the serpent, removed the reference to the serpent. The two most clearly positive uses of the serpent in the New Testament are attributed to Jesus by the First and Fourth Evangelists, and—according to many New Testament experts— these are our most Jewish Gospels (and ironically, sometimes the most anti-Jewish Gospels).24 It seems to follow that Jesus’ followers portrayed him as a prophet who used the serpent to symbolize wisdom (Mt 10:16) and eternal life (Jn 3:14).25

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The possible remnants of a synagogal sermon The preceding reflections indicate that in Italy, Greece, Syria, Egypt, India, and Mesopotamia (Parthia), indeed in all cultures important for comprehending John’s Christology, the serpent was revered as a positive symbol. An objection might be raised: some might claim that while Jews in Palestine and Syria admired the serpent they never would have depicted it anywhere near a synagogue. That is now proved to be another false presupposition. The serpent is clearly shown iconographically in synagogues from southern to northern Roman Palestine. From the fifth century synagogue at Gaza, once incorrectly identified as a church, comes a mosaic depicting David. An upraised serpent, along with a lion cub and a giraffe, are depicted listening to David, as Orpheus, plays a lyre.26 Moving from the southwest to the northeast of Roman Palestine, we find a serpent elegantly chiseled on a beam above a Hebrew inscription. It is not from a so-called pagan temple; it is from the Golan and the late fifth century CE synagogue at ‘En Neshut.27 Moreover, the serpent is formed to represent a Hercules knot.28 At Chorazin and in the sixth century synagogue is a depiction of Medusa with serpents in her hair (See Figure 16.2). Also from the Golan, and this time from the village at Dabbura, and probably from a synagogue that dates from the early fifth century, is found a lintel with two eagles— each of them is holding a serpent. Also from Dabbura is a lintel depicting two serpents that meet and form something like a wreath, tied with “a Hercules knot.” Between the two eagles, and above the long serpent, is a Hebrew inscription.29 What is singularly important about this lintel, which depicts a large serpent, is the inscription: “This is the academy of the Rabbi Eliezar ha-Qappar.” Not only does this lintel take us back to the second century CE, but a serpent is depicted above the academy of a rabbi known to be famous according to the Mishnah and Talmudim (e.g., y. Berakhot 1.3).30 While the image of the serpent belongs to synagogal art, and also to rabbinic academies, some Jews depicted the serpent in light of mythological ideologies.31 In the Chorazin synagogue we see Medusa. At Hamat Tiberias, on the western edge of the Kinneret, the most southern fortified village of the tribe of Naphtali, is a fourth to sixth century synagogue featuring a Zodiac circle with a nude uncircumcized male. We noted that the serpent is associated not only with Orpheus but also with a Herculean knot. However, the general absence of “pagan” iconography in most Palestinian synagogues lifts the serpent out of Greek and Roman mythology into the religious symbolic world of Judaism, both before and after 70 CE (when the Temple was burned and the nation destroyed). In the pre-70 CE synagogue at Migdal, the symbols on the central stone unite Lower Galilee with the Jerusalem Temple. Jews appreciated serpent iconography as we have seen in texts and images, but the serpent was one of their own symbols deriving from Scripture. Within this cultural setting for early rabbinic teaching and worship, it is conceivable that the Fourth Evangelist had been influenced by a synagogal sermon he had heard— or even delivered—based on an exegesis of Num 21:8–9. He probably inherited the serpent symbolism from the Son of Man sayings; these he obtained from Jewish traditions, and discussions in synagogues, known to the Johannine School.32 The Fourth Evangelist is not dependent only on a so-called Christian exegetical and hermeneutical use of Numbers 21, as Bultmann claimed.33 He may have known



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the Jewish traditions that shaped the Christological interpretation of Numbers 21 by the author of Barnabas 12 and Justin Martyr (Apol. 1.60 and Dialogue 91, 94, and 112). These authors inherited traditions that are clearly Jewish.34 The importance of Numbers 21, as we have seen, was developed by the author of the Wisdom of Solomon and later Jewish sources (esp. m. Rosh Hashanah 3 and Mekhilta to Exodus 17:11). Six observations have led me to the conclusion that the Fourth Evangelist was influenced by a synagogal sermon when he composed 3:14. These may now be mentioned only briefly:

1. The Fourth Gospel is very Jewish, and is shaped by the celebration of the Jewish festivals in synagogues after 70 CE.

2. At least some members of the Johannine School desired to attend synagogal services.

3. Philo of Alexandria based two homilies on Num 21:8–9. He stresses, under the

influence of the Septuagint, that “the serpent” is “the most subtle of all the beasts” (AllegInt 2.53). In Allegorical Interpretation 2.76–79, Philo claims that Moses’ uplifted serpent symbolized “self-mastery” or “prudence,” which is a possession only of those beloved by God (or God-lovers). In On Husbandry 94–98, Philo centers again on serpent symbolism to assist his allegorical interpretations of Scripture. Philo perceives the serpent to be of “great intelligence,” and to be able to defend itself “against wrongful aggression.” Eve’s serpent is an allegory of lust and pleasure, but Moses’ serpent represented protection from death and self-control.35 The serpent also symbolizes “steadfast endurance,” and that is why Moses made the serpent from bronze. The serpent of Moses also symbolizes life; the one who looked on with “patient endurance,” though bitten by “the wiles of pleasure, cannot but live” (98).36 4. The importance of Num 21:8–9 would be familiar to all early Jews who knew the Wisdom of Solomon 16:6–7, 13. Especially noteworthy are the interpretations that “the one who turned toward it [not the serpent but ‘the commandment of your Law’] was saved,” and that God alone is “Savior of all.”37 5. The Johannine emphasis of being from above—emphasized in Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus—is the theme that leads to and frames 3:13–15. It is the same exegetical meaning brought out of Num 21:8–9 according to the Mishnah; that is, the Israelite must remain faithful, direct thoughts to heaven above, and remain in subjection to the Father. After quoting Num 21:8, midrash Rosh Hashanah has this ethical advice (halakha):  ut could the serpent slay or the serpent keep alive!—it is, rather, to teach B thee that such time as the Israelites directed their thoughts on high and kept their hearts in subjection to their Father in heaven, they were healed; otherwise they pined away. (3:8 [italics mine])38 J. Neusner presents the following attractive translation: “But: So long as the Israelites would set their eyes upward and submit to their Father in heaven, they would be healed.”39 Some readers might even be forgiven for imagining that Rosh Hashanah has a Johannine ring to it.

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Figure 16.2  Medusa in the Chorazin Synagogue (c. sixth century JHC).

6. The Targum interprets Numbers 21 to denote that believers are to turn their heart toward the Memra of God (i.e., the divine Word of God).40

Do portions of Jn 3:13–15 derive from a synagogal sermon? For me, this question remains unanswered and yet intriguing. It is likely, as many scholars have concluded (viz., M. É. Boismard and A. Lamouille), that Jn 3:14 develops from an old Jewish tradition that has been expanded by the Fourth Evangelist.41 These insights lead us to search for possible evidence of ophidian symbolism and perhaps ophidian Christology (which was distorted by the Ophites) left elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel. It seems to me that serpent imagery is not a central concern of the Fourth Evangelist; but it may have been of keen interest to some in his Circle (especially all the former devotees of Asclepius) (See Figure 16.1).

An underlying ophidian Christology in the Gospel of John? It is now virtually certain that the Fourth Evangelist created or inherited a tradition in which Jesus is a type of the serpent. And it is imperative to recall that before the Fourth Evangelist Moses’ serpent was a symbol of salvation. According to the author of the Wisdom of Solomon 16:6, Moses’ serpent was “a symbol of salvation.” As M.-J. Lagrange stated in 1927: “Jesus shall be reality” (“Jésus sera la réalité”); that is, Jesus is salvation.42 Now, we can ask to what extent the Evangelist left traces of an incipient ophidian Christology in the Fourth Gospel. While I am uneasy about clarifying what an ancient author might have meant by a symbol, I am convinced that the Fourth Evangelist thought things out along the lines already explained. The penchant of denying such thoughts to the Evangelist also seems unwise when one realizes that the Fourth Gospel reflects a living history. The Evangelist and others in the Johannine School reshaped



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and edited the Gospel over forty years. Sacred texts were discussed in the Johannine School, and concepts latent in the text might have become clearer to the Evangelist through his own study of the text or through discussions with others. If the Evangelist did not think about some passages in the Fourth Gospel as mirroring serpent symbology, it would be rash to claim that none of his readers would be blind to what seems clear now, after exploring the labyrinth of meanings attributed to the serpent by the ancient thinkers in this chapter, the previous chapter, and in The Good and Evil Serpent. Not only audience criticism and reader-response criticism but also narrative criticism allows us to ask to what extent the Evangelist or his readers might have seen the serpent, the symbol of life and immortality, mirrored in chapters subsequent to Jn 3:14. The following four insights prove that serpent symbology reappears in John. 1. Eternal Life and Life Abundantly. It is now certain that in the first century CE the serpent was the quintessential symbol for denoting abundant life and eternal life. To what extent did the Evangelist or his readers ever imagine that “The Gospel of Eternal Life” mirrored serpent symbolism?43 Did he or they imagine a connection between the symbols of the serpent which were regnant around them, in the following selected passages? 3:15 3:16 3:36 5:24 6:40 6:47 10:10 11:25 11:26 20:31

in order that all who are believing in him may have eternal life. in order that all who are believing in him may . . . have eternal life. the one believing in the son has eternal life. the one who is believing in him who sent me has eternal life. so that all who are seeing the Son and are believing in him may have eternal life. the one who is believing has eternal life. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the resurrection and the life. and all who are living and believing in me shall never die. and that believing you may have life in his name.

2. Jesus’ Legs Were Not Broken. The Fourth Evangelist distinguishes his presentation of Jesus on the cross by stressing, even redundantly, that Jesus’ legs were not broken (crurifragium, “breaking of the shinbone”; see Jn 19:31–33): “But when they [the Roman soldiers] came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs” (Jn 19:33). In light of insights from examining ophidian symbology and perceiving that the Fourth Evangelist portrays Jesus as the paschal lamb, what is the meaning of Johannine Christology in the report that Jesus’ legs were not broken (19:33)? Is it because of the law recorded in Exod 12:46 and Num 9:12 regarding the paschal lamb or Ps 34:20[21] which prophecies that the bones of the righteous shall not be broken? Recall the text: ‫ׁשּבְרּו־בֹוֽ׃‬ ְ ִ‫ֹלא־תֹוצ֧יא מִן־הַּבַ ֛ י ִת מִן־ ַהּב ָ ָׂ֖שר ֑חּוצָה ו ֶ ְ֖עצֶם ֹל֥ א ת‬ ִ ‫ַ ֤בי ִת ֶא ָח ֙ד י ֵָא ֵ֔כל‬ In one house it shall be eaten, you shall not carry outside from the house any of the flesh and the bones you shall not break in it. (Exod 12:46)44

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ְ ִ ‫ַד־ּב ֹקֶר ו ֶ ְ֖עצֶם ֹל֣ א י‬ ‫ׁשּבְרּו־בֹו֑ ְּככָל־חֻּקַ ֥ת ה ֶ ַּ֖פסַח יַע ֲׂ֥שּו א ֹתֹוֽ׃‬ ֔ ‫ֹלֽא־יַׁש ִ ְ֤אירּו ִמ ֶּ֨מּנ ּ֙ו ע‬ “They shall leave (nothing) from it until morning, nor break a bone of it [the paschal lamb]; according to all the statutes for the Passover they shall keep it.” (Num 9:12) ‫ַאח֥ת ֝ ֵמ ֵ֗הּנָה ֹל֣ א נִׁשְּבָ ָֽרה׃‬ ַ ‫ְמֹותיו‬ ֑ ָ ‫ׁש ֹמֵ ֥ר ּכָל־ ַעצ‬ He is guarding all his bones; Not of them shall be broken. (Ps 34:20 (21))

While Exodus 12, Numbers 9, and Psalm 34 seem to leave no echo in John, the Evangelist cites one of these passages to prove Scripture: “For these things occurred that the scripture might be fulfilled: “Not a bone of him shall be broken” (19:36). Is only one biblical text the source of the Evangelist’s inspiration and why did he include it in his narrative to explain that Jesus’ legs were not broken? And what images might come to the mind of the author or a reader of the Fourth Gospel in the Johannine School? Many biblical images and passages enrich our imaginations as we contemplate the symbology of the serpent. Hence, the answer may lie in the portrayal of Jesus as a serpent. If the Evangelist imagines the serpent with anguipedes, then the breaking of legs remains opaque. If he is a serpent on the upraised tree, then his legs being broken seems misperceived. That is, when we study the serpentine feet of anyone in images roughly contemporaneous with the composition of the Fourth Gospel, then we see legs that are bent. A bone can easily be broken; but the curved and flexible body of a serpent bends and the image does not break, such as that attributed to a Roman soldier’s weapon in Jn 19:31–32. Similarly, the Fourth Evangelist knew the curse of the serpent, according to Genesis 3; since he loses his legs, no one can break them. If the Fourth Evangelist imagines a serpent with feet, as often shown in images prior to and contemporaneous with John, then the legs can be broken. Perhaps the Fourth Evangelist imagined such concepts. Additionally Gen 3:14 may have influenced the author; as is well known the serpent lost his legs and must forever “crawl on his belly.”45 Some in the Johannine School probably developed such thoughts as they viewed Scripture with fulfillment exegesis. Is it not absurd to contemplate that we are the first to imagine such imagery and symbolism? The Fourth Evangelist and most of his readers knew well the account of how Hezekiah broke the copper (or bronze) serpent in the Temple (which is an echo of Numbers 21). Did the Evangelist, or some of his readers, ever, or even occasionally, think that while the serpent was broken by Hezekiah, Jesus—the antitype of Moses’ serpent—could not be broken? Studying serpent symbology allows us to imagine various options not otherwise evident. 3. Nicodemus Brings the Corpse Down from the Cross. Jesus’ last words to Nicodemus are evident in Jn 3:14–15. Jesus tells this leading Jew that he, as the Son of Man, must be raised up on the cross like the serpent lifted up by Moses. Nicodemus appears on



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stage again briefly when he apparently defends Jesus by pointing to legal procedures (7:50–52). He is on center stage at the end, when Jesus has already died. He brings Jesus’ corpse down from the cross. Only the Fourth Evangelist mentions the so-called Beloved Disciple. He is at the foot of the cross and sees Jesus die (19:26). Why does the Evangelist have him leave the scene? Would not the Beloved Disciple be the ideal man to honor Jesus’ corpse? The Evangelist has a secret disciple of Jesus, Joseph of Arimathea, and Nicodemus obtain and honor Jesus’ corpse. Then they laid Jesus’ corpse in a garden tomb. Why? The passage is as full of emotion as of symbolism. What could be in the mind of the Evangelist or in the minds of some of his readers? Would none of them imagine that what Nicodemus took was not only a corpse but the left skin of a serpent who had gone on to a fuller and better life, indeed eternal life? It is fascinating to ponder how serpent symbology allows us to improve our imagination. In the Martyrdom of Ignatius, we find an exegesis of Numbers 21 and John 3 that is attributed to Ignatius of Antioch, a contemporary of John. Note this excerpt: Moses makes a type of Jesus, [signifying] that it was necessary for Him to suffer, [and also] that He would be the author of life (4) [to others], whom they believed to have destroyed on the cross (5) when Israel was failing. For since transgression was committed by Eve through means of the serpent, [the Lord] brought it to pass that every [kind of] serpents bit them, and they died, (6) that He might convince them, that on account of their transgression they were given over to the straits of death. Moreover Moses, when he commanded, “Ye shall not have any graven or molten [image] for your God,” (7) did so that he might reveal a type of Jesus. Moses then makes a brazen serpent, and places it upon a beam, (8) and by proclamation assembles the people. When, therefore, they were come together, they besought Moses that he would offer sacrifice (9) in their behalf, and pray for their recovery. And Moses spake unto them, saying, “When any one of you is bitten, let him come to the serpent placed on the pole; and let him hope and believe, that even though dead, it is able to give him life, and immediately he shall be restored.” (10) And they did so. Thou hast in this also [an indication of] the glory of Jesus; for in Him and to Him are all things. (11)46

Since Ignatius of Antioch lived shortly after the Fourth Gospel had been edited, and he knew the Gospel, his exegesis is paradigmatically important in our search. Ignatius also reflected elsewhere on the meaning of Jn 3:14–15. In his Epistle to the Smyraeans (shorter version), Ignatius argued that the Word: “When His flesh was lifted up, after the manner of the brazen serpent in the wilderness, drew all men to Himself for their eternal salvation (6).”47 This reflection seems to suggest that the “flesh” denoted, or would have been understood by some readers to mean, the skin left by the serpent who had died apparently, but had actually gone on to a better and fuller life. Does not the mention of a garden evoke the Eden Story, so that the end of salvation of history was mirrored in the beginning of history? What lies hidden behind

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Jn 19:38–42? This passage was most likely informed by discussions in the Johannine School as Jews and Gentiles pondered the relation of the serpent who brought death in the Garden of Eden and its antitype, Jesus, who brought eternal life from the final garden. 4. Appearance in a Garden. Only the Fourth Evangelist stages the first resurrection appearance of Jesus in a garden. If Jesus has been portrayed as an antitype of Moses’ serpent, then it is symbolically significant that Jesus, as the life-giving serpent, appears in a garden. The garden is the mythical abode of the life-giving, perceptive, or guardian serpent, as is evident from examining the Gilgamesh Story, the Eden Story, and the account of Hercules in Hesperides. The garden is also the natural habitat of the serpent. To what extent did such myths and folklore help shape the Evangelist’s creation or inform readers’ imaginations? The scene in Jn 20:11–18 is so reminiscent of the Eden Story that the Evangelist probably used its symbolic power to polish his account of Jesus’ first resurrection appearance. His last story in the Gospel seems shaped by the first story in the Bible. Both stories highlight darkness, a garden, a man, and a woman. In both, the man is portrayed as a gardener (Gen 2:15 and Jn 20:15). Both stress misperception and revealed knowledge. As the first story is shaped by the loss of life, the final story is defined by the proof of unending life. A key link between the first biblical story and the last biblical story (Jesus’ first resurrection appearance) has been missed by exegetes and commentators. Mary Magdalene hears Jesus call her by name,48 and is told by him: “Do not touch me” (Jn 20:17); and later she informs the disciples what Jesus had told her (Jn 20:18). The linguistic link between Jn 20:17 and Gen 3:3 is interesting. Jn 20:17 seems to be an echo of what the first woman added to God’s command when she tells the Nachash (serpent): “And you must not touch it” (Gen 3:3).49 Would the Fourth Evangelist miss the link he had made, when he created his own resurrection account? Should we imagine that he was deaf to the echoes from Genesis in his narrative? Did he not imagine that the new creation (Jesus’ resurrection) was parallel to Creation? An echo has many sounds; it is not simply the original sound. The echo occurs when the woman in the garden is told by the one who has been lifted up as Moses’ serpent that she must “not touch” him. The “original sound” was the woman’s addition to God’s command when she spoke to the serpent in the Garden of Eden: “And you (plural) shall not touch it.” The serpent, as we have seen, was one of the major characters in the first story. Is the life-giving serpent missing in the final story, or have Johannine experts simply missed him among the trees in the garden? Such reflections derive from contemplating, under the stimulus of Jn 3:13–16, that some readers of the Fourth Gospel imagined Jesus on the cross in light of Moses’ upraised serpent. The brilliant interpreter John Chrysostom, in his Homilies on Colossians, obviously thinking about Jn 3:14–15, argued that Jesus was crucified in public as a serpent. Here are his words: “While the world was looking on, the serpent should be slain on high upon the Cross, herein is the marvel.”50 It is wise to review the main points and add some additional symbols and images, for a full perspective, of how the Fourth Evangelist chose, consciously or unconsciously,



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to craft his narrative in chapters 19:41–20:18 with concepts and symbols from Genesis 1–3, which he, as an erudite Jew, had memorized: Darkness (Jn 20:1; cf. Gen 1:1–2) A woman (Jn 20:1; cf. 3:1 et passim) A man (Jn 20:14 et passim; Gen 3:6 et passim) A garden (Jn 19:41, 20:15; cf. Gen 3:1 et passim) A gardener (Jn 20:15; cf. Gen 2:15) A divine voice (Jn 20:15–17; Gen 3:9) Do not touch me (Jn 20:17; cf. Gen 3:3) A serpent (Jn 20:14 [symbolically]; cf. Gen 3:1–15) Unbroken legs (Jn 19:33–36, 20:14; cf. Gen 3:14)

The serpent who had his legs broken off enriches a perspective of Jesus whose legs were not broken. There should now be no doubt that the Fourth Evangelist believed the Endtime (Endzeit) reflected the Beginning (Urzeit).

Summary We began this study with questions that arose from focused reflections on Jn 3:14–15. Our central question may be rephrased: “How, why, and in what ways, if at all, is Jesus compared to Moses’ upraised serpent?” We observed that commentators on the Fourth Gospel failed to raise this question adequately and to explore the meaning of serpent symbolism in antiquity. Over 100 years ago commentators placed the Greek text of the Fourth Gospel on their desks and surrounded themselves with ancient sources. They asked, “What did the text mean in the first century?” In recent decades the computer is placed on the desk. The Greek text of the Fourth Gospel is to the side and commentators are customarily surrounded by other commentaries. The question has changed; scholars now ask, “What have others recently been saying about this text?” Commentaries now are too often “rushed jobs” to meet publishers’ deadlines. Far too often, regurgitation of others’ thoughts replaces creative fresh reflection on what an author and his audience would have imagined a text to mean or suggest. By focusing on one text and one central question and by exploring serpent symbolism we obtained many surprising insights and were challenged by the creative mind of the Fourth Evangelist. We have seen how normal were images of snakes in antiquity and that the serpent symbolized, inter alia, life and eternal life. The serpent was a perfect image for portraying the theology of the Fourth Evangelist. In the Fourth Gospel we do not confront “one of the strangest images for Jesus Christ in Scripture.”51 What are the significant discoveries of our exploration into Jn 3:13–16? Here is a summary of the major insights: The intended thought is not only “to lift up.” The Fourth Evangelist stresses the descent of the Son of Man (3:13) and his ascent again to his Father. In this narrative

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context the lifting up of a serpent on a pole symbolizes Jesus on the cross, having finished his tasks and on his way back to his Father. The “as” and “so” construction of Jn 3:14 defines two clauses. The adverbs reveal the Evangelist’s thought: “As Moses lifted up the serpent . . . so the Son of Man must be lifted up.” The impersonal verb, “it is necessary,” does not refer only to the crucifixion. The Fourth Evangelist uses this construction to refer to the fulfillment of God’s purpose revealed in Scripture. It thus refers to both crucifixion and resurrection (20:9; cf. also Mk 8:31).52 Thus, serpent symbolism is apparent in 3:14. This mysterious being, created by God (Gen 3:1), is the primary and appropriate symbol for signifying new or renewed life and unending or eternal life in antiquity (3:15 and 3:16). The poetic structure of 3:14–15 is synonymous parallelismus membrorum. The serpent in stichos one is parallel to the Son of Man, Jesus, in stichos two. The grammar of 3:14 points to the identity of the Son of Man as the serpent; only “serpent” and “Son of Man” are placed in the accusative case and aligned. In Jn 3:15, the author places one noun in the accusative case: “eternal life.” Thus, the thought moves from “serpent” to “Son of Man” and then to “eternal life.” Looking up to the Son of Man and believing in him reveal the continuing influence of Numbers 21 and the life-giving serpent who symbolizes eternal life. The influence of ophidian symbology becomes clear: The serpent symbolizes life and immortality. A study of ophidian symbology in antiquity clarifies, sometimes for the first time, some major dimensions of the theology and Christology of the Fourth Gospel. To summarize:

1. Jesus is the Son of Man who is like the upraised serpent that gives life to those who look up to him and believe. The Fourth Evangelist describes Jesus’ crucifixion so that only his mother and the Beloved Disciple are narratively described standing underneath the cross and looking up to Jesus on the cross (19:26–27, 35). The serpent raised up by Moses is a typology of the Son of Man, Christ. For the Fourth Evangelist, the history of salvation does not begin at the baptism. As the Fourth Evangelist made clear in the Prologue to his Gospel, it began “in the beginning.” That is, Jesus’ life must be understood from the perspective of God’s actions in history and foreshadowing in Scripture, especially Gen 1:1, “In the beginning . . .” 2. As God gave life to those who looked up to the serpent and believed God’s promise, so Jesus gives life to all who look up to him and believe in him. By looking up to Jesus, lifted up on the cross, one is looking not only at an antitype, the upraised serpent, the crucified Jesus. One is looking up to heaven, the world above. It is from there that the Johannine Jesus has come and is returning. He, the Son of Man, alone descended to earth (3:13) to prepare a place for those who follow him. In the words of conservative Old Testament scholar, R. K. Harrison: “In the same way that the ancient Israelite was required to look in faith at the bronze serpent to be saved from death, so the modern sinner must also look in faith at the crucified Christ to receive the healing of the new birth” (Jn 3:14–16).53 3. Trust or believing is required so that God through the serpent and Jesus can provide life to all who look up to God, the source of healing and new life,



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Figure 16.3  Cross on Mount Nebo.

including eternal life. No other New Testament author employs the verb “to believe” as frequently and deeply as does the Fourth Evangelist. He chooses it, accentuates it pervasively, and he indicates the dynamic quality of “believing” by avoiding the noun “faith.” 4. The paradigmatic importance of “up” and “above,” so significant for Johannine Christology, is heightened by a recognition that Jesus represents the serpent raised up above the earth. It helps us understand the double entendre Jesus is depicted as making while talking with Nicodemus. Jesus tells Nicodemus he must be born anōthen, which is a wordplay denoting both “again,” and “above.” 5. In the milieu of John, the serpent was chosen symbolically to indicate life and healing in the cult of Asclepius. The same symbol was used in texts revered by Jewish groups contemporaneous with the Fourth Gospel, as demonstrated in The Good and Evil Serpent. Later “Jews” and “Christians” created and employed amulets that depict the powers of Yahweh with serpent feet or other features taken from serpent iconography. Ophidian symbolism and iconography help us comprehend why the Fourth Evangelist indicates that Jesus, as the serpent, provides healing for all who turn to him. 6. We have seen ample evidence that the serpent is a symbol of immortality or resurrection in many segments of the culture in which the Fourth Gospel took shape. This dimension of serpent symbolism may be seen as undergirding the thought expressed by the Fourth Evangelist. Indeed, the Fourth Gospel appears to be a blurred mirror in which we see reflected discussions on this topic in the Johannine School.

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Jesus as Mirrored in John

Figure 16.4  Moses shows the bronze serpent to the Jews (Mosè mostra il serpente di bronzo agli ebrei) by Giuseppe Maria Crespi.

7. Finally, Num 21:8–9 is a text used intertextually by the Fourth Evangelist. It

helps shape his narrative and enables him to present the profundity of his Christology. We have also seen that Moses’ upraised serpent was a subject of interest for many Jews (viz., in Wisdom of Solomon 16, Philo’s Legum Allegoriae 2, and De Agricultura 94). A study of the Fourth Gospel needs to be informed by such Jewish exegesis of Genesis 3 and Numbers 21. In light of such traditions, it becomes clearer how and why the Fourth Evangelist perceived Jesus’ crucifixion. The crucifixion was not a failure; it was a necessity and mirrors Jesus’ exaltation and return to the world above. 8. The Fourth Evangelist shapes his thoughts and symbols by the use of the lightdarkness paradigm. Johannine thought is enriched by the recognition that in antiquity the serpent god is depicted as controlling light and darkness. According to an excerpt that Philo of Byblos derived from a “sacred scribe,” when the serpent opened his eyes “there was light” and when he shut his eyes “there was darkness.”54 For those in the Johannine community who were deeply influenced by the power of serpent symbolism, this allegorical imagery would help them understand a key passage: “I am the light of the world” (8:12; cf. 3:19, 12:35–36).55 There should be



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no doubt that some who read the Fourth Gospel in antiquity would have seen Jesus in light of serpent symbolism. Both symbolized light. Artists often serve as more perceptive biblical exegetes than biblical scholars. That is because they must live in the scene and story depicted, imagine all descriptions, and then transpose the prose and poetry into art. The image in Figure 16.3 is from Mount Nebo. Someone has depicted Jesus’ crucifixion as a serpent on a cross. Figure 16.4 is Moses as he shows the bronze serpent to the Jews (Mosè mostra il serpente di bronzo agli ebrei) by Giuseppe Maria Crespi. The artist knows the meaning intended by John: On the tree that resembles a cross, Jesus is imagined to be Moses’ uplifted serpent. It is obvious that artists depict Jesus as a serpent on a cross. The two examples chosen must suffice. On Mount Nebo today, Numbers 21 in conflated with John 3. Not a stake but a cross is artistically depicted. The one on it is clearly a serpent who represents Jesus. In the Bildungshaus in Salzburg, a painting illustrates Jesus’ cross and the serpent symbolizes Jesus. In the Warburg Institute in London are collected many symbolic representations of the Son of Man (Jesus) as the serpent, according to Jn 3:14. Five examples are chosen to make the point that, under the influence of Jn 3:14, artists often perceive Jesus as a serpent on the cross.56 First, in his “S. Ioannes,” Jacques Callot (1592–1635) depicted a person kneeling and praying beside a small staff on which a serpent is entwined; a large tree is above both. Second, Wolf Huber, also named Barthel Beham (1502–1540), portrayed Jesus on the cross and to the left of him is the serpent on the pole.57 Third, a lead sarcophagus in Jerusalem, from the early Christian period, shows a cross with serpent feet (see the preceding image). The imagery most likely derives from imaginative reflections on Jn 3:14. Fourth, the upper part of a gravestone, found perhaps in Luxor in 1906, shows a cross under which are two serpents with heads uplifted.58 Fifth, a pottery figure from Drenthe in the Netherlands shows a large serpent coiling upward and around a cross or outstretched arms. As Leclercq concluded, most likely the figure represents the serpent of the wilderness as a symbol of Christ.59 The ceramic figure thus was an interpretation of Jn 3:14 that equated “the Son of Man” with the serpent that Moses lifted up in the wilderness. The following painting (Figure 16.5) focuses the viewer’s attention on Jesus with Mary, a saint, and most importantly, centered between them, a cup with two upraised serpents. What does this picture symbolize? A gifted artist has created a scene that is based on an insightful interpretation of Jn 3:14–16. This meaning has been lost for those who have studied it, as I learned talking with a Jesuit who lived where the painting is ostensibly hidden from sight. He whispered: “We think it is heretical.” The colorful painting seems to mystify those who focus on it. In order to perceive the in-depth meaning of this painting, I have divided the following presentation into facts, opinions, and my own explanation. In terms of facts, the painting has been moved many times. It was originally in the convent of Santa Maria di Casarlano, a village that is presently incorporated within Sorrento. The impressive painting is now in a chapel, Cappella del Noviziato, on an upper floor within Gesù Nuovo, the Jesuit residence in downtown Naples. The date

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Figure 16.5  Mater Auxiliatrix, Naples [JHC]. of composition and the artist are unknown. Thus, any basis for interpretation cannot appeal to date or creator. What is the meaning of this picture? What do the two serpents symbolize? In terms of opinions, some priests in Naples told me viva voce that the painting may have been composed to celebrate the founding of the convent, Santa Maria di Casarlano. If so, then the work would have been created about 1496. I asked a Jesuit who had studied the painting what was the meaning of the two serpents. He was drawn primarily to the dominant figure of the Virgin Mary, and admitted that, perhaps, the serpents represented some disgusting thought. He confessed that he did not know. Having both the facts and opinions of others before us, my personal interpretation is that the painting has been moved because of embarrassment. Many considered (and still consider) the images of serpents in a cup to be heretical. The painting is probably not connected with the founding of the convent.60 It is later than the fifteenth century. It did exist in the sixteenth century, because the Turks— who sought to desecrate a celebration of Christian symbols—shoved their swords and knives into it in 1558.61 Its style seems to connect the painting with the school of Giotto. One may surmise that the painting dates from the middle of the sixteenth century.62 Why is the painting impressive? Most viewers have been drawn to the painting because of the beatific view of the Virgin Mary. She is Mater Auxiliatrix, “Mother, the Helper.” She is the dominant figure, situated in the middle and elevated above the males on her right and left. She is feminine and attractive, especially as she leans her cheek adoringly on the head of the Christ child. One can appreciate why the “Madonna di Casarlano” is revered “come Auxilium Christianorum,” or more affectionately, Mater Auxiliatrix.63



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Our gaze is riveted by an unusual detail. A man, obviously a saint, holds a cup; but this is no ordinary depiction of the chalice. From it two small serpents ascend.64 Prominence is given to the two bifid tongues. Who is the man holding the chalice? What is the meaning of the two serpents? Why are two depicted? As one stands before the painting, one sees a man on the far left (not shown). He is John the Baptizer, who is revealed by the animal skin around his chest. The man on the right is John the Apostle, perceived to be the Beloved Disciple. He is the one who holds the cup with the two serpents.65 Two major questions arise: What is the meaning of the cup? What do the two serpents symbolize? Alan Culpepper shared with me his impression that the cup with the serpents might signify the manner in which John the Evangelist died.66 According to some texts and legends, John was forced to drink poison or was killed by a deadly snake.67 This interpretation rightly grounds an interpretation with the Fourth Evangelist, but it focuses again only on the negative meaning of serpent symbolism and postdates the Gospel of John.68 If the serpents represented death, then why are Mary and John the Evangelist portrayed oblivious of any danger. If the cup is a chalice, then it represented Jesus’ blood. It symbolized the source of eternal life, which—as we have seen—is first and foremost symbolized by the serpent in the first century CE. The cup appears to represent the chalice in which the Eucharist contains the blood of Christ. The identification of John the Evangelist shows that the correct interpretation of the symbolism of this painting is to be found in the Fourth Gospel. And the only mention of the “serpent” in this Gospel is found at 3:14. While John the Baptizer points to the Virgin with his right hand, John the Evangelist lifts the chalice with two serpents in his right hand.69 The serpents do not seem to have negative meaning because they do not startle the baby, Virgin, or Evangelist. The serpent closest to the Virgin seems almost to touch her, but rather than threatening her with his deadly fangs, he seems to be communicating power and immortality through his tongue. The other serpent apparently points the viewer’s eye toward heaven. The most arresting aspect of the painting is also its spark of creativity: the serpents lift themselves up from the chalice. The two serpents depicted remind the observer of the caduceus; in images of Hermes, two serpents face each other, one provides death and is contrasted by one that promises life. The bifid tongue indicates the power of the serpents, which are clearly poisonous (as indicated by the triangular head). An exegesis of Genesis 3 or Numbers 21, whereby a serpent brings death, seems “checkmated” by the serpent, Christ, who restores life and promises “eternal life” (Jn 3:14–15). As indicated by the caduceus and pointed out in our exegesis of Number 21, the serpent who brings death is bested by the serpent who brings life. As Moses lifted up a serpent, and Jesus, the Son of Man, was lifted up on a cross, so the two serpents are lifted up out of the chalice. The unknown artist depicts a pensive John the Evangelist holding his Gospel in the left hand and lifting up the chalice with two serpents in his right hand. The artist seems to be stressing that the cup of Christ’s blood brings immortality; the appropriate symbol for this thought is the serpent. The artist knew the meaning of Jn 3:14–15: “the serpent” symbolizes that “the Son of Man” provides “eternal life” to all who look up to him and believe in him.

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The full symbolism—or symbology—breaks forth on observers when they realize what is on each side of the Virgin. On one side, John the Baptizer holds a wooden cross. On the other side, John the Evangelist lifts up two serpents. Thus, Mary is framed by a cross and serpents. Our examination of serpent symbology thus allows us to conclude that the symbolism in this painting is grounded in Jn 3:14–15. We now turn to a painting in Hawaii. It is similar to the one in the Cappella del Noviziato. The painting shows a woman or man before a chalice with a serpent curled over it. The art is by Piero di Cosimo of the fifteenth century. It is now in the Samuel H. Kress Collection, Honolulu Academy of Arts, Honolulu, Hawaii.70 This painting is also an interpretation of Jn 3:14–15. The chalice contains an inexhaustible supply of Christ’s blood: the symbol of eternal life. The complex positive ophidian symbology probably inspired Piero di Cosimo. The serpents in the chalice which contains Christ’s blood are indicative of the immortality symbolized by the “serpent” imagery in John 3:14. One is reminded of the teaching of Ignatius of Antioch: The Eucharist is “the medicine of immortality.”71 A fourth century amulet with Samaritan writing, a cross, and a serpent may also indicate an interpretation of Christ’s death as regeneration and eternal life.72

Conclusion We have observed something remarkable and revealing. Modern scholars who work on the theology and Christology of the Fourth Gospel stress that 3:14 refers only to the “lifting up” of Jesus. Those who have focused on iconography perceive only that Jesus is symbolized as the serpent. In the present work, applying symbology, we have learned that each of these is only partially correct. The truth entails both: the typology entails both Jesus’ being lifted up and his portrayal as the serpent on the pole or cross. J. Asurmendi explains how the serpent symbolism of Numbers 21 was transformed into a spiritual symbol by the Fourth Evangelist.73 He argues that the typological analogy is between the serpent and the Son of Man (“El famoso texto opera una analogía entre la serpiente y el Hijo del hombre,” p. 292). Asurmendi contends that “the serpent has been transformed by the Fourth Evangelist into the Son of Man” (“la serpiente se convierte en del Hombre,” p. 292). This understanding represents the perception of many early readers of the Fourth Gospel and perhaps many in the Johannine Circle. Our research was necessary because the meaning was lost and not clearly developed by the Fourth Evangelist. In Le Tohu-bohu, le Serpent et le bon Dieu, A. Houziaux points out that no animal receives so much importance in the Hebrew Bible as the serpent. Indeed, we have seen that serpent symbolism and symbology appears at the beginning of Genesis, reappears in Exodus with Moses’ magical staff, and explodes with symbolic significance in the wilderness with Moses uplifting a copper serpent on a pole. This famous and paradigmatic episode in the wilderness shapes the early centuries of worship in the Temple, since Hezekiah eventually destroys the copper serpent, worshipped by some, in the Jerusalem Temple. What about the Fourth Gospel? Houziaux, unlike Johannine experts, contends that in Jn 3:14 the serpent became the symbol for Christ being lifted on a cross.74 It seems



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clear from our research that the Fourth Evangelist intended this thought: As Moses’ bronze serpent represented God’s saving of those dying in the wilderness,75 so Jesus on the cross symbolized the saving of all humanity.76 As H. Lesêtre stated, “Jesus was raised on his cross like the serpent on his pole” (“Notre-Seigneur sera donc dressé sur sa croix comme le serpent sur son poteau”).77 In his “Homily 37,” John Chrysostom explained why Jesus did not simply declare: “I am about to be crucified.” Jesus wanted his hearers to think about the analogy with the Old Testament, because “the old order was akin to the new.” Note that Chrysostom sees more than merely a parallel between the lifting up of the serpent and the lifting up of Jesus. The parallel is also between the serpent and Jesus: In the former, the uplifted serpent healed the bites of serpents; in the latter, the crucified Jesus healed the wounds inflicted by the spiritual dragon. In the former, he who looked with these eyes of earth was healed; in the latter, he who gazes with the eyes of his mind lays aside all his sins. (italics mine)

Chrysostom sees indeed a parallel between Jesus and the serpent: In the former, there was the uplifted brass fashioned in the likeness of a serpent; in the latter, the Lord’s body formed by the Spirit (italics mine).78

It should not be surprising to see Jesus (the Son of Man) imagined symbolically as a serpent. According to the Fourth Evangelist, Jesus was the one-who-was-to-come. One of his favorite Scriptures was the Book of Isaiah. This eighth century BCE prophet claimed that the one-who-was-to-come would be a serpent. Recall, Isaiah’s prophecy: Rejoice not, all you of Philistia, Because the rod that struck you is broken; For out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a pit viper, And his offspring shall be a flying serpent. (Isa 14:29 [italics mine])

The above research proves that the serpent in the wilderness is a symbol of the Son of Man who is Jesus, the Christ, according to the Fourth Evangelist.79

Notes 1 This chapter is an expanded and rewritten version, with images, of an earlier one: 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 (ed. P. N. Anderson, F. Just and T. Thatcher; SBL Early Christianity and Its Literature 2; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), pp. 63–72. 2 Dan Brown did not create the word “symbology.” In his novels, he made it popular when he introduced a Robert Langdon, “world-renowned Harvard symbologist.”

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3 J. H. Charlesworth, “A Rare Consensus among Enoch Specialists: The Date of the Earliest Enoch Books,” Henoch 24 (2002): 225–34. 4 E. Ruckstuhl, “Abstieg und Erhöhung des johanneischen Menschensohns,” Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien (Stuttgarter Biblische Aufsatzbände 3. Stuttgart: Verlag Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1975), pp. 277–310. 5 O. Hofius, “Das Wunder der Wiedergeburt: Jesu Gespräch mit Nikodemus Joh 3,1-21,” in Johannesstudien (ed. Hofius and H.-C. Kammler; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996), p. 59. 6 See M. Theobald, Herrenworte im Johannesevangelium, pp. 587–88. 7 L. Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 3:336. Le Grande Davies (Serpent Imagery in Ancient Israel, pp. 33–34) also points out that the “serpent as a symbol of YHWH does not appear after the time of Hezekiah in the literature of the kingdom of Judah in the Promised Land.” He rightly stressed that the serpent was “a symbol or token of the saving powers of the God of Israel.” 8 Augustine, The City of God 10.8; trans. M. Dods, “Augustine: The City of God,” NPNF 2.185. 9 The Seventh Ecumenical Council, Quaestio LVI (NPNF2 14.554). 10 Theobald, Herrenworte im Johannesevangelium, p. 588. 11 Consult Morgenthaler, Statistik des Neutestamentlichen Wortschatzes, p. 132. 12 Barnabas 12.7; Lake, Apostolic Fathers, 1.384–85. 13 Barnabas 12.5; Lake, Apostolic Fathers, 1.384–85. 14 See the discussion by M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Oxford: Clarendon: 1967), p. 141. 15 This verbal form is the Ethpe. of zqp. My transliterations are designed for those who do not know Semitics and the sophisticated way of transcribing the foreign words. I expect that they can comprehend how the word or words might sound. 16 See also the discussion by Frey in Schriftauslegung im antiken Judentum und im Urchristentum, pp. 186–87. 17 This important article by a luminary in biblical studies is virtually unknown. It is not cited by those who justly are praised for knowing the work of other scholars, notably R. E. Brown in his The Gospel According to John, W. Thüsing in Die Erhöhung und Verherrlichung Jesu im Johannesevangelium (Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen 21; 1.2; Münster: Aschendorff, 1970), H. Maneschg in Die Erzählung von der ehernen Schlange (Num 21, 4-9) in der Auslegung der frühen jüdischen Literature, M. Hengel in his Die johanneische Frage, and J. Frey in his three-volume Die johanneische Eschatologie. 18 G. Kittel, G. “‫ = אזדקף‬ὑψωθῆναι; Gekreuzigtwerden: Zur angeblichen antiochenischen Herkunft des vierten Evangeliums,” Zeitschrift für die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 35 (1936): 282–85. Many scholars today trace the beginnings of the Fourth Gospel to Palestine; as G. Theissen, Fortress Introduction to the New Testament, trans. J. Bowden (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003), p. 146, states: “The prehistory of the Gospel of John leads to Palestine.” 19 See Whiteley in ANRW II.25.3 and Freed, Old Testament Quotations in the Gospel of John. 20 He also knows the traditions preserved in Genesis 26 according to which Isaac’s servants find a well of fresh water (for the Evangelist “living water”) in the Land and see it as a sign that “we shall be fruitful in the Land (26:22).” The Evangelist refers to this episode as “the gift of God” (4:10). 21 See especially Fabry’s discussion in Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament, 5:468–73. 22 Brown, The Gospel According to John, p. 322.



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23 Sinaiticus (the first hand) and Epiphanius have “serpent.” 24 In 1889, E. Schürer rightly pointed out that the Fourth Gospel should be seen within the world of Judaism; he, however, claimed that Philo’s use of Logos was the probable origin of the Fourth Evangelist’s thought. Note these words: “Der Evangelist sei ein Mann von alexandrinisch-philosophischer Bildung.” See Schürer in Johannes und sein Evangelium, ed. K. H. Rengstorf (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973), p. 21. 25 It is disappointing to observe that neither of these significant links between the Gospels and Greek and Latin literature is mentioned or noted in the Hellenistic Commentary to the New Testament. 26 See the photograph in L. I. Levine, ed., Ancient Synagogues Revealed (Jerusalem: Wayne State, 1981), p. 130. For a better photograph see M. Avi-Yonah, Art in Ancient Palestine: Selected Studies (ed. H. Katzenstein and Y. Tsafrir; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1981) Plate 41. 27 For a photograph see L. I. Levine, ed., Ancient Synagogues Revealed, p. 108. 28 For a discussion of this indissoluble knot see Avi-Yonah, Art in Ancient Palestine, pp. 76–77. 29 See Levine, Ancient Synagogues, pp. 110, 154–55; for a photograph of the lintel with the large snake see p. 156. 30 More than one Qappar is known, and the period is most likely from the second to the fourth centuries CE. 31 J. Ma’oz concludes his study of synagogal iconography in the Golan with the claim: “We should emphasize the abundance of faunal reliefs and the complete absence of mythological wildlife scenes, so common in the synagogues at Capernaum and Chorazin.” Ma’oz in Levine, Ancient Synagogues, p. 112. 32 See, for example, Theobald, Herrenworte im Johannesevangelium, p. 201. 33 Bultmann (Das Evangelium des Johannes, p. 109.) concluded that the Evangelist derived the interpretation of Numbers 21 “wohl durch die christliche Tradition.” 34 A work related to these early Christian compositions is the Didache. It is heavily influenced by early Jewish thought, as M. Del Verme has shown. See Del Verme’s recent articles: “DID.16 e la cosiddetta ‘Apocalittica Giudaica’,” Orpheus N.S. 22 (2001): 39–76 and “Didaché e origini cristiane: Una bibliografia per lo studio della Didaché nel contesto del giudaismo cristiano,” Vetera Christianorum 38 (2001): 5–39. Finally, see M. Del Verme’s monograph: Didache and Judaism: Jewish Roots of an Ancient ChristianJewish Work (New York: T & T Clark International, 2014). 35 See H. Maneschg, Die Erzählung von der ehernen Schlange (Num 21, 4–9) in der Auslegung der frühen jüdischen Literature, pp. 175–82. 36 For Philo, see F. H. Colson and G. H. Whitaker, Philo (LCL; Cambridge: Harvard, 1999), vol. 1 and Colson and Whitaker (LCL; Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988) vol. 3. 37 For reflections on Numbers 21 and the possible breaking of God’s own commandment against making any images, see Tertullian, On Idolatry 5 in ANF 3.63–64. 38 Danby, The Mishnah, p. 192. 39 Neusner, The Mishnah: A New Translation, p. 305. 40 Brown, The Gospel According to John, p. 133. 41 M.-É. Boismard and A. Lamouille, L’Évangile de Jean (Paris: Cerf, 1977) 2:115. 42 M. -J. Lagrange, Évangile selon Saint Jean (Paris: Lecoffre, 1927) p. 81. 43 See especially D. Crossan, The Gospel of Eternal Life: Reflections on the Theology of St. John (Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1967).

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44 There is no reason to conclude that John is working from the Septuagint [pace Nestle-Aland]. 45 See the proof of this exegesis in Rabbinics cited in my The Good and Evil Serpent. 46 Ignatius, The Martyrdom of Ignatius, 12 (ANF 1.145). The italics are mine. 47 Ignatius, Epistle to the Smyraeans (ANF 1.87). The italics are mine. 48 As M. M. Beirne states, Mary Magdalene and Thomas, through the narrative, prove the Johannine shepherd imagery; they respond to the shepherd’s calling them by name. See Beirne, Women and Men in the Fourth Gospel (SNTSMS 242; Sheffield: ­Sheffield, 2003), p. 210. 49 A gifted linguist might ask, “Since the Greek verb for ‘to touch’ also can mean ‘to eat’ (cf. Odyssey 4.60 and especially Plutarch, Antonius 17[923]), is the Fourth Evangelist creating a subtle paronomasia here with the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden?” 50 John Chrysostom, Homilies on Colossians 6 (NPNF 13.286–87). I altered the translation by removing an archaism. 51 C. Lantinga, “Christ, the Snake,” Perspectives 6 (March 1991): 14. 52 See Theobald, Herrenworte im Johannesevangelim, pp. 209–18. He is convinced that Mk 8:31 is “den Basistext” for Jn 3:14. 53 Harrison, Numbers, p. 279. 54 See Attridge and Oden, Philo of Byblos, pp. 66–67. 55 Note also 11QPsa 27.2–3: “And David, the son of Jesse, was wise, and a light like the light of the sun . . . and perfect in all his ways before God and men.” 56 P. E. Testa drew attention to images of the cross as or with a serpent; some of his interpretations are imaginative. See Testa, “La croce come serpente,” Il simbolismo dei Giudeo-Cristiani (Pubblicazioni dello Studium Biblicum Franciscanum 14. Jerusalem: Tipografia dei PP. Francescani, 1962), pp. 278–82. 57 K. Gemälde-Galerie in Vienna; Klassischer Bilderschatz, Nr. 999. 58 Berlin, SMB-PK, MSB, Inv.-Nr. 4730. For a photograph, see S. Schaten, “Oberteil einer Grabstele,” in Ägypten Schätze aus dem Wüstensand (Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1996), p. 122. 59 H. Leclercq, Dictionnaire d’Archéologie Chrétienne et de Liturgie 15 (1950): 1356, see the Illus. No. 10881. 60 G. Cioffari and M. Miele, Storia dei Domenicani nell’Italia Meridionale (Naples-Bari: Editrice Domenicana Italiana, 1993) 1:141. 61 The painting is now restored. On the destruction by the Turks, see G. Maldacea, Storia di Sorrento (Naples: Dalla Stamperia di Matteo Vara, 1843) 2:213; and F. J. [= Filippo Iapelli], “Mater Auxiliatrix,” Societas: Rivista dei Gesuiti dell’Italia Meridionale 39 (1990): 53–54. I was assisted in studying the Madonna di Casarlano by Lara Guglielmo, and express my appreciations for her assistance during my tenure as Most Distinguished Foreign Professor at the University of Naples. 62 A. Caruso, Mater Auxiliatrix (Naples: Giovanni Torella & Figlio, 1946), pp. 9–10. 63 See F. Japelli [= Filippo Iapelli], “Mater Auxiliatrix,” Societas: Rivista dei Gesuiti dell’Italia Meridionale 39 (1990): 53–54. I am grateful to Father Iapelli [he prefers “I” over “J”] for his insights and assistance as I studied the painting and worked in the Bibliotheca San Sebastiano, Casa Professa del Gesù Nuovo, Naples. I am also appreciative to him and his superiors for permission to publish my photograph of the painting. 64 Johann Friedrich Overbeck (1789–1869) also depicted John the Evangelist with a chalice from which a serpent ascends. See M. Bernhard, ed., Deutsche Romantik Handzeichnungen (Herrsching: Pawlak, n.d.) 2:1078.



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65 “. . . Giovanni il prediletto, con un calice di serpi.” A. Caruso, Ferite Aperte (Bari: Grafiche Cessati, 1958), p. 7. Also, see Caruso, Mater Auxiliatrix [the first edition of Caruso’s booklet]), p. 7. 66 According to the Acts of John and the Acts of John by Prochorus, John’s death is peaceful; he lies down in a trench, with his disciples watching, and dies. According to the Acts of John at Rome, the apostle drinks a cup of poison before Emperor Domitian; but he does not die (as prophesied for apostles in Mk 16:18). According to the Syriac History of John (= History of St. John at Ephesus), the apostle lived until he was 120 and died peacefully. According to the Gospels, John seems either to suffer a martyr’s death (Mk 10:39) or did not suffer martyrdom (Jn 21:22-23). 67 According to Liber Flavus Fergusiorum (c. fifteenth century), John drank poison (but he did not die). See R. A. Culpepper, John the Son of Zebedee: The Life of a Legend (Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1994), p. 241 and p. 236. 68 This negative meaning seems apparent in other paintings, especially the one by El Greco (1541–1614) in which John the Evangelist holds a cup out of which a dragon rises. See Culpepper, John the Son of Zebedee, p. 253. Perhaps some paintings depicting John the Apostle with a viper in a cup reflect the legend that Aristodemus, the high priest of Diana at Ephesus, forced John to drink poison (cf. also the legend that Domitian forced John to drink poison). In each legend, John drinks the poison but does not die. 69 The power of the serpent’s blood continues to be paradigmatic. In Southeast Asia men sometimes drink serpent’s blood before entering a brothel. I am grateful to Magen Broshi for conversations focused on serpents and on the aphrodisiac use of their blood. 70 See J. Campbell, The Mythic Image, Illus. No. 279. 71 Our present research adds to the probability that Ignatius may have known the Fourth Gospel. 72 P. E. Testa, “La mitica rigenerazione della vita in un amuleto Samaritano-Cristiano del iv secolo,” Liber Annuus 23 (1973): 286–317. 73 J. Asurmendi, “En Torno a la Serpiente de Bronce,” Estudios Bíblicos 46 (1988): 283–94. 74 A. Houziaux, Le Tohu-bohu, le serpent et le bon Dieu (Paris: Presses de la Renaissance, 1997), p. 7. 75 Under the influence of the Hebrew Bible or Septuagint, some scribe interpolated “bronze” into the text of Jn 3:14 in the Persian Harmony. See W. L. Petersen, Tatian’s Diatessaron (SuppVC 25; Leiden: Brill, 1994), p. 261. 76 Also, see the brilliant insights of H. Ausloos, “Mozes’ bronzen slang: Gods ‘teken van redding,’” Schrift 195 (2001): 69–71. 77 H. Lesêtre in Dictionnaire de la Bible (1912) vol. 5, col. 1675. 78 See Saint John Chrysostom, Commentary on Saint John (trans. T. A. Goggin; New York: Fathers of the Church, 1957), pp. 262–63. 79 In L’Univers fantastique des Mythes, the reader is correctly informed that the serpent in the wilderness (“le serpent d’airain”) is a symbol of Christ (“symbole du Christ.” See A. Eliot, et al., L’Univers fantastique des Mythes (Paris: Presses de la Connaissance, 1976), p. 175.

17

Is It Conceivable that Jesus Married Mary Magdalene?: Searching for Evidence in Johannine Traditions

Introduction Mary Magdalene and Jesus have been associated intimately from the beginnings of the gospel traditions. All who have read the gospels attentively ponder: What was their relationship? What type of love bonded them? Was it purely spiritual or could it have been sexual? The latter possibility makes too many Christians cringe. Why? They may be Docetists, believing that Jesus was not a fleshly male. Maybe they should ponder Jn 1:14; according to this well-known verse Jesus became a Jewish male with flesh. Authors of the gnostic gospels and the extracanonical gospels reported that Jesus entrusted his revelatory teachings to Magdalene after his resurrection. Is that claim evident in the story preserved in the Gospel of John (John)? Is that claim a gnostic creation based on eisegesis? Let me clarify that the so-called Gospel of Jesus’ Wife is a forgery, as I intimated long ago.1 This fake provides no data and no incentive to our search for conceivable passages of a putative marriage in the Gospel of John; this Gospel alone must be in focus. Is there any first century evidence to support the popular assumption that Magdalene was Jesus’ wife? Is there any historical foundation to that assumption? Has not the popular tale, found in novels prejudiced the situation so that no scholar should venture into such an area of speculative research? Is a scholar one who follows the safe and well-trodden path? Should not all scholars independently and boldly follow the primary evidence, as Galileo did with astronomy? The Focused Question. Let me be clear what question I am now asking. I am not asking: “Did Jesus marry Mary Magdalene?” The question is also not, “What kind of a case can be made for the proposal that Jesus and Magdalene were married?” The question is subtler. I shall be seeking to answer this question: “Is there any passage in the New Testament Gospels that despite its edited form suggests it is conceivable that Jesus married Mary Magdalene?” Anyone familiar with Early Judaism knows that men were expected to marry, according to Gen 1:28, and while they were teenagers. Perhaps, a prophet like Jesus, in light of Hosea and other prophets, married later. Being exceptional, one must allow for Jesus to define his own life exceptionally.



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I shall employ the inductive method and historical criticism. I do not know the answer to my question. In this search, I will avoid offering something like a report of published research on Magdalene.2 The goal is to seek to obtain some reliable insights into pre-70 CE Galilean society and Jesus’ place within it by looking through the gospel narratives, especially in John. The task will demand imagining the history preserved in texts edited and shaped to win converts to “Christianity” or to deepen such commitment and understanding. The focused interrogatives lead us beyond the myth and behind the text. I shall seek to avoid the power of the Magdalene myth that has shaped not only her denigration but also her relation to Jesus in such works as Kazantzakis’ Last Temptation of Christ, Arcand’s Jesus of Montreal, and Thiering’s Jesus the Man.3 To proceed in the exploration of Magdalene’s relation to Jesus does not imply that women in Second Temple Judaism were defined in relation to men. While Michal, Bathsheba, and Athaliah, the royal women of Judah, were identified in relationship to royal men,4 women in Early Judaism—like Judith, Susanna, Sitis, Sheila, and Babatha—were perceived literarily or historically with some independence, and no longer as primarily, or only, wives, mothers, and daughters. A Personal Exploration. In asking this question I take up for the first time some impressions I have obtained reading John and teaching this masterpiece over the past fifty years. I really do not know the answer to the central question and am eager to explore what may be learned. This question is a personal one, and all I propose to offer are my own scholarly reflections on some key passages, especially John 2 and 20, which have often been overlooked in searching for Jesus’ relationship with Mary Magdalene.5 The Interrogative and Christian Orthodoxy. Some readers may find it scandalous to ask if Jesus was married, let alone married to a woman who may not have had a sterling reputation.6 Nothing in dogma or dogmatics suggests this question is offensive. If Christians believe, as the creeds indicate, that Jesus was fully divine and fully human, then it is appropriate to ask what can be learned about his humanity. Many humanists and theologians agree that if Jesus was ignorant of a sexual relationship with a woman he never became “fully human.” This view might be supported by the Fourth Evangelist who wrote one of the most famous sentences about Jesus’ fleshliness: “And the Word flesh became” (1:14). Indeed, according to the present form of John, Jesus as a fleshy man became tired and thirsty; he even “cried.” I know of no ecclesiastical dogma or creed that demands Christians must not imagine Jesus was married. Hence, no one should mount a pedestal and pontificate that a Protestant has erred in thought. To raise the question is to take seriously Jesus’ place within Judaism.7 To explore the life of Mary Magdalene and conceivably to elevate her to her rightful place within Jesus’ group is to recover some of the adoration of her known in the Middle Ages.8 While Christian dogmatics tended to disparage the early Jewish appreciation of the body and sexual intercourse, the movement called into being by Jesus extended women’s freedom by cutting the cords that had defined her in relation only to a man, to family duties, and to the State.9 To deny our interrogative approach to John because of a refusal to admit that Jesus could have married Mary Magdalene smacks of docetic Christology (the heresy that Jesus only appeared to be a man but was actually a being of celestial substance).

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This false teaching claimed that Jesus could never have defecated, and his footsteps never left an impression on the sands beside the Sea of Galilee (as claimed by the author of the Acts of John 93). Perhaps the final editing of John had a clear purpose: to combat the naïve Docetism seen in the first edition, by stressing that the Word flesh became (note the asyndetic contiguity of the Greek).10 The myth that Victorians shunned sex and found it to be undesirable has been exposed. Even if American sexual morality in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and earlier, was hidden in the bedroom (in which the man sometimes never saw his wife nude) that is a markedly different world from Early Judaism in which sex was desirable and honorable. The joys and intimacies of sex is represented by the Hebrew verb for “to know” (‫ ;)ידע‬it is a term for sexual intercourse (e.g., Gen 4:1; 1Kgs 1:4). The author of Proverbs 30 adds that human sexuality is an intriguing mystery (Prov 30:18–19). The Song of Solomon lauds, in graphic sensual terms, the joys and pleasures of romantic love apart from childbearing. These traditions and perceptions influenced Jews during Second Temple Judaism, and in Jesus’ Judaism, the human body was considered a source of joy and pride (cf. Joseph and Aseneth).11 Jews of Jesus’ time would have found laughable Augustine’s notion that sexual intercourse was “the shameful motion of the organs of generation.”12 Augustine and other Early Church Fathers, especially Tertullian,13 distorted the Jewish elevation of sex so that in western culture sacred sexuality was repressed.14 Avoiding the belief that all human senses are evil, as in Manicheanism, extreme Platonism, and Gnosticism, Augustine argued that the inherited sin which was responsible for human misery and which was beyond the control of the rational mind was sexual desire.15 Even today “sacred sexuality” is frequently seen as an oxymoron. Such attitudes were nurtured as Christian church leaders were disturbed, inter alia, by the Greek and Roman myths in which males, especially gods, abused and mistreated females—a stunning contrast to oriental myths and concepts in which the YIN is harmonious with the YANG.16 For Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries the love between Israel and God is like the sexually intimate love between a man and a woman so that the man caresses the woman with such words as these: “Your two breasts are like two fawns, gazelle twins, that fed among the lilies” (Song 4:5). In biblical anthropology almost all parts of the human body had positive symbolic meaning, and that alone explains the otherwise absurdity of the liturgical hoc est corpus meum (1Cor 11:23; Mk 14:22; Mt 26:26; Lk 22:19).17 Sexual intimacy was a means of receiving God’s gift of happiness and wholeness (Prov 5:15– 19; Eccl 9:9; cf. PssSol 8:9). As we have seen, the Jewish perspective of Jesus and his earliest followers affirmed that the body and soul are God’s gifts. The male and female were created in God’s image (Gen 1:26–27). The Greek and Roman world separated the perishable body from the immortal soul. Emperor Publius Aelius Hadrianus (76–138 CE), hailed by historians as one of “the good emperors” loved Greek thought and was called Graeculus in his youth. Note Hadrian’s plaintive poetry: Animula, vagula, blandula Hospes comesque corporis



Is It Conceivable that Jesus Married Mary Magdalene? Quae nunc abibis in loca Pallidula, rigida, nudula Nec, ut soles, dabis iocos.

463

(P. Aelius Hadrianus Imp. 138)

In this Latin lament, Hadrian speaks to his “loving soul,” his “life’s companion,” who is now about to flutter to “new realms” disrobed and naked in a lonely quest to become another “body’s guest.” Given the previous reflections, the Roman orgies, wild sex in some mystery religions, and the Encratism of the East, the body was not honored and considered holy. Thus, Christian editors and Evangelists would remove sex from Jesus’ life and portray him as one who was married to God. Even Jews who had a positive view of the body wanted Jesus to be only a spiritual bridegroom because he was from above. The past two millennia have witnessed numerous times when Church dogmatics hindered progress, as they did with Galileo. Not only theological hegemony but also scholars’ dogmatics obviously detour progress in scientific interrogatives. The dogmatic scholarly consensus that Jesus was not married and certainly not married to Mary Magdalene needs to be challenged. Is it based on dogma not on exegesis. Exegesis must be better informed of the narrative context of a pericope and the social and historical context of the heavily edited narratives. As A.-J. Levine states, feminist biblical exegesis is attractive in that it “challenges conventional wisdom.”18 That is indeed salubrious. Those who engage in scientific exegesis should proceed with a focus on the original texts and their literary and historical contexts. Those devoted to hermeneutics should keep one eye on such exegesis and the other on contemporary reception of articulations.19 Surely the intended object of all such endeavors should include the courage to challenge the dogmatic slumber that has led to a search for spirituality outside the walls of church and synagogue. It is an appropriate time for leading scholars boldly to confront questions that were banned or deemed inappropriate in theological dialogues. In the past ten years many ministers have taken me aside and asked if I thought it were possible that Jesus was married. When I replied that this was a distinct possibility they usually expressed relief and said something like, “Good, I had hoped so.” This predilection to be open to the possibility that Jesus may have been married, or enjoyed sex with a woman, however, must not lead us to posit what some novelists and feminists might like us to find.20 Imagination, Interpretation, and History. History does not write itself. Historians write history. To reconstruct the past—to write history—demands immersing oneself in the social and historical contexts, observing the topography, mastering all relevant languages, and becoming empathetic with the people who move about not only in the narratives but behind the scenes. All data must be examined and the setting comprehended phenomenologically, as Polybius instructed before the Maccabean Revolt (see Polybius, Bk. 12). All preconceptions or hidden agendas that lead one to posit a desired answer should be exposed and dismissed. Questions must be asked faithfully and honestly. As A. Margulies states in The Empathic Imagination: “We face the life we have not yet lived; we do not get a second chance, and we are ultimately responsible and alone with the anxiety of structuring meaning in a world that has no inherent meaning.”21

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Historical imagination, developed over decades of thinking of oneself in the language world of those in focus (or in peripheral vision), alone provides for a meaningful and engaging re-presentation of what allegedly happened.22 We should be informed not only of all texts (viz. the Hebrew Scriptures, OTP, the DSS, the early “Christian” records)23 but also of archaeological discoveries that help us grasp pre70 CE Palestinian material culture (including that of the Parthians, Jews, Greeks, Egyptians, and Romans). Imagination is essential in any human endeavor. In Theaetetus 195d, Plato suggested that in cognitive perception an image of a man entails mixing sensation with rational judgment. Aristotle rejected his teacher’s assumption of another world of reality; he stressed that cognition results because sensation is a psychic process and that no thought is possible without interpretation.24 During the time of Jesus, Scripture did not come predetermined; it was creatively read and given a new voice.25 Jonathan Z. Smith correctly indicates that the imagination of the historian of religion—and the biblical exegete devoted to the history behind the narratives—must be freed from the potentially distorting impulses from a closed canon, controlling institutions, and the theological and imperialistic impulses. Research should lead toward eventual integration of all data.26 Now in the twenty-first century, we are finally free to ask questions to which we yearn to have answers, and to follow our methods (which are constantly to be refined) toward any conclusion that might be most probable. The elevation of women by M. Carroll at the beginning of the twentieth century was an anomaly.27 Far too often since the Enlightenment, the proper study of mankind was man, and the generic was not as central as an interest in men. Today, we scholars have entered a world in which Jesus Research is no longer controlled by theological agendas. There is a growing recognition of the paradigmatic importance of women not behind men but as powerful and influential persons independent of men and of men dependent on women (cf. viz. Cleopatra’s control over Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, not through eroticism alone but via intellectual and linguistic genius [e.g., she knew Hebrew]).28 No text, extant or known to be lost, provides an answer to our central question; hence, we must use our imagination in discerning what might lie behind traditions that come to us heavily edited. Thus, we should observe what the author and editor of the traditions intends us to comprehend and what may be mirrored in the words and situations he has inherited and left from earlier traditions. For two millennia the institution sometimes masquerading as “the Church” has threatened any who would see Jesus as married to Mary Magdalene. The poetics of exegesis has been fossilized with an ideal geometry assumed to lie behind the picture given in John 2. If we are to see afresh, and hopefully with more pellucidity, behind the narrative to the event, shaped by those who handed on to us the tradition, then we need to free ourselves from sacred traditions that evolved from the thirties to the present and seek to enter the world of Jesus which is both Jewish and pre-30 CE.29 This process is possible because “redaction” also reveals “traditions” to be edited; it is the latter that lie behind and provide foundation for the “good news.”30 Women in Ancient Society. Much attention has been focused recently upon the question of women in ancient society.31 The beginnings of religion in the Near East are often marked by the worship of the mother. She is depicted with massive thighs



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and huge breasts.32 Most likely these images symbolized life and nourishment. Many times she represented Mother Earth, the source of all food. As Magna Mater she is symbolized by animals.33 In 1967, R. Patai published The Hebrew Goddess. Patai argued that the Hebrew God was always accompanied by a Hebrew Goddess, named variously, Anat, Asherah, Astarte, Matronit, and Shekhina.34 Many experts have refined her insights, especially K. van der Toorn in “Goddesses in Early Israelite Religion.”35 K. van der Toorn rightly concludes that ancient Israel knew goddesses, but—in contrast to contiguous cultures—these were inferior to Yahweh; they were his consort. The discovery of many female images in and near Jerusalem from the late Iron Age prove to me that the Yahwists based in the Temple never could eradicate a need and love for the feminine in the godhead. Jesus and Women. J. Plaskow and E. S. Fiorenza wisely warn that feminist hermeneutics must not seek to portray a Jesus who was a feminist by depicting a negative element in Early Judaism. As Fiorenza states, none of us should proceed as to relinquish “the history of those Jewish foresisters who entered into the vision and movement of Jesus. The discipleship of equals called forth by Jesus was a Jewish discipleship.”36 Jesus did call into existence a movement (the Palestinian Jesus Movement) in which men and women were equals.37 He was thence a man of his time, since women take on more prominent roles in the early Jewish retelling of sacred history. The growing importance and appreciation of women in Early Judaism seems mirrored in the portrayal of Eve in the Life of Adam and Eve, Sitis in the Testament of Job, Aseneth in Joseph and Aseneth, and Sheila in Pseudo-Philo. While women were forbidden to enter fully into the Temple’s inner courts,38 women did not have a segregated place in the pre-70 CE synagogues at Gamla, Masada, the Herodium, Migdal, Wadi Hammam, and perhaps elsewhere. The archives of Babatha, the daughter of Simeon, contain papyri that date from 93/94 to 132 CE (the beginning of the Bar Kokhba revolt). These papyri disclose that she had some significant legal rights previously unsuspected for Palestinian women.39 For example, she could initiate lawsuits, and her father had bequeathed all his property to her mother.40 Perhaps there are more patriarchal structures outside Early Judaism than within it, but there are also exceptions on both sides of this diaphanous barrier.41 The men in the “kingdom of priests” (Exod 19:6), centralized in the Jerusalem cult, increased the laws for purification during the time of Jesus; and this heightened concept of purification is refracted in John 2. It is obvious that for many early Jews, the woman was often the bearer of impurity and danger (cf. Temple Scroll 50). Yet, we dare not let Philo’s concept of two souls, one for females and another for males (Special Laws 3.178) and Qumran’s apparent misogyny (cf. 1QS and Dame Folly and Lady Wisdom) shape our perception so that all we see in Jesus’ Judaism is a dominant patriarchalism. When the author of Third Ezra (1 Esdras 4:13–32) reports, and edits, a tale that lauds the power of women, he is not portraying an evil power. While Zerubbabel salutes the supreme power of truth, he also acknowledges that the woman is more powerful than the king or wine. In seeking to see only patriarchalism in Early Judaism we fall into the error of being anti-Jewish and creating a “Common Judaism” when our sources reveal rich, creative, and diverse types of Judaism. We should ponder the concept of Shared Judaism since

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Sadducees, Samaritans, Pharisees, Baptist groups, John the Baptizer, the Enoch groups, the Qumranites, the Essenes, and others sometimes emphasized the un-common but shared many concepts, beliefs, and hopes. As we have come to perceive that there was no monolithic or orthodox Judaism in the Second Temple period, so we should acknowledge that the various types of Judaism should not be imagined “as monolithically sexist.”42 It is this vibrant variety as well as the social pressures from the Herodians and ruling class of priests based in Jerusalem that shaped the lives of Jesus and Mary Magdalene and may have drawn them closer together. It seems clear to me that women would be attracted to Jesus because of the secondclass citizenship they often confronted in many aspects of first century Palestinian Judaism. They certainly had models to shape their lives, especially the seven female prophets, Sarah, Miriam, Deborah, Hannah, Abigail, Huldah, and Esther.43 Perhaps one of the attractive aspects of joining Jesus’ group was to be equal with men and to have opportunities afforded only to men within Middle Eastern culture.44 Probably authentic to Jesus is the call for all, not only men but also women, to abandon families and homes to follow him in face of the impending end of time.45 Jesus and Mary Magdalene. A “Mary (Maria)” is mentioned fifteen times in the Septuagint and fifty-four times in the New Testament. “Mary Magdalene” is mentioned only in the New Testament. There is no “Magdalene” in the Septuagint. She appears only in the gospels, and is conspicuously absent in Acts and Paul’s Letters. A “Mary” appears in Paul’s letters only in Rom 16:6 and there is no reason to link her with Mary Magdalene. She is a “Mary” who has worked hard among the Romans (or among whom Romans 16 is sent). Numerous questions arise, especially this one: “What happened to Mary Magdalene after Easter?” The name “Magdalene” appears twelve times in the New Testament (three times in Matthew; four times in Mark; twice in Luke; and three times in John). Mary Magdalene is highlighted in the resurrection appearances (Mk 15:40, 47; 16:1, 9; Mt 27:56, 61; 28:1; Lk 24:10; Jn 20:1, 18 [a full account]). Mary Magdalene is often contrasted to Peter in the intra-canonical gospels. In Mark she is fundamentally equal to Peter. In Matthew and Luke she is less important than Peter. In John she is far more important than Peter. Only in John does she receive a voice. As D. M. Smith states, the prominence Magdalene “receives in John suggests that the evangelist, and perhaps his community, had a particular interest in her.”46 While the extracanonical gospels add considerably to the canonical story, describing many miracles when he was a boy and helping Joseph correct mistakes in carpentry, there is no description of Jesus’ marriage.47 Nevertheless, it is clear that the apocryphal gospels often elevate Mary Magdalene.48 According to the traditions preserved in the Assumption of the Virgin, only Jesus’ mother and Magdalene saw his resurrection (AsMar, Sahidic Frag.).49 Magdalene is also highlighted in the Gospel of Thomas.50 Mary Magdalene appears in a unique role in the Gospel of Philip which is preserved only in Coptic but was composed in Greek. The author (actually a compiler and editor) of this collection (not a gospel) reports two major things about Jesus and Magdalene. Jesus not only loved Magdalene more than all his disciples and often kissed her on the mouth (63),51 but she was also his “companion.” The word “companion” appears



Is It Conceivable that Jesus Married Mary Magdalene?

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twice in 59, and two words are used. One is the Greek loan word koinwnoc (cf. also 63), which means in this gnostic gospel “spiritual partner,” but the underlying Greek verb signifies “partnership” including sexual union. κοινωνός also denotes a “wife by covenant” in Mal 2:14 [LXX]).52 The other noun is the Coptic hwtre, which develops from the intransitive verb that denotes “be joined” and can denote “be joined in marriage”53 (Gospel of Philip 59; cf. 48).54 The editor of this miscellany stresses that only three people “walked always” with Jesus and each is a woman named Mary: Jesus’ mother, her sister, and Magdalene. The author of the Dialogue of the Savior lauds three disciples: Thomas, Matthew, and (especially) Mary Magdalene. According to the Gospel of Mary [Magdalene], Magdalene is asked by Peter to share the revealed knowledge Jesus had imparted to her. Peter’s hostility to her is confronted by Levi who informs Peter that “the Savior” loved her “more than us.”55 There is no reason to assume these later apocryphal works provide reliable history concerning Magdalene.56 They do, however, reveal the dominance of Magdalene tradition in the first three centuries.57 Only the Fourth Evangelist reports that Mary Magdalene was at the cross (19:25). Only Luke mentions her before the cross (8:2). Since Luke’s comment has been misunderstood for two millennia and since few scholars explore what “Magdala” might mean,58 I now turn to Luke’s report. Mary, Magdala, and Archaeology. Note one of the Third Evangelist’s little summaries, which is an interpolation (Lk 8:1–3). After mentioning that Jesus, with the Twelve, went through many cities and villages in Lower Galilee,59 Luke adds a reference to numerous women (and adding women to the gospel story is a Lucan theme; cf. 7:1–17, 7:36–50).60 They are introduced as women “who had been healed of evil spirits and infirmities” (8:1). One is particularly important for us; she is “Mary, called Magdalene, out of whom seven demons had come” (Lk 8:2);61 but this comment, as J. A. Fitzmyer states “rings like a stereotyped, inherited phrase.”62 Even though M. Carroll extolled Magdalene as “utterly pure and holy,”63 exegetes simply assumed during most of the twentieth century (and, of course, earlier) that Luke’s aside means that Mary Magdalene had been a prostitute.64 The seven demons became symbolic of the seven deadly sins; Mary Magdalene was thus the symbol of the sinner. Now, many experts claim, for reasons that should have long been considered obvious, that this conclusion is impossible.65 In my judgment, there are two errors in exegesis to avoid. First, one should not assume that Lk 8:2 must mean that Mary Magdalene had been a harlot. Second, it is unwise to claim that the reference cannot imply she had been a woman of ill repute. First, Luke simply reports that Mary Magdalene was one of the women healed of “evil spirits and infirmities” and that “seven demons” had left her. A perusal of exorcisms in the ancient world, from the Qumran Scrolls (esp. second to first century BCE)66 to Philostratus’ biography of Apollonius of Tyana (the work dates to c. 170–c. 245 CE),67 who lived in the first century CE, indicates that many Jews and Gentiles during Jesus’ time presupposed that sickness was caused by demons (cf. 1 Enoch 1–36; esp. 15:8–12) and that “physicians” cured those afflicted by driving out the demons.68 Mary Magdalene formerly had “seven” demons, according to Luke. That stereotypical aside probably means she was severely sick, since “seven” symbolizes abundance.

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Exorcisms almost never denote healing of a harlot. Thus, the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) set in process a revision of the Roman Missal in which Magdalene was no longer branded a “penitent.”69 Hence, an informed interpretation of Lk 8:2 seems to be that Mary Magdalene, confused and sick from the crises in her society (Roman occupation and increasing rules for purity from the sacerdotal aristocracy based in [but not limited to] Jerusalem), turned to Jesus, who was perceived to have powers of healing and forgiveness (through his charismatic status [Weber]).70 She thus becomes one of the followers closest to Jesus. Magdalene is with Jesus from the Galilean period, through the crucifixion, until she is the first witness of Jesus’ resurrection.71 Even if Luke’s reference to Magdalene in 8:2 might mean that she had been a prostitute, an interpretation which is unlikely as I have stated, there would be a remaining problem. In Jesus Research, the report of one witness is not sufficient to suggest reliable historical information. The lack of multiple attestation for this claim would mean that Luke’s report must be supplemented by additional information to be taken seriously. Second, in view of the complex Magdalene traditions in the gospels and what we are learning from ancient texts and archaeology, it is not wise to claim that Mary Magdalene could not have been a prostitute. As Jesus is identified as being from Nazareth, Magdalene is associated with Magdala. This site was an ancient fishing village. It also was famous for woolens and dyes,72 as well as breeding of turtle-doves and pigeons.73 While no clear evidence provides a date for the founding of Magdala, it was probably established in the Hasmonean period, since the earliest coins found in situ are Hasmonean. A significant harbor of about 200 yards long and a jetty that extends 80 yards into the Kinnereth has been discovered recently. Possibly, archaeologists have also found the base of a lighthouse or tower that may have provided the name for the site, since (as is well known) mgdl, ‫מגדל‬, means “tower” in Hebrew.74 Most important is the discovery of an early Roman road leading from Nazareth to Migdal, which leads into a synagogue that can be dated, by coins, from 50 BCE to 67 CE.75 It is a wealthy synagogue with frescoed walls and pillars, a mosaic, and an elegantly carved stone. Most likely, as the archaeologists who discovered the synagogue affirm, it is a “meeting-place” where Jesus would have entered Migdal and probably met Mary of Migdal. The place is now deserted land, about two miles north of Tiberias and three miles south of Capernaum, on the western shores of the Kinnereth.76 Magdala was a thriving city. It did not have a population of 40,000 inhabitants, as Josephus reported (War 3.539–40). The population was closer to 4,000 and, while Jewish, had Gentile residents and merchandise such as glass from Tyre and Sidon. The ancient name of the city is “Migdal Nûnayya,” which is Aramaic for “Tower of Fish (or possibly Fishermen),”77 and “Taricheae,” which is Greek for “salted fish.”78 Clearly, the main occupation of the men and women who worked at this site was fishing and the preparing of fish for markets. It seems to follow, from these place names, that clearly Mary Magdalene was Jewish (if there had been any doubts), otherwise she might have been called Mary of Tarichea. Men came to stay in Migdala for months when the fields were no longer worked. These men prepared pickled fish from the Kinnereth (Sea of Galilee) for shipping



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Figure 17.1  Frescoed Pre-67 CE Migdal Synagogue (JHC). abroad, especially to Alexandria and Rome. The men were most likely secular Jews who became more religious during festivals, funerals, and weddings. The city was not Jewish, like Gamla, but highly shaped by Greek thought; Josephus refers to a hippodrome at Migdala (Life 132).79 Prostitutes were in some texts condemned in Torah (Lev 19:29; Deut 23:17; cf. Lev 21:7) but were not condemned in other passages; recall Rahab of Jericho (Jos 2:1; 6:17; cf. Heb 11:31, and Jas 2:25) and Tamar, who was once disguised as a harlot (Gen 38:12–30).80 The well-known story of Hosea’s love and acceptance of his wife, a harlot, shines light on the complexity of regulations regarding prostitution. Such women might gravitate to Magdala where men lived for months away from their wives, homes, and towns.81 According to the Gemara, a married man could have sex with a woman in a town other than his own (see ‫ מֹועֵד ָקטָן‬17.71 in Tosephta and Talmudim [also see Rashi]). To ignore this tradition as too late may be a conservative method, but the scholar thence misses the following insights: oral tradition in religious circles is often more controlled than a text (almost all are corrected by at least one scribe), and the antiquity of rabbinic elements in Qumran manuscripts, such as Midrash (as in Midrash Sepher Moses), Targumim (of Leviticus and Job), and rabbinic language, is well established. While it is unwise to assume (or conclude) that the sinful woman described in Lk 7:36–50 is to be identified with Mary Magdalene,82 it is not possible to assume a woman associated with Magdala could not have been a prostitute. Equally, it is not clear what relevance the later rabbinic claim that Magdala was destroyed because of adultery (Midrash on Lamentations) might have in our search for understanding Mary Magdalene before she left Magdala to follow Jesus.83 Luke’s intent in 8:2 is not

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clear, but since he, in contrast to Matthew and John, shifts Jesus’ first resurrection appearance from Mary Magdalene to Peter, there may be a tendency in the Third Gospel to disparage, or minimize the role of, Mary Magdalene.84 While scholars, primarily male, in the middle of the twentieth century, highlighted Luke’s tendency to include women in Jesus’ entourage, it is to the credit of female biblical scholars (not necessarily feminists) who point out that Luke portrays these women as serving men and often being subservient to them. We have seen that Lk 8:2 does not prove that Magdalene had been a prostitute. We have also observed that Magdala may have been a place defined by women of ill repute. Thus, the textual and archaeological data available now do not solve the issue regarding Magdalene’s life before she met Jesus; in fact the data may be contradictory. We are left wondering about Magdalene’s life prior to her meeting Jesus and leaving Magdala. If she was a sinner, and one known to be deep in sin, that would not indicate that Jesus would not have called her to follow him and to draw near to God’s Rule (the Kingdom of God). It is precisely the sinner whom Jesus claims; and this fact is anchored in the many diverse traditions and forms in which he articulated it. E. P. Sanders even suggests that Jesus called sinners and did not urge them to repent of their evil ways.85 Such a conclusion is controversial. I would rather point out that in contrast to the Qumran Essenes, Jesus did not demand predestined birth or various examinations, and in contrast to some Pharisees and virtually all Sadducees, he did not urge them to immerse themselves in a mikveh or perform rites or sacrifices effecting repentance and leading to forgiveness. He called; they followed. Poetic imagination is attractive (as in Magdalene’s song in “Jesus Christ Superstar”), but it must not be confused with or influence the historical imagination. Surely, whatever was Magdalene’s life prior to joining the Palestinian Jesus Movement, she became a saint and remained loyal to Jesus until the end, and was rewarded with Jesus’ first disclosure that he was no longer dead but had been resurrected by God to eternal life Jesus, the Very First Commandment, and Palestinian Jewish Society. As far as we know, no early Jew, including Jesus, would have agreed with Epicurus of Samos and Athens (341–270 BCE) that sexual intercourse was never good for one’s health,86 or with Celsus of Medicine (14–37 CE) that frequent sexual intercourse weakens a healthy person,87 or with Soranus of Ephesus (98–138 CE) that virginity is healthy because it prevents excretion of seed,88 or with Galen of Pergamum (129–c. 199 CE) that the loss of sperm leads to loss of precious liquid and produces weakness.89 Early Jewish literature contains many statements that refute this Greek and Roman perspective which supports the claim that perpetual virginity (parthenia) is an ideal. It is beyond question that in Jesus’ Judaism marriage was a command, a duty. Paul has been misunderstood; he was neither hostile to women nor advocated celibacy.90 According to the Bible, God told both Adam (Gen 1:28) and Noah (Gen 9:1) to “be fruitful and multiply.” H. Stegemann rightly emphasizes that the command of Gen 1:28 was a duty recognized as binding for men.91 Adam and Noah are the fathers of all subsequent humans. Jeremiah chose celibacy because God commanded that he should not have sons or daughters “in this place,” because such will suffer horrible death coming to all in Jerusalem and its environs (Jer 16:1–4).92 Following the teachings of Torah (esp. Gen 1:24), Jews hallowed the sanctity of marriage.



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Philo (SpecLeg 3.1–82) and Josephus (Apion 2.199–200) articulate the imperative to marry and have offspring. Surely operative among many Jews before 70 CE is the saying attributed to Rabbi Eleazar: each man who does not have a wife is no man (y. Berakot 63a). The only exception to this rule, that we know of during the time of Jesus in Palestine, is associated with the Essenes, as Josephus indicated (War 2.120; Ant 18.21), and is evident in the Rule of the Community which constitutes the regulations for the conservative and celibate part of the Essenes (those in the nonQumran Essene communities did marry, as we know from the Damascus Document). Recent examinations of the Qumran graves and the bones found in them prove that the remains of some women excavated there were recent Bedouins.93 John the Baptizer, who may have made a vow within the Qumran Community,94 was also most likely unmarried. In no way did Jesus espouse the cultic celibacy of groups like the Qumran Essenes, or other groups like the Vestal Virgins and the Cynics (Epictetus, Discourses 3.22.77). Most Jesus scholars today would unite in agreement that Jesus would have argued vehemently against the view that it is not good to marry, an injunction associated not with Jews but with Stobaeus’ fifth century CE anthology (Eklogai 4.22.28). Clearly, the Jewish view of Jesus—the admiration of marriage (he argued against divorce (Mk 10:2–12))—was the one followed by most members of the Palestinian Jesus Movement before 70 CE (asceticism and Encratism appeared esp. in Syria and Egypt in the second century).95 As is well known, Peter and at least some of the other disciples were married, since Jesus is reported to have healed Peter’s mother-in-law (Mk 1:30; Mt 8:14; Lk 4:38), and Paul notes that the apostles, including Peter, traveled with their wives (1Cor 9:5). The erudite J. Murphy-O’Connor is convinced that Paul may have been married but his wife and children could have died in an earthquake (Jerusalem is within an earthquake zone) or plague.96 His major insight is based on Paul being a widower as he implies in 1 Corinthians, “To the . . . widowed I say that it is good for them to remain as I am” (1Cor 7:8; cf. 9:5). Other distinguished scholars also concluded that Paul had been married. In the early third century CE, Clement of Alexandria (Miscellanies 3.6.53) and at about the same time Origen, his famous student (Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans 1.1), argued that Paul’s reference to his “yoke-fellow” (actually a female) of Phil 4:3 revealed that Paul was married.97 The word can mean not only comrade but also “wife” (cf. Euripides, Alcibiades 314). The author of the Testament of Reuben chose syzygon to denote “the mate” or “wife” chosen by the Lord (4:1).98 Since the noun in Phil 4:3 is in the feminine form, the reference is probably to a female “yoke-person” or “wife.” Perhaps Paul knew the joys of marriage, and this is reflected in his words, “Yes, I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel” (Phil 4:3; NRSV). The argument that Paul must have known Jesus had not been married or he would have mentioned it is specious. One could just as well use Paul to argue that Jesus must have been married. For example, in 1Cor 7:7–8 Paul is exhorting followers of Jesus to “remain single as I do” (regardless of whether he is a widower). If Jesus had been unmarried, Paul could have argued that they should remain single as he and Jesus were.

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Paul did not use that argument. Thus, Paul’s letters should not be used to argue for or against Jesus’ marital status. Jesus lived in the world of pre-70 CE Palestinian Judaism. Just as the tale of Atlanta reflects some social possibilities for Greek girls to succeed in athletics,99 so the fables about Esther, Judith, and Susanna reflect the admiration for heroines within Second Temple Judaism. During Jesus’ time an interest in women appears in the rewriting of stories in Scripture, as previously implied. A couple of examples alone must suffice. In Pseudo-Philo, we are given the name of Jeptha’s daughter. She is Sheila and she faithfully obeys her father, never pointing out his ill-conceived vow. In the Testament of Job, the wife of Job finally receives a name.100 She is Sitis and eventually cuts her hair so she may buy bread for Job. Despite the possible phylogeny of these Jewish texts, it is not yet possible to claim that Greek, Roman, and Jewish women slowly became emancipated during late antiquity. Such a conclusion is thwarted by the complex data, and the fact that “the definition of an “emancipated” woman varies in relation to the personal historical experience and expectations of the observer.”101 One must remember that Yahwism absorbed the adoration given to the female in Canaanite and Jebusite culture, and that in the Odes of Solomon, God is portrayed with breasts from which milk flow for the faithful.102 The importance of women is mirrored in the architecture of early Palestinian synagogues.103 Before the fifth century CE, there is no architectural evidence that women had a “segregated” place in the synagogue. The relegation of women increased during the Middle Ages, so that, for example, the earliest synagogues in Prague and Venice have a separate place for women. Women are cut off from the main room. Only from a distance may women peer into the synagogue proper and observe the services. Thus, eventually transferred to the synagogue is the outer space in the Herodian Temple reserved for women and from which they could only peer into the more holy sections. Summary. These forays into the folkways of early Jewish customs in ancient Palestine have clarified the following perceptions. Since Jesus was a religious Jew who observed Torah, it is understandable why some experts assume he was most likely married. If he were married, we do not have information regarding his wife. If there is a likely candidate, she would be Mary Magdalene. She alone is prominent in the intracanonical gospels (and her importance is exaggerated in many apocryphal works). One source ignored in many explorations into the question of Jesus’ marriage is the Gospel of John. We now turn to this gospel in search of innuendoes regarding Jesus’ life before 30 CE when he was crucified. We begin with the widespread recognition that Jesus and the Palestinian Jesus Movement were originally located in the Galilean rural and village culture. Jesus’ closest countrymen were often alienated from the major cities that reflected, in significant ways, Greek and Roman culture.104 Also, Jesus’ and his followers’ radical ethics and apocalyptic, eschatological vision shifted the norms for dedication to hearth and home to God’s Rule.105 This perspective of the Evangelists entailed a rather different view of the institution of marriage. At best what may have been known to the Fourth Evangelist, and to those who compiled his sources, would only be hinted at in narratives that now have a different function: one that is clearly intended to prove the claims of the Fourth Evangelist that Jesus is from above and proceeding on this earth to return to the Father.



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Jesus and Mary Magdalene in the Gospel of John Bringing the Gospel of John on to Center Stage. In the 1830s, the famous and influential Schleiermacher claimed that John was the fundamental source in any search for the historical Jesus. Subsequently in 1835, Strauss convinced scholars that the discourses in John cannot be Jesus’ own words. In 1847, Baur successfully showed, at least to many experts, that the Fourth Evangelist never intended his work to be “a strictly historical Gospel.”106 Over the past century, and perhaps since 1880,107 a consensus has been recognized by most scholars: A research specialist must not use John in seeking to perceive and explain the historical Jesus.108 Recently, for example, J. D. G. Dunn announces, that over the twentieth century “the character of John’s Gospel as a theological, rather than a historical document, became more and more axiomatic for NT scholarship. Like the miracles of Jesus, though not quite so decisively, the Fourth Gospel had been effectively knocked out of the quest.”109 I cannot fully agree with Dunn that John is primarily a theological and not a historical document. These are not mutually exclusive categories. I disagree with Dunn in his claim that John is “knocked out of the quest” for the historical Jesus. In fact, the tide is turning, as is evident in some recent publications.110 Obviously, Baur was correct to insist we recognize that the Fourth Evangelist did not attempt to write a strictly historical work. Yet, it is becoming more and more obvious that behind Johannine theology is some reliable history. The archaeologists who gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate the millennium and concentrate on the theme “Jesus and Archaeology” independently pointed out that the Fourth Evangelist often provides a reliable window into pre-70 CE Palestinian Jewish society and religion. In reporting about Jesus’ life and time, the Fourth Evangelist mentions Bethzatha, which was found by archaeologists, the large stones where Pilate was staying, and something more important for us. In describing the wedding at Cana, the Evangelist mentioned large stone jars set aside for the rites of Jewish purification. And he obviously made these comments inadvertently because he was focused on theological and Christological proclamations. More New Testament specialists need to comprehend that a gospel which is highly advanced theologically does not have to be either late or ahistorical. A careful reading of the work by the leading commentators on John reveals that most do not conclude that this gospel is ahistorical. Certainly, this position is not typical of the following Johannine experts: Anderson, Barrett, Beasley-Murray, Brown, Carson, Culpepper, Dodd, Haenchen, Hengel, Hoskyns, Keener, Lightfoot, Lindars, Martyn, Moloney, Morris, Painter, Robinson, Sanday, Schleiermacher, Schnackenburg, Smith, Westcott, and von Wahlde. Studying the published works by these experts I have learned to search for the history passed on, usually unintentionally, by the Fourth Evangelist. The Fourth Evangelist not only throws light back upon the time of Jesus but also reflects the social problems in his own community.111 For example, the Johannine narrative may reflect the importance of women in the Johannine community or School. This issue is now hotly debated. Brown judged that the presence of women in John reflects the central role of women within the Johannine community.112 E. W. Stegemann and W. Stegemann argue that one cannot derive “significant socio-historical information about the situation of women in the Johannine community” from the narrative of John.113

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A. Reinhartz responded to the Stegemanns’ claim by contending, and attempting to show, with erudition and insight, that John, “far from being silent about the situation of women in the Johannine community, is actually a rich resource.”114 For us now, the question turns to a search for possible historical information about Jesus and his time mirrored in the story of the wedding at Cana. Our focus will be on texts that have been deemed devoid of historical data, according to too many experts. The Jewishness of the Gospel of John. For centuries, the accepted approach to John was from Greek thought. In the second century CE, Justin Martyr interpreted this document in light of Hellenistic philosophy, especially stoicism (see esp. 2 Apology 8.10). In the seventeenth century, Baruch Spinoza saw Early Judaism as irrational and sought to interpret John in light of Greek spirituality.115 In the eighteenth century, Immanuel Kant, who thought Judaism was depraved, cast the origins of Johannine (and Christian) thought in light of Greek and Roman philosophy.116 The founder of modern New Testament research, F. C. Baur, judged John to be too far removed from Jesus and Judaism to have any historical data, and claimed the work was heavily shaped by Gentile Christianity.117 Baur traced the antecedents of the Logos reflections that open John back to the Stoics (I would add that one could even trace the Logos back all the way to Heraclitus). This perspective, to distinguish Greek from Jewish thought, disparaging the latter, shaped much of the nineteenth- and early twentieth century approaches to John. Even R. Bultmann, the most influential New Testament scholar since Baur, was influenced by the regnant German methodology (and the philosopher Kant [and, of course, Heidegger]); he sought to situate the spirituality of John within Hellenistic religions, especially a putative early pre-Christian Gnosticism, that he thought may be mirrored in the Odes of Solomon. In 1834, H. A. W. Meyer concluded that the Fourth Evangelist was an apostolic eyewitness whose concepts derive from the Old Testament. Between 1861 and 1863, E. W. Hengstenberg pointed to the historical value of the Historical Jesus in John and the paradigmatic influence of the Old Testament on the Fourth Evangelist. In 1881, B. F. Westcott argued that the Fourth Evangelist was a Palestinian Jew significantly influenced by the Targumim. Despite these leading lights, most twentieth century Johannine experts denigrated the historical value of John, judging it to be Greek and a misleading witness to Jesus and his time. A lone voice was certainly A. Schlatter, who beginning in 1902 argued against the religionsgeschichtliche Schule and in favor of the Jewishness of John. With the intensive work on the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, and especially the Dead Sea Scrolls, which has been a hallmark of the Society of Biblical Literature since the nineteen fifties, sixties, and seventies, a new perspective on pre-70 CE Judaism has become dominant. Many concepts and terms previously thought to be present only in Hellenistic thought are now seen to be present in Early Judaism. The consensus developing now is that John is shaped by early Jewish culture, customs, terms, and expressions. Recently, many scholars contend that John may be our most Jewish Gospel.118 Mary Magdalene Singled Out in a Gospel that Uses Anonymity. The Fourth Gospel is a unique narrative in which dramatis personae appear that are sometimes surprisingly named and sometimes astoundingly anonymous. For example, the Fourth Evangelist names otherwise anonymous persons, like Malchus (18:10). He also allows



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Figure 17.2  Hasmonean and Roman Ruins on Mount Gerizim (JHC). a woman named “Martha” to provide a defining confession: “Lord, I believe you are the Christ, the son of God, he who is coming into the world” (11:27). Thomas utters the culminating affirmation: “My Lord and my God.” Most importantly, the Fourth Evangelist presents individuals who are highly significant in the narrative, but remain anonymous. Significantly, Jesus’ mother remains unnamed; yet she is sometimes dominant. She initiates Jesus’ first sign (miracle). Likewise, the influential Samaritan woman is anonymous, but she effectively evangelizes a whole region. And the ideal witness to Jesus is anonymous. He is the Beloved Disciple who is the witness of the Gospel of John.119 Among those named in the narrative is a woman who is a major actor in the drama. She has a name: Mary Magdalene. Although she is assumed to be present from the earliest phases of the gospel, as one who followed Jesus from the beginning, she is mentioned first in 19:25. Eventually, she stands by and beneath Jesus’ cross. Highly significantly, Mary Magdalene is presented as the one who is the first witness to the resurrected Jesus (20:1–18). She is the one who informs the disciples that she has seen “the Lord,” and informs them of the sayings of the risen Jesus (20:17–18). As A.-J. Levine states, Mary Magdalene is “the first to see the resurrected lord,” and thus “becomes the ‘apostle to the apostles’ as she announces the good news to the men.”120 Jesus, the Mamzer, and Mary, the Outcast: The Interstices in Jewish Society. Palestinian Jews hostile to Jesus who heard tales that he was either born of a virgin, or that his father was a Gentile, or that his mother had become pregnant (willingly or forcibly) by a Gentile (Roman soldier or another) would have concluded that he was a mamzer.121 In their judgment, Jesus would be one who did not have a legitimate Jewish father and mother who had been officially married.122

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We now have certain pre-70 CE evidence for the early Jewish understanding of the mamzer. According to the Jews who issued the Torah interpretations preserved in Some Works of the Torah, a mamzer may not marry an Israelite or enter the Temple (4Q397 Frg. 5; see the composite text, lines 39–46, in the Princeton DSS Project). It is obvious that the Fourth Evangelist in 8:41 and many early Christian texts imply that Jesus may have been illegitimate.123 This implication became a story by the middle of the third century CE, as we know from Celsus’ True Doctrine that was composed about 248 (cf. Origen, Against Celsus 1.28, 32, 39, 69). Much later than the first century CE, numerous Baraitot contain the exhortation that a Jew should marry the daughter of a scholar. A man must not marry the daughter of one of the ‘amme ha-ares, because their wives were reptiles.124 Certainly it would be foolish to claim that such laws could not be operative during the time of Magdalene. If they were, many devout Jews may have judged her to be a daughter of the ‘amme ha-ares. She would then not be a potential wife for any Rabbi or reputable Jew. For Jesus to prove that he was the legitimate biological offspring of a Jewish male and a Jewish female, he would need Joseph to stand up in an assembly or synagogue and swear that he and Jesus’ mother were legally married (or betrothed) and that both were fully legitimate Jews and their son was Jesus. It is now certain that some Jews during Jesus’ lifetime would have judged him to be a mamzer. Why is that important for us to clarify now? If Magdalene had demons, then she would be “unclean” and a bearer of pollution. She was dangerous to devout Jews. She, like Jesus, would be an outcast, one of the lost. According to the powerful ruling priests, centered in Jerusalem, Jesus and Mary Magdalene would both be outcasts. They would have been dumped in the interstices of Jewish society. Within such barriers it would be natural for them to turn to each other, especially when all other options were prohibited. On the one hand, this may be only a presumption for intimacy. On the other hand, it may be a proscription for a special relationship. There is certainly no reason to deny that Jesus and Mary Magdalene did enjoy a special and intimate relationship. It would not be mature or wise to claim that this relationship must not include sexual intimacy. Such a presupposition represents the imposition of Puritanism and Christian pietism; it does not reflect the Jewish culture of pre-70 CE Judaism.

The wedding celebrated in the Gospel of John Evidence in Jn 2:1–12 that the Cana Wedding is not Jesus’ Wedding. In its present form the Cana story cannot report Jesus’ marriage. First, a bridegroom invites guests, he is not invited to his own wedding; yet, Jesus is “invited” to the wedding. Second, Jesus’ rather harsh response to his mother, who remains anonymous throughout the Johannine narrative, points to the Jesus story developed by the Fourth Evangelist: “O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come.” Jesus’ hour is a theme of the Fourth Evangelist (cf. 7:30–31; 8:20; 12:23–33; 16:2; and 17:1). The full Johannine narrative alone explains Jesus’ words to his mother; as W. Meeks pointed out, the reader of John “cannot understand any part of the Fourth Gospel until he understands the whole.”125 Third, after the head waiter tastes the better wine he calls



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“the bridegroom” and complains to him—even criticizes him—for keeping the good wine until last. The implication is that the bridegroom cannot be Jesus.126 Fourth, the “first” of Jesus’ signs manifested Jesus’ glory, as being from above (3:13–16), a Johannine theme. Fifth, the culmination of the story is clear: “and his disciples believed in him.” C. H. Dodd explained correctly that the good wine represented the revealed knowledge of God made possible in Jesus; thus, the Cana story “is highly theological in character.”127 Additions to a story are always easier to see than omissions, since the deletions are no longer there to be perceived. What has been erased? Where is Joseph, Jesus’ father? What is the name of Jesus’ mother? How many disciples were with Jesus? Were Jesus’ brothers present at the wedding as 2:12 implies? What led Jesus’ mother to be the one first to observe that there was no more wine? Why does she have authority over the servants? As Urban C. von Wahlde observes: “She is presented as familiar enough to the family to be able to give orders to the servants.”128 Can one imagine a palatial abode in Cana in which a Jew had placed six massive stone jars for purposes of Jewish purification, with each jar holding almost thirty gallons? What did this tradition look like before it came to the editor of the Signs Source or to the Fourth Evangelist? If Joseph and the bride have been deleted from the account, then perhaps Jesus was erased as the bridegroom. Clearly, A. Fehribach rightly stresses, the Fourth Evangelist portrays “Jesus as the (messianic) bridegroom, particularly in pericopae involving female characters,”129 as in the Cana story. Thus, Jesus cannot appear in the Johannine narrative as an ordinary, or non-symbolical, bridegroom. Any reader of the Cana Wedding who has studied Redaction Criticism (the editing of traditions, especially from a theological perspective) will immediately see the theologically charged elements in the narrative. The Gospel story was told to reveal Jesus’ glory and cause the reader to believe in Jesus as One from above. As will become even more apparent, such editing leads the reader away from any possible reflection on Jesus’ own marriage. The First Sign and the Kerygmatic Nature of the Present Story. The story of the wedding in Cana is not mentioned elsewhere or alluded to in the New Testament. There appear to be no links that would connect it with Matthew’s version of “The Parable of the Marriage Feast” (Mt 22:1–14). Discerning the historicity of the Cana story is hindered because it is recorded only in John and it is heavily edited by the Fourth Evangelist. If one is interested only in Christological insights then one should focus only on the theological position preserved in the final shape of John (whatever that might appear to be without 7:51–8:11). The Gospel of John is one of the most heavily edited books in the New Testament. R. E. Brown observed at least five stages in the composition of this Gospel: the traditional material, development of this material especially through oral forms, the first edition of the Gospel by the Fourth Evangelist, a second edition by the same person (perhaps several iterations of editing), and the editing of the Gospel by another person (a redactor who was likely a disciple of the Evangelist).130 The Evangelist’s purpose of telling the story of the marriage in Cana is clear. The story “manifested Jesus’ glory” so that “his disciples believed in him” (2:11). The Evangelist shows no interest in a bride or the bridegroom. He does not explain why

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Jesus, his mother, and his disciples are present. And this pericope is the first time Jesus’ anonymous mother appears in the narrative. The story is transmitted to reveal Jesus’ awesome power. The intention is to stress that the episode is a “sign” that points to Jesus and his heavenly origin. Jesus brings “good wine” which is knowledge; and it has been kept “until now” (2:10). The emphasis on special knowledge revealed to a special Teacher chosen by God is an aspect of sectarian Judaism of Jesus’ time, as we know from studying the Dead Sea Scrolls (cf. 1QpHab 7), including the autobiography of the Righteous Teacher in the Thanksgiving Hymns (see Colossians 1:16) and the SelfGlorification Hymn. It is this background that helps reveal the meaning of the story, and not the well-known stories about the miraculous supply of wine at Andros, Elis, Haliartus, and Teos which are part of the legends concerning Dionysus. As C. H. Dodd judged, to take up a Dionysiac legend and transfer it to Jesus “seems contrary to the whole ethos” of the earliest preaching (kerygmata) and the history of the formation of the gospels (pace Bultmann).131 There should be no doubt that the tradition began not as a folk tale but as a memory of a wedding of someone close to Jesus’ mother and admired by his disciples. With such an emphasis on Jesus’ glory, it is evident why the Fourth Evangelist would not want to report that Jesus had been married. Jesus is from above; he is like an angel. And angels were not given wives (1En 15:7) and do not marry (Mt 22:30). Jesus’ will is not to please a woman, a wife. He is sent into the world to do the will of his Father. Jesus cannot have authority over a woman, as a husband (ba‘al); in fact, Jesus can “do nothing” on his own authority. He is represented as saying, “I can do nothing on my own authority; . . . I seek not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (5:30). By stressing the celestial derivation of Jesus, the Fourth Evangelist would not have been interested in his birth (as Matthew and Luke), his youth (as Luke), or his marriage. The Gospel begins with the Logos Hymn (or Poem) (1:1–18) and proceeds directly to Jesus’ superiority over John the Baptizer (1:26–36). In the process we learn that John was Jesus’ teacher (1:26–28, 35a, 3:22–23). Has the Evangelist inadvertently also reported something else about Jesus’ earthly life: a marriage perhaps? The Evangelist knows that John was imprisoned (3:24), but he does not report it. It is obvious that he knows far more about Jesus than he includes in his Gospel (cf. 20:30; also see 21:25). Is there not another reason the Fourth Evangelist might have edited out of the Cana story innuendoes that Jesus is the bridegroom? Yes. The Cana story is framed by the Fourth Evangelist by two confessions attributed to John the Baptizer. Prior to the story John announces that Jesus is “the Lamb of God” (1:36). Subsequent to it, John is depicted hailing himself as “the friend of the bridegroom,” because Jesus is the “bridegroom (numphios).” That means Jesus is portrayed as the bridegroom of and from heaven (3:29; cf. Rev 19:7–9). Jesus, as the bridegroom, “has the bride” (3:29). The Fourth Evangelist thus does not want anyone to imagine that Mary Magdalene is Jesus’ bride. He wants to instill the perception that Jesus is wed to heavenly things, especially God’s will. Augustine argues that “the Word was the Bridegroom, and human flesh the bride,” and again that Jesus “came forth as a bridegroom; and being invited, came to the marriage.”132 What does Augustine mean? He does not mean Jesus is the bridegroom in the Cana story. He means that Jesus, the God who “made heaven, and earth, and



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the sea” was the bridegroom of the Church and “those women who vow virginity to God.”133 The point is driven home by John Calvin who develops the theme of Jesus as the bridegroom of the bride, the Church: “He alone must be pre-eminent in glory that He may retain a bridegroom’s right and place among us.”134 Hence, if this intent derives from the Fourth Evangelist, then he would not have wanted his reader to think that the Cana story reflected the time when Jesus was a bridegroom in a non-theological, strictly human sense. Finally, those who follow E. Käsemann will stress that the Fourth Evangelist is dogmatically stressing that Jesus is divine.135 What is central to John is the glory of Jesus, and his unity with the Father (cf. esp. 5:19). Such an emphasis, along with the reorientation of time from eschatology to protology leaves little room for the Evangelist to describe Jesus’ birth or youth, let alone his possible marriage. The Editing of the Tradition by the Evangelists and Before Him. Why would the Evangelist alter the possibility—if it were in the tradition before him—that the wedding might have to do with Jesus and conceivably Mary Magdalene? The Evangelist, in the first edition, stressed that Jesus is clearly from above, as the preceding and following pericopes state (1:51; 3:13 [3:7]). As many commentators stress, prior to the second edition, there is a naïve docetic slant: Jesus triumphantly carried his own cross, does not suffer in Gethsemane, and does not cry from the cross. Instead, he exclaims teleologically “it is finished” (19:30). The second edition stressed that the word “flesh” became (the asyndetic contiguity should not be lost; cf. the Greek of 1:14). The Logos Hymn is certainly a later preface to the Gospel and is to be read after reading the whole Gospel. It is tempting to imagine that the references to Jesus’ being tired and thirsty (4:6, 7) and weeping (11:35) may be later additions to stress the humanity of Jesus. Did the editor want to correct the impression in the first edition that Jesus was One from above and not a truly human Jew? This Cana story is so heavily edited by the compiler of the “Signs Source” (if it is independent of John) and the Fourth Evangelist that it is not clear how much history may be left to be seen by peering behind the narrative. Redactional theology is dominant in the Cana story. The knowledge Jesus brings is the “new” wine; it is far superior to the wine in past salvation history. Jesus’ hour is not yet; but it is surely coming, and is foreshadowed in this, the first of his signs, which will manifest his glory for those who believe in him. The point that the good wine was available last (2:10) mirrors the Evangelist’s claim that Jesus and his revelation, though last, is the best sent by God. The ending of the Cana miracle clarifies the purpose of the “sign” for the reader and tends to allegorize the story. Here is what was added by the compiler of the Signs Source to the Cana story: “Jesus did this, the first of his signs in Cana of Galilee.” The Fourth Evangelist added: “and it manifested his glory. And his disciples believed in him.” The call to believe, especially in the presence of signs, is a hallmark of the editorial alterations by the Fourth Evangelist. Have Archaeological Discoveries Helped Us Understand the History Behind the Story? The story of the marriage at Cana is so heavily edited that those who prefer to see it only as a story that is full of rhetoric have a strong case. Most of those who read the story are not content to assume the account is only a fabricated story that was created to elevate Jesus. Is the story only a fable imagined by one of Jesus’ followers?

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Perhaps not surprisingly, because of his disinterest in historical details in John, Bultmann implies that he is not convinced that “the Evangelist believed the miracle to have been an actual historical occurrence.”136 Bultmann, most likely, confused his own opinions with those of a first century Jewish author. There is no reason to doubt that the Fourth Evangelist assumed the event occurred precisely as he reported it. With impressive erudition, J. P. Meier judges that the Cana story is “a creation of the Evangelist himself.” Meier is convinced that “it is difficult to identify any ‘historical kernel’ or ‘core event’ that might have a claim to go back to the historical Jesus.”137 I doubt Meier would have derived this conclusion if he had spent more time working with, and discussing Jesus and archaeology, with the gifted archaeologists excavating in Israel.138 The “stone vessels” noted, without narrative importance, in 2:1–11 have been found almost always in Palestinian Jewish settings that date from the time of Herod the Great (40–4 BCE) to the time of the destruction (70 CE). Stone vessels have been discovered in Kefr Kana (the traditional site) and Khirbet Cana (the more likely location of the miracle). The stone vessels do not serve the narrative and seem irrelevant until one imagines this is not a story created after 70 CE by the Evangelist but a record of a real event, highly edited by the Fourth Evangelist. I therefore conclude with E. Haenchen that it is “incontestable that the Evangelist and the narrator of the underlying story have not simply made the whole thing up. Tradition is therefore involved.”139 Note the following reasons for my own judgment. Evidences of historical details suggest the story is not only heavily edited but also grounded in real history. Heavy editing may itself suggest tradition and an historical kernel. The mention of the stone jars, set aside for Jewish ritual purposes (see Lev 11:33; the Temple Scroll 50, and m. Kelim 10:1) are details that were missed by most exegetes over the past two millennia. For example, John Chrysostom suggests the jars were so that the Jews “might not have to hasten to the rivers if at any time they were defiled.”140 Bultmann claimed that the water was for “the ritual washing of the hands before and after meals.”141 Such comments show how misleading previous commentators were; we now know that the jars were for Jewish ritual cleansing, precisely as the Fourth Evangelists states explicitly. The impermeable stone was necessary to protect the contents from becoming impure from contamination such as from a menstruating women, a corpse, or anyone judged impure, including a woman with a dead fetus inside (cf. the Temple Scroll 50). A woman with a dead fetus inside her might carry that fetus her whole life and it be discovered only when her bones were collected for an ossuary (I am indebted here to discussions with many physicians). Stone jars have been found not only at Qumran and the Upper City of Jerusalem. They have been found in Galilee. My discussions with leading archaeologists and my own study of these stone vessels lead me to conclude that almost all of them seem to date after the time of Herod (40–4 BCE) and before the destruction of 70 CE.142 The stone jars provide for the heightened sense of purity demanded for Jews; water was placed in the jars to purify, not cleanse, devout Jews.143 Stone replaced ceramic, because stone (along with glass and metal) was impermeable from the impurity that would occur when someone ritually impure entered the home (see the Temple Scroll 50). These details about stone vessels in 2:1–11 clearly date from the time of Jesus and antedate the present document named the Gospel of John, when the stone industry in



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Palestine ceased because of the First Jewish Revolt (66–74 CE).144 The contributors to Jesus and Archaeology, the proceedings of the millennium celebration in Jerusalem, point out something not typical of the commentaries. John, more than any other document in the New Testament, knows about the topography and architecture of Jerusalem before 70 CE and the type of Judaism regnant at that time; that is, the time of Jesus and the groups and sects of Judaism known to him and his contemporaries. The mention of stone jars provides stimulus for an exploration of other preJohannine details in the story. Was Jesus at Cana to celebrate a wedding in the house of a wealthy Jew? The answer is clearly “yes.” The stone jars are massive and therefore rather costly. A stone jar that could contain thirty gallons of water would have demanded a large lathe. These would be most likely only in Jerusalem. A stone of over one ton might be demanded so that the jar could be chiseled, hollowed out, shaped, and decorated. Archaeologists have unearthed striking evidence of such large stone jars in the Upper City of Jerusalem. A large clay jar perhaps costing something comparable to $50 would need to be replaced, for the Jewish purification rites, by a similar sized stone one, with elegant carvings as on the extant Herodian Jerusalem stone jars, costing conceivably more than $5,000.145 Such purity regulations would soon be prohibitive for the average Jew, but the owner of the house in the Cana story could afford them. Many speculations against the historicity of the Cana story are based upon a cavalier study of the traditional site of Cana. In fact, there are numerous places that have been identified with the Cana of Jn 2:1–11 (and also of Josephus, Life 86). One is even in lower Lebanon and received the support of not only Eusebius but also Jerome.146 Now, P. Richardson and D. Edwards claim that they have found ancient Cana.147 The place receives the name “Khirbet Cana,” and since the sixth century CE has been revered, by some pilgrims, as the Cana of John. The ruins sit on a hill on the north side of the Beit Netofa Valley at the Wadi Yodfat. One can see Nazareth from the site. Considerable pre-70 CE evidence of Jewish life has been uncovered at Khirbet Cana. Most importantly, stoneware has been recovered. Two types seem identifiable: stone vessels that are handmade and stone objects that had been turned on a lathe. It is conceivable that a large public building, with capitals bearing grape clusters as at Gamla, served as a synagogue. If the building is a synagogue, it most likely dates from the late first century or second century CE and cannot be related to Jesus Research. Only when the archaeologists issue their final reports can we more astutely ascertain how such data and assessments help us comprehend the historicity of the Cana story.148 The Cana story raises many historical questions. “Whose wedding is it?” “Why is the bride never mentioned?” “Is the bridegroom introduced to deflect the recognition that Jesus is the bridegroom?” “Why would anyone report a wedding but never provide the names of the bride or bridegroom?” The Search for the Original Form of the Story.149 Since World War II New Testament specialists have developed an appreciation of how much the Evangelists have edited their sources. Matthew and Luke have heavily edited Mark. For example, Mark has John the Baptist baptize Jesus. In contrast, Luke, immediately before his account of Jesus’ baptism, reports that John had been shut up in prison (3:20). Luke’s editing of traditions at this point may reflect desires to remove the claim that if Jesus had been baptized by John, he would thereby be subordinate to John. Luke certainly would edit his sources so as to diminish any claim that Jesus was baptized for forgiveness

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of his sins. Luke’s editing of his sources on Jesus’ baptism also brings out the Third Evangelist’s stress of universalism (Jesus is baptized when all were being baptized) and prayer (Jesus’ major moments are punctuated with his prayer life). Recall Luke’s account of Jesus’ baptism: But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by him because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison. Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” (Lk 3:19–20; NRSV; italics mine)

I have added the italics to highlight the obvious Lucan redactions seen by many, perhaps most, New Testament scholars today. The fact of the Baptist’s imprisonment was not added by Luke; his redaction is evident in placing it just before Jesus’ baptism. There is a consensus among New Testament critics that the Fourth Evangelist has edited his sources more than Luke, Matthew, and perhaps Mark. Those who have developed the impression that Jesus may originally have been the bridegroom of the Cana story, concur that such information would have been edited out of the story by the Fourth Evangelist. He would also have stressed, as he does in the very next chapter, that the Baptist is only “the friend of the bridegroom” (3:29), because Jesus is the bridegroom who has the bride. While the Fourth Evangelist does not specify who the bride is, she is clearly to be identified in the final form of John, as in biblical theology, with spiritual concepts (viz., Holy Israel, God’s Kingdom). Shaping a source, as in the transmission of the Cana story, is almost always most apparent at the beginning and the end of the pericope (which becomes clear as Matthew and Luke edit Mark, and as Christians have edited the Jewish pseudepigrapha and the Testimonium Flavianum). The editing by the Fourth Evangelist is apparent, as we have seen, on the borders of the story. The Evangelist’s editing is also clear from the way he frames the Cana story. We have already seen how, through framing the Cana story, the Evangelist spiritualizes the concept of Jesus as the bridegroom. However, there is more editing at work in the Evangelist’s framing of the Cana story. Immediately before it, he has Jesus inform Nathanael that he will see the heaven opened and angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man (1:51). After the Cana story, the Evangelist edits the account of Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple so that the Temple is redefined as the temple of Jesus’ body (2:21). Thus, we should assume that the spiritualizing of Jesus’ body has also shaped the retelling of the Cana story. It is certain then that the Cana story is heavily edited. Those who contemplate the possibilities that the Evangelist may well have added a reference to some anonymous bridegroom (at the end) and the note that Jesus had been invited (at the beginning) will want to explore further. Is it possible to glimpse, if only speculatively, what the core might have contained?150 Hopefully, yes.



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I will proceed then to isolate a core, but I proceed with the anxiety that appears as we attempt to imagine a “lost” source and as we venture out into any risky human endeavor. Far less edited and perhaps closer to the original form of the tradition received by the Evangelist may be the following (parentheses add words necessary for idiomatic English but not present in the Greek text): A wedding occurred at Cana in Galilee. Jesus151 and his mother were there. His brothers152 and disciples were invited153 to the marriage. When the wine failed, Jesus’ mother says to him: “They have no (more) wine.” His mother says to the servants: “Whatever he might say to you, do (it fully).”154 And there were standing there six stone jars for the purification of the Jews. (Each jar was able to) hold twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus says to them: “Fill155 the jars with water.” And they filled them to the top. And he156 says to them: “Now withdraw (some) and take (it) to the head waiter.”157 And they took (it). And when the head waiter tasted the water, (now) having become wine, he calls the bridegroom and says to him: “Every man serves the good wine first; and when they have drunk (freely), then the poor wine. (But) you have kept the good wine until now.” This was the first of the signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee. And his disciples believed in him. [After this he went down to Capernaum, he, and his mother, and his brothers, and his disciples; and they stayed there for a few days.] (Jn 2:1–12)

The clustering of verb tenses in this putative core is remarkable; at the beginning and end the present tense (“says”) dominates but in the middle numerous aorists are used (and they are typical of the subsequent editing found in 2:10–11). Was the present tense used to bring out the present meaning of the action (historic present)158 and do these verbs not reflect the work of the author of the source?159 The last sentence is in square brackets, because it also seems to be added or heavily edited by the Fourth Evangelist, as Faure, Schmidt, and Bultmann saw.160 The flow of thought is probably interrupted by an editorial aside, especially “he did not know whence it had (come).” Clearly editorial are the words: “[though the servants who had drawn the water knew].” The brackets are in the Greek edition to warn about editing. The ending of the sentence has the Tendenzen so typical of the Evangelist’s style and theology: the concept of knowing and irony. That is, the head waiter knows good wine but ironically he does not know what is important; yet the lowly servants know. Due to the heavy editing of the source, we cannot now discern how and where the original story ended. Why are Jesus and His Mother Present? The Evangelist does not answer this question for us. It is also strange that, according to the final edited form of the story, Jesus’ mother is present but Jesus is invited. This tension seems not to belong to the source, but it most likely serves the needs of the Evangelist. John Painter makes the valid observation that Jesus’ mother “was a known and authoritative figure in the household.”161 She instructs the servants. She and not Jesus seems to have authority recognized by the servants. She has to inform the servants to obey Jesus; he is not a recognizable authority to them. Focusing on 2:1a–2, in its present edited form, leaves us with many questions: “Were Jesus and his mother coming from different places?” “Was Jesus’ mother living in Cana

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at the time?” Trying to answer such questions leads into fruitless explorations; yet, it is clear that the Cana story was not told by the Evangelist to report only an historical event. As one ponders such questions, one imagines again that this is a wedding very important to Jesus and his mother—and most likely also to his brothers and his disciples. And it is very important to the author of John and later to the Evangelist (if they are different) who placed it at the very beginning of the Gospel. All who are inquisitive ask, “Who is getting married?” The Evangelist makes it clear that Jesus had come with his disciples. Is Jesus’ mother’s comment, “they have no wine” an indictment against Jesus and his disciples? Has she accused him and them of not bringing proper gifts to the wedding so that the wine has become depleted? That is an ingenious suggestion made by J. D. M. Derrett.162 It is along such avenues of questioning that one begins to approximate the event itself. Jesus’ mother’s possible indictment of Jesus makes best sense if Jesus is responsible for the success of the feast. Many students of John will contemplate that these reflections suggest Jesus could well be the bridegroom. Why are Jesus’ Disciples Invited? The author states that Jesus and his disciples were invited. Why? Why would Jesus be invited to this wedding? Is this not a redactional addition to keep the reader from discerning that Jesus is the bridegroom? Who is being married? Jesus looms as the dominant male in this story. Why? Is that because the story was created to stress Jesus’ divine powers? If so, then why does he do nothing and say nothing to make the water become wine? All he does is command the servants to fill the jars with water, draw some liquid out, and take it to the head waiter of the feast. No action or word by Jesus is mentioned. Unlike the miracle stories in the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, Luke), no action of Jesus is recorded—yet the exegetes continuously err by referring to Jesus’ turning the water

Figure 17.3  Early Roman Mikvaot at Khirbet Cana.



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to wine. The Fourth Evangelist, however, does not report any action by Jesus.163 The author of Mk 7:31–37 reports that Jesus heals a man who was deaf and had a speech impediment. Jesus takes him aside, puts his fingers into his ears, spat, and touched his tongue. Then Jesus said to him: “Ephphatha,” which is Aramaic for “be opened.” Then the man hears and speaks plainly. Nothing at all is recorded in John 2 about how Jesus turned the water to wine. How can the Cana story then point to Jesus as the bearer of power? The literary form (Formgeschichte) of the wedding in Cana is atypical of the Synoptic miracle stories that were shaped to highlight the uniqueness of Jesus. The literary form of the story and the realia (esp. the stone jars) suggest that there is some history present. Two questions pop up: Why is Jesus present at this wedding? And whose wedding is it? We should also ask: Why were the disciples invited? They would have attended to honor and celebrate with the bride and bridegroom who were being married. The disciples follow Jesus to this wedding, but they do not usually follow him into strange houses or into a dinner hosted by a Pharisee (cf. Lk 7:36–50; 11:37–41). “Why do the disciples attend the wedding?” Moreover, would not Jesus’ bringing with him 12 men and presumably some women indicate a social hardship for the wedding host? If the host is Jesus’ mother, then we can understand her command of all servants and how the one in charge of the banquet can command and control all servants. The guest in charge of the banquet also seems to be on very familiar terms with Jesus’ mother.164 Does that not suggest a wedding in Jesus’ family? These facts lead us to conclude that a member of Jesus’ family is being married; but why would John not include that fact unless it is Jesus himself? Why are Jesus’ brothers and sisters not mentioned in the final form of the Cana story? If it were a wedding of one of the sons of Jesus’ mother—Jesus, James, Judas, Simon, Eleazar (Mk 6:3)—then his brothers would have attended. The Fourth Evangelist implies that Jesus’ brothers followed him and became disciples, as is clear by the pericope that immediately follows the wedding at Cana: After this (the wedding at Cana), he, and his mother, and brothers, and his disciples went down to Capernaum. And there they stayed not many days. (2:12; according to manuscripts B, P66 P75 and most early witnesses)

Does this verse not suggest that the brothers had been at the wedding and one of them had just been married?165 D. M. Smith invites the reader to wonder “whether they [his brothers] belong in verse 1 or 2.”166 His thoughts are stimulated by the mention of Jesus’ “brothers” in 2:12 but not his “disciples” in Codex Sinaiticus. This early uncial manuscript, clearly one of our major witnesses to the New Testament text, has the following reading: “After this [the wedding in Cana] he [Jesus], and his mother and his brothers, went down to Capernaum, and there they remained not many days.”167 This text, and perhaps the critical text used today, suggests that Jesus’ brothers had been at the wedding. The clearest early witness to this possibility may be the author (actually compiler) of the Epistula Apostolorum 5. He refers to the marriage at Cana of Galilee and adds that Jesus’ brothers were invited: “And he [Jesus] was invited with his mother and his brothers.”168 The author of this apocryphal work wants all the family invited in

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order, perhaps, to remove the impression that we are hearing about Jesus’ marriage. This text suggests that Jesus’ mother was also “invited.” It is clear that the text of Jn 2:1–11 was altered not only by the redactors but also by the copyists and reinterpreted by later apocryphal documents. If Jesus’ brothers follow him from Cana to Capernaum, it seems to follow that they were present at the wedding. Then, why are they not mentioned in 2:1–11? John Calvin is one of the few exegetes that ponders whose wedding is being reported.169 He astutely suggested that the wedding “was probably [that of] some kinsman of Christ’s.”170 Has the editing of tradition behind the story hid the possibility that Jesus has just been married? Why are no women, beside Jesus’ anonymous mother, mentioned? Does the Evangelist know whose wedding had just been celebrated? Is it possible that he did not know that originally the story was about Jesus’ wedding? Why Does Jesus’ Mother Inform Him the Wine Has “Failed”? The Evangelist does not help us answer this question. The wedding is one in which Jesus’ mother has some official duties. That would be the case if one of her children were being married. As implied earlier, Mark alone reports her numerous daughters (unnumbered and unnamed) and provides her sons’ names: James, Joses, Judas, Simon, and of course, Jesus (Mk 6:3). Jesus’ mother’s functions at the wedding indicate most likely that one of her children is being married. What is the person’s name? Would not the Evangelist, or the editor of the tradition before him, have left the names of the bride and bridegroom in the Cana story if their names were of someone other than Jesus and Magdalene? Do not the very absence of the names of the bridegroom and bride—in light of our growing appreciation of what is behind the Cana story and the removal of names and persons due to redaction—suggest that originally the story is about Jesus’ wedding? The only family member explicitly named is Jesus. What are we to surmise? Why Does Jesus’ Mother Send the Servants to Jesus? Jesus’ mother not only is shown able to command servants but she sends them to Jesus. Why does she send them to Jesus? What is his function at this wedding? Jesus is clearly not only attending a wedding. He has social responsibilities. Why? Why Does Jesus Command the Servants? Why does Jesus have this authority at the wedding? He utters two commands. The first is to fill the jars with water. The second is to take the water, now wine, to the head waiter. These are actions of one who is responsible for the success of a wedding and the one who is to be the host. Is not such a host, in Early Judaism, either the father of the bridegroom or the bridegroom? If there were a “best man” in pre-70 CE Judaism (Shoshben [‫)]שושבין‬, he is certainly not mentioned in or alluded to in the Cana story. Why do the Servants Obey Jesus? The servants, most likely hired, immediately obey Jesus. Why? The portrayal of him in the Cana story is not very flattering and must come from tradition. Jesus does not observe a problem at the feast. His mother has to draw his attention to the reality and foreboding crisis before him. Jesus solves the problem by doing something not described; the water becomes wine without a description of what Jesus did. Too many exegetes assume Jesus turned the water to wine; but no action is presented. Was something edited out to undermine the opinion that he was a magician?



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Jesus is not portrayed as a Great Man, charismatic figure, or miracle worker—and he is certainly no theos aner. Do the servants obey Jesus because he is in charge of the wedding? What are the Responsibilities of a Jewish Bridegroom? The father of the bridegroom is usually responsible for the feast. A carpenter, like Joseph, would easily have traveled the short distance from Nazareth to Khirbet Cana. The intra-canonical gospels and in particular the final form of the Cana story indicate that Joseph had passed away, left the family, or for whatever reason was not at the wedding. In that situation, Jesus would be responsible for the enjoyment of the guests, if he was the bridegroom or the older brother of one being married. The wedding would be a disaster and the marriage begun with negative social repercussions if wine ran out the evening of the wedding or anytime during the seven-day feast. B. J. Malina summarizes the function of the bridegroom when others are not available: As a process, marriage is the disembedding of the prospective wife from her family by means of a ritual positive challenge (i.e. gifts and/or services to her father) by the father of the prospective groom, along with her father’s response. Should the father be unavailable, then responsible male members of the family, like older brothers, uncles, or the prospective groom himself, take part in the transaction.171

The absence of the father of the bridegroom in the Cana story may not be surprising; but that does not diminish the fact that Jesus’ mother is mentioned and not his father. The absence of the father becomes more perplexing when it becomes probable that Jesus’ brothers were also at the wedding (as indicated earlier). It would be absurd to argue that a feast is merely a story because banquets were popular in Jewish tales; that would mean that Jews never enjoyed a feast and they were created for folktales. Jewish feasts, especially at Passover, were based on the collective memory of sacred events in secular history and traditions based on them. The banquets also intermittently foreshadowed the final banquet with the Messiah. This eschatological expectation seems evident in 1QSa and is also symbolically depicted with abundant vines and the wine of the end time according to both the author of 2 Baruch and etchings on Bar Kokhba’s coins and shields.172 Why is the Bridegroom so Conspicuously Absent? “Who is the bridegroom?” Bultmann advised: “There is no need to give any particular explanation” of historical possibilities, such as why Jesus and his disciples were invited. He even claimed: “Doubtless no one will any longer want to try and guess who the bridegroom was,” whether Simon the Canaanite (Mk 3:18) or “even the Evangelist himself.” According to Bultmann, asking questions like whether Jesus’ mother was “temporarily or permanently resident in Cana does not matter.”173 Obviously, Bultmann was writing when archaeology was not yet a quintessential method in exegesis and when existentialism, with its failure to appreciate the human as a historically and socially conditioned creature, was dominant in New Testament theology. Now, to most exegetes, the Cana story (and other New Testament texts) raise more than soteriological questions.

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Why is the bridegroom mentioned only at the end of the story? Is that not evidence of redaction? Is he placed there to stress the power of Jesus’ words and that Jesus is the one who alone can provide the good? Is the bridegroom mentioned at the end of the story to hide the fact that this is Jesus’ own wedding? Why is the bridegroom the only one who receives the head waiter’s rebuke? Could Jesus be the Bridegroom? The putative core, presented earlier, is certainly less redacted and shaped by kerygma. Even the final form of the story does not specify who is the bridegroom or bride. Why? Many reflective thinkers may now imagine that the bridegroom may be Jesus. At his own wedding, Jesus could not enjoy the role of a father if Joseph had already died, as the early evidence suggests (and as I have already shown).174 B. Chilton supposes that Jesus was about twelve when Joseph died, and that Jesus never married, because he did not have a father to give him away.175 Chilton is speculating, and so are we. The data demands such speculation and imagination. According to the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Levi married at eighteen and Issachar after thirty, and according to his autobiography Josephus married at thirty after the fall of Yodfat in 67 CE (Life 414). Such texts are not indicative of the norm within Early Judaism. The bridegroom would normally be between eighteen and twenty-four years of age and the bride about thirteen or fourteen (m. Abot 5:21, b. Sanhedrin 76b).176 In Jesus’ case, with the possible absence of Joseph and Jesus’ own preoccupation with God, the age for a possible marriage might have been considerable later, as with Josephus. We have entered an area that is impossible to clarify, since we do not have pre-70 CE sources that specify the marriage folkways and customs in Galilee, and if we had such data we are always working with a possible exception to such rules when imagining Jesus and how he was perceived.177 The Torah supplied most of the rules for weddings. The man was to offer a gift (môhar), “bride-money,”178 to the father of the bride (Gen 34:12; Exod 22:16; 1Sam 18:25). The amount is never specified and certainly fluctuated. The normal amount might range between 20 and 50 shekels during Jesus’ time (cf. Deut 22:29; Lev 27:1–8). Once the bride’s father accepted the amount, the bride was betrothed to the prospective bridegroom and often now lived with him; and they could enjoy each other’s bodies. The bride and wife were praised. The author of Proverbs records the norm in ancient Israel and Early Judaism: “rejoice in the wife of your youth, a lovely hind, a graceful doe” (5:18). The bride became the man’s “companion” (LXX = κοινωνos) and “wife by covenant” (Mal 2:14).179 This word “companion” took on special meaning when we examined previously the Gospel of Philip; in it Magdalene is called Jesus’ companion (the same Greek noun is used in the LXX of Proverbs and the Gospel of Philip). Sometimes the bridegroom would go with friends to the bride’s home and take her, with rejoicing, to his home (cf. Josephus, Ant 13.18–21). They would customarily elevate her onto a platform that was decorated with a canopy bedecked with painted sheets and ribbons. The bride would be veiled, and often trimmed with jewelry. As she moved from her father’s home to the bridegroom’s home (cf. 1Sam 25:40–42; Ps 45:15–16), the attendants would dance, sing, and celebrate the charms and virtues of the bride. Arriving at the bridegroom’s home, the bride and her bridesmaids would be taken to a separate room prepared for them. The next morning was filled with music, dancing, and celebrating.



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That evening, after sunset, a feast was enjoyed. The bride dressed in pure white, to symbolize her purity, would sit under a canopy; sometimes it was the one under which she had previously sat. When the bridegroom joined her perhaps a pomegranate was crushed, so its many seeds (symbolizing fertility) could be spread over or around the couple. On many occasions ointment scented with myrrh would mix with the smell of jasmine from the garden, a pungent perfume that often wafts through the air in Israel today. The couple exited the proceedings to consummate their love. Then the bride’s veil would be removed. Eventually, the two, now perceived as one, would return to the gathering, perhaps with a sheet stained with red blood, to prove the bride’s virtue. The ensuing feast might last six hours that day and continue for seven days, as with Samson’s wedding (Jud 14:10–18) and according to Rabbinics (see esp. m. Negaim 3:2). The wedding was a festive occasion with singing (cf. Song of Songs and Psalm 45), and—of course—the drinking of wine. One should not assume that this customary wedding is what would have occurred if Jesus were married. First, many devout Jews may have judged him to be a mamzer who could not marry an Israelite, and that would alter the traditional wedding. Second, we cannot assume that his father was present to officiate. Third, if John 2 refers to Jesus’ wedding, then he may have already begun his public ministry; but that does not mean he was too old to marry. Recall that Josephus married at thirty years of age. As with almost all situations pertaining to the historical Jesus, the traditions need to be comprehended and their flexibility appreciated, within the norms and boundaries of pre-70 CE Palestinian Jewish society, to allow for what might have occurred with Jesus. Fourth, if the Cana story hides the fact that she is the bride, Magdalene would not be a typical young virgin of twelve. The Cana story is probably not a feast after the wedding that might have occurred in the bridegroom’s house (cf. Mt 22:2). The present form of the story has Jesus going not to the post-marriage feast; he is present at “the marriage” (2:2). H. Ewald suggested that Jesus’ family had moved from Nazareth to Cana.180 Jesus is invited to the wedding, according to the present form of the story, and there is no evidence that Jesus ever lived in Cana, although one cannot claim such a possibility is unthinkable. Most likely, then, the wedding cannot be in Jesus’ home. Given Jesus’ unique situation, perhaps fatherless, perceived to be a mamzer, and a male beyond the usual marrying age, the wedding might have occurred in the bride’s home (her father’s home)181 as was the case with Tobias (see Tobit 7–8), since Tobit provides some of our best information regarding pre-70 CE Jewish weddings.182 The Jew Tobias, who is from Nineveh, is married in the bride’s house that belonged to his kinsman Raguel in Ecbatana (G1).183 According to Jn 2:12, Jesus moves from Cana to Capernaum; this verse immediately follows the account of the wedding at Cana. He is accompanied by his mother, his brothers, and his disciples. This makes best sense if he has just been married. That is, the bridegroom and bride now, after the wedding, move to another home. Jesus would not be leaving his family behind; the Evangelist records that they follow him to Capernaum. Where is the Bride? The patriarchal nature of some aspects of Early Judaism appears when we are told the number and names of Jesus’ brothers, but not the number or

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names of his sisters (Mk 6:3). The same ethos may be operative in the Cana story, so that we are told nothing about the bride. The most important person in the wedding is not mentioned even obliquely. To redress this lack of detail in John 2, I shall quote the perceptive description of the bride offered by B. Chilton: The bride was kept sequestered in her own household. Her hair had been combed with olive oil scented with cassie flowers and aloes. She wore it in wound braids, covered by a net. On this exceptional occasion she also wore purple eye shadow, colored with an expensive Phoenician dye derived from simmering murex snails for nine days, along with henna from readily procured cosmetic, which was applied in abstract patterns with a thin feathered reed on her neck and hands. She was wrapped in two thick linen sashes: one accentuated the curve of her hips; the other was wound beneath her breasts.184

Is it conceivable that Mary Magdalene could be the bride hidden behind the Cana story? That is certainly a possibility, since nothing is said about the bride. Any argument that Mary Magdalene cannot be the bride since she is from Magdala would be poorly conceived. Jesus moved from Nazareth to Capernaum; why could Mary not move from Cana, a farming village, to Magdala, the site where many farmers went during the winter season to help pickle fish for export to Alexandria, Rome, and elsewhere. As we have already observed, the bride of the Cana story must come from a wealthy Jewish family, since the large stone vessels for Jewish rites of purification were expensive and have been found almost always by archaeologists only in palatial abodes. Scholars have pointed out that Mary Magdalene seems to have been wealthy, and that seems to follow if she helped cover the expenses of Jesus’ itinerant ministry as Luke reports (8:2–3). Perhaps another indication that the bride in the Cana story might be Magdalene is the fact that her marital status is never mentioned. “Is there any allusion to her marital state?” Yes, perhaps. Note that all the women at the feet of the cross are wives: Jesus’ mother (the wife of Joseph), Jesus’ mother’s sister (who is) “Mary, the wife of Clopas,” and “Mary Magdalene” (19:25). It seems inappropriate to imagine an unmarried woman beneath a cross. If she is identified by those with her, then she may be a married woman. Has such information been deleted from traditions for theological reasons? The Fourth Evangelist makes it clear that Nathanael was from Cana (21:2); thence, Jesus had at least one disciple from Cana.185 M.-J. Lagrange suggested that Nathanael may be the one who invited Jesus to the wedding.186 While this may be conceivable, but far from clear because the Evangelist has apparently left him farther east at the Jordan, it is certainly obvious that if one of Jesus’ disciples was from Cana then another may be also (recall numerous disciples are from Bethsaida).187 Could Mary Magdalene, who is associated in her adult life with Magdala, have also originally been from Cana? Historians who do not contemplate such possibilities are not those who have mastered historiography; all data and all that may be conceived must be explored. Magdalene with Jesus’ Relatives at the Cross. “Are there other items or a single datum that we have missed to help cast light on Mary Magdalene’s possible marriage to Jesus?” Yes. First, all the others “standing by the cross of Jesus” are relatives of Jesus, according to the Fourth Evangelist (19:25–26): his mother, the sister of his mother,



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and Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.188 The man, “Clopas,” must have been well known to those in the Palestinian Jesus Movement, since a Mary is identified by his name. An author identifies someone by a well-known person (e.g., Simon of Cyrene is identified by his sons who must have been known to the Marcan community; see Mk 15:21). Some experts today accept, therefore, Hegesippus’ report that Clopas is the brother of Joseph and thus Jesus’ uncle (Eusebius, HE 3:11; 3:32; 4:22). He would also be the father of Symeon (or Simon) who is the one that succeeded Jesus’ brother, James, as the head of Jesus’ followers in Jerusalem. R. Bauckham, for example, insightfully judges that there is “little room for doubt” about the historical accuracy of Hegesippus’ tradition.189 One other person is named near the cross; it is the Beloved Disciple. He may also be Jesus’ relative, since early traditions report he was the “twin” of Jesus and despite the ambiguity involved with “twin” this aside suggests some kinship.190 Obviously, Mary Magdalene is named. If all the others were related to Jesus, then perhaps she was also. How could that be possible? If she is a relative, then she is married to a member of Jesus’ family, conceivably Jesus. Secondly, psychobiographers, pondering not only the mind-set of Jesus but also that of the Evangelist, might be impressed with how the pericope begins. The opening of the account, as with many other early traditions, originally began with “there was” (kai egeneto [2:1]). The Evangelist had to place this event within the flow of his gospel, so he added at the beginning of the pericope that the wedding occurred “on the third day.” Why has the Evangelist situated the story “on the third day”? The phrase and even the word “third” do not appear again in John; thus it is not a Johannine topos. The reference does not develop out of the narrative in chapter 1. As D. M. Smith shows, the “third day” does “not tally with the preceding enumeration of days (1:29, 35, 43).”191 It may be simply the biblical idiom for something like “the day following tomorrow.”192 But, C. S. Keener is most likely correct to judge that the Fourth Evangelist intends “some theological significance” by “on the third day.” If so, then “the most likely additional connection is with the tradition of Jesus’ resurrection on the third day.”193 R. Schnackenburg also stressed the importance of “the third day” being an allusion to the morning of Jesus resurrection.194 The psychobiographers might suggest that “on the third day” thus most likely mirrors Jesus’ resurrection on the third day; and that means the Fourth Evangelist might have been thinking about Mary Magdalene who on the third day after the crucifixion was the first to see the resurrected Jesus (20:1–18). The psychobiographers urge us to imagine the minds that confront us in scripture.195 Perhaps the mere mention of “on the third day” may mirror the fact that the wedding unites Jesus and Mary Magdalene, who is the primary witness to the resurrected Jesus on “the first day of the week,” that is, the third day after his crucifixion (20:11–18). Did the Fourth Evangelist delete Magdalene from the Cana story, and thinking about her, as he continued his editing, add “on the third day”?

Mary and Jesus in the garden The Self-contained Narrative (Pericope). The account in 20:11–18 clarifies that Mary Magdalene is the first one to see the resurrected Jesus. The pericope is well constructed

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and a unity. Most likely the account regarding Mary Magdalene was a self-contained pericope that is found in 20:1 and 11–18. The Fourth Evangelist interpolated into his narrative a story about Peter and the Beloved Disciple; the interpolation covers verses 2–10. The interpolation explains why Mary wept (20:2) and places men—notably Peter and the Beloved Disciple—at the tomb before Mary’s encounter with Jesus. The interpolation also causes a non sequitur, since Mary is said to go and inform the disciples (20:18) when she already had done this earlier (20:2). It is clear that the Fourth Evangelist inherited a Magdalene source and interpolated into it his redactional emphasis on the Beloved Disciple. “What were the contours of his Magdalene source?” Since the Evangelist edits his traditions so fully and almost completely, one can never be entirely certain. Here is an approximation (using the translation of the NRSV): Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark,196 Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the tomb. Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.197 As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb; and she saw two angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying, one at the head and the other at the feet. They said to her: “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him.” When she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” Supposing him to be the gardener, she said to him: “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away.” Jesus said to her: “Mary!” She turned and said to him in Hebrew, “Rabbouni!” (which means Teacher).198 Jesus said to her: “Do not touch me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’” Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples: “I have seen the Lord”: and she told them that he had said these things to her. (Jn 20:1–18)

The pericope is self-contained, focuses on “brothers” while the Evangelist is more attuned to “disciple” or “disciples” (20:2, 3, 4, 8, 19, 20, 25, etc.), and has more dialogue than is usual in the contiguous pericopae in John. A source has been used by the Evangelist. The Power of the Beginning of the First Story on the Beginning of the Last Story. Widely recognized and appreciated is the fact that the Fourth Evangelist and his editors, in the second edition of John, began with an appeal to the memory of how the world and history began. The “in the beginning” of Jn 1:1 is a clear echo of Gen 1:1 (and clearly evident, especially in the Greek, Hebrew, and Syriac versions of John). Poorly perceived, and usually missed, is the Evangelist’s appeal to the same memory in the final pericope (ch. 21 was added later).199 Note these parallels to the well-known story of the Garden of Eden: a woman, a garden (with trees explicit in Genesis 3 and implied in John 20), a man who is portrayed or perceived as the “gardener” (Gen 2:15; cf. 2:5; Jn 20:15), and possibly ophidian



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Figure 17.4  Rolling Stone Before Pre-70 CE Tomb Near Golgotha (JHC). symbolism (since according to Jn 3:14 Jesus is synonymous with Moses’ serpent).200 Most readers of John would see some echoes of the Eden Story in Jn 20:1–18. It seems to be original to the composer of the tradition and highlighted by the Evangelist. The perceptive reader will celebrate biblical symbolism and how it unites biblical theology in the eyes of the Fourth Evangelist. Indeed, he has united Scripture by providing an inclusio not only in his own final edition but also in his Scriptures. The Sexuality of Jesus’ Exhortation: “Do not touch me!” In its present form, the Fourth Evangelist has the resurrected Jesus tell Mary Magdalene: “Do not touch me” (20:17).201 R. E. Brown may well be correct to point out that this imperative denotes that Jesus has not yet ascended to the Father for salvific purposes for those who believe in him. Jesus’ ascension is not to prepare heavenly dwellings for them but to return to establish for them “a new relationship to God by giving them the Spirit.”202 This seems to be the meaning within the Johannine narrative. What, however, was the meaning of the verb haptō in the Evangelist’s source? The present imperative of the verb is arresting. It can denote that Mary Magdalene is already touching Jesus or that she was the one who frequently “touched” Jesus. This meaning would be more appropriate in the Evangelist’s source, which continues to be our central concern. More appropriate for this source is Brown’s comment that “Magdalene is trying to hold on to the source of her joy . . . .”203 There seems to be an undeniable physical attraction that Magdalene has for Jesus; she even wants his dead body (20:15).204 We have seen that the account of Magdalene and Jesus in the garden was interpolated by an account of Peter and the Beloved Disciple. The original story then is about a man and a woman in a garden “while it was still dark” (20:1). What might have transpired

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then has been lost in scholarly discussion due to the failure of exegetes to examine the full meaning of a verb. The proofs brought forward to show that Mary Magdalene is the Beloved Disciple should have led exegetes to ponder the love relationship that clearly links her with Jesus, not only in John but in all gospels, intra-canonical and extracanonical. The Greek verb haptō has many meanings. Most translators of Jn 20:17 choose “Do not touch me” (KJV), “Do not cling to me” (JB and NEB), “Stop holding me” (NAB), or “Do not hold on to me” (NRSV [cf. Vulgate Noli me tangere]). The Greek verb means not only “to take hold of,” “to hold,” but also to have intercourse with a woman. Note, in particular the following passages in which haptō has clearly sexual connotations. In “Laws,” Plato carries forth the tradition that Iccus of Tarentum “never had any connection with a woman or a youth during the whole time of his training” (8.840a).205 That is, Iccus never “touched” them. In the Septuagint the Greek verb haptō denotes sexual intercourse pure and simple, and without an aside to marriage. Here are the major passages: Gen 20:4, “But Abimelech had not touched her (Αβιμελεχ δὲ οὐχ ἥψατο αὐτῆς).” (cf. Gen 20:6) Prov 6:29, “Thus is he that goes into a married woman (οὕτως ὁ εἰσελθὼν πρὸς γυναῖκα ὕπανδρον); he shall not be held guiltless, neither anyone who touches her (πᾶς ὁ ἁπτόμενος αὐτῆς).”

In each of these verses “to touch” denotes to have sexual intercourse with a woman. In Proverbs 6 the parallelism reveals that “to touch” is synonymous “to go into” a woman. The sexual meaning of the verb haptō is obvious in the century in which the Fourth Evangelist lived and wrote and within the Judaism he inherited.206 Two examples must suffice; one is from Paul and the other is from Josephus. In 1Cor 7:1, Paul advises that it is “well for a man not to touch a woman” (καλὸν ἀνθρώπῳ γυναικὸς μὴ ἅπτεσθαι·), and the following comments make it clear that Paul is referring to having sexual intercourse with a woman. W. F. Orr and J. R. Walther translate 7:1 as follows: “With reference to the matters about which you wrote: is it good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman?”207 Orr and Walther correctly add that the sexual meaning of the Greek verb is “well established in Greek usage” (p. 206). When he reports on Abraham’s sojourn in Egypt, Josephus described Pharaoh’s enflamed passion for Sarah, because of her sexual attractiveness. God, however, averted his passion so the he was not able to “touch” (ἅψασθαι) her (Ant 1.163). The well-known and popular translation by W. Whitson astutely brings out the sexual connotation: “Pharaoh the king of Egypt would not be satisfied with what was reported of her, but would needs see her himself, and was preparing to enjoy her.”208 The present imperative in John 20 may denote continuous action: do not continue to hold me or touch me. Does the passage in John suggest that behind the account preserved in the Johannine narrative there is a tradition that Jesus and Magdalene had enjoyed sex with each other? One can avoid such reflections by claiming that while the verb can connote sex it need not do so. Obviously, one should avoid the absurd suggestion that Jesus did not want to be sexually stimulated or that Magdalene was



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pregnant; such interpretations disclose excessive imaginations. They are not guided by textual and historical contexts.209 Harry Attridge rightly points out that Jesus’ imperative is “a positive and affirming one,”210 and that does not rule out intimacy in a Jewish context. As mentioned previously, Brown rightly comprehends that the Fourth Evangelist seeks to indicate that Magdalene is seeking to hold on to the source of her joy.211 The Evangelist may be carrying on and diverting the intention of the early tradition. The proper exegesis of Jn 20:1–18 has been thwarted by the failure to perceive and explore the full meaning of the verb haptō.212 It is clear that both before and in the first century CE the verb denoted, and not only connoted, the sexuality of touching (to invaginate) a woman. Sometimes what biblical exegetes miss is perceived by the great artists.213 They are forced to imagine and live within the story the narrator has described. In 1511, Titian painted Christ and Magdalene in the garden (Noli me tangere). Magdalene is on her knees before Jesus. Her face and right hand move up to his masculinity. The bending body of Jesus is also evocative and suggests an erotic encounter.214 To what extent has Tatian subjectively created what was never present in John 20 and to what extent did he envision the tradition inherited by the Fourth Evangelist? Darkness, A Woman and a Man Alone in a Garden. The commentators who focus on Josephus and Paul often discuss the linguistic connotations of words; this philological feature is far too often missing in exegetical work on John. Almost always, commentators assume that Jesus is telling Mary Magdalene not “to touch” him. As I have stated and shown, commentators fail to explore the ramifications of the full meaning of the verb “to touch.” Prior to the time when this tradition reached the Fourth Evangelist a deeper meaning might be evident in this verb. The scene depicted is a garden outside the walls of Jerusalem that is shrouded in darkness. According to Jn 20:1, Mary Magdalene “came to the tomb early, while it was still dark.” As I have indicated, verses 2–10 are interpolated into a story about Magdalene and Jesus; that story resumes in verse 11. Perhaps the continuing darkness helps explain why Mary mistakes Jesus for a gardener. A woman approaches a man whom she loves, and emotions are unusually high. Is it possible that the verb mirrors the fact that the one who began the tradition in Jn 20:1, 11–18 knew that Jesus and Mary had been intimate? We have seen that the command, “do not touch (or hold)” me, often has clear sexual overtones, especially in the time and religion represented by the Fourth Evangelist. Perhaps the author of the tradition, and even the Evangelist, may have imagined the possibility that Jesus and Mary had been lovers. Surely, it would be foolish to claim we are the first to imagine this scenario. At least some of the readers of John 20 who knew Greek would have understood the sexual overtones of the verb haptō. The full meaning of haptō helps explain the apparent contrast between Jesus’ injunction to Magdalene and his invitation to Thomas. According to most translations, readers are confused as to why Jesus tells Mary not to touch him but tells Thomas “put your finger here . . . and put out your hand, and place it in my side” (Φέρε τὸν δάκτυλόν σου ὧδε καὶ ἴδε τὰς χεῖράς μου, καὶ φέρε τὴν χεῖρά σου καὶ βάλε εἰς τὴν πλευράν μου, καὶ μὴ γίνου ἄπιστος ἀλλὰ πιστός. 20:27). Notice that in 20:27 haptō is not chosen; more common verbs are employed (φέρε [bis], “put” or “bear” and βάλε,

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“throw” or “put”). In both cases the narrator wants to clarify that Jesus is no ghost or apparition. He can be touched. All the problems are explained for the first time, if Jesus is depicted telling Mary that sexual relations are now no longer possible (recall his statement that angels do not marry [Mk 12:25]) and informing Thomas that it is possible to put a finger into his wounds because he is no mere apparition or vision; of course, Thomas is too wise to do so and symbolizes those “believing.”215 Now, we may broach a final question: “Why would Jesus be attracted to Magdalene?” There are two ways to speculate, one is to imagine answers to this question by focusing on what we know about Jesus. The other is to surmise insightful answers from what we may know about Magdalene. Jesus was a dynamic man with great charisma and power, as Weber demonstrated. He did not judge individuals but accepted them as they were, observing their goodness and encouraging their good qualities. He may have seen Magdalene as a strong woman engulfed by patriarchal forces that were demeaning her and keeping her from achieving her potential as God’s creation. He may have admired her integrity and bearing. Even if she had been a prostitute that does not demand that she was a prostitute in her soul

Figure 17.5  Too many exegetes and artists assume Thomas touched Jesus. A sixteenthcentury wood icon from the festive tier of the iconostasis (courtesy of the Kremlin, Moscow JHC).



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and heart. Jesus may have realized that his power to share God’s forgiveness with her would free her from a life of slavery to “demons.” He is one who brings out the best characteristics of those who follow him. Jesus may have seen in Magdalene fortitude and persistence; after all she was with him until the end. He was a man of genius and vision; he may have seen in her hope and promise. She was the first one to whom he appeared, after his resurrection by God, according to both Mark, in the addition of 16:9, and John, in 20:14, 18. If Magdalene had been a prostitute, that would not have made her unattractive to Jesus. He sought the lost, abandoned, ostracized, and disenfranchised within Early Judaism. Jesus called Matthew, a tax collector—who would be a despised man in the eastern provinces of the Roman Empire. Those who insist Magdalene must be a wonderful person, a virtuous woman, miss the point that Jesus called sinners. It is not her righteousness and purity that would have attracted Jesus to Magdalene. What would be most attractive to Jesus, one may surmise, is her need for God’s forgiveness and acceptance. Jesus could have seen in her God’s power for a new and richer life. Magdalene had unusual qualities. She stands beside (actually beneath) her man in his hour of disgrace and horrifying pain and rejection. When the male disciples fled, she remains to share publicly Jesus’ humiliation and pain. While the apostles hide in fear, she stands fearlessly near Roman soldiers. She probably obeyed the Sabbath laws that prohibited her from walking to Jesus’ tomb on the Sabbath. She does not walk to Golgotha on Shabbat. She would thus be a devout Jew who obeyed the Torah—just like Jesus. She comes to Jesus’ tomb as soon as it was safe to travel. She is loyal. She even comes to the garden while it is still dark, and this action reveals her courage and character. Could not Jesus have seen such qualities in her, and felt a deep love for her? Did he find in her, as in his own mother, an ability to sustain a love relationship until a bitter end? There may be more. If Jesus was a real man, as the creeds command, then he would have been attracted to the erotic in her. “Is there any evidence for this possibility?” Yes, four observations indicate some physical intimacy between them. First, Magdalene was defined by Magdala, which we have seen was associated with sexual immorality (according to the Rabbis). Second, despite the corpse’s odor from almost three days in the tomb and the heightened rules for dangerous impurity from corpse pollution (Temple Scroll 50), she seeks to obtain Jesus’ corpse. Surely, such a desire for Jesus’ body may imply a physical link between the two. Third, she calls Jesus “Rabbouni,” which means beloved Rabbi (the term is unusual). Fourth, as just explained, Jesus tells her not to “touch” him, which may well have sexual connotations, as represented by both the Greek and English verbs. Summary. We have seen that historical reflection and reconstruction demands informed imagination guided by well-crafted interrogatives. John 2:1–11 is shaped by the compilers of tradition, before the Evangelist and with him. The pericope seems to report a wedding of someone important to Jesus’ mother, Jesus, his disciples, and probably also his brothers. The identity of the bride and bridegroom is not a concern for the editor(s). The possibility of the wedding being originally an account of Jesus’ marriage to Mary Magdalene is intriguing, and perhaps indicated by the presence of Jesus and the responsibilities he fulfills for the guests who have come to feast in honor

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of the bride, bridegroom, and their families. The failure to explore such historical possibilities reflects poor methodology and scholarship and may disclose an exegesis that is guided by dogmatics, and perhaps unconsciously governed by even heretical and docetic leanings.

Conclusion Why have recent commentators on the Gospel of John not explored the traditions that might lie behind the present narratives in the Fourth Gospel?216 They are charged with explaining the meaning of the present work and its continuing power for Christians today. Craig S. Keener, in his erudite commentary on John, opines that Jesus’ family was not “particularly close friends of the groom’s family” (p. 499). How does he know that? He misses the fact that Jesus, his mother, and his brothers, as well as his disciples were present; far more insightful and historically viable is his following claim: “Jesus and his followers are partly at fault for the wine running out” (p. 502).217 Many New Testament specialists are focusing only on the rhetoric of the gospel, its narrative flow and unity, and the theological tendencies [Tendenzen] of the theologian(s) who edited and shaped what the Evangelist received. We are interested now only in the traditions that the Fourth Evangelist received, especially in chapters 2 and 20. We are thus focusing here and now on what still may remain from the preJohannine traditions that help us speculate regarding the possible relationship between Jesus and Magdalene. Quite surprisingly we have caught a glimpse of a likely scenario behind the Cana story and the innuendoes of a verb in John 20. These verses may disclose the fact that Jesus was married; perhaps his wife was Magdalene. Why would a wedding otherwise introduce a gospel about Jesus who is one who thirsts, gets tired, cries, and blood and water pours from his pierced side; he was surely a man of flesh? Retrospect. We have examined all pertinent evidence in light of one focused question: “Is there any passage in the New Testament Gospels that despite its edited form suggests it is conceivable that Jesus married Mary Magdalene?” The answer is assuredly: “Yes; there is.” Some who read this exploration behind the theology of John may come away with a new perspective. Many who may have thought the conceivable was rather far-fetched and ill-conceived may ponder that the conceivable is rather possible. The latter will be those who recognize how heavily edited are the traditions preserved in John. The more I study the Cana story the more I am impressed by the shadowy nature of the narrative. It is rather clear what the Fourth Evangelist intends his reader to obtain from this story: To see Jesus’ glory and to believe that he brings salvation and has come from above and will return there, to his Father, so that all who believe in him will have eternal life. This insight is obtained by reading the full Johannine narrative, which is what the Evangelist intended, and to focus on the culmination of the Cana story. But Jesus is so poorly represented by the beginning of the Cana story that he does not appear as a hero or miracle worker. In fact, Jesus is unobservant. Was he preoccupied with duties for his bride? His mother has to point out to him that there is a major problem with the feast. He rebukes his mother, and he does effect some action or word that causes the water to become wine. If someone attempted to create a story



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about Jesus’ powers, then that individual failed. In its present and final highly edited form, the Cana story is a very confusing tale. Most likely the story derives from history; the account is about Jesus, his mother, his disciples, and perhaps his brothers going to a wedding at Cana. We will never know for certain why these individuals are present at the wedding, who is the bride, and who is the bridegroom. It is now obvious why some readers might obtain the impression that the Fourth Evangelist would edit the story to hide the possibility, or fact, that Jesus was the bridegroom and Magdalene the bride. Such reasoning seems sound; but it is speculative. We can only imagine who are the bride and bridegroom. The central question takes us behind the so-called Johannine School, through the traditions preserved in John, and into the Jewish-Galilean culture of Jesus. It is clear that Jesus and Mary Magdalene had a special relationship. She, perhaps more than Jesus’ mother, was the woman closest to Jesus. She is the one who “stood by Jesus throughout his life, sensitive and understanding.”218 She was with him until the end, and perhaps from the beginnings at Cana. Unfortunately, the traditions that take us back to Jesus and Magdalene are now so reworked from theological concerns that historical reconstructions are virtually impossible. Certainty, even probability, seldom goes hand in glove with attempts to reconstruct the past. We have proceeded with interrogatives and with imagination to set texts within a context. The latter is Cana of Galilee, which we now know for the first time was a deeply Jewish community before 70 CE. Archaeologists have found stone vessels in both sites now called Cana; these stone objects are similar to those mentioned, almost as an aside, by the narrator (perhaps the one who wrote the tradition inherited by the Fourth Evangelist). The fuller context is the creative and multifarious dimensions of Judaism before 70 CE in which purity regulations reserved for priests and the Temple extended beyond such boundaries to include all Jews in the Holy Land. The Jewish purity rules are now clear, and palpably so, in texts for the first time (viz. the Temple Scroll 50) and in the discoveries of an abundance of mikvaot (Jewish ritual baths) and stone vessels not only in Judea but also in Lower Galilee where Jesus chose to center his ministry. The text of the Cana story was shaped by redaction, Christology, the narrative flow of the Gospel of John, and the desire to stress that Jesus is married to heavenly symbols and concepts. That is 2:1–11 is framed by 1:51 (the heavens opening and angels ascending and descending upon the Son of Man), the cleansing of the Temple with the disclosure that Jesus speaks about the temple of his body (2:21), the declaration by Jesus to Nicodemus that Jesus reveals “heavenly things” (3:12), and especially John the Baptist’s declaration that he is merely the friend of the bridegroom, and that Jesus is the bridegroom who has the bride (3:29). The first three chapters present the Evangelist’s claim that the one who is “from above is above all” (3:31). This affirmation originally referred only to Jesus but became a double entendre to include all who receive Jesus’ testimony, believe in him, and are united to the one sent by God (3:34). The examinations of Jn 20:1–18 reveal problems and indications that the Fourth Evangelist has not fully edited out all the innuendoes that Jesus and Magdalene had a special, perhaps more than a spiritual, relationship. The verb usually taken to mean “do not continue to hold me” may well mean, as it does in documents contemporaneous with John, “do not continue to touch me (sexually).”

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Prospect. To fail to ask hard, potentially embarrassing, historical questions like the one in focus in this essay is to betray the heart of Christian theology. Christian theologians rightly confess that all good theology is based on history, whether it is Jesus Research or research on Hillel, Luther, Calvin, Barth, Bonhoeffer, or Buber. At the center of the great creeds are confessions uttered by devout and pious Christians and also by atheists and agnostics; Jesus was “crucified under Pontius Pilate, dead, and buried.” Christian faith, dogmatics, and all forms of theology are founded on real secular history. Far too often theologians, and biblical scholars are retreating faithlessly behind rhetorical criticism to speak about a Jesus that is safe and sound behind the borders of redacted stories.219 Surely those (Christians and Jews) who disparage the specialists devoted to historical research are faithless to the claims codified in Scripture and all Christian creeds. To argue that Jesus is married to the Church and cannot therefore be married to Mary Magdalene misses a major theological insight. The one who imagines such an idea is entrapped by false dichotomies. Both are possible, theologically. Within the world of Early Judaism many Jewish followers of Jesus would have been attracted to the perception that Jesus was fully a fleshly male and united in love with a woman who loved God with all her heart and mind and soul: even as he is the one who may eventually be perceived as being married to the “Church” being called into existence by God. There is no reason to suggest that Jesus and Magdalene loved each other at the expense of their love for the Father. Love of God usually enhances love of the one special to you. Postscriptum. Not discussed so far is the Johannine account of Mary and Jesus (12:1–8). What is reported may make best sense in a betrothal meal. Note the four elements in the story that suggest we are reading an edited version of a marriage scene. First, women are not usually included in meals, except for family festivals, especially weddings. While Martha served, Mary is present. “Who is this Mary?” The text has no “Mary of Bethany.” That is a modern construct. “Was the account originally a wedding?” Second, the man customarily reclines and the wife sits at his feet. Mary is portrayed at Jesus’ feet (12:3). “Is the story an edited account of Jesus’ wedding?” Third, Mary lets her hair fall; that is shocking within Early Judaism (recall the use of Sitis’ hair in the Testament of Job). In public, an attractive young woman usually wore her hair in braids, as for example the dark braided hair near the skull of the young woman found at Masada. Fourth, a wedding may be implied by the sexual overtones of the story. These would not be lost on early Jewish readers of John, especially when Mary wipes Jesus’ feet with her hair. Feet,220 like hands,221 can be euphemisms for the phallus. The action would not fit the customs for conservative Jews according to the Mishnah, but then Jesus was probably a liberal Jew and Magdalene, if she is hidden behind the Mary of Bethany Story, would not necessarily be a young virgin. What is the possible meaning of a story in which Jesus is associated with a woman (not clearly related to him) who lets her hair down in a family setting, anoints his feet with nard (cf. Song 1:12), and wipes his feet with her hair? Fehribach correctly perceives the intricacies of the Story: “A solution to this representation exists, however, if the scenario were read as a betrothal dinner given within a family context.”222 Jesus’ family is clearly present in the Cana story (esp. in light of the variant in Sinaiticus).



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If the account of Mary of Bethany and Jesus reflects an editing of a betrothal meal, we should not assume that a Mary other than Magdalene was the one being married to Jesus. The account may have been transferred from a betrothal meal between Jesus and Magdalene to another woman named Mary. The name “Mary” dominates in the gospels that were written after Jesus had died. “What does that add to the proceeding reflections?” Again we perceive that history cannot be written without imagination, and imagining a marriage in Cana in the twenties CE is guided by a lot of data that is sometimes contradictory and almost always opaque. To object that Jesus could not have had carnal relations with Mary Magdalene or been married to her misses the sanctity of the body, sex, and marriage so regnant in Second Temple Judaism. Such contentions are also disobedient to the command given to Adam (male and female) and Noah with his sons and to all who descend from them: “Be fruitful and multiply” (Gen 1:28; 9:1). We have seen that it is “conceivable” that Jesus was married, perhaps to Magdalene. If so, many Christians will feel a deeper kinship with Jesus since they also thirst, get tired, cry, and have blood that flows when cut; and, moreover, they are pleased to know that their Lord also had sexual desires and that they should not be deemed despicable on account of a natural urge. Now, is it conceivable that the Fourth Evangelist, especially in the Cana story, has edited a narrative about Jesus’ marriage? Let the reader decide.

Notes 1 See the evidence provided by Ariel Sabar in “The Unbelievable Tale of Jesus’s Wife,” The Atlantic (July/August 2016); see http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ archive/2016/07/the-unbelievable-tale-of-jesus-wife/485573/?utm_source=fbia. 2 See especially the following publications: M. Arminger, Die verratene Päpstin: Maria Magdalena, Freundin und Geliebte Jesu, Magierin der Zeitenwende (Munich: List, 1997); R. Atwood, Mary Magdalene in the New Testament Gospels and Early Tradition (Bern: Peter Lang, 1993); E. de Boer, Mary Magdalene: Beyond the Myth, trans. J. Bowden (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1997); J. Dillenberger, “The Magdalene: Reflections on the Image of the Saint and Sinner in Christian Art,” in Women, Religion, and Social Change (ed. Y. Y. Haddad et al.; Albany: SUNY Press, 1985), pp. 115–45; M. S. Gmehling, Die Sünderin: Eine Studie über die Hl. Maria Magdalena (Lauerz: Theresia-Verlag, 1996); S. Haskins, Mary Magdalen (London: HarperCollins, 1993); I. Maisch, Mary Magdalene, trans. L. Moloney (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998); M. M. Malvern, Venus in Sackcloth: The Magdalene’s Origins and Metamorphoses (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1975); V. Regina, Maria Maddalena nella storia, nella legenda e nelle arti figurative della provincial di Trapani (Alcamo: V. Regina, 1993); C. Ricci, Maria di Magdala e le molte altre: Donne sul cammino di Gesú (Naples: M. D’Auria, 1991); M. R. Thompson, Mary Magdala: Apostle and Leader (New York: Paulist Press, 1995); R. Wind, Maria aus Nazareth, aus Bethanien, aus ­Magdala (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1996); S. Schneiders, “John 20.11-18: The Encounter of the Easter Jesus with Mary Magdalene,” in “What is John?,” 2 vols. (ed. F. F. Segovia; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996) 1:155–68. Also see the numerous ­publications that follow. My focus is on John, archaeology, and early Jewish texts; I do not presume to have read carefully all the books mentioned in this note.

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3 S. Haskins, Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor (London: HarperCollins, 1993), pp. 399–400, urges us to lose the Magdalene myth because it denigrates her: “The true Mary Magdalene has much to offer when freed from the restrictions which gender bias has imposed upon her. Symbolism has done her an injustice; modern scholarship has made restitution possible.” It is the latter area that I will be exploring: the scholarly freedom to explore questions. 4 See E. K. Solvang, A Woman’s Place Is in the House: Royal Women of Judah and Their Involvement in the House of David (JSOTSup 349; London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003) see especially p. 173. The royal women of Judah, while defined in relation to men, often acted autonomously and were powerful. 5 I am aware that some popular books assume that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married. I choose not to discuss them now. Many authors have assumed that they were married; that is nothing new, especially in popular portraits of Jesus. My exploration is different; it assumes only the proper method for exploring the world behind the traditions that have become canonized as gospels. Unfortunately, D. Brown’s book, The Da Vinci Code: A Novel (New York: Doubleday, 2003), has tended to caricature serious scholarly research on the possible relation between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Brown’s work is a novel, as he clarifies in the subtitle. Brown has written a suspenseful narrative that features brilliant use of symbols, intricate codes cleverly broken, tantalizing foreshadowing, and attractively brief chapters. I did not read the book until the present work had been completed since I did not want open inquiry, guided by the highest canons of historical research, to be influenced by novelistic speculations. With Brown, I am convinced there is far more truth than theologians admit in Teabing’s claim: “Since the days of Constantine, the Church has successfully hidden the truth about Mary Magdalene and Jesus” (Brown, The Da Vinci Code, p. 407). 6 Perhaps the first scholar to argue consistently that Jesus was married was a male, ­William E. Phipps; see his Was Jesus Married? (New York and London: Harper & Row, 1970). 7 See my earlier explorations in Jesus within Judaism: New Light from Exciting Archaeological Discoveries (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1988). 8 See V. Saxer, Le culte de Marie Madeleine en Occident (Paris: Clavreuil, 1959). 9 See G. Clar, Women in Late Antiquity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 140. 10 E. Käsemann claimed that John was naïvely docetic. That may be clear in a putative first edition, but the present version has verses like 1:14a that stress Jesus was certainly a fleshy person. For Käsemann to claim that the Evangelist went on to stress that we saw only his “glory” (1:14b) misses the clear meaning of the verse and sounds like special pleading for an exegesis that began by starting with chapter 17, which is most likely a redacted chapter. See Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus (trans. G. Krodel; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968). 11 The pseudepigraphon seems to be originally Jewish. Thus, the removal of explicit sexual descriptions in some Greek manuscripts, such as Joseph placing his hands between Aseneth’s breasts, may be due to transmission by Christian scribes. R. S. Kraemer, “Recycling Aseneth,” in Recycling Biblical Figures (ed. A. Brenner and J. Willem van Henten; Studies in Theology and Religion 1; Leiden: Deo, 1999), p. 263, is now convinced that “all versions of the story” are the “product of Christian authorship.” Kraemer’s argument seems strange considering the concerns of the book (esp. why Joseph could marry the daughter of an Egyptian priest) and the impossibility of distinguishing Jewish from “Christian” elements in early pseudepigrapha. See also R. S. Kraemer, When Aseneth Met Joseph (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998).



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12 Augustine, City of God 14.19,21. See the discussion by L. S. Cahill in Sexuality and the Sacred (ed. J. B. Nelson and S. P. Longfellow; Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1994) especially pp. 20–21. 13 Tertullian concluded his “On Exhortation to Chastity,” by arguing that those who wish to return to Paradise should avoid the act that caused the expulsion from Paradise. 14 See A. T. Mann and J. Lyle, Sacred Sexuality (Rockport, MA: Element Books, Inc., 1995) especially p. 6. 15 See P. Brown, Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), pp. 388–89. 16 Note the contributions to Women in the Ancient World: The Arethusa Papers (ed. J. Peradotto and J. P. Sullivan; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984). 17 See the very popular book by S. Schroer and T. Staubli, Body Symbolism in the Bible (trans. L. M. Maloney; Collegeville, Minn.: The Liturgical Press, 2001). 18 A.-J. Levine, A Feminist Companion to John, 2 vols. (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003) 2:1. 19 For further reflections, see my “Polanyi, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, and the Foundation of Biblical Hermeneutics,” in Interpretation of the Bible, ed. J. Krašovec (Ljubljana: Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti and Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), pp. 1531–56. 20 As important and influential as feminist hermeneutics has been both to open our eyes to the misleading presuppositions of male-dominated exegesis and to the complex social world of Early Judaism, sometimes a feminist interpretation has been more deductive than inductive. We dare not confuse an interrogative with a postulation. For example, while I admire her erudition and focus, I am convinced that Jane Schaberg’s agenda mars her methodology; see J. Schaberg, The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987). Schaberg admits (on p. 193) that apparently no early Christians understood the Infancy Narratives in the way she proposes, but this fact (and honest admission) does not vitiate her conclusions. Certainly, the kerygmatic force of the leaders in the Palestinian Jesus Movement shaped and created the Jesus traditions. The most h ­ eavily edited passages were those farthest removed from the events, that is, the Infancy ­Narratives. 21 M. Margulies, The Empathic Imagination (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Co., 1989), p. 107. 22 R.-L. Bruckberger’s Mary Magdalene (New York: Pantheon, 1953) is not only outdated; it is an imaginative biography uninformed of the primary data; see pp. 29–30. For example, he imagines Magdalene was a member of Herod’s court, and that she was about the same age as the city of Tiberias. That city was founded shortly after 18 CE, thus making Magdalene less than 10 when Jesus began his ministry. 23 The Old Testament Apocrypha (consult the NRSV), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (as edited in two vols. by J. H. Charlesworth), Dead Sea Scrolls (esp. the vols. in the Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project), and the Greek New Testament and related documents. 24 I am influenced by the reflections of Eva T. H. Brann in The World of the Imagination (Savage, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Pub., 1991) especially pp. 40–41. 25 I am developing some thoughts that arose from reading M. Fishbane, The Exegetical Imagination on Jewish Thought and Theology (Cambridge, Mass. and London: ­Harvard University Press, 1998) see especially p. 2. For an examination of the rules for hermeneutical exegesis at Qumran (often misperceived as chaotic or free), see J. H. ­Charlesworth, The Pesharim and Qumran History (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002).

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26 J. Z. Smith, Imagining Religion (Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism; Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1982). 27 The work is pioneering and insightful, but marred by idiosyncrasies; see M. Carroll, Woman: in All Ages and in All Countries, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: The Rittenhouse Press, 1907–08). 28 See the discussion of Cleopatra in J. H. Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized (AYBRL; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010). 29 The analogical methodology suggested is shaped by reflections on J. Elkins thoughts in The Poetics of Perspective (Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press, 1994) see especially pp. 217–26. 30 As N. T. Wright states, the Gospels reflect not only the life of “the early church” but also the life of Jesus. See Wright, The Challenge of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1999), p. 56. 31 See especially L. Goodison and C. Morris, eds., Ancient Goddesses (London: British Museum Press, 1998). 32 See the images in M. Gimutas, The Language of the Goddess (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989) especially Plates 5, 49, 53, 252. 33 See especially B. Johnson, Lady of the Beasts (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1988). 34 R. Patai, The Hebrew Goddess (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990 [reprinted with a foreword by Merlin Stone]). 35 In Goodison and C. Morris, eds., Ancient Goddesses, pp. 83–97. 36 See E. Schüssler Fiorenza, “Women in Judaism Before 70 C.E.: Perspectives,” in In Memory of Her (New York: Crossroad, 1987), pp. 106–10; the quotation is from p. 107. 37 B. Greenberg explains how she has found full equality today within Judaism by studying the ancient traditions; see her On Women and Judaism: A View from Tradition (Philadelphia, Jerusalem: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1981). I do not wish to generalize from my decades of living in Germany and Israel, but I do wish to share my disappointment of how sometimes German men fail to treat their wives equally and how so often, especially in Jerusalem among the university educated populace, Jewish males honor their wives as fully equal. An economic factor may also be evident, since in Germany the men usually have all the wealth, while in Jerusalem the women sometimes have more income. 38 The problem with women’s impurity and menstruation is complex, since neither the Tanakh (esp. Leviticus 12 and 15) nor Josephus provides information that helps us comprehend the rule and regulations for purification after childbirth and monthly menstruation. The Mishnah does require women to immerse themselves after menstruation (m. Mikwaot 8:1, 5). I agree with E. P. Sanders that such regulations were not representative of only one sect or group but were widely practiced in pre-70 CE Jewish circles. See Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah (London: SCM; ­Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990), p. 143. 39 Within Early Judaism there were no hetairai that so markedly shaped Greek and Roman culture; these “men companions” were adored for erotic and intellectual powers. The famous Aspasia began as a hetairai and was adored by Pericles, who admired her many skills. Socrates brought students to this woman who was admired as a teacher of rhetoric (see Plutarch, Pericles 34). See the insightful discussion of Aspasia by S. B. Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives, & Slaves (London: Pimlico, 1975), pp. 88–90.



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40 See N. Lewis, ed., The Documents from the Bar Kokhba Period in the Cave of Letters: Greek Papyri (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and the Hebrew University of ­Jerusalem, 1989), pp. 1–134. In a kethubba the woman gives her Hebrew and Greek names (“Salome also called Komaïs”); she has “the right of execution . . . upon all (?) his validly held possessions everywhere” (Greek p. 131; translation p. 132). The document also implies that the couple has been living together already. 41 S. Blundell perceives that women in fifth century Athens were liminal; they were needed for democracy, but they “were excluded from its institutions” and “did not enjoy full citizenship.” Blundell, Women in Ancient Greece (London: British Museum Press, 1995) p. 119. One might add that some women did study in Plato’s Academy, but one of them, Axiothea of Phlius, dressed as a man (Diogenes Laertius 3.46). In the Hellenistic period, women in Greece and the Greek world tended to have more status and opportunities than earlier, but women were not considered equal to men. For such changing roles of women in the Greek world, see E. Fantham, H. P. Foley, N. B. Kampen, S. B. Pomeroy, and H. A. Shapiro, Women in the Classical World (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994). 42 So J. Schaberg, “New Testament: The Case of Mary Magdalene,” in Feminist Approaches to the Bible, ed. H. Shanks (Washington: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1995), p. 77. 43 Helpful are the traditions focused on wise women collected by D. B. Gold and L. Stein in From the Wise Women of Israel: Folklore and Memoirs (New York: Biblio Press, 1995). 44 B. Witherington is convinced that one of the opportunities afforded to women by Jesus was the chance to teach others beyond children. See Witherington, Women in the Ministry of Jesus (SNTSMS 51; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 128. 45 See the judicious reflections by R. S. Kraemer in Her Share of the Blessings: Women’s Religions among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 138. 46 D. M. Smith, The Theology of the Gospel of John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 44. 47 For a popular treatment of these additions to Jesus’ life by many early “Christians,” see B. Pick, The Extracanonical Life of Christ (New York and London: Fund & Wagnalls, 1903). 48 The Pilate Cycle only recycles what was known about Magdalene from the intracanonical Gospels. See especially “The Letter of Tiberius to Pilate,” in The Apocryphal New Testament (ed. J. K. Elliott; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), p. 225. 49 See Elliott, The Apocryphal New Testament, p. 700. 50 In terms of the paradise myth, see Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent. Jesus’ statement that Magdalene must become male before she enters the kingdom of heaven (Gospel of Thomas Log. 114) may mean that a woman must reenter the source of her being, Adam, so that she can return to her origins. 51 Nota bene that in the Gospel of Philip “a kiss” is defined as the means by which “the perfect conceive and give birth” (GosPh 59), and the “reason we also kiss one another.” Hence, the sexual nature of “kiss” is shifted to the spiritual plane. One can only wonder about the origins of the tradition about Magdalene kissing Jesus. Did the kiss earlier signify a sexual relation between Magdalene and Jesus? 52 See LSJM, pp. 969–70. 53 The Coptic verb also means “be doubled,” and can denote “be in fellowship of marriage”; see W. E. Crum, A Coptic Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1939), p. 726.

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54 For the Coptic (by B. Layton) and English translation (by W. W. Isenberg), see The Coptic Gnostic Library (Leiden: Brill, 2000) 2:158–59. 55 See E. Hennecke, New Testament Apocrypha (ed. W. Schneemelcher; trans. and ed. R. McL. Wilson; London: Lutterworth Press, 1963) 1:343. For the Coptic and an English translation of the Gospel of Mary, see J. M. Robinson, ed., The Coptic Gnostic Library, 3:454–71. 56 As E. Pagels demonstrated, the rivalry between Peter and Mary Magdalene preserved in these gospels reveals the struggles for power among ecclesiastical institutions in the early centuries. Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels (New York: Random House, 1979) see especially pp. 64–65. 57 For a brief survey, see M. R. Thompson, Mary of Magdala (New York: Paulist Press, 1995), pp. 96–103. 58 E. de Boer does provide a good summary of how Mary was defined by Magdala; however, her knowledge of archaeological excavations at Magdala is frequently out-ofdate. For example, she is misled in thinking a synagogue was discovered at Magdala before 1995 (one was found more recently; see the next chapter); see Thompson’s impressive Mary Magdalene, pp. 21–31. 59 For Galilee during the time of Jesus, see especially S. Freyne, Galilee (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1980) and ibidem, Galilee and Gospel (WUNT 125; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000). 60 H. Dudman imagines touring Galilee with Magdalene who appears to her. Dudman, Galilee Revisited with Mary Magdalene (Jerusalem: Carta, 2000). 61 Mk 16:9 is a late addition to Mark that is influenced by the Lucan account. 62 J. A. Fitzmyer, The Gospel According to Luke I-IX (AB; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1981), p. 695. 63 Carroll, Woman: in All Ages and All Countries, 1:viii. 64 On prostitution in the Greek world, see H. Licht, “Prostitution,” Sexual Life in Ancient Greece (London: The Abbey Library, 1932 [1971]), pp. 329–410. On prostitution in Judaism, see E. E. Urbach, The Sages (trans. I. Abrahams; Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1979), pp. 97, 168, 479, 485, 549. 65 See especially E. Moltmann-Wendel, “Mary Magdalene,” in The Women Around Jesus (trans. J. Bowden; London: SCM Press, 1982), pp. 61–90. 66 See especially the following Scrolls: The Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20), the Prayer of Nabonides (4Q242), and Resurrection (or the Messianic Apocalypse; 4Q521). Also see the Songs of the Master (4Q510-511), Non-Masoretic Psalms (11QPsa = 11Q6), A Liturgy for Healing the Stricken (11QpsApa = 11Q11), and the Damascus Document Fragments (4QDa = 4Q266). 67 I refer to the well-known episode in which Apollonius orders a demon to leave a sick boy, and to prove to all present that he has exited by knocking over a sculpture in the distance. 68 See the recent study by E. Eve entitled The Jewish Context of Jesus’ Miracles (JSNTSup 231; London and New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002). 69 See especially E. de Boer, Mary Magdalene—Beyond the Myth (trans. J. Bowden; London: SCM, 1997), p. 15. 70 C. Ricci offers the valid supposition that Magdalene had suffered some psychic disorder. See Ricci, Mary Magdalene and Many Others: Women who Followed Jesus (trans. P. Burns; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994), pp. 135–37. 71 J. and C. Grassi rightly point out that Mary Magdalene and Jesus’ mother should be admired together. See their popular Mary Magdalene and the Women in Jesus’ Life (Kansas City: Sheed & Ward, 1986).



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72 See y. Taan 69a. The place, Magdala, may also be called “Migdal Seb‘ayah,” which is Semitic for “Dyer’s Tower.” 73 Consult the Midrash on Lamentations 2.2 and 11.2. 74 There is no entry for Migdala in The New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations in the Holy Land (1933). See, however, M. Aviam, “Migdala,” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Archaeology in the Near East 3.399–400 (see esp. the publications by Corbo, Loffreda, Manns, and Meshorer, and the following note) and A. Negev and S. Gibson, eds., Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land (New York, London: Continuum, 2001), p. 307. 75 I am grateful to Stefano De Luca for years of being with him in Migdal (sometimes helping with excavations) and to Dina Avshalom-Gorni and A. Najjar for visits with them in the synagogue as it was being unearthed. Josephus’ fortifications are also visible (they are not a dam as some have speculated). I am appreciative to M. ZapataMeza of the University of Anáhuac México for discussion of his area in Migdal. See especially the following: R. Bauckham and S. De Luca “Magdala as We Now Know It,” Early Christianity 6 (2015): 91–118. M. H. Jesen, “Magdala/Taricheae and the Jewish Revolt,” in Magdala, Jewish City of Fish (ed. M. Aviam, R. Bauckham and S. De Luca; Waco, Tex: Baylor University Press, 2016). 76 I earlier claimed that Mary Magdalene “was born in Magdala”; now I am persuaded she is associated with Magdala and may have been born elsewhere. See J. H. Charlesworth, “Magdala,” The Millennium Guide for Pilgrims to the Holy Land (North Richland Hills, TX: BIBAL Press, 2000), pp. 166–69. 77 See b. Pesahim 46a. Rabbinic tradition (as with some Christian sources) confused Mary, Jesus’ mother, with Mary Magdalene and identified the latter as a hairdresser, which is megaddela (b. Hagiga 4b). 78 Josephus, Strabo, Pliny, and Suetonius prefer the Greek name. 79 See S. Mason, ed., Flavius Josephus (Leiden: Brill, 2001) 9:81. 80 See the insightful discussion of Tamar and Judah by L. L. Bronner in From Eve to Esther: Rabbinic Reconstructions of Biblical Women (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), pp. 151–56. 81 It is uncertain what is meant in Rabbinics by dubbing Magdala as a place of the guilty; cf. j.Berakot 9:14a; Bereshit Rabbah 13:15; Midrash on Lamentations 11.2. We know so little about Magdala during the time of Jesus that it is best neither to use later Rabbinics to suggest Mary Magdalene was morally corrupt nor to dismiss rabbinic comments as carrying “no weight whatsoever” as does R. Atwood in Mary Magdalene in the New Testament Gospels and Early Tradition (European University Studies Series 223; vol. 457; Bern, Berlin, and New York: Peter Lang, 1993), p. 26. A lack of open inquiry, in the dim light of ancient sources, is refracted in Atwood’s claim: “Any reference, however, to a reflection of her [Mary Magdalene’s] character simply on the grounds of her coming originally from Magdala must be avoided” (p. 26). The exploration of Magdalenenfragen should be unfettered not only from dogmatics but also from antidogmatics. 82 Pope Gregory I in the early seventh century CE argued for just such an identification. In 1517, J. Lefèvre d’Étaples, a Protestant humanist, in De Maria Magdalena, triduo Christi, et ex tribus vna Maria Disceptatio argued that the anonymous woman who was a sinner (Lk 7:37-39), the sister of Martha (Jn 11:2), and Mary Magdalene were three different women. On November 9, 1522, amidst the Reformation, the Sorbonne affirmed Gregory’s teachings and condemned Lefèvre. The early scholars of the Church did not propose any connection; see the discussion by Atwood, Mary Magdalene, pp. 147–59. 83 See E. de Boer, Mary Magdalene, pp. 23 and 30.

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84 See especially Schaberg, “How Mary Magdalene Became a Whore,” Bible Revue 8 (1992): 32 and A. G. Brock, Mary Magdalene, The First Apostle (Harvard Theological Studies 51; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 32–36. 85 Sanders’ publications are usually seminal; he is one of the leading lights in Jesus Research. The most controversial aspect of his portrayal of Jesus is his argument that “Jesus proclaimed that the wicked (at least those who accepted him) would be included in the kingdom. His message apparently did not require them to make restitution and repentance in accordance with the law” (p. 282). Sanders continues: “There is a puzzle with regard to Jesus’ view of the sinners: we do not know just how he expected them to live after their acceptance of his message” (p. 283). Surely, the sinners called by Jesus did not continue in their evil ways; the Hebrew word for “repentance” (teshubah) may represent later rabbinic theology, but the biblical Hebrew word shuv, means to “turn” from evil ways to God’s way. Not all Jesus’ sayings regarding “repentance” are clearly later redactions by the Evangelists. See Sanders, Jesus and Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985). Also see B. D. Chilton’s critique of Sanders in “Jesus and the Repentance of E. P. Sanders,” Tyndale Bulletin 39 (1988): 1–18. 86 Cf. Oribasius, Collectiones Medicae 7.327, line 1 in U. C. Bussemaker and Ch. Daremberg, trans., Oeuvres d’Oribase, 5 vols. (Paris: L’Imprimerie Nationale, 1851–58) 1:536. Oribasius (c. 320–400 CE) excerpted Galen (who cited Epicurus) and others. I am indebted for these citations to C. Osiek and D. L. Balch, Families in the New Testament World (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), p. 256. 87 Celsus, De medicina 1.1.4. 88 Soranus, Gynecology 1.7.30–32. 89 Galen, “Concerning Sperm,” in Oribasius, Collectiones Medicae 22.2 in Bussemaker and Daremberg, trans., Oeuvres d’Oribase, 3:40–52. 90 Consult especially N. Baumert, Woman and Man in Paul: Overcoming a Misunderstanding (trans. P. Madigan and L. M. Maloney; Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1996); see especially p. 477. 91 Stegemann proceeds to argue that the Essenes thus did marry. They married young women, and many of these may have died in childbirth. When this happened the Essenes knew that they were forbidden to remarry, since they strictly interpreted Gen 6:18; 7; 13; Dt 17:17 (cf. the Temple Scroll); etc. This may apply to some Essenes who joined the Community at Qumran, but Stegemann may have erred by thinking about uniformity within Early Judaism. That almost all Jews obeyed the commandment to marry also means some did not. The Rule of the Community implies that the Community is for men alone, and Dame Folly and Lady Wisdom indicates a deep misogynistic element within the Essene Community. Perhaps the Essenes who did not marry were keeping themselves pure for the holy war (War Scroll) as is well known in the holy war code preserved in Torah and brought home in the report that Uriah would not enter into his own home, let alone lie with his wife, because he was engaged in war. Yet, see the creative reflections by Stegemann, “Heirat, Familie und Erziehung,” in Die Essener, Qumran, Johannes der Täufer und Jesus (Freiburg: Herder, 1993), pp. 267–74. 92 Another exception proves the rule that Jews almost always married. It is Simeon ben Azzai, who prospered in the early second century CE (b. Yoma 63b). He was married only to Torah. 93 See especially J. Zias in Jesus and Archaeology (ed. J. H. Charlesworth; Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2006). 94 See J. H. Charlesworth, “John the Baptizer and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, 3:1–35.



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95 See J. H. Charlesworth, “From the Philopedia of Jesus to the Misopedia of the Acts of Thomas,” in By Study and also by Faith [Nibley Festschrift] (ed. J. M. Lundquist and S. D. Ricks; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1990), pp. 46–66. Also see especially H. Preisker, Christentum und Ehe in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Neue Studien zur Geschichte der Theologie und der Kirche 23; Berlin: Trowitzsch, 1927). 96 J. Murphy-O’Connor, “A Married Man,” Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 62–65. 97 See C. Osiek and D. L. Balch, Families in the New Testament World (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997), p. 150. I am grateful to J. Welch for drawing my attention to Osiek and Balch. 98 See M. De Jonge, et al., eds., The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Critical Edition of the Greek Text (PVTG I.2; Leiden: Brill, 1978), p. 7. 99 Consult C. Seltman, Women in Antiquity (London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1956) see especially pp. 138–41. 100 K. D. Sakenfeld discusses the sociological setting and narrative context of eleven prominent wives described in Hebrew Scriptures. See her Just Wives? (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003). 101 J. P. Gardner, Women in Roman Law and Society (London: Routledge, 1986), p. 257. 102 In the Life of Adam and Eve, Eve is given a prominent role; but she succumbs again to the words of Satan. Philo also portrayed Eve pejoratively and argued that immorality is caused by sexual desire. See K. E. Kvam, L. S. Schearing, and V. H. Ziegler, eds., Eve & Adam (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1999) especially pp. 41–42. 103 See especially L. I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2000), C. Claußen, Versammlung, Gemeinde, Synagoge (SUNT 27; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999). 104 A similar view is espoused by J. E. S­ tambaugh and D. L. Balch, The New Testament in its Social Environment ­(Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986), p. 106. 105 For Jesus’ eschatology, see D. C. Allison, Jr., “The Eschatology of Jesus,” in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism (ed. J. J. Collins; New York: Continuum, 1999), pp. 167–302; for the millenarian dimensions of the Palestinian Jesus Movement, see R. Scroggs, “The Earliest Christian Communities as Sectarian Movement,” in Christianity, Judaism and Other Greco-Roman Cults [Morton Smith Festschrift] (ed. J. Neusner; Leiden: Brill, 1975) 2:1–23; See also B. Holmberg, “Early Christianity as a Millenarian Sect,” Sociology and the New Testament (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), pp. 77–117. 106 F.C. Bauer, Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonische Evangelien (Tübingen: F. L. Fues, 1847), pp. 137–38. 107 See A. Schweitzer, Quest of the Historical Jesus (London: A. and C. Black, 1966 [reprint of the 1910 edition], p. 503, note 21. 108 See, for example, R. Funk, Honest to Jesus: Jesus for a New Millennium (New York: HarperCollins, 1996), p. 127. 109 J. D. G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making 1; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), p. 41. My comments certainly do not disparage the wonderful and brilliant work Dunn is publishing. 110 See especially the SBL Group on John and the publications by Paul Anderson and the proceedings of the Princeton-Prague Symposium at Princeton in the Spring of 2016; J. H. Charlesworth with J. G. R. Pruszinski, eds., Jesus Research: The Gospel of John in Historical Inquiry. The Third Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research, Princeton 2016 (forthcoming).

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111 See my “The Gospel of John: Exclusivism Caused by a Social Setting Different from That of Jesus (John 11:54 and 14:6),” in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel (ed. R. Bieringer et al.; Assen: Royal Van Gorcum, 2001), pp. 479–513. 112 R. E. Brown, “Roles of Women in the Fourth Gospel,” TS 36 (1975): 688–99; reprinted in Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), pp. 183–98. 113 Stegemann and Stegemann, The Jesus Movement: A Social History of its First Century, trans. O. C. Dean, Jr. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1999), p. 388. 114 A. Reinhartz, “Women in the Johannine Community: An Exercise in Historical Imagination,” in A Feminist Companion to John, 2:14–33. I am of the opinion, from studying the use of Ioudaioi in John, that the Johannine narrative does have two horizons: that of the narrative and that of the Johannine Community. So, I would tend to side with Martyn, Brown, and Reinhartz. 115 See D. L. Dungan, A History of the Synoptic Problem (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1999) especially pp. 198–200. 116 See especially E. Kraeling, The Old Testament Since the Reformation (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1955), pp. 51–54. 117 F. C. Baur, The Church History of the First Three Centuries (3rd ed.; trans. A. Menzies; London: Williams and Norgate, 1878) vol. 1, pp. 153–83. 118 See especially the books by R. E. Brown and J. L. Martyn. 119 See my The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John? 120 Levine, A Feminist Companion to John, 1:1. 121 See the discussion in S. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1999), pp. 275–78. 122 In his massive Das Leben Jesu im Zeitalter der neutestamentlichen Apokryphen (Tübingen: Mohr, 1909), W. Bauer discusses Marcion of Sinope (c. 70–150 CE) and Docetism, but he scarcely mentions Jesus’ possible illegitimacy; see, however, p. 34. On Marcion, see especially B. Aland, “Marcion (ca. 85–160)/ Marcioniten,” TRE 22.1 (1992): 89–101; and especially R. J. Hoffmann, Marcion (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1984). 123 Note in particular the stunning omission of Joseph in Mk 6:3; also see the allusions to Jesus’ illegitimacy in the Gospel of Thomas 105 (“the son of the harlot” is apparently Jesus [cf. Gospel of Thomas 61:3 and 101:3]) and the late Acts of Pilate 2:3 (probably dependent on Matthew and John). See the Tannaitic references to Yeshu ben Pantiri (viz. in y. Shabbat 14d; y. Abodah Zarah 27b; cf. m. Yebam 4.13) and a “son of Stada” (viz. in b. Shabbat 104b; b. Sanhedrin 67a). Also see the discussions of these rabbinic passages by Schaberg, The Illegitimacy of Jesus, pp. 145–72. Also see E. Stauffer, Jesus, Gestalt und Geschichte (Bern: Francke, 1957), pp. 22ff. 124 See Urbach, The Sages, p. 637. 125 W. Meeks, “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism,” JBL 91 (1972): 44–72; republished in The Interpretation of John (ed. J. Ashton; Issues in Religion and Theology 9; Philadelphia: Fortress, 186), pp. 141–73. 126 J. K. B. Maclean argues that the central action in the Cana story “consists of a trick,” and Jesus is a “trickster figure.” See her “The Divine Trickster: A Tale of Two Weddings in John,” A Feminist Companion to John, vol. 1, pp. 48–77. 127 Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), p. 223. 128 von Wahlde, The Gospel and Letters of John, 2:82. 129 A. Fehribach, “The ‘Birthing’ Bridegroom: The Portrayal of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel,” in A Feminist Companion to John, 2:104–29; the quotation is on p. 104. Also see Fehribach, The Women in the Life of the Bridegroom (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998).



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130 R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (Anchor Bible; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966 and London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1971) 1:xxxiv–xxxix. 131 C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965), p. 225. In The Gospel of John, Bultmann rightly argues that the Cana story is “an epiphany miracle,” but he errs in failing to comprehend the Jewishness of John: “There can be no doubt that the story has been taken over from heathen legend and ascribed to Jesus. In fact the motif of the story, the changing of the water to wine, is a typical motif of the Dionysus legend” (pp. 118–19). 132 On the Gospel of John Tractate 8.4; see Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7, p. 58. 133 Ibid., Tractate 9.2; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7, p. 63. 134 Calvin, The Gospel According to St. John, p. 81. 135 E. Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus (trans. G. Krodel; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968) and Käsemann, “The Structure and Purpose of the Prologue to John’s Gospel,” New Testament Questions of Today (trans. W. J. Montague; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), pp. 138–67. 136 Bultmann, The Gospel of John, p. 119, n. 2. 137 J. P. Meier, “The Changing of Water into Wine at Cana (John 2:1-11),” in A Marginal Jew (ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 1994) 2:934–50; the quotation is from p. 949. 138 See the chapters in the present volume which deal with John and archaeology. 139 E. Haenchen, John 1, trans. R. W. Funk (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984), p. 177. 140 Homilies on St. John 22; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. 14, p. 77. 141 Bultmann, The Gospel of John, p. 117, n. 4. 142 We must be careful not to suggest that the First Jewish Revolt (66–73/4 CE) left massive destruction throughout Galilee and Judea. Only at Yotapata, Gamla, Qumran, and especially Jerusalem is there evidence of massive destruction from this revolt. At many places, especially Caesarea Maritima, Jaffa, Capernaum, Tiberias, and Sepphoris there was continuity of life and little, if any destruction. The revolt was not supported by all cities and villages. See the judicious report and reflections by M. Avi-Yonah, A History of the Holy Land (Jerusalem, 1969) especially p. 159. 143 See especially R. Deines, Jüdisches Steingefäße und pharisäische Frömmigkeit: Ein archäologisch-historischer Beitrag zum Verständnis von Joh 2,6 und der jüdischen Reinheitshalacha zur Zeit Jesu (WUNT 2:56; Tübingen: Mohr [Siebeck], 1993). 144 J. L. Reed highlights four indicators of Jewish religious concerns before 70 CE in Galilee: mikvaot (plastered pools for Jewish purification), secondary burials, bone profiles devoid of pork, and (most importantly to us now) stone or chalk vessels. See Reed, Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2000) especially see pp. 44–51. Also see J. D. Crossan and J. L. Reed, Excavating Jesus (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001). 145 The point I am striving to make is the astronomical difference between the cost of clay and stone vessels. Unlike the ceramic jars, the large stone ones demanded a massive and expensive lathe, skilled workmen, and an industrial urban site. The stone vessels also could not be rapidly manufactured. 146 See the discussion and bibliographical references in J. H. Charlesworth, “Jesus Research and Near Eastern Archaeology: Reflections on Recent Developments,” in Neotestamentica et Philonica: Studies in Honor of Peder Borgen, eds. D. E. Aune, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2003), pp. 37–70; see especially pp. 56–57. 147 I wish to express appreciations to P. Richardson and D. Edwards for numerous visits to Khirbet Cana and explorations of the area, including the synagogue.

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148 See the report by P. Richardson and D. Edwards in J. H. Charlesworth, ed., Jesus and Archaeology. 149 Dodd discerned pre-Johannine elements in the Cana story and conjectured that “the traditional nucleus of this pericopé may have been a parable, in which, as in other parables, the setting was a wedding feast.” Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, p. 227. I salute Dodd for his discernment of pre-Johannine traditions in the Cana story, and acknowledge the traditional links he sees between the Cana story and Jesus’ parables that feature a wedding (Mt 22:1–14; 25:1–13; Lk 12:35–36); but Dodd has not seen the force of his own observation that there is “no other narrative pericopé at all closely similar except that of the Feeding of the Multitude, especially in its Johannine version” (p. 223). Thus, the closest link between the Cana story and the Jesus traditions appears in his miracles; yet, the Cana story is hardly a typical miracle. Despite the comments by John Chrysostom, Augustine, and Calvin, and most modern commentators on John, Jesus simply does turn the water to wine. He does nothing to cause the water to become wine; thus, it is not easy for me to label the Cana story as one of Jesus’ miracles. We must look elsewhere than Jesus’ parables and miracles for discernment and insightful exegesis. We will find it in reflections on history in pre-70 CE Galilee. 150 A. Watson speculates that the source used by the Fourth Evangelist was “Jewish and anti-Christian” (p. 27). This is pure hypothesis, but Watson does raise a valid question: “Sooner than later, a guest would want to purify himself/herself with water. But there was no water in the jars. Who would be blamed? The bridegroom inevitably” (p. 26). Jesus was most likely dead set against the priests’ raising of the requirements of purification; that does not make him, however, “anti-Christian” (and this term is certainly not appropriate before 70 CE). See Watson, “The Wedding Feast at Cana,” Jesus and the Jews (Athens, GA and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1995), pp. 18–28. For an important book on Jesus and Jewish purity laws, see T. Kazen, Jesus and Purity Halakhah (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2002). 151 Jesus was not invited to his own wedding; the Evangelist’s editing is obvious to me. 152 As the ending clarifies, the core of the Cana story most likely mentioned Jesus’ brothers being present at the feast. 153 Changing of a verb’s number would be an easy task for an editor. The de with the kai at the beginning of v. 2 is problematic; hence, it was removed by some earlier scribes (as esp. in P66). Perhaps the kai was original to the source, connecting Jesus with his mother and the de was added to distinguish them from the disciples. Suffice it to clarify that the core does not reflect the skilled writing of the Fourth Evangelist. 154 The adverb “fully” brings out the aorist meaning of the verb. 155 Or “fill completely” to bring out the aorist meaning of the verb. 156 The prevalence of “and” and the indefinite pronoun indicate a Semitic source. 157 The Greek architriklinos does not mean “steward of the feast”; it means the head waiter or butler. The event is a wedding not the seven-day feast that followed it (Gn 29:27; Jg 14:12). The wedding feast could consume 14 days (cf. Tob 8:20). Given the opulence found by archaeologists in pre-70 CE Migdal and Yotapata, wealthy “waiters” would be hired by Jews. 158 The present is almost always translated as a past tense; see Brown, The Gospel According to John, 1:97. 159 I am focusing on a source that lies behind John. I am not seeking to explore Bultmann’s source theory. I am convinced the Fourth Evangelist used sources; I doubt anyone would deny that fact. Surely E. Schweitzer and E. Ruckstuhl have proved that one cannot discern the Evangelist’s sources by focusing on linguistic features and style.



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160 See Bultmann, The Gospel of John, p. 118, n. 5. 161 J. Painter, The Quest for the Messiah (2nd ed.; Nashville: Abingdon, 1993), p. 189. 162 J. D. M. Derrett, Law in the New Testament (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1970), pp. 237–38; also see Derrett, “Water into Wine,” BZ 17 (1963): 80–97. 163 This is true of Augustine and Calvin; note also John Chrysostom: “Christ made the water wine . . . Jesus made of water wine.” Homilies on St. John 22.3; Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers vol. 14, p. 78. 164 U. C. von Wahlde noted that the guest in charge of the dinner “seems to talk with the bridegroom on familiar terms.” See his marvelous The Gospel and Letters of John, 2:84. Who is the bridegroom? 165 For a discussion that Jesus’ mother was at the wedding because a friend or family member was being married, see A. Wikenhauser, Das Evangelium nach Johannes (Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1957 [2nd ed.]), p. 73. 166 Smith, John, p. 82. 167 The variant readings are neatly presented by R. J. Swanson, ed., John: New Testament Greek Manuscripts (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press/Pasadena, Calif.: William Carey International University Press, 1995), p. 22. 168 I am indebted to D. M. Smith for drawing my attention to this text (italics mine). See C. D. G. Müller in ed. W. Schneemelcher, trans. R. M. Wilson, New Testament Apocrypha (Louisville: Westminster John Knox / London: James Clarke & Co., 1991) 1:253. 169 The author of a preface to St. Augustine’s writings seems to be the first exegete to suggest that the Cana story reports the wedding of John the Evangelist. The suggestion probably dates from the third century CE. Many other famous exegetes, like Bede in the seventh century, reiterated the same fanciful suggestion. See S. Haskins, Mary Magdalen: Myth and Metaphor, p. 158 and notes on p. 433. 170 J. Calvin, The Gospel According to St John (trans. T. H. L. Parker; Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1988), p. 45. 171 B. J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1981), p. 103. 172 I possess such a shield and will publish it in due time. I also possess Bar Kokhba coins, some with the face of Vespasian visible beneath the later stamping. 173 All quotations are from Bultmann, The Gospel of John, p. 115. With Bultmann, however, I find it “amusing” why scholars tried to estimate the speed that Jesus had been walking (p. 115, n. 2) and find no evidence that the “Evangelist John” left his own wedding to follow Jesus (p. 115, n. 3). 174 The most important early source is the Genesia Maria (the Protoevangelium Jocabi); also see the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, and Jerome. Also see A. van Aarde, Fatherless in Galilee (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 2001) and especially D. Capps, Jesus: A Psychological Biography (St Louis: Chalice Press, 2000) especially pp. 129ff. 175 B. Chilton, Rabbi Jesus (New York: Doubleday, 2000), p. 20. 176 See Strack-Billerbeck (1983 [8th ed.]) 2:373–74. 177 For a good summary of the rabbinic rules on engagement and marriage, see StrackBillerbeck (1983 [8th ed.]) 2:372–99. One should not use this monumental work as a guide to the texts cited. Also, the comments regarding the mamzer and kethubah need correcting and updating in light of recently published data (I do so in the present volume). 178 Note that the Arabic mahura denotes “to give a dowry.” 179 See the following publications: H. Baltensweilaer, Die Ehe im Neuen Testament (ATANT 52; Zürich: Zwingli-Verlag, 1967); G. Beer, Die soziale und religiöse Stellung

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der Frau im israelitischen Altertum (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1919); A. Brenner, The Israelite Woman (Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1985); M. Burrows, The Basis of Israelite Marriage (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938); W. G. Cole, Sex and Love in the Bible (New York: Association Press, 1959); R. F. Collins, “Marriage (NT),” ABD 4:569–72; A. Descamps, “Les texts évangeliques sur le marriage,” in Jesus et l’Église (BETL 77; Louvain: Peeters, 1978–80), pp. 510–83; J. Doller, Das Weib im Alten Testament (Münster: Aschendorff, 1920); K. Dronkert, Het huwelijk in het Oude Testament (Leiden: Sijthoff, 1957); L. M. Epstein, Marriage Laws in the Bible and the Talmud (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942); H. Greeven, “Ehe nach dem Neuen Testament,” NTS 15 (1968–69): 365–69; B. Maarsingh, Het huwelijk in het Oude Testament (Baarn: Basch & Keuning, 1963); V. P. Hamilton, “Marriage (OT and ANE),” ABD 5:559–69; D. R. Mace, Hebrew Marriage (London: Epworth, 1953); E. Neufeld, Ancient Hebrew Marriage Laws (London: Longmans, Green, 1944); R. Pati, Sex and Family in the Bible and the Middle East (New York: Doubleday, 1959); O. Piper, The Biblical View of Sex and Marriage (New York: Scribner’s, 1960). A good summary of marriage customs in Israel is provided by K. Roubos in The World of the Bible, edited by A. S. van der Woude, et al., trans. S. Woudstra (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986) 1:351–52. 180 H. Ewald, Die johanneischen Schriften (Göttingen: Dieterich, 1861) 1:145. 181 The Mishnah specifies the rights of father, bride, and bridegroom. See the discussion in J. Neusner, Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1981) especially pp. 116, 140. 182 In the story of Tobias, the wedding feast was also in the bride’s home, but that is because Tobias was far from his own house. See P. Deselaers, Das Buch Tobit (OBO 43; Freiburg: Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz and Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982), pp. 138–46. 183 As J. A. Fitzmyer states, the “bedroom” in the house is actually “the bridal chamber.” Fitzmyer, Tobit (Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature; Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 2003), p. 236. 184 Chilton, Rabbi Jesus, p. 183. 185 Nathanael is in center focus in Jn 1:46-51, which is immediately before the Cana story, but there is no evidence that a Nathanael tradition continues into 2:1-11. If Nathanael is the only disciple from Cana, and if the wedding is a report about a marriage of one of Jesus’ disciples, then it is conceivable that Nathanael is the bridegroom in 2:9. There are far too many presuppositions and unknowns to establish this possibility. Also, the Evangelist has left him at the Jordan. 186 P. M. J. Lagrange, Évangile selon Saint Jean (Etudes Bibliques; Paris: Lecoffre and Gabalda, 1925 [2nd ed.]), p. 55. 187 See J. H. Charlesworth, “Tzer, Bethsaida, and Julias,” in Bethsaida (ed. R. Arav and R. A. Freund; Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2004), pp. xi–xiii. 188 The Greek is ambiguous. We may be confronted with one name being in apposition to others. The Genitive, “Mary of Clopas,” can denote wife, sister, or daughter of Clopas. 189 R. Bauckham, Jude and the Relatives of Jesus in the Early Church (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1990), p. 16. 190 See the discussion in Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple. 191 D. M. Smith, John (Abingdon New Testament Commentaries; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1999). 192 See C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to John (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978 [2nd ed.]), p. 190.



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193 C. S. Keener, The Gospel of John (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003) 1:497. 194 R. Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to St John (trans. K. Smyth; New York: Crossroad, 1987) 1:325. 195 See J. H. Charlesworth, “Psychobiography: A New and Challenging Methodology in Jesus Research,” in Psychology and the Bible, eds. W. G. Rollins and J. H. Ellens (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2004) vol. 4, ch. 3. 196 The emphasis on darkness may be implied in the source and clarified by the Evangelist who paints his scenes with the light-darkness paradigm, as I have stressed since 1969. 197 I have not translated the Greek minor connective de; it is often not translated and may have been added by the redactor. 198 This explanation looks like an editorial addition by the Fourth Evangelist, but “Rabboni” is not a term found in Aramaic. It may mean “beloved Rabbi.” 199 Quite creative, and very different from my own exegesis, is S. Schneiders’ claim that Magdalene is a new Eve. See Schneiders, “John 20.11-18: The Encounter of the Easter Jesus with Mary Magdalene—A Transformative Feminist Reading,” in ed. F. F. Segovia, What Is John? Readers and Readings of the Fourth Gospel (SBL Symposium 3; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996), pp. 15–68. 200 On ophidian symbolism in John 20, see Charlesworth, The Good and Evil Serpent. 201 For the numerous attempts to explain the imperative in Jn 20:17 (most are not sophisticated [as the claim that Jesus had not yet recovered from his wounds]), see M. Miguens, “Nota esegética a Juan 20,17,” Studii Biblici Franciscani Liber Annuus 7 (1956–57): 221–31. 202 Brown, The Gospel According to John, p. 1011. 203 Ibid., p. 1012. 204 As Cardinal C. M. Martini states, Magdalene “wants Jesus with all her strength and is disposed to do anything whatever to have at least his corpse . . .” Martini, Women in the Gospels (New York: Crossroad, 1990), p. 133. 205 Translation from B. Jowett, The Dialogues of Plato (New York: Random House, 1892) 2:589. 206 The use of the selfsame verb in the Life of Adam and Eve 31:3–4 is obscure and such obscurity cannot be used to clarify John 20. 207 W. F. Orr and J. A. Walther, I Corinthians (Anchor Bible; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1976), p. 204. 208 W. Whiston, trans., The Works of Josephus (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1987, 1996 [but Whiston died in 1752]), p. 38. 209 I simply refuse to cite those who make such unscholarly speculations. 210 H. Attridge, “Don’t Be Touching Me,” in A Feminist Companion to John, 2:142; see also p. 166. 211 Brown, Gospel According to John, p. 1011. 212 It is surprising to see no discussion of the sexual meaning of the Greek verb in Attridge’s “Don’t Be Touching Me” (cited earlier). He is a brilliant Greek philologist and one who usually focuses on the multivalent meanings of crucial verbs. 213 For example, Michelangelo depicted the snake in the Eden Story as feminine and very similar to Adam’s wife. He perceived that the snake may be feminine and would have been attractive so that the woman would want to converse with “her.” See Charlesworth, The Serpent. 214 I am grateful to Don Capps for drawing my attention to Tatian’s painting. For a discussion and a reproduction, see R. Arnheim, The Power of the Center: A Study of

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Composition in the Visual Arts (Berkeley and London: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 146–48; Fig. 105. Arnheim specialized in the psychology of art. Other Renaissance painters, like Tatian, tended to emphasize Jesus’ sexuality. 215 I was surprised to discover that Thomas may well be the Beloved Disciple; see Charlesworth, The Beloved Disciple. Those who may also be shocked by that discovery should learn that the two leading Roman Catholic authorities on John, Brown and Schnackenburg, began with the assumption that the Apostle John is the Beloved Disciple, but they eventually had to report that this assumption was not likely when one knows the Gospel of John. 216 Of course, the leading scholars do include some reflections on the lost traditions. For example, Brown rightly argues that “the interpretation of the psalm [22 in Jn 19:2324] is stretched to cover an incident that the evangelist found in his tradition . . .” Brown, John, p. 920. 217 Keener, The Gospel of John, vol. 1. 218 Moltmann-Wendel, The Women Around Jesus, p. 65. 219 For an example of the proper use of rhetoric in studying the gospels, see C. C. Black, The Rhetoric of the Gospel (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001). Also see D. E. Aune, The Westminster Dictionary of New Testament & Early Christian Literature & Rhetoric (Louisville and London: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003). 220 Rarely is “feet” a euphemism for phallus; see Ruth 3:4, 7; Song 7:1 and conceivably (but probably not) Isa 7:20. Important is Havelock Ellis, Psychology of Sex (London: William Heinemann, 1948 [12th impression]). See especially chapter II: “The Biology of Sex” and chapter VII “The Art of Love.” 221 See my notes to the translation of The Rule of the Community in the Princeton Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project. 222 Fehribach in A Feminist Companion to John, 2:110. Fehribach is not by any means suggesting that Jesus and Magdalene were married or that the Mary of Bethany story is related to Magdalene. She is intent on symbolism: Mary of Bethany “functions symbolically in these two pericopae as the betrothed of the messianic bridegroom” (p. 110).

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Whence the Title ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ: “According to John”?

Periodically since publishing The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John?, I have pondered when and why the title “The Gospel According to John” (ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ) was associated with the Fourth Gospel. “The Fourth Gospel” reflects the canon: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and then the Fourth Gospel. “The Gospel According to John” is a judgment proclaiming that the Gospel is “according to the Apostle John” and thus written by him. It is thus apostolic. The Bishops’ Bible of 1568 and 1572 use the title The Gospel by Saint John. The Geneva Bible of 1560 (and Rheims of 1582) has a similar title: The Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ According to John. The King James Bible of 1611 has The Gospel According to S. John. “Who, why, and when was ‘John’ added as a title to this formerly anonymous gospel?” Observations on “John.” In the earliest decades of Christianity, the title of this Gospel was never a part of the document. The title appears in different forms in ancient manuscripts. Some of the earliest Uncials (B, D, ‫ )א‬contain simply “According to John” (κατὰ Ἰωάννην [-άνην]). But these manuscripts postdate the third century CE. In the Vulgate, we find “secundum Iohannem”; but this Latin translation is very late and attributed to Jerome (c. 347–420 CE [he died in Bethlehem]). The Peshiṭta is even later and reflects the established opinion of bishops after the Council of Nicea (325 CE) that “John is by John.” The word “gospel” is only implied in this title. It is supplied by scribes of later manuscripts: εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰ (without the article in, for example, manuscripts A, C, L, X). Scribes of subsequent Greek manuscripts of “John” add the definite article: τὸ κατὰ Ἰ. εὐαγγ. Other scribes add an epithet: “The Holy Gospel According to John (τὸ κατὰ Ἰ. ἅγιον εὐαγγ.)” and even “Of the [Holy] Gospel According to John (ἐκ τοῦ κατὰ Ἰ. [ἁγίου] εὐαγγ.).” The much later printed texts of the Peshiṭta often supply “The Holy Gospel of the Preaching of John the Preacher.”1 These observations raise the question: What was the title of this Gospel before 200 CE? Did the composition have a title? Papyri 66 and 75 have εὐαγγέλιον κατὰ Ἰωάννην, “Gospel According to John,” but these early manuscripts do not inform us of second century CE imaginations. According to a consensus, Papyrus 66 dates from about 200 CE; Papyrus 75 was inscribed in the third century. According to some scholars, Papyrus 52 (See Figure 18.1) dates from the second century, perhaps the end of the time of Hadrian (76–138 CE),2 and is the earliest manuscript of a book in the New Testament. It is a fragment of an opisthographic codex3 that measures merely 3.5 by 2.5 in., and contains only

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Figure 18.1  Papyrus 52, copyright The University of Manchester, England. It is shared courtesy of the John Rylands Library (Greek Papyrus No. 457). John and only 18:31–33 (verso) and 37–38 (recto).4 Moreover, its early date is now being challenged, as discussed in previous chapters. Most importantly, while the upper margin of Papyrus 52 is preserved, the fragment has no title there and no final page that could contain a title is extant. We simply do not know what title was associated with Papyrus 52. In the past five years, as I was completing the present work, I became more and more fascinated with this question: Why was the Fourth Gospel titled “The Gospel According to John”? In August 2016, while being driven from Ramat Hasharon in northern Tel Aviv-Jaffa to Shavei Zion, on the northwestern coast of Israel, I achieved a breakthrough. As long cherished memories blended with intensive focus I became excited to craft an answer that has been ignored by the leading Johannine experts. Introduction. Naming scrolls in antiquity was not governed by an accepted rule. Aristotle gave no title to the composition that appeared after Physics (ta phusika). Eventually, the composition was called “After Physics” or “Metaphysics” since the Greek word for “after” is meta. For centuries a work in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha was known as Slavonic Enoch because it was extant only in Old Church Slavonic.5 A Coptic manuscript has since been discovered;6 hence, the title is now 2 Enoch. The document once called 2 Esdras is now titled The Fourth Book of Ezra; Bruce Metzger and I created that title (see the chart in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1.516). The title of the



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earliest Latin manuscript is Esdrae Liber IV; but the manuscript dates from the ninth century. Hence, titles of ancient documents do not derive from their authors. Apocryphal Works. Many so-called canonical and apocryphal compositions were attributed pseudepigrapically to a biblical hero to honor him or her. Often the honoree speaks in first-person discourse in the document; but that does indicate that the name of the document is evident. Adam did not write the Life of Adam and Eve or the Apocalypse of Adam. Enoch did not compose 1 Enoch or 2 Enoch. Abraham did not pen the Testament of Abraham or the Apocalypse of Abraham. Moses is not the author of the Pentateuch, the Testament of Moses or the Apocalypse of Moses. David did not write all the Davidic Psalter or More Psalms of David. Solomon did not compose the Song of Songs, Proverbs, the Psalms of Solomon, the Odes of Solomon, or the Testament of Solomon. Isaiah is not the only composer of Isaiah (it includes many expansions and not only 2 Isaiah and 3 Isaiah) and he did not write the Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah. This list of compositions could easily continue, but the point is obvious: Within and without our (later) canon are documents attributed to many biblical luminaries but not composed by them and appearing most likely initially and repeatedly without titles. Qumran Compositions. The “handle sheets” of the Rule of the Community and “Hodayot” have been found. The former is the title given to the collection of rules and documents in the former. The latter was a name guessed by E. Sukenik. But he was wrong, I found the title; the work is titled “To the God of Kn[owledge]: Blessings.”7 That title makes sense when one observes that the incipit shifts in the latter columns of 1QHa from “I thank you, O Lord” to “I bless you, O Lord.” Most of the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, have no titles. Allegro gave the title the Wiles of the Wicked Woman to 4Q184. Along with John Strugnell, I renamed this text Dame Folly and Lady Wisdom since it belongs within the Qumran Wisdom Texts. All these observations mean that we do not know what “the Fourth Gospel” was called by its author, or by those who knew it before 150 CE; we cannot ascertain if this composition bore a title in the early century of Christianity. A setting in which so many compositions were vying for authoritative superiority defined the varieties of “Christian” belief before Chalcedon in 451 CE. The best survey of this phenomenon is by Lee Martin McDonald in Forgotten Scriptures: The Selection and Rejection of Early Religious Writings.8 Early Rejection of John. The earliest known commentary on a document in “the New Testament” is a composition on “the Gospel of John” written by Heracleon, a gnostic Christian and disciple of the brilliant and insightful Valentinus who probably composed the Gospel of Truth.9 But Heracleon’s gnostic work cannot be the reason “John” was rejected in the early second century CE because it was written far too late and around 170 CE. From the fragments of his work in Origen and Clement of Alexandria, I have observed that when Heracleon uses the name “John” he means John the Baptizer. Note this comment on Jn 1:23: “He said, ‘I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, make straight the way of the Lord,’ as the prophet Isaiah said. The Word is the Savior, the voice in the wilderness is that symbolized by John, and the echo is the whole prophetic order . . .” (apud Origen; Frag. 5 on Jn 1:23; italics mine to highlight Heracleon’s claim). While this excerpt could be misleading because of the verse chosen for comment and the fragmentary extent of his magnum opus, Heracleon repeatedly

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quotes the “Fourth Gospel” but I cannot find a fragment in which he names the work of his commentary. The passage that comes closest to implying Hercaleon thought he was commenting on “the Gospel of John” is in Fragment 3, which refers to what we call Jn 1:18. Heracleon wrote “The words, ‘No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has made him known,’ were spoken, not by the Baptist, but by the disciple” but these words by Heracleon do not indicate that the Apostle John wrote the work in focus in the commentary. It means that Heracleon believes he is commentating on something apostolic. The so-called Gospel of John was not recognized as authoritative in the early decades of Christianity. Why? Many valid reasons can be offered, but the early scholars of the Church were dubious about its authorship. “John” was eventually added to our canon perhaps because of the influential stature of great minds like Polycarp (69–155 CE) and Irenaeus (perhaps 125–202 CE). The latter reports of the former: “We learn that Papias was a hearer of John, and a companion of Polycarp” (AdvHaer 5.33). In his letter to Florinus, Irenaeus claims his memory of Polycarp was better than his memory of more recent times. Irenaeus recounts how the blessed person would reminisce about discussing issues with “John” and the others who had “seen the Lord” (see the extract in Eusebius, HE 5.20). Polycarp refers to hearing the Apostle John speak, but he never mentions a composition by him. “What should we infer from this observation?” “Did Polycarp not know about a ‘Gospel of John’?” Moreover, in his letter to the Philippians, although quoting Mark, Matthew, and Luke (their probable chronological order), Polycarp, who ostensibly was acquainted with John, knew of no composition by him and certainly never quoted from a “Gospel of John.” Earlier, about 95 CE, Clement of Rome struggled to settle a dissension disrupting the faithful in Corinth, but in his epistle of sixty-five chapters he does not cite “the Gospel of John” for support. Even more startling are chapters 47 to 51; in these passages, Clement develops the concept of “love” but he seems not to know that there is an emphasis on love in “the Gospel of John” and the introduction of a new commandment to love one another as Christ had loved all humans. In summation, Clement never mentions “the Gospel of John” or even the Apostle John. Hence, Clement is either ignorant of “John” or knows it is controversial. Clement’s omission seems inexplicable if “the Gospel of John” was known and deemed influential. We must admit that the date is very early and “the Gospel of John” may not have then reached its recognizable form. About the same time, Ignatius of Antioch (35–108) seems to know about “John” but never mentions him explicitly nor cites “the Gospel of John” to help him establish his contentions. That is startling if, as reported, Ignatius was a student of the Apostle John. Ignatius, also known as Theophorus (bearer of God), may not have known of a “Gospel of John” and he may have only heard oral allusions to similar traditions. Justin Martyr (100–165 CE), the influential and masterful teacher in Rome, knew about a gospel (the one known to us as “the Gospel of John”) but nowhere does he indicate that this work was authoritative. Surprisingly, he does not quote from or mention the Gospel of John as he develops his Logos Christology. Justin Martyr does not mention any intra-canonical gospel by name, preferring “memoirs of the apostles” (1 Apology 64–67). “If this gospel, eventually called ‘John,’ was authoritative or linked with John, in the days of Justin Martyr, then why did this influential well-read Christian not cite, use, or know about ‘John’s Gospel.’”



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Figure 18.2 The Aqueduct Jesus Would Have Seen Ascending from Jericho to Jerusalem (JHC).

Searching for the way the “Gospel of John” was entitled before 170 CE must be conducted with an astute understanding of the context of such an inquiry. Many fabrications created by Christians, gnostic Christians, so-called Jewish Christians, and others competing for acceptance were undermining the original faith in Jesus. “The Gospel of John,” from c. 90 CE to 170 CE, was considered unreliable and misinformed by many erudite persons during that period. One could imagine the early reception of this Gospel in light of scholars’ categorization of Pseudo-Pionius (321–377 CE). Today experts reject Pseudo-Pionius’ life of St. Polycarp considering it “fiction.” Did the rejection of “John” occur because of a schism in the Johannine School? The internal chaos is obvious according to the “Gospel of John” itself. And it is placarded by the Johannine Epistles. Observe the comment in 1Jn 2:18 that the schismatics “went out from us.” Note especially, 3 John 9–10: Ἔγραψά τι τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ· ἀλλʼ ὁ φιλοπρωτεύων αὐτῶν Διοτρέφης οὐκ ἐπιδέχεται ἡμᾶς. διὰ τοῦτο, ἐὰν ἔλθω, ὑπομνήσω αὐτοῦ τὰ ἔργα ἃ ποιεῖ λόγοις πονηροῖς φλυαρῶν ἡμᾶς, καὶ μὴ ἀρκούμενος ἐπὶ τούτοις οὔτε αὐτὸς ἐπιδέχεται τοὺς ἀδελφοὺς καὶ τοὺς βουλομένους κωλύει καὶ ἐκ τῆς ἐκκλησίας ἐκβάλλει. I wrote something to the congregation (church) but Diotrephes, who likes the first place among them, does not acknowledge our authority. Wherefore, if I come, I will call to remembrance the works which he does speaking false charges against us.

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Also, not being satisfied with these charges, neither does he himself acknowledge the brothers, and those who are wanting to receive them he tries to hinder and expel them from the congregation (church). (3 John 9–10; my idiomatic translation)

The schismatics would have tarnished the reputation of the “Gospel of John” wherever they wandered. Moreover, the long process of rewriting and editing the Gospel would have eroded the influence of the first author, even if it had been the Apostle John. And is it not inconceivable that he would be a later editor of an anonymous work? Conceivably, the rejection of “John” is because the gnostics and Ophites preferred it, because “John” was judged too different, theologically sophisticated, and too late in comparison to the Synoptics, or because “John” represented the East and Jerusalem, that is, those who had lost to Rome. The Romans became more and more dominant not only in the “known” world but also within burgeoning Christianity. Likewise, the “Gospel of John” may have been rejected due to its naïve Docetism, as Käsemann reminded us during the past forty years (and as we have seen). Finally, the Apostle John may have been stigmatized by his brashness and temper, since he wanted fire to consume the Samaritans (cf. Lk 9:54). The tensions within the Johannine School spread from it; if the largest group left the School, then failure to use “John” as an authority would be a result.10 Each of these observations lead to one conclusion: Many of the early thinkers of Christianity before Origen (185–254 CE) did not recognize “the Gospel of John” as apostolic or authoritative. This situation did not apply to the other canonical gospels. Matthew was assumed to be the author of “Matthew” because Levi is called “Matthew” in this Gospel. Mark was the author of the Gospel with his name, because he was judged to be the secretary of Peter. Luke was the companion of Paul and he composed the “we” passages in Acts. Recall the report by Irenaeus of Lyons near the end of the second century CE: Matthew also produced a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching in Rome, and laying the foundations of the Church. After their departure, Mark—Peter’s disciple and interpreter—did also hand down to us in writing what had been Peter’s preaching. Luke also, Paul’s companion, recorded in a book the Gospel preached by him. Finally, John, the Lord’s disciple, who also had leaned on his breast, himself published a Gospel during his residence at Ephesus in Asia. (AdvHaer 3.1.1)

This famous quotation represents what was speculated in the late second century CE in some “Christian” communities. It should not be confused with imaginations in the late first century CE. Few scholars would take Irenaeus’ report as nonsubjective history. Irenaeus indicates the source of his conclusion: And these things are witnessed to in the writing by Papias, the one who heard John, and of Polycarp, in his fourth book. For there were five books (συντεταγμένα) compiled by him [Papias]. (Adv Haer 5.33.4)

Papias’ five books are lost; not even a single fragment survives. I have found a reference to them in a thirteenth century list in a library on Mount Athos, so they may be hidden



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somewhere in a palimpsest,11 and they were catalogued in the books preserved in the library in Caesarea Maritima. Those who take Irenaeus as trustworthy would have to take Papias as reliable. What do we risk by making such jumps in judgment? Eusebius in his Church History will not claim that the Apostle John wrote “the Fourth Gospel,” and his comments add more confusion than clarity: This shows that the statement of those is true, who say that there were two persons in Asia that bore the same name, and that there were two tombs in Ephesus, each of which, even to the present day, is called John’s. It is important to notice this. For it is probable that it was the second, if one is not willing to admit that it was the first, that saw the Revelation which is ascribed by name to John. (Eusebius, EH 3.39)

Eusebius seems to indicate that by his time those in Ephesus knew of two tombs known to belong to a certain “John.” We are not informed of which one belonged to John the Apostle or if the remains of “the Apostle John” were definitely in one of the two. If John the Baptizer’s disciples were influential in Ephesus (Acts 19:1–7), would no one later imagine that one of the tombs belonged to the Baptizer? “If tombs cannot be explained in the fourth century, what then should be deduced of a gospel that is much earlier?” In the mid- to late second century CE, against a tsunami of those who rejected “John,” Irenaeus had to argue that “John’s” teaching and Gospel were authoritative and fundamental in establishing the regula fidei. Irenaeus is the first one to refer to the “Gospel” that was composed by John the Apostle: “John, the Lord’s disciple, preaches the faith, and seeks, by the proclamation of ‘the Gospel’ to remove errors” (AdvHaer 3.11.1). The apostle’s “teaching” is in “the Gospel.” Irenaeus calls this Gospel “John’s Gospel” (AdvHaer 3.11.9) and it is clearly the work we know as “the Gospel of John” because of the content cited: “The Lord promised that he would send the Paraclete” (= Jn 14:16). Irenaeus may have influenced Tertullian (c. 155–240 CE) who argued that the apostles authored Matthew and John; but while he mentions “the Gospel of Luke” he does not mention by name “the Gospel of John” (AdvMarc 4.2.2).12 Papyri. Where is the name of a document? With a Qumran scroll, a title is often at the beginning on “the handle sheet” by which one handles it. According to the fourth century Nag Hammadi Coptic Codices found in Egypt, the title is on the last page. We often do not know if a document has a name because the ending is almost always the first part of a manuscript to disappear. Naming a Document and then Removing the Reason for the Title. Some documents receive their name from a verse. Hence, Paul’s letter to the Romans has this statement: “To all those living in Rome, God’s beloved, called to be saints (holy ones)” (πᾶσιν τοῖς οὖσιν ἐν Ῥώμῃ ἀγαπητοῖς θεοῦ, κλητοῖς ἁγίοις; Rom 1:7). But “in Rome” (ἐν Ῥώμῃ) is missing in some early Greek manuscripts in the two places in which it appears, 1:7 and 1:15 (e.g., manuscript G [ninth century] and Origen). A qualifying dative phrase was removed and the specific addresses and title were shifted to a wide, generic audience. “What then was the title of this epistle that had been intended by Paul for the Roman Church he had not founded?” Likewise, Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in verse one specifies the target audience: “To the holy ones in Ephesus who are faithful in Christ Jesus.” A majority of Pauline scholars

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reject this document as a composition by Paul; moreover, “in Ephesus” is missing in many translations because it is not in some early manuscripts (e.g., P46, B, etc.). As we seek a title for this epistle, let us not forget Marcion’s title: “To the Laodiceans.” We dare not use that title, because of Paul’s lost “Letter to the Laodiceans” mentioned in Colossians: “And when (my) letter has been read among you, make certain that it has been read also in the church at Laodicea and that you yourselves read (my) letter from Laodicea” (Col 4:16). It is certainly beyond question at this point in our search that titles are unreliable and not set in the early centuries of Christianity. What title should be assigned to 2 Corinthians which contains more than one of Paul’s letters? In answering this question, we must not forget 3 Corinthians which was not included in the “canon.” Why? Is it because it was not written by Paul, even as many letters that are falsely attributed to him shine brightly from the canon through pulpits? In Antiquity Books Bore Different Names. In antiquity a composition circulated about the peregrinations of a virtuous man who received divine help to reach “the Island of the Blessed Ones.” The document received many titles. In MS A, it has the title The History of the Rechabites. In MS B, the work is The History of the Sons of Jonadab, the Son of Rechab, Who Are in Midst of the Ocean, the Great Sea. When God showed them to Zosimus, the Virtuous Hermit. MS D has The History of the Blessed Ones, the Sons of the Rechabites, Whose Record Is Recorded by Jeremiah the Prophet When He Said That They Are the Sons of Jonadab, the Son of Rechab, Who are Inhabitants of the City Jerusalem (see OTP 2.450). Even if we find a title for a composition, we must not conclude that it is original or represents the thoughts in a work. The three titles just cited should not induce a reader to imagine three separate works. Each of them refer to the same composition. Treatise of Shem. The only extant manuscript of this text, a fifteenth century Syriac manuscript, has a title. But it is on the same line as the beginning of the document. Both are in red and on the same line (OTP 1.481). “What was the title given to this composition in antiquity?” Titles of “Books” in the Hebrew Bible. I have avoided the term “book,” since in antiquity, in all cultures before the first century CE, a document was almost always inscribed by hand with ink on a leather or papyrus scroll. After centuries, titles were given to the scrolls gathered together in the Pentateuch. The title must not be generic, like Torah or Moses; ancient scribes and cataloguers needed specifics presented in the document. “How was a title imagined and created for a book that had no title?” This phenomenon for naming documents is regnant in the Pentateuch. The authors of these incredibly important compositions did not give names to their work. Genesis is known as “Bereshith (‫)בראשית‬.”13 Why? “Bereshith (‫אׁשית‬ ֖ ִ ‫)ּב ְֵר‬,” which means “in the beginning,” is the first word in the document and in the following collection, however defined. Exodus is given the name “Shemoth (‫)שמות‬.” Why? “Shemoth (֙‫)ׁשְמֹות‬,” which means “the names of,” is the second word in the second document in the collection. Leviticus received the name “Wayyiqra (‫)ויקרא‬.” Why? “Wayyiqra (‫) ַוּיִק ָ ְ֖רא‬,” which means “and he [the Lord] called,” commences the document. Numbers is known as “Bemidbar (‫)במדבר‬.” Why? “Bemidbar (‫) ְּבמִדְ ּבַ ֥ר‬,” which means “in the wilderness of,” is the first distinguishing noun (the pervasive names “Lord” and “Moses” precede it) at the beginning of the scroll. It is also the fourth word in the fourth “Book of Moses”



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in the Pentateuch (‫)אֶל־מ ֶ ֹׁ֛שה‬. Deuteronomy has the title “Devarim” (‫)דברים‬. Why? “hadDevarim” (‫)הַּדְ ב ִָ֗רים‬, which means “the words,” is the first noun in the scroll. What have we learned? We comprehend—perhaps for the first time—that the names of scrolls in the Pentateuch are according to the first unique word, noun or verb, in the document. Our first criterion, as we seek to discern how “John” was called “John,” is to look for the first name or significant word in John. Given our present focused question, we contemplate this issue: What is the first unique word in the first edition of “John” or the first specific or characteristic word in the final edition of John? “How does this discovery help us?” Cataloging of Scrolls in Greek and Roman Libraries.14 As with the beginnings of all institutions, the origin of libraries is opaque. From earliest recorded history, all nations needed an archive for keeping records. In Babylonia, at Nippur (c. 2700 BCE) rooms in a temple were used to preserve clay tablets. The oldest library in ancient Palestine is at Hatzor; this site boasted of the collection of cuneiform tablets owned by the Canaanite amphictyonic league dating to conceivably 2000 BCE. Only a few tablets have been found at the site but the library has not yet been discovered and unearthed. Most likely these tablets were not literary works but recordings of legal issues. Thousands of ostraca from the Negev, dating from the fourth and third centuries BCE, have been recovered (as already reported) but these did not constitute a “library” as they record economic issues. As depositories of literary compositions, “libraries” originated in the Hellenic world. The predecessors of the major Hellenic libraries for philosophers and other gifted thinkers were the massive Greek temples. Perhaps from the beginning many were designed to house libraries along with archive repositories. Our focus is later and concerned only with literary documents: How did catalogers in the great libraries at Alexandria,15 Antioch, Pergamum, Herculaneum,16 Caesarea Maritima, and elsewhere add titles to books that came to them without a title and how does that help us in searching for the title given to “John”? Inspired by Ashurbanipal’s library, Alexander the Great, Aristotle’s student, dreamed of a library containing all known writings extant in Greek or translated into Greek. Ptolemy I Soter began such a library in Alexandria sometime about 306 BCE; his son, Ptolemy II Philadelphus advanced the collection which may have protected 700,000 scrolls. Another of Aristotle’s disciples, Demetrius of Phaleron, added the Ptolemaic Mouseion Academy; now for the first time in human history savants, with stipends and accommodations, could live in the Academy and study the books nearby in the Library. Hidden beneath the legendary embellishments in the Jewish composition known as the Letter of Aristeas (see OTP) are some historical facts. First, the Alexandrian Library requested copies (and demanded originals, copying or translating them, and returning only the copies) of all known literary works but they had to be available in Greek. Second, the translators of the Septuagint had to be gifted translators and perhaps all were from Jerusalem. Third, the time for this translation occurred precisely as demanded, by our knowledge of the beginnings of the Alexandrian Library. Ptolemy III established a second library of at least 42,000 scrolls and designed more for the public. It was located in the Serapeum inside the Temple of Serapis in Alexandria. Serapis seems to be a god created by Ptolemy I to unify Greeks and Egyptians. The god

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appeared as Greek with Egyptian symbols; a symbology representing abundance and resurrection (or new life). One of the major tasks of the librarians was to catalogue scrolls. How did they give names to anonymous works? All ancient libraries probably used something like lists and inventories; these were on clay, stone, papyrus, parchment, and other forms of leather (from many types of animals), palm leaves, and bamboo strips. Although the famous poet17 Callimachus of Cyrene (Καλλίμαχος; c. 305 BCE to 240 BCE) was never elevated to serve as head librarian, he appears to be the “first cataloger.”18 His most famous prose composition is Pinakes, which concerns the “Tables of Those Who Have Distinguished Themselves in Every Form of Culture and of What They Wrote.” The Pinakes is massive and contains 120 volumes, reflecting (but not entirely) the Alexandrian Library and the Serapeum. Completed about 245 BCE, the Pinakes lists scrolls and catalogues them. Subsequently, in about 235 BCE Eratosthenes of Cyrene, and then in about 195 BCE, Aristophanes of Byzantium, improved and added to the Pinakes, the first library catalogue. Callimachus’ system for cataloging was chronological and alphabetical (with focus on the author’s name); he included biographies of each author, citing their works with initial words or first lines.19 He also arranged divisions by subject matter using Zenodotus’ classifications (6 for poetry and 5 for prose).20 As far as I know, we do not know how Callimachus, who focused on titles, would catalogue a work whose author was unknown.21 A second major library was established in Antioch, Syria, for Antiochus III. This Royal Library of Antioch was established about 221 BCE by Euphorion of Chalcis. This person was not only an author but also a scholar, and established scholars during the third century BCE were being enticed to become librarians. Unfortunately, we do not know his method for cataloguing. A third major library was established at Pergamum.22 It was supported by the Attalid Dynasty, which ruled from 282 BCE to 133 BCE. It is reported to have housed over 200,000 scrolls.23 The Pergamum Library was constructed sometime between 197 BCE and 159 BCE. Bereft of papyrus due to competition from Alexandria, the experts at Pergamum invented “parchment” which is made from a thin sheet of animal skin (usually from a sheep or goat). Similar are the thin and transparent leather animal skins to make the scroll on which the Temple Scroll was inscribed. In 133 BCE, the Romans acquired the holdings of the Pergamum Library. Perhaps Plutarch is accurate in reporting that Mark Antony gave Pergamum’s 200,000 works to Cleopatra and she placed them in the Alexandrian Library. Scholars do not know how the scrolls at Pergamum were catalogued; perhaps such methods were influenced by Callimachus’ system. Now, let us glimpse what may be known about cataloguing in Roman libraries before the first century BCE. Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE) may be Rome’s greatest scholar. He was an individual who amassed vast erudition and produced many compositions. He was appointed head librarian of the Roman library by Julius Caesar. Varro dedicated to Caesar the second part of his Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum (Antiquities of Human and Divine Things). Varro may have devised a cataloguing system for Latin libraries. Most of Varro’s books were burned because he had sided with Pompey who lost his power. Little is known about Varro’s method for



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cataloguing, if it even existed, or if it was influential so as to inform us regarding the title for the Fourth Gospel. A fourth major and ancient library is the one organized at Caesarea Maritima. It must postdate 37 BCE, since the city was established by Herod the Great (ruling from 40 or better 37 to 4 BCE). The library at Caesarea was ultimately organized for Christians but it contained classical works.24 Many leading scholars of the Early Church studied in this library, including Origen, Eusebius, Gregory Nazianzus, Basil the Great, and Jerome. In Caesarea could be found Origen’s own copy of the Hexapla. The most famous resident was Eusebius of Caesarea (c. 265–339 CE) who, during his stay there, composed his Ecclesiastical History, Chronicon, Preparation for the Gospel, and Life of Constantine.25 Significant for our search are two observations. A document in the list from this library had a title but no author: “Anonymous, On the Voice (περì φωνῆς).” Another work had neither title nor author: “A work on astronomy (?)” According to A. J. Carriker in The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea: “The most striking characteristics of Eusebius’ library are its wealth of religious literature, its dearth of classical history, poetry, and oratory, and its strength in Middle Platonic works. These characteristics must also indicate the nature of Eusebius’ education and the cast of his mind.”26 The library has not yet been located; perhaps it was destroyed during the Muslim conquest of Palestine in the seventh century. Prior to major, and more public, libraries were private collections. Since the Stoics forsook property, they could not organize a library. Only a few more private libraries may be mentioned now. Euripides, the tragedian, amassed a private library. Devotees of Epicurus, Plato, and Aristotle established libraries in the fourth century BCE. Aristotle’s library, the collection of the Peripatetic School, was most famous; and Aristotle was systematic and organized. What was his method for cataloging or shelving books without title or author? Was Aristotle’s method of giving names to books the method we have seen in Israel? No one knows. Suffice it to report for our present focus on the Fourth Gospel and its title, that in ancient libraries readers were to know the authors of compositions and their titles. The problem arises when a document has neither an author nor a title. And we have observed that many ancient Jewish compositions originally did not record the name of an author or a title. A community sometimes was the source of the work because of the principle of “solidarity” and oneness in God’s nation and the propensity for hidden (Apocrypha) and anonymous works that honored a biblical luminary (Pseudepigrapha). Also, anonymity—not authorship—was often lauded as in the Qumran Community and in the Johannine School. If the authors and editors of John prized anonymity, perhaps the work itself was issued without a name. The failure to clarify the author of a publication was dominant even in certain major reference works up until the 1970s: Many of the entries in the Encyclopedia Britannica remained unattributed because the work was significantly rewritten by the editors of the encyclopedia. Each of the aforementioned catalogers chose a method that depended on titles and authors. Probably starting with Callimachus of Cyrene, scrolls were eventually also collected together according to subject matter. Was that new addition to the

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methodology for cataloging an admission that many scrolls collected had no known author or title? While title and author may have nothing to do with a document, content certainly does. If “John” was considered a “gospel,” then it could have been housed with records of the emperor’s gifts called “good news” (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον).27 This new method could be a black hole as it would contain more than two dozen gospels known in antiquity and their names were also fluid; one can study the publications related to each of them in my The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the New Testament. In the Caesarea Library were housed these “non-canonical” gospels: The Proto-Gospel of James, Gospel of the Egyptians, Gospel of the Twelve Apostles, Gospel of Basilides, Gospel of Peter, Gospel of Thomas, and Gospel of Matthias. Names attached to gospels do not indicate who composed them. For example, an editor of the New York Times called me in Princeton for a quotation focused on the sensational discovery of the Gospel of Judas. I responded with two points: First, this composition is exceedingly important for an improved perception of the evolution of Christianity. Second, in no way does this gospel help us understand the historical Judas; no scholar with whom you have talked would hold that claim. I heard: “Thanks.” Then, as he was hanging up he shouted: “Kill that feature!” Our question may now be rephrased: How did librarians in Alexandria and elsewhere catalogue works without titles and authors? What if these savants could not discern a title or author? What title would they give to an “anonymous” scroll or one that had lost its title? Our second criterion, then, concerns a title, author’s name, or subject matter that will help a librarian to catalogue the object. If a certain “John” was associated somehow with the Fourth Gospel then who is this “John”? Here are the four main options according to the New Testament: John the son of Zechariah [the Baptizer], John Mark (Acts 12:25), John of Revelation (1:9 and 22:8), and John the son of Zebedee. We may also include “John the Elder” (John the Presbyter), who lived from about 14 CE to maybe 100 CE, mentioned by Papias of Herapolis (apud Eusebius HE 3.39.3, 4) and the choice of Hengel for the author of John. The Name of the Apostle “John” Cannot Explain the Title. As we have stated in previous chapters, no scholar should continue to assert that the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee, is the author of the Fourth Gospel. This was a position held by two magisterial commentators, Schnackenburg and Brown. Then each of them focused on the question: “Can John the Apostle be the author of the Fourth Gospel?” The firm answer was “No.” The gravity of that conclusion should be obvious when one observes that each was the best Johannine scholar in Europe and the United States, respectively. While John the son of Zebedee, one of the Twelve, appears pervasively in the Synoptics, he does not appear by name in John. The name Ἰωάννης (Iōannēs), John, referring to more than one man named “John,” appears in the following Synoptic and New Testament passages: Matthew 3:1, 4, 13, 14; 4:12, 21 [first mention of John the Apostle]; 9:14; 10:2; 11:2, 4, 7, 11, 12, 13, 18; 14:2, 3, 4, 8, 10; 16:14; 17:1, 13; 21:25, 26, 32; Mark 1:4, 6, 9, 14, 19 [first mention of John the Apostle], 29; 2:18 (bis); 3:17; 5:37; 6:14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 24, 25; 8:28; 9:2, 38; 10:35, 41; 11:30, 32; 13:3; 14:33;



Whence the Title ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ: “According to John”?

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Luke 1:13, 60, 63; 3:2, 15, 16, 20; 5:10 [first mention of John the Apostle], 33; 6:14; 7:18, 19, 20, 22, 24 (bis), 28, 29, 33; 8:51; 9:7, 9, 19, 28, 49, 54; 11:1; 16:16; 20:4, 6; 22:8; John [no mention of John the Apostle] 1:6, 15, 19, 26, 28, 32, 35, 40, 42; 3:23, 24, 25, 26, 27; 4:1; 5:33, 36; 10:40, 41 (2); 21:15, 16, 17 [the last three: “Simon, son of John”]; Acts 1:5, 13 [first mention of John the Apostle], 22; 3:1, 3, 4, 11; 4:6, 13, 19; 8:14; 10:37; 11:16; 12:2, 12, 25; 13:5, 13, 24, 25; 15:37; 18:25; 19:3, 4; Others Gal 2:9; Rev 1:1, 4, 9; 22:8;

The Apostle “John” is also named by a close contemporary of the Evangelist, Ignatius of Antioch (Smyr 1.1); but, as already clarified, Ignatius uses not one quotation from this anonymous gospel. If “John the Apostle” was so famous and influential before 110 CE, then why is he not mentioned by name in the “Gospel According to John”? Most scholars would agree this observation is astounding, especially when in “John” the Baptizer is prominent and named “John?” The “Beloved Disciple” cannot be John the Apostle. A perusal of my The Beloved Disciple proves that many scholars now hold different identities for the “Beloved Disciple,” but few advocate this anonymous epigram is John the Apostle. Scholars concur that their intellectual honesty is insulted when they are treated hostilely because they show how the data in “John” prove that the Apostle John did not write “The Gospel According to John.” Summary. Among the gospels in the canonical New Testament, only the “Fourth Gospel” identifies its author: “This is the disciple who is testifying to these things and has written them, and we know that his testimony is true” (Jn 21:25). As is evident, no name is provided and the passage is in the appendix to “John,” written by another person. This admission does not remove the fact that “John” is the only gospel with the claim that the gospel is based on an eyewitness’s memory. We have seen the following:

1. Cataloguing in antiquity was paradigmatically by author’s name or title. 2. Conceivably, if a document had no title the first distinguishing word provided it. 3. Names and titles are not usually given to scrolls in Early Judaism. 4. Early papyri are often fragmentary and without titles. 5. If a papyrus has a title, it is at the end which is frequently worn away. 6. Different names were given to the same composition in antiquity. 7. Names of documents in the Pentateuch are according to the first significant word. 8. The early rejection of “John” indicates that no apostle was deemed its author. 9. The intra-canonical gospels received titles rather late in the second century. The second observation is intuitive; but it seems obvious in light of so many compositions without names, the eventual need of catalogers to add genre or subject matter as a criterion, and the names given to documents in the Pentateuch. These conclusions mean that the Gospel now known as “The Gospel According to John” circulated before Tertullian and even Irenaeus, and perhaps Tatian, without title or attribution.

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While New Testament scholars are not trained to agree,28 many specialists conclude that names were not given to the intra-canonical gospels until about 170 CE.29 That is the date for Tatian’s influential harmony of the gospels. According to Eusebius of Caesarea the work was called “The Diatessaron” (HE 4.29.6): “Tatian composed by some method a combination and collection of the gospels, and gave this (harmony) the name of the Diatessaron and this (work) is still extant in some places.” Today, the harmony is extant in Arabic, Persian, and Latin translations and also in fragments in the original language, either Greek or Syriac. Scholars doubt that Tatian entitled his creation “The Diatessaron,” or a harmony based only on four gospels in Greek. It was perhaps composed in Syriac and Tatian utilized more than the four canonical gospels.30 I am convinced that Tatian chose the Gospel of John as his main source for constructing the harmony. All these observations seem to lead to one conclusion: The title “The Gospel According to John” was eventually, not initially, given a title—but not “the Fourth Gospel” as that presupposes a closed canon. Why? What was the name given to this gospel before it was “the Fourth Gospel,” which reflects the much later order and the canon, and why? Whence the Name “John”: The Solution. At this point we may apply the two criteria discovered in searching for a title when a work circulated anonymously: First, as we seek to discern how “John” was called “John,” we should look for the first name or significant word in what we know as “the Gospel of John.” Second, we should search for a name or subject matter that would have helped a librarian to catalogue the object.

An early cataloger, following the principle observed in giving names to scrolls collected into the Pentateuch, and not being able to organize the document by a title, might choose the first significant or distinguishing word. Let us apply this observation and criteria to “The Gospel According to John.” During contemporary discussions, scholars are often unclear what a speaker means when referring to “the Gospel of John.” Are speakers referring to the contents of the King James Version which includes 7:53–8:11? Are speakers referring to the first edition of “John” that did not contain 1:1–18 or chapter 21, and perhaps other passages and verses? Are thinkers thinking of the final edition of John? What is in their mind? In the final edition of the gospel, “Logos” would be the first distinguishing word. Logos would not be chosen because of the kerygmatic and Christian genre of the composition and such a title would confuse the categorization with the Stoics who celebrated the “Logos” as the primordial and eternal originating fire and the “logos spermatikos” within each human. What is the first name in this document? It is clearly “John”: Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος. οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν.



Whence the Title ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ: “According to John”?

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πάντα διʼ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν. ὃ γέγονεν ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων· καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν. Ἐγένετο ἄνθρωπος, ἀπεσταλμένος παρὰ θεοῦ, ὄνομα αὐτῷ Ἰωάννης· (Jn 1:1–6; my use of bold) “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.” (Jn 1:1-6, NRSV)

The last sentence is very Semitic, distinct, and would provide a title: “It happened, a man was sent from God, his name was John.” That attribution denotes John the Baptizer. The Logos Poem or Hymn categorizes “Jesus,” as the Word. Jesus is not mentioned in the Logos Hymn and the Logos is not mentioned after 1:18, the end of the Prologue. Yet, it is certain to me, that Jesus is the Logos. That means, Jesus is the likeness of God. Jesus is God’s best Parable. As Walter P. Weaver concluded, under the influence of Bultmann, Keck, Crossan, Schillebeeckx, and McFague: “The full accreditation of the historical method was exciting, and, finally, there was also the suggestion that just this Jesus was to be regarded as a ‘Parable of God’ in the totality of his words and deeds.”31 Unaware of Weaver’s “Jesus as Parable,” the erudite and penetrating theological thinker Petr Porkorný argued that Jesus is: “A Parable of God in the sense of a subjective genitive; that denotes a Parable that God himself engineered (produced)” (“Ein Gleichnis Gottes im Sinne eines genitivus auctoris, d.h. um ein Gleichnis, das Gott selbst inszenierte”).32 Conclusion. Clearly, although the name of John the Baptizer appears first in this Gospel, he did not write it. And we should continue to call this marvelous composition “The Gospel of John” so we make sense to our students and others and in honor of the Apostle John who somehow stands behind the traditions in “The Gospel of John.” My suggestion is that “the Gospel of John” was without widespread authority before about 170 CE and circulated anonymously; hence, the title of the “Fourth Gospel” originated with cataloguers discovering the first name mentioned in John. He is the Baptizer who was sent by God. My hypothesis is so novel that it will probably shock rather than convince established scholars; but after all, we scholars should be

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established in truth and the meaning of a text too often misread. It will be convincing to all who perceive that “John” was circulated without an attribution of apostleship and was rejected as authoritative by many early scholars of the Church. Any historian who approaches “John” afresh and without the burden of 2,000 years of ecclesiastical dogma about “John” would find the Apostle John conspicuously absent in “the Fourth Gospel” and would doubt that the Beloved Disciple can be a masked “John.” The irony, if I am correct, is clear: The one polemicized by this Evangelist may have been the one whose name was chosen to catalogue this composition in Alexandria and then in Caesarea Maritima, and elsewhere. My suggestion is a hypothesis that needs debating by historians of earliest Christianity. As is obvious, historically and critically, “According to John”—ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ as in the editions of the Greek New Testament—does not have the noun “gospel.”

Notes 1 These observations were given by the early editors of the New Testament in Greek: B. F. Westcott and A. Westcott, eds., The Gospel According to St. John Introduction and Notes on the Authorized Version (Classic Commentaries on the Greek New Testament 1; London: J. Murray, 1908). Note the date; vast advances have been made since over 100 years ago and now specialists agree that the earliest evidence is in the papyri. George Makrauer helped me polish this chapter; I am grateful to his keen editing. 2 See C. H. Roberts, An Unpublished Fragment of the Fourth Gospel in the John Rylands Library (Manchester, 1935 [this is a pamphlet that was reprinted in Bulletin of the John Rylands Library 20 (1936): 1–3]). A. Deissmann, “Ein Evangelienblatt aus den Tagen Hadrians,” Deutsche allgemeine Zeitung 564 (December 3, 1935). For the English translation, see the British Weekly December 12, 1935. 3 This term denotes a manuscript written on recto and verso. Geoffrey Smith discusses a new find. It is a copy of John and an unknown “Christian” text from c. 250 to 350 CE. Quite remarkably, the fragment is a papyrus scroll. See The New York Times (November 21, 2015) p. C1. The recto contains Jn 1:49–2:1. 4 See the definitive publication, though now dated, by E. J. Epp, “Textual Criticism,” in The New Testament and Its Modern Interpreters (E. J. Epp and G. W. MacRae; The Bible and Its Modern Interpreters; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), pp. 75–126. 5 See the new edition of 2 Enoch by G. Macaskill, The Slavonic Texts of 2 Enoch (Studia Judaeoslavica 6; Boston: Brill, 2013). 6 Joost L. Hagen, “No Longer ‘Slavonic’ Only: 2 Enoch Attested in Coptic from Nubia,” in New Perspectives on 2 Enoch: No Longer Slavonic Only (ed. A. Orlov, G. Boccaccini and Jason M. Zurawski; Studia Judaeoslavica 4; Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2012), pp. 7–34. 7 See my critical edition of all witnesses of the Thanksgiving Hymns in the Princeton edition of the Dead Sea Scrolls and my The Qumran Psalter, p. xii. 8 Forgotten Scriptures: The Selection and Rejection of Early Religious Writings (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2009). 9 See Elaine H. Pagels’ first book: The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis: Heracleon’s Commentary on John (SBL Monograph Series 17; Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1973). 10 Brown thought the majority of members in the Johannine community abandoned it; see R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple.



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11 This noun indicates a manuscript with layers of writing, usually two: One is below and scraped so that the upper script, being inscribed, could dominate. The pentepalimpsest in Santa Katerina on Mt. Sinai is not five layers of different texts; it is a piece of leather used five times; previous scripts were “erased.” For forty years, I have been working on Codex Syriacus, a copy of the Old Syriac Gospels hidden beneath the “Lives of the Female Saints.” 12 I am indebted to Lee McDonald for discussions. He agrees that the gospels were composed anonymously. 13 I am using transliterations easy to understand to those who do not know Hebrew. 14 See L. Casson, Libraries of the Ancient World (New Haven: Yale University, 2001); R. MacLeod, ed., The Library of Alexandria: Centre of Learning in the Ancient World (New York: I. B. Tauris & Col, 2004). Yun Lee Too, The Idea of the Library in the Ancient World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010). J. König, K. Oikonomopoulou, G. Woolf, eds., Ancient Libraries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 15 Heather Phillips, “The Great Library of Alexandria?” Library Philosophy and Practice (2010). 16 See the following: C. Basile, “Le cause che hanno delerminalo i diversi slali di conservazione dei papiri ercolanesi,” in II rololo libra rio: jabbricaziolle, reslauro, organizzazione intema (ed. M. Capasso; Galatina, 1994), pp. 1–26 and R. Janko, “The Herculaneum Library: Some Recent Developments,” Estudios Clásicos 121 (2002): 25–41. The library at Herculaneum antedates 79 CE and is full of carbonized scrolls, all literary. Perhaps the library was the personal collection of Philodemus. These scrolls were preserved by pyroclastic flow of superheated gas, steam, and mud. These scrolls are thus carbonized but with new computer assisted methodologies some scrolls now can be read. 17 See F. Nisetich, trans., The Poems of Callimachus (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 18 See F. J. Witty, “The Other Pinakes and Reference Works of Callimachus,” The Library Quarterly 43 (July 1973): 237. 19 See R. Blum, Kallimachos. The Alexandrian Library and the Origins of Bibliography (trans. H. H. Wellisch; Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), pp. 124–81. Also see R. Hunter, The Shadow of Callimachus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). 20 See F. Milkaw and G. Leyh, Ancient Greek and Roman Libraries (trans. M. H. Pages; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America, 1963). 21 B. Acosta-Hughes and S. A. Stephens, Callimachus in Context: From Plato to the Augustan Poets (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012). 22 See Casson, Libraries of the Ancient World. Also see Eric Holzengerg’s study ­published in the Encyclopaedia Britannica from which I obtained some insights. Updates: https://www.britannica.com/topic/book-collecting (2016). 23 See H. Koester, editor, Pergamon: Citadel of the Gods: Archaeological Record, Literary Description, and Religious Development (Harvard Theological Studies 46; Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998). 24 See A. J. Carriker the list of documents in the Caesarea Library, The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003), pp. 299–302. 25 See Carriker, The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea, see esp. “Caesarea and the History of the Library,” pp. 1–36. 26 Carriker, The Library of Eusebius of Caesarea, p. 311.

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27 See Josephus, War 3.503 and Ant 7.250. Also see, in the late fourth or early fifth centuries, Synesius (De providentia 1.7, p. 96a) used the verb to describe the good news of a beneficent rein (τὴν βασιλείαν Αἰγυπτίοις εὐηγγελίζετο). 28 M. Hengel held that from the earliest decades, the intra-canonical gospels had the names we know as titles. See M. Hengel, The Four Gospels and the One Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Investigation of the Collection and Origin of the Canonical Gospels ­(Harrisburg : Trinity Press International, 2000); idem, The Johannine Question, trans. J. Bowden (Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1989). 29 H. Koester, Ancient Christian Gospels: Their History and Development (London: SCM Press and Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990). Also see Koester, From Jesus to the Gospels: Interpreting the New Testament in its Context (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007). I follow Lee McDonald and Koester on dating the Muratorian Canon late and perhaps in the fourth century CE (see Koester, p. 243). 30 See my claim that Tatian used more than four gospels in creating his harmony: J. H. Charlesworth, “Tatian’s Dependence upon Apocryphal Traditions,” The Heythrop Journal 15 (1974): 5–17. 31 W. P. Weaver, “Jesus as Parable,” in Earthing Christologies: From Jesus’ Parables to Jesus the Parable (ed. J. H. Charlesworth and W. P. Weaver; Faith and Scholarship Colloquies; Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1995) the quotation is on p. 32. 32 P. Pokorný, Jesus in Geschichte und Bekenntnis (WUNT 355; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016) the quotation is on p. 278. See my comments in The Heythrop Journal 15 (1974): 5–17. Hengel also concluded that Tatian used John “as the basis of his Diatessaron.” See Hengel, The Johannine Question, p. 4. W. L. Petersen, in contrast, contends that Matthew was “the skeleton upon which Tatian placed his harmony.” See Petersen in Koester’s Ancient Christian Gospels, p. 430.

Conclusion We have reached the conclusion. I shall begin to use the first-person discourse since scientific labors demand some personal judgment—otherwise the dots are never connected and an emerging perception remains only pieces of a picture never assembled. As Einstein was fond of saying, imagination is more important than knowledge. In the previous chapters, imagination completed what was observed so that perception began to appear. In searching for the “genius in the New Testament,” we recognize with all learned readers, Jews and Christians, that the genius behind the New Testament and the subject of the proclamations is none other than Jesus from Nazareth. Across diverse cultures and countries on this tiny globe we are being influenced by insubstantial thoughts. Naïve conclusions are disseminated via electronic means. The internet contains many claims that are confusing people; note this contention shared anonymously over the web: In conclusion, the manuscript and historical evidence for the Gospel of John taken together points us to a late second century date for when the Gospel was first written. This would mean that it’s impossible that a disciple of Jesus was the author as the disciples of Jesus would have long since passed away. Rather it is the work of a much later writer, and for this reason we must reject it.1

In light of the observations shared in this book, the aforementioned conclusion to reject John is misinformed and absurd. The author posits what he must conclude. Confused within his thoughts are the valid recognition that John was rejected by many leading Christians until the final decades of the second century CE. But mixed within the thoughts of this person who remains anonymous are absurdities and polemics. To observe that this Gospel (“the Gospel of John”) received a name familiar to us, sometime near the end of the second century CE, has no bearing on when it was first written and later expanded, edited, and interpolated. The author’s desire to reject “John” because it was composed in the late second century CE is undermined by archaeological discoveries, historiography, ophidian symbolism, redaction criticism, and textual criticism. Not to be forgotten are the reflections sparkling in John from many Jewish compositions known during the period of Christian Origins, that is, only before 70 CE, like the Parables of Enoch and the SelfGlorification Hymn. After completing this conclusion, I found “Psalm 156” (Antonin Collection, St. Petersburg [MS B 798]). In this early Jewish psalm are concepts that reveal even more clearly that the “Gospel of John” grew out of Jewish soil: All the worshipers of 2 your name3 will learn4 a (new) chant,5 Those who will believe6 in the words of your servant.7 (col. 1, 8)

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Figure 19.1 The Migdal Synagogue in Which Jesus Probably Taught [during excavations; JHC]. The Hebrew for “those who will believe in the words of your servant” is ‫אשר יאמינו בדברי עבדך‬.8 In the context of the lines, the Hebrew verb ‫ יאמינו‬should be translated as “they will believe,” and, ‫אשר‬, with “those who will believe.” I have no doubt that the psalm dates before 135 BCE and heralds Hanukkah and God’s purification of his people. In the Gospels, Hanukah appears only in Jn 10:22–23; in 14:10 we find the following claim by Jesus: “Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I am not speaking on my own; but the Father dwelling in me does his works” (οὐ πιστεύεις ὅτι ἐγὼ ἐν τῷ πατρὶ καὶ ὁ πατὴρ ἐν ἐμοί ἐ στιν; τὰ ῥήματα ἃ ἐγὼ λέγω ὑμῖν ἀπʼ ἐμαυτοῦ οὐ λαλῶ, ὁ δὲ πατὴρ ἐν ἐμοὶ μένων ποιεῖ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ). Many who have memorized virtually all of the sixty-six books in the Christian canon will be surprised that “believe in the words” never appears in the canonical collection. Some Christians ignore “John” because they do not appreciate his many dogmatic claims. The exclusiveness of “John” is offensive to many. “In a pluralistic culture that appreciates atheists, agnostics, humanists, Jews, and the vast continuum of Christians, how can anyone tolerate the claim attributed to Jesus that no one can come to the Father, God, except through him?” In Chapter 4, I offered my insight that these words were added because of the sociological crises facing the Johannine community—that is, the arguments against the followers of John the Baptizer, the controversies with some Judean leaders that sought to and did kill Jesus, Steven, and James (Jesus’ brother), the schism that devastated the Johannine community, and the demise of the Beloved Disciple. Yet such invectives pale in comparison to the Qumranites’ contention that all the priests in the Temple were “Sons of Darkness” and destined for condemnation,

Conclusion

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punishment, and annihilation. The perspective in “John” also pales in comparison to the heat poured on the schismatics; they are the Antichrist. We should evaluate all evidence of ancient polemics by one criterion: “Is it from within or from without?” That is, what Jews said about other Jews is paradigmatically distinct from what Gentiles will eventually think about Jews, as in many New Testament apocryphal works. Many readers of the New Testament ignore or reject John because they find it impossible to reconcile the vast differences between it and the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, Luke). Note the following statement by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: The gospel [of John] contains many details about Jesus not found in the synoptic gospels, e.g., that Jesus engaged in a baptizing ministry (Jn 3:22) before he changed to one of preaching and signs; that Jesus’ public ministry lasted for several years (see note on Jn 2:13); that he traveled to Jerusalem for various festivals and met serious opposition long before his death (Jn 2:14–25; 5; 7–8); and that he was put to death on the day before Passover. (Jn 18:28)9

Many professors and laity assume the simple approach would be to follow the Synoptic view. But the vote is not three against one—or Matthew, Mark, and Luke against John. Matthew and Luke depend on Mark; so it is Mark against John. And, as we have seen, Mark presupposes John’s chronology and could not write an elegant narrative, perhaps because he was Peter’s secretary—gifted perhaps only in recording—and never had been to Judea or Galilee, knowing little about Jewish halakot and habits. Some thinkers are offended by what they deem to be supersessionism and antiSemitism in “John.” Some have judged this Gospel to be full of hate. Readers observe passages such as those that claim Jews seek to kill Jesus (see, for example, 11:56ff.). Note the rendering in the RSV (second edition, which is the best): “Jesus therefore no longer went about openly among the Jews (ἐν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις), but went from there to the country near the wilderness, to a town called Ephraim; and there he stayed with the disciples” (11:54). This translation suggests to too many that Jesus, who was from the “Land of the Gentiles,” was not Jewish and that “Jews” wanted to kill him. This translation led to claims that damned Jews because of a horrific hermeneutic. An anecdote cannot be repressed, as we contemplate the devilish power of misinterpreting John and the deepness of inherited prejudices. In Krakow, during dinner I heard an old regurgitation by a professor who had come from teaching in the university. He said something that I imagined was an obsolete belief,—something that scholars may have even created as a caricature to make important points in teaching and writing. With an Israeli and with this professor, I had gone to a village, Slomniki, northeast of Krakow, that had once been dominated by Jews. In the remains of this once prosperous setting, we talked to an octogenarian who became again a thirteenyear-old boy, transmorphing as he described what he had experienced and which was burned into his conscience ever since. In the early 1940s, Nazis ordered about 10,000 Jews to gather in an open field near a rail station contiguous with, but west of, the village. For one week, babies, children, women, and men endured unbelievable hardships: no water, no food, no bathrooms, no shelter, no hope. When a baby or child seemed bothersome to the Gestapo, they were shot; dogs finished the job. Those that

538 Conclusion survived were put in trains and dumped at Beljetz (Belzec) to be incinerated rapidly. Sometimes the worst horrors were not confined to death camps. That same evening, with these thoughts seared within, I espoused a conviction I assumed was shared: “We must prohibit our students from hating Jews and reading the New Testament as anti-Jewish propaganda.” My “colleague” disagreed: “Jews killed Jesus! That is a fact and we cannot change history; it shapes public perceptions and we cannot change that.” No one who has read my words needs to be informed of my anguish and horror; we are not imagining a myth whereby Seth (Set) vivisects his brother Osiris and throws all portions of this god into the Nile. I tried to explain that recent popes announced such exegesis and hermeneutics were no longer permitted. Then, I recalled the German noun Gottmörder, “God-assassin” or “God-killer,” a term of extreme opprobrium, directed at Jews because they killed God.10 And I also pointed out that Germans and Poles believed such sick exegesis of John may help a tiny bit in explaining the Shoah or Holocaust.11 In the preceding chapters, I offered a solution that was not generated by sensitivities about Jewish-Christian relations but from the study of Greek philology, historical and sociological context, narrative criticism, and rhetorical insights. In Jn 11:54 the expression ἐν τοῖς Ἰουδαίοις must be translated “some Judean leaders”; Jesus went to a very Jewish village that continues to exist northeast of Jerusalem. The adverb of place (ἐκεῖθεν) seals the argument: “but he went from there” (ἀλλὰ ἀπῆλθεν ἐκεῖθεν); hence, in this passage Ioudaioi denotes a place: Judea; the text thus refers to some Jewish leaders. Moreover, these self-same Jewish leaders were offended that many other influential Jews, or Judeans, were beginning to believe in Jesus (11:45; 12:11). Similarly, we must undermine the claims that Jesus was from “the Land of the Gentiles.” That expression referred to only those living on the western coast of Palestine, near Akko, and on the Mediterranean coast. Jesus’ itinerant ministry was focused on the northwestern shores of the Sea of Galilee, specifically Migdal, Capernaum, Corazin, and Bethsaida. Archaeological excavations prove that these villages were thoroughly Jewish. At Migdal some Gentiles seem to have been present, but the Midgal Synagogue Stone proves that the type of Judaism alive in this fishing village was symbolically linked with the Jerusalem Temple. John is also not “anti-Jewish.” As I have shown, some members of the Johannine School were believing Jews who desired to continue attendance at celebrations in a local synagogue. Jesus and Moses are not contrasted, and the economy of salvation does not allow supersessionism. The earliest followers of Jesus, including Paul and the authors and editors of John, argued against the Marcionite claim that God abandoned those with whom he made the Covenant. Hence, John provides two horizons: The time of Jesus and the time during the evolution of the Gospel of John. “Should John be rejected because some commentators conclude John is ‘Docetic’?” In its final edited form, John is not Docetic; but the first edition could be read so as to imagine Jesus was not really human. He does not show exasperations in the Garden of Gethsemane, he carries his own cross, and he does not curse but triumphantly proclaims as he is lifted up: “It is finished.” The impression of Docetism in the first edition was undermined, and removed, with one sentence shaped by the order of

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words and asyndetic rhetoric: “And the WORD flesh became.” The sentence is certainly an addition. “Are not the depictions of Jesus being exhausted, thirsty, and crying also probably editorial additions that serve to portray Jesus as a fully Jewish male who loves his Judaism?” Such impressions should be shared even though they cannot be demonstrated due to the precise way the authors and editors of John rework and remint all traditions they receive. Finally, some New Testament specialists continue to date this Gospel late and dependent on the Synoptics. I have shown that opinion falters with the recognition that some portions of John antedate the Synoptics and originated during the life of Jesus. “To what degree does the so-called Evangelist know the Synoptics?” The answers of specialists are far from clear, as became obvious during the 2016 discussions of the Princeton-Prague Symposium in Princeton. We can report that it is certain “John” had independent traditions and some of them have as strong a case to being historically reliable as any verses in the first three Gospels. If there is any consensus today on John, it would be that the Gospel reflects many expansions over considerable time. Note the teaching of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: “Critical analysis makes it difficult to accept the idea that the Gospel as it now stands was written by one person.” If the “Gospel of John” began with the eyewitness memories of the Apostle John—as I have only intimated but firmly believe—then decades later and with many additions by other authors and editors, those in Johannine School would probably consider it their own production. Hence, in its earliest forms no name would have been connected with it. Commentaries are designed to help ministers understand the text and the consensus of experts so they may preach with clarity and insight. This book is different. It shuns the attempt to access a consensus, though I do not see Johannine experts as wild cowboys galloping off in different directions. I am seeking to forge new paths, to ask some fresh questions and to rewrite some previous publications as well as offering new hypotheses. Thomas Aquinas and Jerome Murphy-O’Connor ended their lives by admitting that all their published declarations could receive a question mark at the end.12 Sir Isaac Newton perused his spectacular career by admitting that he felt like he had been a little boy, running in and out of the ebbing surf, seeking shells to collect. We who strive to recreate the past know our limitations and we are keenly aware of the paucity of our database. The discovery of over 1,000 Qumran Scrolls revolutionized and corrected our perceptions of Second Temple Judaism and of Christian Origins. “Should we not contemplate how many more scrolls went up in flames before 70 CE in Galilee and Judea?” We now grasp more clearly how Jewish were Jesus, the Apostle John, and Christianity. Most importantly, we scholars are so limited in time and space. We cannot enter Jerusalem before 70 CE. Even if we live a thousand years, such unimaginable longevity would be virtually nothing in comparison to the thirteen billion years “light” has traveled to be seen today by astronomers through space-age telescopes. In this massive book, I have attempted to celebrate the genius of John. Perhaps that is a cipher that encompasses all those who contributed to the editions, emendations, and interpolations that define this Gospel, whatever it was called, before 170 CE.

540 Conclusion The present book has four sections of eighteen chapters. Each raises questions about the origin and evolution of the Gospel of John. We clarified why contemporary paradigm shifts are changing scholars’ view of this masterpiece; for example, scholars are beginning to perceive that the Gospels, mutatis mutandis, may be categorized among ancient biographies.13 The first edition of John apparently appeared before 70 CE in Jerusalem, and perhaps crystalized as Qumranites fled their burning ruins in 68 CE, dashing up the Judean hills north of Bethlehem to join Essenes who had moved back into Jerusalem. These Essenes, defined more by the rules in the Damascus Document than those designed for the Yaḥad in the Rule of the Community, had established themselves again in the Holy City, since they were allied with Herod the Great who banished the Hasmonean hegemony from the Temple cult. The eyewitness interleaved in John knew Jerusalem’s architecture in an astounding way, as proved by archaeological excavations in today’s Jerusalem. As the work we know as “the Gospel of John” took shape over thirty years, Essene influences in the Johannine traditions can be seen, perhaps beginning from John the Baptizer, through Jesus, to Essenes joining as confederates with the other writing group within Early Judaism, those in the Johannine School. Within ancient Palestine those associated with the Gospel of John rejected the emphasis in the Parables of Enoch; they proclaimed that Jesus, and not Enoch, is revealed as the Judge, the Son of Man. This group of Jews, and Gentiles, studied and improved the Gospel of John, and produced the Odes of Solomon, 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and Revelation. Most of these took final form and were produced in another locale that can only be conjectured; perhaps we should listen to the ancient savants of the church and contemplate Antioch or Ephesus. Ophidian symbology is evident in John so perhaps we can contemplate with more precision the origin of the Ophites. The Johannine School revered the Beloved Disciple, an Apostle, and the final form of John highlights only him. As Thomas, he alone is in focus in the final dramatic scene (ch. 20) and he alone is the Disciple who makes the perfect confession. We also speculated that behind this highly evolved and redacted Gospel may be found memories of Jesus’ marriage, which is to be expected in this thoroughly Jewish composition. Jesus must be one who obeys his Father, God, and the commandment to marry found in Gen 1:28, 8:17, and 9:1, 7 (Jer 29:6; Sir 7:25; cf. Rev 19:7, 9). Marriage in first century Galilee probably had many different customs and forms. For Galilean Jews, priests were not always hallowed and synagogues had no judicial power. The power came from Torah: what God has joined together must not be separated (Mk 10:9, Mt 19:6). “Did Jesus have a spiritual marriage?” It is far from certain that he was married or whom he married, but we may be given a glimpse in John 2, which is one of the most edited passages in our Bible. Moreover, there is certainly no evidence that Jesus had offspring, but he adored children. Finally, we offered a new and challenging explanation for why the Gospel of John may have become known as “John.” May those who read my words feel the joy of studying and wondering what seems to be moving within and behind this Gospel. My explorations and questionings can be remembered as I think back to third grade, feeling the sea breeze wafting through the open windows near the surf in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, as each day began with

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reading aloud the KJV of John. For me, Paul fought, and suffered, to make the “Good News” attractive for all; but John (whoever that mysterious person may be) is THE GENIUS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.

Notes 1 See “Ten Reasons Why We Must Reject the Gospel of John,” in Many Prophets: One Message (May 12, 2015). 2 Lit. “servers of,” or “workers of.” A frequent expression in the Hebrew Bible; see esp. Ps 100:2. We have reserved “serve” for ‫( שרת‬see Ps 101:6). The passage probably refers to the workers in the Jerusalem Temple, the priests and Levites. 3 The author prefers “your name” for the tetragrammaton; see “your name” in col. 1, 8, 11 [bis], 26; cf. “his [God’s] name” in col. 1, 17, 19. Also see “the name of the Great One,” col. 1, 22. The full form for the tetragrammaton appears in col. 2. 4 Not Piel, “will teach.” 5 Lit.: “they will learn a chant (song).” See “a new chant (song)” as in Ps 40:4. Chanting, not singing, defines worship in Judaism. 6 Or “trust.” The Hiphil form does not mean here “feel safe.” 7 See line 15: “David your servant.” David, God’s servant, seems intended. From such Jewish concepts the Fourth Evangelist crafted his Gospel. The document clearly has “those who will believe the words of your servant.” 8 See my edition and translation of Psalm 156 in the Princeton DSS Projects vol. 8A. 9 See the web page by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. 10 Behind European consciousness lies the German myth of Götterdämmerung, the twilight of the gods and their annihilation. 11 Fortunately, my close colleague and friend, Professor Dr. Miroslav Wrobel, was present. I serve on his board as he publishes the Polish edition of the Targumim. He often visits Jerusalem, and participates in my symposia. He is fond of Jews and was equally horrified that evening. 12 See J. Murphy-O’Connor’s admission in his biography on Paul: Paul: A Critical Life (Oxford: Clarendon Press and New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). See the final paragraph in Aquinas’ masterpiece. 13 See the book edited by Craig Keener, Biographies and Jesus: What Does It Mean for the Gospels to be Biographies?  (in press). Informative and on target is Keener’s introduction: “On Ancient Biography and the Gospels.”

Advances in the Study of the Fourth Gospel: A Selected Bibliography The following collection includes many of the most important contributions to scholarship on the Fourth Gospel, and particularly those pertaining most closely to the themes addressed in The Genius in the New Testament. Some additional studies that have appeared since work was completed on the book have been included as well. For a more exhaustive bibliography with a particular focus on the use of the Gospel of John in Jesus Research see J. G. R. Pruszinski, “Jesus Research and the Gospel of John: A Selected Bibliography,” in Jesus Research: The Gospel of John in Historical Inquiry. The Third Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research: Princeton 2016, eds. J. H. Charlesworth with J. G. R. Pruszinski (forthcoming). Akala, A. J. The Son-Father Relationship and Christological Symbolism in the Gospel of John. Library of New Testament Studies 505. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. Aland, K. “Der Text des Johannesevangeliums im 2. Jahrhundert.” Pages 1–10 in Studien zum Text und zur Ethik des Neuen Testaments. Edited by W. Schrage. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1986. Allison, D. C., Jr. Constructing Jesus: Memory, Imagination, and History. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2010. Allison, D. C., Jr. and R. J. Miller, eds. The Apocalyptic Jesus: A Debate. Santa Rosa, CA: Polebridge, 2001. Anderson, P. N. Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Its Unity and Disunity in the Light of John 6. Rev. ed. Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2010. Anderson, P. N. The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus: Modern Foundations Reconsidered. London and New York: T & T Clark, 2006. Anderson, P. N., F. Just, and T. Thatcher, eds. John, Jesus, and History, 3 vols. Atlanta: SBL, 2007–16. Ashton, J. Understanding the Fourth Gospel. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991. Asiedu-Peprah, M. Johannine Sabbath Conflicts as Juridical Controversy. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001. Asurmendi, J. “En Torno a la Serpiente de Bronce.” Estudios Bíblicos 46 (1988): 283–94. Attridge, H. W. Essays on John and Hebrews. WUNT 264. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010. Aune, D. E. “Dualism in the Fourth Gospel and the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reassessment of the Problem.” Pages 281–303 in Neotestamentica et Philonica: Studies in Honor of Peder Borgen. Edited by D. E. Aune, T. Seland, and J. H. Ulrichsen. NovTSup 106. Leiden: Brill, 2003. Bacon, B. W. The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate. New Haven: Yale, 1910. Bakotin, H. De notione lucis et tenebrarum in Evangelio S. Joannis. Dubrovnik: V. Kukurelo, 1943. Baldensperger, W. Der Prolog des vierten Evangeliums. Freiburg: Mohr Siebeck, 1898. Barrett, C. K. The Gospel According to St. John. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978. Barrett, C. K. The Gospel of John and Judaism. Translated by D. M. Smith. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975.

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Bauckham, R. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses: The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006. Bauckham, R. “Qumran and the Fourth Gospel: Is There a Connection?” Pages 267–79 in The Scrolls and the Scriptures: Qumran Fifty Years After. Edited by S. E. Porter and C. A. Evans. JSPSup 26. Sheffield: Sheffield, 1997. Bauckham, R. “The Qumran Community and the Gospel of John.” Pages 105–15 in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Fifty Years after Their Discovery. Edited by L. H. Schiffman, E. Tov, and J. C. VanderKam. Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society and the Shrine of the Book, 2000. Bauckham, R. The Testimony of the Beloved Disciple: Narrative, History, and Theology in the Gospel of John. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007. Bauer, W. Das Johannesevangelium. HNT 6. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1933. Baumbach, G. Qumran und das Johannesevangelium. AVTRW 6. Berlin: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1957. Baur, F. C. Kritische Untersuchungen über die kanonischen Evangelien. Tübingen: Fues, 1847. Beasley-Murray, G. R. John. Dallas: Word Publishing, 1989. Beck, D. R. The Discipleship Paradigm: Readers and Anonymous Characters in the Fourth Gospel. Biblical Interpretation Series 27. Leiden: Brill, 1997. Becker, H. Die Reden des Johannesevangeliums und der Stil der gnostischen Offenbarungsrede. FRLANT N.F. 50. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, 1956. Becker, J. Das Evangelium nach Johannes, 2 vols. Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1991. Bernard, J. H. A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John, 2 vols. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1928. Bernier, J. Aposynagōgos and the Historical Jesus in John: Rethinking the Historicity of the Johannine Expulsion Passages. Biblical Interpretation Series 122. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013. Bert, G. Das Evangelium des Johannes. Gütersloh: Bertelsmann, 1922. Betz, O. Der Paraklet: Fürsprecher im häretischen Spätjudentum, im Johannes-Evangelium und in neu gefundenen gnostischen Schriften. AGSU 2. Leiden: Brill, 1963. Black, D. A., and J. N. Cerone, eds. The Pericope of the Adulteress in Contemporary Research. London: T & T Clark, 2016. Black, M. An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts. Oxford: Clarendon, 1967. Böcher, O. Der johanneische Dualismus im Zusammenhang des nachbiblischen Judentums. Gütersloh: Mohn, 1965. Boismard, M.-É. Moses or Jesus: An Essay in Johannine Christology. Translated by B. T. Viviano. Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium 84A. Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1993. Boismard, M.-É., and A. Lamouille. Synopse des Quatre Évangiles en Français III: L'évangile de Jean. Paris: Cerf, 1977. Borgen, P. The Gospel of John: More Light from Philo, Paul and Archaeology. NovTSup 154. Leiden: Brill, 2014. Borgen, P. “The Independence of the Gospel of John.” Pages 183–204 in Early Christianity and Hellenistic Judaism. Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996. Borgen, P. “John and the Synoptics.” Pages 408–37 in The Interrelations of the Gospels. Edited by D. L. Dungan. BETL 95. Leuven: Leuven University, 1990. Borgen, P. “John and the Synoptics in the Passion Narrative.” NTS 5 (1959): 246–59. Borgen, P. “Observations on the Midrashic Character of John 6.” ZNW 54 (1963): 232–40.

544 Advances in the Study of the Fourth Gospel: A Selected Bibliography Borgen, P. “Some Jewish Exegetical Traditions as Background for Son of Man Sayings in John’s Gospel (Jn 3,13–14 and context).” Pages 243–58 in L’Évangile de Jean. Edited by M. de Jonge. BETL 44. Gembloux: Duculot, 1977. Borig, R. Der Wahre Weinstock: Untersuchungen zu Jo 15, 1–10. Munich: KöselVerlag, 1967. Boshoff, P. B. “Walter Schmithals en die Johannese Geskrifte.” Hervormde Teologiese Studies 49 (1993): 728–41. Braun, F. M. “L’Arrière-fond judaїque du quatrième évangile et la communauté de l’alliance.” RB 62 (1955): 5–44. Braun, F. M. Jean le théologien et son évangile dans l’église ancienne, 3 vols. Paris: Lecoffre, 1959–66. Brodie, T. L. The Gospel According to John: A Literary and Theological Commentary. New York: Oxford, 1993. Brooke, G. J. The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005. Brown, R. E. The Community of the Beloved Disciple. New York: Paulist, 1979. Brown, R. E. The Death of the Messiah, 2 vols. New York: Doubleday, 1994. Brown, R. E. The Gospel According to John, 2 vols. AB 29-29a. New Haven: Yale, 1966–70. Brown, R. E. An Introduction to the Gospel of John. Edited by F. J. Moloney. New York: Doubleday, 2003. Brown, R. E. New Testament Essays. New York: Paulist, 1965. Brown, R. E. “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles.” CBQ 17 (1955): 403–19, 559–74. Brown, R. E. “Roles of Women in the Fourth Gospel.” TS 36 (1975): 688–99. Brownson, J. “The Odes of Solomon and the Johannine Tradition.” JSP 2 (1988): 49–69. Bruce, F. F. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992. Bultmann, R. “Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandäischen und manichäischen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums.” ZNW 24 (1925): 100–47. Bultmann, R. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Translated by G. Beasley-Murray, R. W. N. Hoare, and J. K. Riches. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971. Translation of Das Evangelium des Johannes. Göttingen: Vandenboeck & Ruprecht, 1941. Bultmann, R. “The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, by C. H. Dodd.” Harvard Divinity Bulletin 27 (1963): 9–22. Burney, C. F. The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel. Oxford: Clarendon, 1922. Calmes, P. T. L’Évangile selon Saint Jean. Paris: Lecoffre, 1904. Capper, B. J. “With the Oldest Monks ….” JTS NS 49 (1998): 1–55. Carmignac, J. “La notion d’eschatologie dans la Bible et à Qumrân.” RevQ 7 (1969): 17–31. Carmignac, J. “Les affinities qumrâniennes de la onzième Ode de Salomon.” RevQ 3 (1961): 71–102. Carmignac, J. “Un qumrânien converti au christianisme: l’auteur des Odes de Salomon.” Pages 75–109 in Qumran-Probleme. Edited by H. Bardtke. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1963. Carson, D. A. “Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel: After Dodd, What?” Pages 83–145 in Gospel Perspectives, vol. 2. Edited by R. T. France and D. Wenham. Sheffield: JSOT, 1981. Charlesworth, J. H. The Beloved Disciple: Whose Witness Validates the Gospel of John? Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1995. Charlesworth, J. H. “A Critical Comparison of the Dualism in 1QS 3:13–4:26 and the ‘Dualism’ Contained in the Gospel of John.” NTS 15 (1968–69): 389–418.

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Charlesworth, J. H. Critical Reflections on the Odes of Solomon: Volume 1—Literary Setting, Textual Studies, Gnosticism, the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Gospel of John. JSPSup 22. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. Charlesworth, J. H. The Good and Evil Serpent: How a Universal Symbol Became Christianized. AYBRL. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010. Charlesworth, J. H. “The Gospel of John: Exclusivism Caused by a Social Setting Different from That of Jesus (John 11:54 and 14:6).” Pages 479–513 in Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000. Edited by R. Bieringer, D. Pollefeyt, and F. Vandecasteele-Vanneuville. Jewish and Christian Heritage Series 1. Assen: Royal van Gorcum, 2001. Charlesworth, J. H. “The Historical Jesus in the Fourth Gospel: A Paradigm Shift?” JSHJ 8 (2010): 3–46. Charlesworth, J. H., ed. Jesus and Temple: Textual and Archaeological Explorations. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014. Charlesworth, J. H. “The Jewish Roots of Christology: The Discovery of the Hypostatic Voice.” Scottish Journal of Theology 39 (1986): 19–41. Charlesworth, J. H., ed. John and the Dead Sea Scrolls. New York: Crossroad, 1991. Charlesworth, J. H., ed. John and Qumran. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1972. Charlesworth, J. H. “Merleau-Ponty’s Phenomenological Description of ‘Word’.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 30 (1970): 609–13. Charlesworth, J. H. “Polyani, Merleau-Ponty, Arendt, and the Foundation of Biblical Hermeneutics.” Pages 1531–56 in Interpretation of the Bible: 1996 International Symposium on the Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by J. Krašovec. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1968. Charlesworth, J. H. “The Priority of John? Reflections on the Essenes and the First Edition of John.” Pages 73–114 in Für und wider die Priorität des Johannesevangeliums: Symposion in Salzburg. Edited by P. Hofrichter. Theologische Texte und Studien 9. Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, 2002. Charlesworth, J. H. “Prolegomenous Reflections Towards a Taxonomy of Resurrection Texts (1QH, 1En, 4Q521, Paul, Luke, the Fourth Gospel, and Psalm 30).” Pages 237–64 in The Changing Face of Judaism, Christianity, and Other Greco-Roman Religions in Antiquity. Edited by I. H. Henderson and G. S. Oegema. Studien zu den Jüdischen Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit 2. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2006. Charlesworth, J. H. “Reinterpreting John: How the Dead Sea Scrolls have Revolutionized our Understanding of the Gospel of John.” BR 9 (1993): 18–25, 54. Charlesworth, J. H. “Résurrection individuelle et immortalité de l’âme.” Pages 505–51 in Histoire du Christianisme: Anamnèsis, vol. 14. Edited by J. M. Mayeur, F. Laplanche, and G. Alberigo. Paris: Desclée, 2001. Charlesworth, J. H., ed. Resurrection: The Origin and Future of a Biblical Doctrine. Faith and Scholarship Colloquies Series. New York and London: T & T Clark, 2006. Charlesworth, J. H. “Solomon and Jesus: The Son of David in the Ante-Markan Traditions (Mk 10:47).” Pages 125–51 in Biblical and Humane: A Festschrift for John. H. Priest. Edited by L. B. Elder, D. L. Barr, and E. S. Malbon. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996. Charlesworth, J. H. “A Study in Shared Symbolism and Language: The Qumran Community and the Johannine Community.” Pages 97–152 in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Scrolls and Christian Origins, vol. 3. Edited by J. H. Charlesworth. Waco: Baylor, 2006. Charlesworth, J. H. “The Tale of Two Pools: Archaeology and the Book of John.” NEASB 56 (2011): 1–14.

546 Advances in the Study of the Fourth Gospel: A Selected Bibliography Charlesworth, J. H., and R. A. Culpepper, “The Odes of Solomon and the Gospel of John.” CBQ 35 (1973): 298–322. Charlesworth, J. H., with P. Pokorný, eds. Jesus Research: An International Perspective. The First Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research, Prague 2005. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2009. Charlesworth, J. H., with J. G. R. Pruszinski, eds. Jesus Research: The Gospel of John in Historical Inquiry. The Third Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research: Princeton 2016. Forthcoming. Charlesworth, J. H., with B. Rhea and P. Pokorný, eds. Jesus Research: New Methodologies and Perceptions. The Second Princeton-Prague Symposium on Jesus Research: Princeton, 2007. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013. Chapman, J. “Names in the Fourth Gospel.” JTS 30 (1928): 16–23. Chapman, J. “We Know that his Testimony is True.” JTS 31 (1930): 379–87. Coloe, M. L. “Household of Faith (Jn 4:46–54; 11:1-1–44).” Pacifica 12 (2000): 326–33. Coloe, M. L., and T. Thatcher, eds. John, Qumran, and the Dead Sea scrolls: Sixty Years of Discovery and Debate. SBL Early Judaism and Its Literature 32. Atlanta: SBL, 2011. Colson, J. L’énigme du Disciple que Jésus aimait. Paris: Beauchesne et Ses Fils, 1969. Cribbs, F. L. “St. Luke and the Johannine Tradition.” JBL 90 (1971): 422–50. Cribbs, F. L. “A Reassessment of the Date of Origin and the Destination of the Gospel of John.” JBL 89 (1970): 28–55. Cribbs, F. L. “A Study of the Contacts That Exist Between St. Luke and St. John.” Pages 1–93 in Society of Biblical Literature 1973 Seminar Papers, vol. 2. Edited by George MacRae. Cambridge: SBL, 1973. Crossan, D. The Gospel of Eternal Life: Reflections on the Theology of St. John. Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1967. Cullmann, O. The Johannine Circle. Translated by J. Bowdon. London: SCM, 1976. Culpepper, R. A. The Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983. Culpepper, R. A. The Johannine School: An Evaluation of the Johannine-School Hypothesis Based on an Investigation of the Nature of Ancient Schools. SBLDS 26. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975. Culpepper, R. A. John, the Son of Zebedee. Columbia: South Carolina, 1994. Culpepper, R. A. “What Makes John Unique?” Pages 18–26 in The Gospel and Letters of John. Nashville: Abingdon, 1998. Culpepper, R. A., and C. C. Black, eds. Exploring the Gospel of John in Honor of D. Moody Smith. Louisville: Westminster, 1996. Daise, M. A. Feasts in John: Jewish Festivals and Jesus’ “Hour” in the Fourth Gospel. WUNT 2.229. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007. Daise, M. A. “Quotations with ‘Remembrance’ Formulae in the Fourth Gospel.” Pages 75–92 in Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John. Edited by A. D. Myers and B. G. Schuchard. RBS 81. Atlanta: SBL, 2015. Daniélou, J. Les Symboles chrétiens primitifs. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1961. Deines, R. Jüdisches Steingefäße und pharisäische Frömmigkeit: Ein archäologischhistorischer Beitrag zum Verständnis von Joh 2,6 und der jüdischen Reinheitshalacha zur Zeit Jesu. WUNT 2.56. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993. Desto, A., and M. Pesce. Come nasce una religione: Antropologia ed esegesi del Vangelo di Giovanni. Bari-Rome: Laterza, 2000. de Boer, M. C. “Narrative Criticism, Historical Criticism, and the Gospel of John.” Pages 35–48 in The Johannine Writings. Edited by S. E. Porter and C. A. Evans. Sheffield: Sheffield, 1995.

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Devillers, L. La Fête de l’Envoyé: La section Johannique de la fête des tentes (Jean 7,1–10,21) et la christologie. Études Bibliques N.S. 49. Paris: Gabalda, 2002. Dibelius, M. “Johannesevangelium.” RGG 3 (1929): 349–63. Dodd, C. H. Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1963. Dodd, C. H. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1953. Donahue, J. R., ed. Life in Abundance: Studies of John’s Gospel in Tribute to Raymond E. Brown. Collegeville: Liturgical, 2005. Doohan, L. John: Gospel for a New Age. Santa Fe: Bear & Co., 1988. Dörrie, H. Ὑπόστασις. Wort- und Bedeutungsgeschichte. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1955. Duke, P. D. Irony in the Fourth Gospel. Atlanta: Scholars, 1985. Dunn, J. D. G. “Let John be John.” Pages 330–37 in Das Evangelium und die Evangelien. Edited by P. Stuhlmacher. WUNT 28. Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1983. Ebner, M., I. Fischer, J. Frey, O. Fuchs, B. Janowski, R. Korrenz, V. Leppin, G. OberhänsliWidmer, D. Sattler, K. Schmid, G. Thomas, S. Vollenweider, M. Welker, and M. Wolter, eds. Zeit. Jahrbuch für Biblische Theologie 28. Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Theologie, 2014. Eckhardt, K. A. Der Tod des Johannes als Schlüssel zum Verständnis der Johanneischen Schriftem. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1961. Eckle, W. Den der Herr liebhatte—Rätsel um den Evangelisten Johannes. Hamburg: Verlag Dr. Kovač, 1991. Eller, V. The Beloved Disciple. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987. Endo, M. Creation & Christology: A Study on the Johannine Prologue in the Light of Early Jewish Creation Accounts. WUNT 2.149. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002. Evans, C. A. Word and Glory: On the Exegetical and Theological Background of John’s Prologue. JSNTSup 89. Sheffield: Sheffield, 1993. Ewald, H. Die johanneischen Schriften. Göttingen: Dieterich, 1861. Fehribach, A. The Women in the Life of the Bridegroom. Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1998. Ferreira, J. Johannine Ecclesiology. JSNTSup 160. Sheffield: Sheffield, 1998. Feuillet, A. “La participation actuelle à la vie divine d’après le quatrième évangile: les origines et le sens de cette conception.” Pages 295–308 in Studia Evangelica I: Papers Presented to the International Congress on ‘The Four Gospels in 1957’ held at Christ Church, Oxford, 1957. Edited by K. Aland, F. L. Cross, J. Danielou, H. Riesenfeld, and W. C. Van Unnik. Texte und Untersuchengen zur Geschichte der altchrislichen Literatur 79. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1959. Fletcher-Louis, C. H. T. Jesus Monotheism, Volume 1: Christological Origins: The Emerging Consensus and Beyond. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2015. Flusser, D. “The Dead Sea Sect and Pre-Pauline Christianity.” SH 4 (1958): 215–66. Flusser, D. “A Jewish-Christian Source for the Gospel of John.” Pages 66–72 in Yahadut u-Meqorot ha-Naẓrut. Tel Aviv, 1979. Flusser, D. Judaism and the Origins of Christianity. Jerusalem: Magnes, 1988. Förster, H. “Die Perikope von der Hochzeit zu Kana (Joh 2:1–11) im Kontext der Spätantike.” NovT 55 (2013): 103–26. Fortna, R. T. The Fourth Gospel and its Predecessor. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988. Fortna, R. T. The Gospel of Signs. SNTSMS 11. Cambridge: Cambridge, 1970. Fortna, R. T. “Source and Redaction in the Fourth Gospel’s Portrayal of Jesus’ Signs.” JBL 89 (1970): 151–66.

548 Advances in the Study of the Fourth Gospel: A Selected Bibliography Fortna, R. T., and T. Thatcher, eds. Jesus in Johannine Tradition. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001. Foster, P. “Memory, Orality, and the Fourth Gospel: An Ongoing Conversation with Stan Porter and Hughson T. Ong.” JSHJ 12 (2014): 165–83. Foster, P. “Memory, Orality, and the Fourth Gospel: Three Dead-Ends in Historical Jesus Research.” JSHJ 10 (2012): 191–227. Freed, E. D. Old Testament Quotation in the Gospel of John. NovTSup 11. Leiden: Brill, 1965. Frey, J. Die Herrlichkeit des Gekreuzigten: Studien zu den Johanneischen Schriften I. Edited by J. Schlegel. WUNT 307. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013. Frey, J. Die johanneische Eschatologie, 3 vols. WUNT 96, 110, 117. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1997–2000. Frey, J. “Die ‘theologia crucifixi’ des Johannesevangeliums.” Pages 169–238 in Kreuzestheologie im Neuen Testament. Edited by A. Dettwiler and J. Zumstein. WUNT 151. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2002. Froment-Meurice, H. Les femmes et Jésus. Paris: Cerf, 2007. Fugsleth, K. S. Johannine Sectarianism in Perspective: A Sociological, Historical and Comparative Analysis of Temple and Social Relationships in the Gospel of John, Philo and Qumran. NovTSup 119. Leiden: Brill, 2005. Gardner-Smith, P. Saint John and the Synoptic Gospels. Cambridge: Cambridge, 1938. Garnet, P. Salvation and Atonement in the Qumran Scrolls. WUNT 2. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1977. Gieschen, C. A. Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence. AGJU 42. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1998. Goodwin, C. “How did John Treat His Sources?” JBL 73 (1954): 61–75. Gordley, M. “The Johannine Prologue and Jewish Didactic Hymn Traditions: A New Case for Reading the Prologue as a Hymn.” JBL 128 (2009): 781–802. Goulder, M. “An Old Friend Incognito.” Scottish Journal of Theology 45 (1992): 487–513. Grassi, J. A. The Secret Identity of the Beloved Disciple. New York: Paulist, 1992. Grech, P. “Ebrei e cristiani ad Efeso: Riflessi nel Vangelo di Giovanni.” Pages 139–44 in IV Simposio di Efeso su S. Giovanni Apostolo. Edited by L. Padovese. Rome: Pontificio Ateneo Antoniano, 1994. Griffith-Jones, R. Beloved Disciple: The Misunderstood Legacy of Mary Magdalene, the Woman Closest to Jesus. New York: HarperOne, 2008. Guilding, A. The Fourth Gospel and Jewish Worship: A Study of the Relation of St. John’s Gospel to the Ancient Jewish Lectionary System. Oxford: Clarendon, 1960. Haenchen, E. Die Bibel und Wir. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1968. Haenchen, E. Gott und Mensch: Gesammelte Aufsätze. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1965. Haenchen, E. John, 2 vols. Translated by F. W. Funk and U. Busse. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984. Harner, P. B. The “I am” of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Johannine Usage and Thought. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1970. Hawkin, D. J. “The Function of the Beloved Disciple Motif in the Johannine Redaction.” Laval Théologique et Philosophique 33 (1977): 135–50. Hengel, M. “Bishop Lightfoot and the Tübingen School on the Gospel of John and the Second Century.” Pages 23–51 in The Lightfoot Centenary Lectures. Edited by J. D. G. Dunn. Durham: Durham, 1992. Hengel, M. Die johanneische Frage: ein Lösungsversuch, mit einem Beitrag zur Apokalypse. WUNT 67. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993.

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Hengel, M. The Johannine Question. London: SCM, 1989. Higgins, A. J. B. “The Words of Jesus According to St John.” BJRL 49 (1967): 363–86. Hofius, O. “Das Wunder der Wiedergeburt: Jesu Gespräch mit Nikodemus Joh 3,1-21.” Pages 33–80 in Johannesstudien. Edited by O. Hofius and H.-C. Kammler. WUNT 88. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996. Hofrichter, P. L. Modell und Vorlage der Synoptiker: Das vorredaktionelle “Johannesevangelium”. Theologische Texte und Studien 6. Hildesheim: Olms, 1997. Howard, W. F. Christianity According to John. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1946. Howard, W. F. The Fourth Gospel in Recent Criticism and Interpretation. Revised by C. K. Barrett. London: Epworth, 1955. Johnson, L. “The Beloved Disciple—A Reply.” ExpT 77 (1965–66). Kaestli, J.-P., J.-M. Poffet, and J. Zumstein, eds. La communauté Johannique et son histoire, 157–58. Le Monde de la Bible. Geneva: Labor et Fides, 1990. Käsemann, E. The Testament of Jesus: A Study of the Gospel of John in the Light of Chapter 17. Translated by Gerhard Krodel. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968. Translation of Jesu letzter Wille nach Johannes 17. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1966. Kaufman, P. S. The Beloved Disciple. Collegeville: Liturgical, 1991. Keener, C. S. The Gospel of John: A Commentary, 2 vols. Peabody, MA: Henrickson, 2003. Keith, C. The Pericope Adulterae, the Gospel of John, and the Literacy of Jesus. Leiden: Brill, 2009. Kosmala, H. “The Parable of the Unjust Steward in the Light of Qumran.” Pages 114–21 in Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute, vol. 3. Edited by H. Kosmala. Leiden: Brill 1964. Kragerud, A. Der Lieblingsjünger im Johannesevangelium. Oslo: Osloer, 1959. Krans, J., B. J. L. Peerbolte, P.-B. Smit, and A. Zwiep, eds. Paul, John, and Apocalyptic Eschatology: Studies in Honour of Martinus C. de Boer. NovTSup 149. Leiden: Brill, 2013. Kügler, J. Der Jünger, den Jesus liebte. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1988. Kuhn, K. G. “Die in Palästina gefundenen hebraïschen Texte und das neue Testament.” ZTK 47 (1950): 192–211. Kuhn, K. G. “Johannesevangelium und Qumrântexte.” Pages 111–22 in Neotestamentica et Patristica. Edited by W. C. van Unnik. NovTSup 6. Leiden: Brill, 1962. Kurz, W. S. “The Beloved Disciple and Implied Readers.” Biblical Theology Bulletin 19 (1989): 100–07. Kyser, R. John’s Story of Jesus. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1989. Lagrange, M.-J. Évangile selon Saint Jean. Études Bibliques. 2nd ed. Paris: Lecoffre and Gabalda, 1925. Lamb, D. A. Text, Context and the Johannine Community: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of the Johannine Writings. LNTS 477. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. Lee, G. A. Jewish Feasts and the Gospel of John. Wilmington: Glazier, 1989. Leroy, H. Rätsel und Missverständnis. BBB 30. Bonn: Hanstein, 1968. Levine, A.-J., ed. A Feminist Companion to John, 2 vols. London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2003. Lindars, B. The Gospel of John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995. Loisy, A. Le quatrième évangile. Paris: Picard, 1903. Lorenzen, T. Der Lieblingsjünger im Johannesevangelium. Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1971. Lozada, F., Jr., and T. Thatcher, eds. New Currents Through John: A Global Perspective. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2006.

550 Advances in the Study of the Fourth Gospel: A Selected Bibliography MacGregor, G. H. C. The Gospel of John. Moffat New Testament Commentary. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1928. Marrs, R. R. “John 3:14–15: The Raised Serpent in the Wilderness: The Johannine Use of an Old Testament Account.” Pages 132–47 in Johannine Studies: Essays in Honor of Frank Pack. Edited by J. E. Priest. Malibu: Pepperdine, 1989. Marsh, J. The Gospel of St. John. The Penguin Gospel Commentaries. London: Penguin Books, 1968. Martini, C. M. Women in the Gospels. New York: Crossroad, 1990. Martyn, J. L. History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel. 3rd ed. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2003. Mateos, J., and J. Barreto. Il Vangelo di Giovanni. Translated by T. Tosatti. Assisi: Cittadella Editrice, 2000. Matera, F. J. “Jesus Before Annas: John 18, 13-14, 19-24.” ETL 66 (1990): 38–55. Matson, M. A. In Dialogue with Another Gospel?: The Influence of the Fourth Gospel on the Passion Narrative of the Gospel of Luke. SBLDS 178. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001. Matson, M. A. John. Interpretation Bible Studies. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002. Matsunaga, K. “The Galileans in the Fourth Gospel.” AJBI 2 (1976): 135–58. Meeks, W. A. “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism.” JBL 91 (1972): 44–72. Republished as Pages 141–73 in The Interpretation of John. Edited by J. Ashton. Issues in Religion and Theology 9. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986. Meeks, W. A. The Prophet King: Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology. NovTSup 14. Leiden: Brill, 1967. Meier, J. P. A Marginal Jew, 5 vols. ABRL. New York: Doubleday, 1991–2016. Meinertz, M. Theologie des Neuen Testaments. Bonn: Hanstein, 1950. Menoud, P. H. L’évangile de Jean d’apres recherches récentes. Cahiers Théologiques de l'Actualité Protestante 3. Neuchatel and Paris: Delachaux & Niestle, 1947. Miguens, M. “Nota exegética a juan 20,17.” Studii Biblici Franciscani Liber Annuus 7 (1956–57): 221–31. Moloney, F. J. “The Fourth Gospel and the Jesus of History.” NTS 46 (2000): 42–58. Moloney, F. J. The Johannine Son of Man. Rome: LAS, 1976. Moltmann-Wendel, E. The Women Around Jesus. New York: Crossroad, 1982. Morris, L. The Gospel According to John. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995. Moule, C. F. D. “The Individualism of the Fourth Gospel.” NovT 5 (1962): 171–86. Mowry, L. “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Background for the Gospel of John.” BA 17 (1954): 78–97. Murphy-O’Connor, J. “Qumran and the New Testament.” Pages 55–71 in The New Testament and Its Modern Interpreters. Edited by E. J. Epp and G. W. MacRae. Atlanta: Scholars, 1989. Neugebauer, F. Die Entstehung des Johannesevangeliums. Stuttgart: Calwer, 1968. Neyrey, J. H. An Ideology of Revolt. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988. Noack, B. Zur johanneischen Tradition: Beiträge zur Kritik an der literakritischen Analyse des vierten Evangeliums. Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1954. Nongbri, B. “The Use and Abuse of P52: Papyrological Pitfalls in the Dating of the Fourth Gospel.” Harvard Theological Review 98 (2005): 23–48. North, W. E. S. A Journey Round John: Tradition and Context in the Fourth Gospel. Library of New Testament Studies. London: Bloomsbury and T & T Clark, 2015. O’Day, G. R. “Johannine Theology as Sectarian Theology.” Pages 199–203 in “What is John” Readers and Reading of the Fourth Gospel. Edited by F. F. Segovia. SBLMS 3. Atlanta: Scholars, 1996.

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O’Day, G. R. Revelation in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Mode and Theological Claim. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1986. Odeberg, H. The Fourth Gospel. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells Moktryckeri, 1929. Olsson, B. Structure and Meaning in the Fourth Gospel. Lund: Gleerup, 1974. Painter, J. Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Community. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991. Pagels, E. H. The Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis. SBLMS 17. Nashville: Abingdon, 1973. Pancaro, S. The Law in the Fourth Gospel. NovTSup 42. Leiden: Brill, 1975. Parsenios, G. L. “Confounding Foes and Counseling Friends: Parrêsia in the Fourth Gospel and Greco- Roman Philosophy.” Pages 251–72 in The Prologue of the Gospel of John: Its Literary, Theological, and Philosophical Contexts. Papers Read at the Colloquium Ioanneum 2013. Edited by J. G. Van der Watt, R. A. Culpepper, and U. Schnelle. WUNT 359. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2016. Parsenios, G. L. Departure and Consolation: The Johannine Farewell Discourses in Light of Greco-Roman Literature. NovTSup 117. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005. Parsenios, G. L. “Paramythetikos Christos: John Chrysostom Interprets the Johannine Farewell Discourses.” GOTR 48 (2005): 215–36. Parsenios, G. L. Rhetoric and Drama in the Johannine Lawsuit Motif. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010. Parsenios, G. L. “A Sententious Silence: First Thoughts on the Fourth Gospel and the Ardens Style.” Pages 1–20 in Portraits of Jesus: Essays in Honor of Harold Attridge. Edited by S. Myers. WUNT 2.321. Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2012. Parsenios, G. L. “The Silent Spaces between Narrative and Drama.” Pages 85–98 in The Gospel of John as Genre Mosaic. Edited by K. B. Larsen. Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica 3. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015. Phillips, P. M. The Prologue of the Fourth Gospel: A Sequential Reading. LNTS 294. London: T & T Clark, 2006. Pilgaard, A. “The Qumran Scrolls and John’s Gospel.” Pages 126–42 in New Readings in John: Literary and Theological Perspectives. Essays from the Scandinavian Conference on the Fourth Gospel (Århus 1997). Edited by J. Nissen and S. Pedersen. Sheffield: Sheffield, 1999. Pixner, B. Wege des Messias und Stätten der Urkirche: Jesus und das Judenchristentum im Licht neuer archäologischer Erkenntnisse. Giessen: Brunnen, 1991. Pollard, T. E. Johannine Christology and the Early Church. SNTSMS 13. Cambridge: Cambridge, 1970. Porter, S. E., and Hughson T. Ong. “Memory, Orality, and the Fourth Gospel: A Response to Paul Foster with Further Comments for Further Discussion.” JSHJ 12 (2014): 143–64. Quast, K. Peter and the Beloved Disciple: Figures for a Community in Crisis. JSNTSup 32. Sheffield: JSOT, 1989. Raney, W. H. The Relation of the Fourth Gospel to the Christian Cultus. Giesen: Töpelmann, 1933. Rengstorf, K. H., ed. Johannes und sein Evangelium. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973. Reicke, B. “Nytt ljus över Johannes döparens förkunnelse.” Religion och Bibel 11 (1952): 5–18. Richardson, P. “Khirbet Qana (and Other Villages) as a Context for Jesus.” Pages 120–44 in Jesus and Archaeology. Edited by J. H. Charlesworth. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2006.

552 Advances in the Study of the Fourth Gospel: A Selected Bibliography Ridderbos, H. The Gospel According to John. Translated by J. Vriend. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997. Ripley, J. J. “Killing as Piety? Exploring Ideological Contexts Shaping the Gospel of John.” JBL 134.3 (2015): 605–35. Robinson, J. A. T. The Priority of John. Edited by J. F. Coakley. London: Meyer-Stone, 1985. Rogers, D. G. “Who was the Beloved Disciple?” ExpT 77 (1965–66): 213–24. Roloff, J. “Der johanneische ‘Lieblingsjünger’ und der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit.” NTS 15 (1968–69): 129–51. Ruckstuhl, E. “Die johanneische Menschensohnforschung, 1957–1969.” Pages 171– 284 in Theologische Berichte. Edited by J. Pfammater and F. Furger. Einsiedeln: Benziger, 1972. Ruckstuhl, E. Jesus im Horizont der Evangelien. Stuttgart: Verlag Kataholisches Bibelwerk, 1988. Ruckstuhl, E., and P. Dschulnigg. Stilkritik und Verfasserfrage im Johannesevangelium. . NTOA 17. Freiburg: Universitätsverlag, 1991. Sanders, J. N. A Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John. Edited by B. A. Mastin. New York: Harper and Row, 1968. Sanders, J. T. The New Testament Christological Hymns: Their Historical Religious Background. SNTSMS 15. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971. Schlatter, A. Der Evangelist Johannes. Stuttgart: Calwer Vereinsbuchhandlung, 1930. Schmithals, W. Johannesevangelium und Johannesbriefe. BZNW 64. Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1992. Schnackenburg, R. “Die ‘situationsgelösten’ Redestücke in Joh 3.” ZNW 49 (1958): 88–99. Schnackenburg, R. The Gospel According to St. John, 3 vols. Translated by K. Smyth. New York: Herder & Herder 1968. Schulz, S. “Die Komposition des Johannesprologs und die Zusammensetzung des 4. Evangeliums.” Pages 351–62 in Studia Evangelica I: Papers Presented to the International Congress on ‘The Four Gospels in 1957’ held at Christ Church, Oxford, 1957. Edited by K. Aland, F. L. Cross, J. Danielou, H. Riesenfeld, and W. C. Van Unnik. Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchrislichen Literatur 79. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1959. Schulz, S. Untersuchungen zur Menschensohn-Christologie im Johannesevangelium. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1957. Schweizer, E. Ego Eimi: Die Religionsgeschichtliche Herkunft und theologische Bedeutung der johanneischen Bildreden, Zugleich ein Beitrag zur Quellenfrage des vierten Egangeliums. Göttingen: Vandernhoeck & Ruprecht, 1965. Shellard, B. New Light on Luke. London: T & T Clark, 2004. Sidebottom, E. M. “The Ascent and Descent of the Son of Man in the Gospel of St. John.” ATR 39 (1957): 115–22. Sidebottom, E. M. The Christ of the Fourth Gospel: London: SPCK, 1961. Siegert, F. Das Leben Jesu: Eine Biographie aufgrund der vorkanonischen Überlieferungen. Göttingen and Oakville, CT: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2010. Siliezar, C. R. S. Creation Imagery in the Gospel of John. Library of New Testament Studies 546. London: Bloomsbury and T & T Clark, 2015. Smalley, S. S. John: Evangelist and Interpreter. Carlisle: Paternoster, 1998. Smith, D. M. The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965. Smith, D. M. The Fourth Gospel in Four Dimensions. Columbia: University of South Carolina, 2008.

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Smith, D. M. “Historical Issues and the Problem of John and the Synoptics.” Pages 252–67 in From Jesus to John. Edited by M. C. de Boer. JSNTSup 84. Sheffield: JSOT, 1994. Smith, D. M. Johannine Christianity. Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1984. Smith, D. M. John. Abingdon New Testament Commentaries. Nashville: Abingdon, 1999. Smith, D. M. John Among the Gospels: The Relationship in Twentieth Century Research. 2nd ed. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2001. Smith, D. M. “John and the Synoptics: Historical Tradition and the Passion Narrative.” Pages 77–91 in Light in a Spotless Mirror: Reflections on Jewish Traditions in Dialogue. Edited by J. H. Charlesworth and M. A. Daise. Valley Forge: Trinity, 2001. Smith, D. M. “The Problem of John and the Synoptics in Light of the Relation between Apocryphal and Canonical Gospels.” Pages 147–62 in John and the Synoptics. Edited by A. Denaux. BETL 101. Leuven: Leuven University, 1992. Smith, D. M. The Theology of the Gospel of John. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Smith, P. “The Disciples of John and the Odes of Solomon.” The Monist 25 (1915): 161–99. Strachan, R. H. “The Newly Discovered Odes of Solomon, and their Bearing on the Problem of the Fourth Gospel.” ExpT 22 (1910): 7–14. Strathmann, H. Das Evangelium nach Johannes. NTD 4. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1951. Strecker, G. “Die Anfänge der Johanneischen Schule.” NTS 32 (1986): 31–47. Stuhlmacher, P. Das Evangelium un die Evangelien. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1983. Swanson, R. J., ed. John: New Testament Greek Manuscripts. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press; Pasadena, CA: William Carey International University Press, 1995. Szojda, O. D. “Symbolika wody w pismach św. Jana Evangelisty i w Qumran.” RocT 13 (1966): 105–21. Teeple, H. M. “Qumran and the Origin of the Fourth Gospel.” NovT 4 (1960): 6–25. Thatcher, T. Greater than Caesar: Christology and Empire in the Fourth Gospel. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2009. Thatcher, T. Jesus the Riddler: The Power of Ambiguity in the Gospels. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006. Thatcher, T. The Riddles of Jesus in John: A Study of Tradition and Folklore. SBLMS 53. Atlanta: SBL, 2000. Thatcher, T., ed. What we Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies. Waco: Baylor University Press, 2007. Thatcher, T., and S. D. Moore, eds. Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present, and Futures of the Fourth Gospel as Literature. Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2008. Thatcher, T., and C. H. Williams, eds. Engaging with C.H. Dodd on the Gospel of John: Sixty Years of Tradition and Interpretation. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Thomaskutty, J. Dialogue in the Book of Signs: A Polyvalent Analysis of John 1:19-12:50. BINS 136. Leiden: Brill, 2015. Thompson, M. M. The Humanity of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988. Thompson, M. M. John: A Commentary. New Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015. Thornecroft, J. K. “The Redactor and the ‘Beloved’ in John.” ExpT 98 (1986–87): 135–39. Thüsing, W. Die Erhöhung und Verherrlichung Jesu im Johannesevangelium. Neutestamentliche Abhandlungen 21. Münster: Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1960.

554 Advances in the Study of the Fourth Gospel: A Selected Bibliography Thyen, H. “Aus der Literatur zum Johannesevangelium.” Theologische Rundschau N.F. 42 (1977): 212–70. van Belle, G. The Signs Source in the Fourth Gospel: Historical Survey and Critical Evaluation of the Semeia Hypothesis. Translated by Peter J. Judge. BETL 116. Leuven: Leuven University Press, Uitgeverij Peeters, 1994. van Tilborg, S. Imaginative Love in John. Biblical Interpretation Series 2. Leiden and New York: Brill, 1993. van den Bussche, H. Jean: Commentaire de l’évangile spirituel. Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer, 1967. van den Bussche, H. “La structure de Jean I-XII.” Pages 61–109 in L’Évangile de Jean: Études et Problèmes. Recherches Bibliques 3. Bruges: Desclée de Brouwer, 1958. van der Watt, J. G., R. A. Culpepper, and U. Schnelle, eds. Prologue of the Gospel of John: Its Literary, Theological, and Philosophical Contexts: Papers Read at the Colloquium Ionanneum 2013. WUNT 359. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016. VanderKam, J. C. From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests After the Exile. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2004. VanderKam, J. C. “John 10 and the Feast of Dedication.” Pages 203–14 in Of Scribes and Scrolls: Studies on the Hebrew Bible, Intertestamental Judaism, and Christian Origins Presented to John Strugnell on the Occasion of his Sixtieth Birthday. Edited by H. W. Attridge, J. J. Collins, and T. H. Tobin. College Theology Society Resources in Religion 5. Lanham: University Press of America, 1990. Vonder Bruegge, J. M. Mapping Galilee in Josephus, Luke, and John: Critical Geography and the Construction of an Ancient Space. Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 93. Leiden: Brill, 2016. Vouga, F. Le cadre historique et l'intention théologique de Jean. Paris: Beauchesne, 1977. von Wahlde, U. C. The Earliest Version of John’s Gospel: Recovering the Gospel of Signs. Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1989. von Wahlde, U. C. Gnosticism, Docetism, and the Judaisms of the First Century: The Search for the Wider Context of Johannine Literature and Why it Matters. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. von Wahlde, U. C. The Gospel and Letters of John, 3 vols. Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2010. Watson, A. “The Wedding Feast at Cana.” Pages 18–28 in Jesus and the Jews. Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1995. Wengst, K. Das Johannes-Evangelium, 2 vols. Theologischer Kommentar zum Neuen Tetament 4. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2000. Whitacre, R. A. Johannine Polemic. SBLDS 67. Chico: Scholars, 1982. Wilckens, U. Das Evangelium nach Johannes. Das Neue Testament Deutsch 4. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2000. Wiles, M. F. The Spiritual Gospel: The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the Early Church. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960. Wilkenhauser, A. Das Evangelium nach Johannes. 2nd ed. Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1957. Wilkens, W. Die Entstehungsgeschichte des vierten Evangeliums. Zollikon: Evangelischer Verlag, 1958. Williams, C. H., and C. Rowland, eds. John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Witherington, B. Women in the Ministry of Jesus: A Study of Jesus’ Attitudes to Women and Their Roles as Reflected in his Earthly Life. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984.

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Zahn, T. Das Evangelium des Johannes. Leipzig and Erlangen: Verlagsbuchhandlung Dr. Werner Scholl, 1921. Repr., Wuppertal: R. Brockhaus Verlag, 1983. Zani, L. “Il serpente di rame e Gesè.” In La storie de Jesu. Milan: Rizzoli Editore, 1984. Ziebritzki, H. Heiliger Geist und Weltseele. BHT 84. Tübingen: Mohr (Siebeck), 1994. Zumstein, J. L’évangile selon saint-Jean (13–21). Geneve: Labor et Fides, 2007. Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski

Subject Index Aaronic blessing  170–1 absolute determinism  214, 215, 220, 227 Agony of Christianity, The (de Unamuno)  392 Alexander the Great  45, 173, 525 Alexandrian Library  525, 526 American Schools of Archaeological Research  168 Amida (18 Benedictions)  44 Anatomy of the Fourth Evangelist (Culpepper)  274 Ancient Gems, Finger Rings and Seal Boxes from Caesarea Maritima (Hendler)  177 Angel of Darkness  86, 89, 214, 215, 218, 235 n.16, 237 nn.31, 39, 249, 263, 343, 344 Annas  xi, 27, 134, 138, 139, 152, 180 anthropological dualism  251 antichrist  4, 94, 97, 537 Antiquitates rerum humanarum et divinarum (Antiquities of Human and Divine Things) (Varro)  526 anti-Semitism  1, 19, 20, 167, 195, 282 n.86, 537 Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the New Testament, The (Charlesworth)  528 Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, The (Charles)  301 Aquinas, T.  71, 539, 541 n.12 archaeology  ix, x, xi, xiii, xvi, 9, 19, 21, 22, 23, 26, 28–38, 43, 48, 53, 54, 62, 63, 79, 82, 96, 98, 110, 115 nn.31–2, 116 n.55, 137, 142, 143, 147, 148, 151–3, 155, 160 n.92, 199, 200 n.16, 202 n.47, 205 n.85, 209 n.136, 234 n.8, 244, 248, 261, 272–4, 282 n.86, 365 n.2, 377, 378, 380, 399, 414, 430 n.84, 464, 473, 479–81, 487, 490, 499, 501 n.2, 506 n.58, 512 n.157, 535, 538, 540. See also biblical archaeology

Bethzatha history and  191–3 Mary, Magdala and  467–70 Pool of Siloam and  193–5 recent discovery and  195–7 Archaeology and the Galilean Jesus  147 Aristodemus  458 n.68 Aristophanes of Byzantium  526 Aristotle  464, 527 Arnobius  405, 428 n.33, 429 n.57 Asclepius  82, 192, 193, 248, 273, 400, 405, 407–12, 414, 428 n.42, 432 n.113, 442, 449 Ashkelon  181 Athanasius  408, 428 n.43 Athenagoras the Athenian  428 n.39 Attalid Dynasty  526 Augustus  412 Augustus, C.  417 Authentic Gospel of Jesus, The (Vermes)  134 Axiothea of Phlius  505 n.41 Bar-Kleopha, S.  54 Barnabas  85 Beloved Disciple  15 n.33, 41, 50 61–2, 75 n.28, 76 nn.50, 52, 106, 108, 109, 111, 112, 147, 371 n.63, 375–93, 394 n.6, 395 n.14, 397 n.55, 398 n.71, 491–4, 516 n.215, 529, 531 identity of  62–6 as implied author  71 texts  67 Thomas as  72–3 trustworthiness of witness of  69–70 Beloved Disciple, The (Charlesworth)  393, 517 Beloved Disciple, The (Eller)  384 Bethsaida  5, 137, 142, 176, 178–9, 188, 248, 490, 538. See also Pool of Bethzatha Bethzetha Vase  273 biblical archaeology. See also archaeology



Subject Index

new age  169–82 nineteenth century  165–7 twentieth century  167–9 Birkath ha-Minim  43–4 “Birket el-Hamra”  195 Boethusians  23 bullae  45, 172, 173, 193, 202 nn.41, 46 Caesar, J.  526 Caesarea Library  528 Caesarea Maritima  169, 177–8, 511 n.142, 523, 525, 527 Caesarea Philippi  176 Caiaphas  xi, 27, 138, 159 n.64, 180, 423 house of  x, xi, xiv n.4, 28, 152, 180, 193, 261 Cairo Geniza, The  44 Callimachus of Cyrene  526, 527 Cana of Galilee  499 Cana wedding  476–500 canonical gospels  37 n.55, 45, 57 n.6, 103, 134, 137, 139, 149, 247, 522. See also extra-canonical gospels; intra-canonical gospels Capernaum  5, 29, 137, 147,149, 185, 456 n.31, 468, 483, 485, 486, 489, 490, 511 n.142, 538 Cappella del Noviziato  451 Celsus of Medicine  470, 508 n.87 Challenge of Jesus, The (Wright)  133 Changing Faces of Jesus, The (Vermes)  134 Chorazin synagogue  440, 442, 456 n.31 Christianity, advent of  31–4. See also individual entries Christology  ix, x, xi, xii, 2, 13 n.15, 19, 24, 26, 31, 32, 45, 56, 73, 87, 92, 104, 105, 135, 136, 138, 139, 144, 145, 153, 163 n.159, 164, 173, 174, 177, 186, 189, 190, 191, 195, 197, 198, 199, 241 n.92, 243 n.119, 246 n.124, 248, 253, 256, 264, 267, 270–3, 276, 286, 288, 291, 295, 322, 346, 362, 369 n.40, 371 n.65, 376, 390, 393, 402, 407, 408, 411, 414, 416, 418, 419, 422, 429 n.68, 434–455, 461, 473, 477, 499, 520 Chrysostom, J.  404, 405, 428 n.30, 446, 454, 457 n.50, 459 n.78, 480, 512 n.149, 513 n.163

557

Church History (Eusebius)  523 Clement of Alexandria  24, 42, 155, 408, 428 n.44, 471, 519 Clement of Rome  520 Community of the Beloved Disciple, The (Brown)  391 confessionalism  11, 19, 20, 21, 50, 53, 62, 72, 87, 135, 144, 193, 197, 224, 390, 392, 393, 423, 475, 478, 500, 540 Constructing Jesus (Allison)  64 Corazin  5, 538 cosmic dualism  99–100, 213, 220, 239 n.70, 250, 253, 345, 348, 354 Council of Nicea  517 covenantal nomism  23 Crespi, G. M.  449, 450, 451 Crispus  39 n.75 crucifixion  xii, xv n.22, 13 n.14, 29, 63, 65, 83, 142, 146, 148, 192, 223, 245 n.124, 274, 304, 329, 380, 389, 390, 398 n.63, 403, 404, 406, 410, 416–18, 421–5, 427 n.20, 430 nn.72, 78, 431 nn.91, 102, 435–8, 446, 448, 450, 451, 454, 468, 472, 491, 500 Cyril of Jerusalem  405 Dabbura  440 Dan  167–8, 172, 179 Das Evangelium des Johannes (Zahn)  415 Das Evangelium nach Johannes (Becker)  91, 264 Dayagi-Mendels, M.  170 Dead Sea Scrolls  1, 40, 62, 63, 74 n.7, 78–82, 84, 86, 87, 92, 95, 96, 98, 99, 103, 106–10, 112, 118 n.65, 124 n.160, 140, 150, 151, 168, 173–4, 244 n.120, 247–56, 260, 261, 274, 340, 341, 352, 367 n.18, 474, 478, 519 Dead Sea Sect  98 Death of the Messiah, The (Brown)  149 Demetrius of Phaleron  525 demythologization  168 Didache  70, 123 n.139, 426, 427 n.13, 457 n.34 Die johanneische Eschatologie (Frey)  102 Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes (Weiss)  132 Dionysus  408

558

Subject Index

Docetism  3–4, 94, 95, 198, 307 n.3, 390, 461, 462, 510 n.122, 522, 538 Dotan, T. K.  181 dualism  46, 51, 80, 102, 118 n.69, 123 n.141, 125 n.176, 233 nn.1, 3, 239 n.70, 241 n.92, 242 nn.100, 105, 266–7, 335 n.57, 365 n.2, 366 n.14, 367 nn.18–19, 368 n.34, 370 nn.52, 61, 378 cosmic  99–100, 213 of flesh and spirit  100, 264 Johannine  220–32, 262, 266, 345–7, 353–7, 360–3 Odes of Solomon  347–52, 353–60 Qumran  84–92, 213–20, 225–32, 252, 262, 266, 341–5, 357–63 types of  213 Dura-Europos Synagogue  399, 400 Early Judaism  1, 6, 19, 20, 21, 33, 45, 63, 70, 80, 81, 82, 84, 86, 90, 100, 106, 107, 112, 158 n.56, 173, 186, 225, 262, 270, 271, 272, 290, 295, 299, 340, 361, 378, 399, 435, 460, 461, 462, 465, 474, 486, 488, 489, 497, 500, 503 n.20, 504 n.39, 508 n.91, 540 École Biblique  68, 195 École biblique et archéologique franҫaise de Jérusalem  167 Egypt  93, 199 n.3, 220, 241 n.100, 244 n.121, 408, 440, 471, 494, 523 election  268–9 Elisha inscription  202 n.45 Ellis, E. E.  106 Empathic Imagination, The (Margulies)  463 Encyclopedia Britannica  527 Ephesus  47, 111, 127 n.200, 231, 232, 245 n.121, 371 n.65, 401, 419, 458, 522–4, 540 Ephrem Syrus  405 Epicurus of Samos and Athens  470 Epistle of Barnabas  437–8, 441 Epistles of John  55, 93 Eratosthenes of Cyrene  526 eschatological dualism  213, 220, 223, 346, 350, 360 esoteric knowledge, revealed  102–3

Essenes  5, 23, 32, 33, 46, 59 n.50, 63, 74 nn.10, 13, 14, 78, 84–6, 90, 96–111, 116–17 n.55, 117 n.58, 119 n.80, 122 nn.130, 133, 123 n.138, 126 nn.191, 194, 219, 220, 227, 232, 239 nn.67, 71, 243 n.117, 244 n.121, 253–6, 257 n.18, 258 n.30, 263–8, 271, 280 n.58, 329, 340, 343, 356, 365 n.2, 367 n.25, 368 n.33, 369 n.43, 370 n.57, 378, 395 n.27, 471, 508 n.91. See also Qumran community (Yaḥad) influence on Gospel of John  51–3 and Johannine community in Jerusalem  54–5 and schism among Johannine community  55–6 ethical dualism  213, 220, 345, 351, 362 Eucharist  3, 12 n.5, 107, 452, 453 Eudemus of Rhodes  238 n.60 Eudocia  195 Euphorion of Chalcis  526 Eusebius  24, 42, 47, 56, 155, 180, 405, 413, 523, 527 Eusebius of Caesarea  527, 530 Excavating Jesus  147 Excavating Q (Kloppenborg)  151 Expository Times, The (Rogers)  69 extra-canonical gospels  132, 151, 157 n.45, 300, 460, 466, 494 eyewitness  11, 28, 37 n.55, 41 n.4, 53, 57 n.6, 62, 64, 65, 67–71, 76 n.35, 79, 80, 112, 134, 137, 147, 148, 150, 151, 199, 247, 376–81, 391, 395 n.14, 398 n.66, 474, 529, 539, 540 Feast of Tabernacles/Feast of Ingathering/ Feast of Booths (Sukkot)  93, 139, 147, 196, 197, 253, 270, 338 n.101, 387 First Jewish Revolt  23, 153, 169, 173, 180, 196, 481, 511 n.142 flesh–spirit dualism  264 Forgotten Scriptures (McDonald)  519 Form, Character and Status of the Asclepiads Cult in the Second Century CE and Its Influence on Early Christianity, The  410 Fourth Evangelist. See individual entries



Subject Index

Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus, The (Anderson)  150 Fourth Gospel in Four Dimensions, The (Smith)  150 fratricide  ix, 5, 112, 179 From Jesus to Christ (Fredriksen)  151 Galen of Pergamum  470, 508 n.89 Galilee  ix, x, xiii, 31, 47, 54, 63, 65, 75 n.22, 82, 83, 111, 132, 134, 139, 141–3, 145, 147, 148, 152, 160 nn.92, 97, 161 nn.117–18, 169,170, 173, 175, 176, 179, 182, 185, 186, 187, 198, 209 n.136, 260, 267, 273, 378, 380, 383, 440, 467, 480, 483, 485, 488, 499, 506 nn.59–60, 511 nn.142, 144, 512 n.149, 537, 540 Galilee, Jesus, and the Gospels (Freyne)  142 Gamaliel  54 Gamla  75 n.22, 137, 143, 147, 148, 169, 185, 465, 469, 481, 511 n.142 Germany  504 n.37 Gilgamesh, epic of  405 Gnosticism  1, 4, 24, 75 n.28, 78, 114 n.13, 119 n.84, 238 n.61, 241–2 n.100, 257 n.15, 266, 278 n.11, 279 n.37, 307 n.9, 315, 330, 331, 333 n.6, 338 n.95, 364, 368 n.27, 370 n.61, 391, 442, 460, 462, 467, 474, 519, 521, 522 Golan  142, 143, 170, 177, 185, 440, 456 n.31 Good & Evil Serpent, The (Charlesworth)  20, 193, 400, 410, 414, 419, 439, 443, 449 Gospel According to St. John, The (Schnackenburg)  67 Gospel of John, The (Bultmann)  511 n.131 Gospel of Signs, The (Fortna)  259 Gospel of Truth (Heracleon)  519 Greco, E.  458 n.68 Gregory Nazianzus  527 Hadrian  462–3, 517 Hadrianus, Publius Aelius. See Hadrian halakot  91, 138, 192, 392, 537 Hamat Tiberias  440

559

Hanukah/Hanukkah  xii, 54, 271, 536 Hasmoneans  xii, xiii, 142, 143, 160 n.92, 173, 174, 179, 182, 184, 185, 192, 193, 203 n.52, 271, 275, 468, 475, 540 Hatzor  169, 170, 179, 525 Hebrew Goddess, The (Patai)  465 Hebrew University of Jerusalem  167 Heracleon  46, 519–20 Heracles  408 Hermon  142 Herodian pool  xi, 26, 194–6, 261, 273 Herodium  179, 180, 183, 185, 465 Herod the Great  27, 44, 54, 83, 90, 104, 148, 173, 176, 177, 178, 192, 195, 480, 527 Herrenworte im Johannesevangelium (Theobald)  437 Hesiod  407 Hexapla (Origen)  527 Hezekiah  170, 172, 188, 192, 195, 409, 436, 444, 454, 455 n.7 Hillel  36 n.41, 46, 54, 64, 97, 98, 137, 144, 304, 500 “Hillel and Jesus” (Flusser)  144 historical and social setting  78–9 date and provenience of Gospel of John and  81–2 dualism and Qumran theology and  84–92 Gospel of John and sociology and  96–7 Gospel of John as first-century composition and  80 Gospel of John as second-century composition and  79–80 historicity of Gospel of John and  82–3 Jewishness of Johannine group and  92–6 reconstruction  98–106, 107–11 Historical Figure of Jesus, The (Sanders)  132 Historical Jesus (Charlesworth)  379 Historical Jesus, The: A Comprehensive Guide (Theissen and Merz)  83, 149 Historical Jesus, The: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant (Crossan)  132

560

Subject Index

Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Dodd)  149 History of the Synoptic Tradition (Bultmann)  144 Holy Land  1, 151, 165–7, 169, 182–4, 195, 199 n.3, 499. See also individual entries Holy Spirit  6, 31, 32, 52, 101–2, 144, 217, 241 n.92, 253, 270, 340, 359, 423 Homilies on Colossians (Chrysostom)  446 “Homily 37” (Chrysostom)  454 Horvat Omrit  16 n.47, 147 176–7 Huber, W.  451 Hukok  185 Hygeia  435 hypostasis  101, 222, 226, 290, 327, 331, 344, 349, 354, 361 Hyrcanium  180 Hyrcanus, J.  xii, 180 Idumean Ostraca  180 Ignatius of Antioch  47, 445, 453, 520 Imaginative Love in John (Tilborg)  105 Infancy Narratives  503 n.20 intertextuality  352, 411, 438–9, 450 intra-canonical gospels  20, 41, 132, 139, 151, 154, 272, 275, 300, 466, 472, 487, 494, 505 n.48, 520, 529, 530, 533 n.28 Ioudaioi, significance of  97–8, 261, 431 n.99, 510 n.114, 538 Iran  219–20 Ir David  172 Irenaeus  47, 520, 522, 523 Jaffa  511 n.142 Jannaeus, A.  143, 160 n.95, 174, 195 Jericho  x, 55, 96, 105, 110, 137, 167, 168, 170, 178, 183, 185, 340, 521 Jerusalem. See individual entries Jesu letzer Wille nach Johannes 17 (Käsemann)  24 Jesus (Flusser)  133 Jesus and Archaeology  21, 35 n.5, 147, 167, 272, 481 Jesus and Judaism (Sanders)  64, 132, 379 Jesus and the Victory of God (Wright)  133 Jesus of Montreal (Arcand)  461

Jesus of Nazareth  29–31. See also individual entries Jesus of Nazareth (Bornkamm)  132 Jesus of Nazareth (Fredriksen)  83, 151 Jesus Seminar, United States  29–30 Jesus the Jew (Vermes)  133 Jesus the Man (Thiering)  461 Jesus within Judaism (Charlesworth)  64, 379 Jewish boats, ancient  174 Jewish Feasts and the Gospel of John (Lee)  93 Jewish Mysticism and Jewish Ethics (Dan)  300 Jewishness  142, 301, 511 n.131 of Gospel of John  474 of Johannine group  92–6 Jewish purity  xi, xiii, 64, 104–5, 152, 192, 209 n.136, 261, 375–93, 465, 473, 477, 480, 481, 483, 489, 490, 499, 511 n.144, 512 n.150, 536. See also mikveh/mikvaot (Jewish ritual baths) John’s Use of Matthew (Barker)  3 John Among the Gospels (Smith)  42, 64, 379 John of Gischala  169 Josephus  ix, 9, 20,22, 23, 53, 74 n.10, 75 n.22, 85, 98, 100, 116 nn.49, 55, 126 n.191, 143, 152, 153, 189, 192, 199, 264, 429 n.66, 468, 469, 471, 481, 489, 495, 504 n.38, 507 n.75, 533 n.27 Joshua  48, 102, 164, 167, 168, 170 Jotapata  75 n.22, 137, 142,169 Judaism  5, 6, 22–3, 29–34, 45–6, 63, 134, 219. See also Early Judaism; Second Temple Judaism Judas  102, 485, 528 Judas Iscariot  61, 72, 182, 385 Judas Thomas  68, 71, 73, 385 Judea  ix, x, xii, xiii, 5, 30, 44, 63, 64, 75 n.22, 82, 140–3, 147, 160 n.97, 169, 170, 181, 183, 197, 260, 267, 378, 379, 383, 387, 499, 511 n.142, 537, 538, 540 Judentum und Hellenismus (Hengel)  45 Karen Naphtali  105 Kefar Hananyah  148



Subject Index

Kefar Shikhin  161 n.121 Kefer Kana  152 Keren Naftali  143 kerygma/kerygmata  28, 55, 87, 100, 123 n.139, 139, 143, 149, 155, 198, 199, 228, 251, 355, 359, 360, 386, 408, 426, 477, 478, 488, 503 n.20, 530 Kfar Baram  185 Khirbet Beza  161 n.118, 186 Khirbet Cana  x, 142, 152, 480, 481, 484, 487, 511 n.147 Khirbet Qeiyafa  171, 172 Khirbet Qumran  78, 173 Kiryat Sepher  184 kiss, significance of  505 n.51 Konkordanz (Kuhn)  344 Kyrios Christos (Bousset)  24 Lactantius  428 n.42 Last Supper  xi, 53, 54, 61, 107, 109, 134, 140, 187, 383, 388 Last Temptation of Christ (Kazantzakis)  461 “Laws” (Plato)  494 Lazarus  3, 5, 27, 61, 138, 150 n.3, 151, 152, 384, 385, 387 Lazarus of Bethany  38 n.58 Le Tohu-bohu, le Serpent et le bon Dieu (Houziaux)  454 Letter of Aristeas  525 Library of Eusebius of Caesarea, The (Carriker)  527 light–darkness paradigm  51–3, 86, 89–91, 101, 105, 123 n.141, 214, 219–20, 228, 232, 240 n.80, 242 n.110, 243 n.117, 248–50, 252, 262–4, 266, 323, 343, 344, 346, 355, 358, 360, 361, 366 n.14, 367 n.18, 515 n.196 living water, concept of  55, 65, 93, 103, 192, 194, 196–8, 223, 270, 271, 317, 318, 321, 324, 326, 327–9, 335 nn.58, 61, 336 n.69, 338 n.101, 362, 380, 423, 425, 456 n.20 Lucian  68, 76 nn.33–4 Machaerus  178 Magdala  468 Magnus, A.  71 Manasseh  172

561

Marcion of Sinope  510 n.122, 524 Marginal Jew, A (Meier)  64, 149, 379 Martyr, J.  326, 409, 429 n.50, 430 n.87, 441, 474, 520 Mary in the New Testament  382 Mary Magdalene  61, 77 n.55, 147, 460, 490–1, 495–501, 502 nn.3, 5, 503 n.22, 505 n.50, 506 nn.56, 58, 507 nn.76, 81–2, 516 n.222 Masada  33, 37 n.52, 105, 110, 178, 185, 239 n.67, 244 n.121, 465, 500 Messiah  ix, xii, xvi, 4, 5, 31–3, 53, 87, 88, 91, 94, 105, 112, 120 n.94, 124 n.160, 143, 226–8, 230, 243 n.118, 251, 253, 266, 268, 290, 295, 302, 304, 325, 338 n.106, 350–3, 355, 359–62, 406, 415, 487 messianism  32, 85, 105, 291, 352. See also Messiah messianology and Christology  105 metaphysical dualism  213, 346, 349, 354, 355 Metzger, B.  518 Midgal  142, 538 Migdal  x, 75 n.22, 105, 147, 161 n.116, 169, 175–6, 185, 203 n.58, 204 n.59, 440, 465, 468, 469, 507 n.75, 512 n.157, 536, 538 mikveh/mikvaot (Jewish ritual baths)  x, xi, xiii, xiv n.16, 26, 27, 37 n.52, 54, 55, 104, 142, 143, 153, 173, 176, 179, 180, 187, 188, 192, 196–9, 201 n.27, 208 n.124, 249, 261, 271, 273, 282 n.84, 470, 484, 499, 511 n.144. See also Jewish purity Mishnah  1, 98, 216, 327, 380, 395 n.24, 399, 440, 441, 500, 504 n.38, 514 n.181 Misunderstood Jew, The (Levine)  151 Modein  37 n.52, 105, 184 monotheism  6, 87, 215, 219, 220, 222, 239 n.70, 290, 342, 343, 347, 357, 360 Motza temple  171 Mount Gerizim  47–8, 54, 182, 475 Mount Tabor  182 Mount Zion  54 Naasenes  46, 428 n.34 Nag Hammadi Coptic Codices  523

562

Subject Index

narrative criticism  274, 389, 443, 538 Nathanael  482, 490, 514 n.185 Nativity, The (Vermes)  134 Nazareth  45, 137, 142, 143, 152, 174–5, 468, 481, 487, 489, 490 neglected source, of John  131–55 Nicodemus  54, 77 n.55, 97, 150, 295, 299, 419, 420, 422, 423, 424, 437, 441, 445, 449, 499, 500 Novum Testamentum Graece (NestleAland)  300 Offenbarungsreden (Revelatory Source)  24 ophidian Christology  442–7 Ophites  46, 405, 428 n.34, 442, 522, 540 Oribasius  508 n.86 Origen  305, 407, 409, 428 n.48, 471, 476, 519, 522, 523, 527 Palestine  xiii, 12 n.9, 22, 27, 31, 33, 43, 45, 51, 54, 78, 81, 91, 98, 108, 109, 126 n.191, 151–3, 168, 173, 176, 178, 180, 193, 196, 200 nn.8, 17, 220, 231, 232, 245 nn.121, 124, 247, 258 n.30, 358, 364, 396 n.40, 438, 440, 456 n.18, 471, 472, 481, 525, 527, 538, 540. See also individual entries as provenience of Fourth Gospel  260–1 Palestinian Jesus Movement  32, 33, 51, 84, 85, 87, 111, 112, 126 n.191, 145, 186, 231, 232, 253, 254, 263, 266, 272, 276, 315, 355, 356, 360, 362, 364, 370 n.58, 388, 426, 434, 465, 470, 472, 491, 503 n.20 Papias  137, 522–3 Paraclete, Johannine  99, 101, 102, 223, 253, 317, 523 paradise myth  505 n.50 Parakletos  269 parallelism  220, 231, 233 n.2, 350, 356, 420–1, 494 Paratae  46 Passion, The (Vermes)  134 Passover  xi, 27–30, 54, 109, 134, 138–41, 162 n.148, 187, 188, 444, 487, 537 Pentateuch  xii, 23, 25, 26, 174, 186, 299, 423, 519, 524–5, 529, 530

Pergamum Library  526 Pharisees  23, 26, 36 n.41, 46, 54, 78, 97, 104, 183, 224, 364, 387, 470, 485 Philo  9, 20, 23, 45, 80, 83, 116 n.49, 126 n.191, 471 Philo of Alexandria  441 Philo of Byblos  405, 413, 414, 450 Philostratus  467 physical dualism  213 Pictorial Biblical Encyclopedia, The (Cornfeld)  402 Pilate  28–9, 70, 134, 138, 148, 152, 220, 272, 424, 432 n.113, 473 Pinakes (Callimachus of Cyrene)  526 Pindar  407, 408, 428 n.45 Plato  84, 101, 267, 464, 494, 505 n.41, 527 Platonic idealism  84 Plutarch  457 n.49, 504 n.39, 526 pneumatology  101–2, 123 nn.138–9 poetic meditation  339 n.106 Poll of Suleiman, the Magnificent  429 n.67 Polybius  68, 76 n.35, 131, 137, 463 Polycarp  520, 522 Pool of Bethsaida. See Pool of Bethzatha Pool of Bethzatha  x–xi, 25, 26, 29, 82, 152, 153, 174, 187, 188–93, 195, 197–9, 208 n.124, 273, 387, 414 Pool of Bezatha  261 Pool of Siloam  xi, 26, 27, 29, 93, 152, 153, 174, 188, 193–9, 208 n.124, 248, 250, 261, 273, 282 n.84, 414 Pope Gregory I  507 n.82 predestination  100, 118 n.71, 122 n.130, 223, 224, 226, 235 n.13, 241 n.99, 243 n.116, 249, 268–9, 345, 351, 363, 365 n.2, 367 n.23, 368 n.33 Princeton-Prague Symposium  539 Proto-Gnosticism  4, 307 n.9 pseudepigraphy  502 n.11. See also Ancient texts Index need for  378 Pseudo-Pionius  521 psychobiographers  491 Ptolemy  46 Ptolemy I Soter  525 Ptolemy II Philadelphus  525 Ptolemy III  525 Purity. See Jewish purity; mikveh/mikvaot (Jewish ritual baths)



Subject Index

Quest for the Messiah, The (Painter)  112 Qumran Caves  63, 95, 98, 244 n.121, 245 n.124, 296, 378 Qumran community (Yaḥad)  ix, xvi, 51–3, 63, 78, 84, 88, 90, 96, 98, 103, 116 n.49, 126 n.191, 252, 299. See also Essenes Qumran Messianism  105 Qumran scribal school  95, 120 n.101 Qumran Scrolls  20, 23, 30, 32, 33, 38 n.65, 63, 79, 81, 90, 92, 101, 103–6, 109, 110, 112, 114 n.13, 123 n.143, 168, 173–4, 233–4 n.3, 239 n.67, 244 nn.120–1, 245 n.122, 253, 271, 274, 275, 276, 340, 342, 344, 352, 358, 359, 360, 467, 539 “Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles, The” (Brown)  108, 265 Rabbi Jesus (Chilton)  83, 151 Rabbinics  1, 20, 23, 35 n.14, 43–4, 74 n.7, 103, 150 n.3, 151, 169, 202 n.47, 216, 221, 225, 236 n.29–30, 237 n.41, 328, 367 n.18, 378, 392, 395 n.24, 440, 457 n.45, 469, 489, 507 nn.77, 81, 508 n.85, 510 n.123, 513 n.177 Ramat haNadiv  178 redaction  41, 43, 46, 48–9, 59 n.55, 61–5, 71, 89, 96, 104, 108, 123 n.141, 125 n.179, 135, 136, 143, 145, 149, 150, 153, 184, 185, 223, 225, 241 n.92, 242 n.101, 310 n.54, 311 n.69, 315, 337 n.91, 344, 378–81, 384, 390, 395 n.14, 396 n.42, 397 n.47, 464, 477, 479, 482, 486, 488, 492, 499, 500, 502 n.10, 508 n.85, 515 n.197, 535, 540 Redaktionsgeschichte  136 Righteous Teacher  32, 63, 65, 84, 89, 99, 102, 105, 106, 112, 122 n.130, 243 n.112, 256, 269, 288, 300, 366 n.15, 371 n.63, 378, 380, 478 Royal Library of Antioch  526 sacra scriptura  14 n.31, 32 sacred sexuality  462 Sadducees  22, 23, 46, 78, 85, 104, 183, 470 St. Augustine  24, 405, 408, 416, 419, 424, 436, 430 n.81, 431 n.90, 432 nn.113,

563

115, 455 n.8, 462, 478, 503 n.12, 512 n.149, 513 nn.163, 169 St. Basil “the Great”  416, 430 n.80, 527 St. Jerome  527 St. Paul  6, 31, 45, 85, 86, 123 n.138, 132, 258 n.29, 308 n.21, 418, 470–2, 494, 495, 523–4, 541 salvation  13 n.15, 25, 52, 55, 89, 100, 102–4, 107, 271, 323, 336 n.73, 350, 351, 356, 369 n.45, 380, 404, 406, 416, 417, 419, 423, 442, 445, 446, 448, 479, 498, 538 salvific dualism  253 Samaritans  ix, xii, xv n.23, 3, 11, 15 n.39, 23, 47, 50, 59 n.48, 78, 82, 105, 112, 121 n.116, 126 n.194, 127 n.202, 141, 159 n.77, 173, 197, 260, 271, 383, 385, 408, 423, 453, 466, 475, 522 Samuel the Small  43 Sanhedrin  138, 158 n.55, 162 n.148 Santa Maria di Casarlano  451, 452 Satan  135, 213, 222, 225, 235 n.16, 239 n.65, 241 n.88, 242 n.107, 354, 402, 509 n.102 Sea of Galilee  5, 170, 174, 181, 184, 189, 198, 318, 462, 468, 538 Second Temple Judaism  ix, xi, xiii, 20, 22, 23, 30–2, 78, 84, 87, 89, 90, 98, 104, 118 n.71, 140, 142, 145, 226, 250, 253, 259, 260, 261, 262, 266, 268, 269, 275, 276, 277 n.6, 284, 286, 291, 306, 461, 462, 472, 501, 539 Second Vatican Council  468 Secret Identity of the Beloved Disciple, The (Grassi)  387 sectarianism, sociology of  272 Seder meal  134 Sepphoris  143, 169, 185, 511 n.142 Septuagint  xi, xiv n.17, 23, 30, 85, 153, 186, 254, 438, 439, 441, 457 n.44, 459, 466, 494, 525 Serapeum  525, 526 Serapis  525–6 serpent, symbolism of  399–426, 431 n.91, 441, 451, 453, 454, 458 Seventh Ecumenical Council  436 sexual intimacy  462–3, 476

564

Subject Index

Shabbat  xii, xii, 4, 30–1, 134, 138, 143, 153, 189, 192, 261, 422, 497 Shammai  36 n.41, 46, 97, 98 shared Judaism  465–6 Sidon  135, 142, 143, 468 signs, significance of  2 Signs Source  81, 148, 287, 439, 479 Simeon ben Azzai  508 n.92 Simhat Beit HaShoevah (“The Rejoicing of the Water-Drawing”)  196 Simon bar Giori  169 “S. Ioannes” (Callot)  451 Society of Biblical Literature’s Group  154–5 sociology and Gospel of John  96–7 solar–lunar calendar  106–7 Solomon’s Temple and Palace  171 Son of God  50, 51, 68, 71, 87, 88, 94, 112, 118 n.63, 176, 177, 251, 254, 271, 290, 295, 304, 393, 417, 475 Son of Man  xvi, 31, 50, 135, 145, 197, 226, 227, 268, 271, 289, 290, 295–306, 307 nn.4, 6, 309 nn.44–5, 312 nn.70, 78, 312 n.81, 313 n.84, 361, 399, 402–4, 406, 410, 411, 415–26, 429 n.68, 432 n.114, 434–40, 445, 447, 448, 451, 453–5, 482, 499, 540 Sons of Darkness  5, 34, 84, 89, 96, 105, 214, 216, 217, 220, 243 n.112, 250, 252, 263, 269, 344, 345, 536 Sons of Deceit  86, 249, 263 Sons of Light  xvi, 52, 55, 84, 86, 88, 89, 90, 96, 99, 101, 103, 105, 109, 118 nn.68–9, 119 n.76, 153, 214, 215, 217, 220, 228, 232, 235 n.13, 239 n.71, 243 n.112, 243 n.114, 248, 249, 250, 252, 254, 262, 263, 269, 270, 344, 345, 356, 362, 421 Sons of Perversity. See Sons of Darkness Sons of Righteousness. See Sons of Light Soranus of Ephesus  470, 508 n.88 soteriological dualism  213, 242 n.100, 347, 350, 351, 352, 360, 362 Spirit of Darkness. See Spirit of Perversity Spirit of Deceit  239 n.66 Spirit of Light  214, 216, 219, 366 n.12, Spirit of Perversity  214, 216, 217, 219, 220, 226, 227, 230, 235 n.22, 236 n.29, 237 n.39, 343

Spirit of Truth  52, 59 n.55, 99, 101, 102, 123 n.141, 214, 219, 220, 223, 226, 227, 228, 230, 235 n.17, 242 n.107, 253, 267, 269, 281 n.66, 317, 343, 356, 358 Stoics  45, 80, 153, 247, 261, 474, 527, 530 stone vessels  x, xiii, 64, 82, 83, 104, 142, 151–2, 155, 173, 185, 186, 188, 199, 209 n.136, 260, 261, 379, 480–1, 490, 499, 511 n.145 subjectivity  111, 127 n.198, 131, 183, 199, 243 n.111, 495, 531 Suetonius  412, 429 nn.56–8 supersessionism  20, 195, 537, 538 symposia  21–2 synagogue  x, 4–5, 12 nn.8–9, 39 n.75, 104, 110, 134, 171, 175, 176, 184–6, 203 n.58, 207 n.106, 244 n.121, 290, 302, 379, 399, 400, 417, 440–2, 456 n.31, 463, 465, 468–9, 472, 476, 481, 506 n.58, 507 n.75, 511 n.147, 536, 538, 540 expulsion from  13 n.10, 33, 43–5, 64, 69, 92–3, 97, 253 Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum  135 Synoptics  24, 41, 42, 83, 96, 107, 115 n.33, 131–43, 146, 148–54, 157 n.40, 162 n.148, 121 n.112,175, 183, 223, 240 n.81, 241 n.88, 258 n.29, 262, 303, 370 n.58, 379, 382, 383, 401, 426, 537 Taautos  414 Tanakh (Old Testament)  23, 30, 31, 436, 504 n.38. See also Targumim Targumim  20, 151, 469, 474, 541 n.11. See also Tanakh Tatian  515–16 n.214, 530, 533 n.30 Tel-Miqne-Ekron  181 Tel Rakesh  186 Tel Reḥof  173 Tendenzen  136, 143, 121 n.111, 189, 274, 298, 384, 483, 498 Tertullian  407, 409, 428 nn.40–1, 46–7, 457 n.37, 462, 503 n.13, 523 Testimony of the Beloved Disciple, The (Bauckham)  150 Theaetetus (Plato)  464



Subject Index

Theodoret  406, 428 n.35 Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Hahn)  416 Thomas  72–3, 147 Tiberias  142, 169, 468, 503 n.22, 511 n.142 Titus  363 Tobias  489, 514 n.182 Torah  xii, 23, 25, 26, 30–2, 54, 423, 469, 470, 472, 488, 508 n.91, 540 Tractates on the Gospel of John  24 Tübingen School  165, 166, 247, 301 Tyre  135, 142, 143, 468

565

“What Makes You Who You Are” (Ridley)  407 women  11, 77, 135, 179, 254, 385, 412, 461, 464, 468–74, 479, 480, 485, 486, 490, 500, 501, 502 n.4, 504 nn.37–8, 505 nn.41, 43–4, 507 n.82, 508 n.91, 537 in ancient society  464–5 Jesus and  465–7

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops  537, 539

Yahweh  93, 124 n.162, 225, 242 n.103, 425, 436, 442, 449, 465 Yavneh  43, 44 Yodefat  147, 148 Yotapata  511 n.142, 512 n.157

Varro, M. T.  526 Vespasian  33, 53, 55, 110, 169, 340, 341, 513 n.172 Vie de Jesus (Renan)  132 Wadi Hamman  185, 465 Well of Darkness  219, 249

Zealots  23, 46, 365 n.2 Zigabenus, E.  71 Zoroastrianism  88, 252, 267 Zurvanism  51, 88, 91, 117 n.59, 219, 238 n.60, 239 n.66, 242 nn.105, 110, 252, 360

Author Index Aalen, S.  215, 266, 234 n.9, 280 n.56 Abbahu, R.  300 Abbott, E. A.  319, 334 n.19, 338–9 n.106 Acosta-Hughes, B.  533 n.21 Agourides, S.  307 n.16 Aibu, R.  300 Akala, A. J.  15 n.41 Aland, B.  510 n.122 Aland, K.  114 n.14, 427 n.8 Albright, W. F.  168, 232, 234 n.8, 243 n.113, 245 n.124 Allegro, J. M.  218, 219, 235 n.14, 236 nn.26, 28, 238 nn.44, 54 Allison, D. C., Jr.  16 n.44, 38 n.61, 64, 74 n.17, 118 n.67, 509 n.105 Altaner, B.  337 n.84 Amorai-Stark, S.  204 nn.66, 67, 70 Anderson, A. A.  234 nn.3, 6 Anderson, H.  232, 233 n.1, 239 n.71, 398 n.70 Anderson, P.  xiii, 2, 14 n.26, 15 n.41, 147, 150, 151, 163 n.161, 232, 273, 282 n.85, 473, 509 n.110 Anderson, P. N.  158 n.61, 161 n.115, 162 nn.135, 136, 307 n.3 Angus, S.  429 n.51 Arav, R.  179, 429 n.67 Arcand, D.  461 Arminger, M.  501 n.2 Arnheim, R.  515–16 n.214 Arubas, B.  205 n.85 Ashton, J.  xivn7, 63, 69, 74 n.10, 76 n.37, 108, 109, 114 n.17, 125 nn.176, 181, 126 nn.185, 187–8, 265, 266, 275, 280 nn.48, 50, 51, 378, 395 n.27, 396 n.44, 427 n.14 Asiedu-Peprah, M.  278 n.17 Asurmendi, J.  430 n.89, 454, 459 n.73 Attridge, H. W.  14 n.22, 428 n.30, 429 nn.61, 63, 457 n.54, 495, 515 nn.210, 212

Atwood, R.  501 n.2, 507 nn.81–2 Aune, D. E  266, 275, 280 n.54, 516 n.219 Ausloos, H.  459 n.76 Aviam, M.  xivn13, 35 n.17, 115 n.31, 124 n.159, 142, 143, 159 nn.82, 83, 160 nn.90, 92, 94, 161 nn.118, 120, 121, 186, 198, 203 n.57, 204 nn.59, 62, 507 n.74 Avigad, N.  36 n.39, 73 n.6, 83, 115 n.30, 202 n.40, 205 n.82, 395 n.23 Avi-Yonah, M.  456 n.28, 511 n.142 Avshalom-Gorni, D.  75 n.22, 175, 203 n.58, 507 n.75 Baarda, T.  76 n.47 Bacon, B. W.  58 n.11, 336 n.65, 394 n.6 Bagatti, P. B.  246 n.124 Bahat, D.  140, 159 nn.75, 78, 161 n.123, 166, 182, 200 n.7, 201 nn.27, 28, 206 n.101, 208 n.116, 273, 282 nn.82, 83 Bakotin , H.  370 n.52 Balch, D. L.  508 n.86, 509 n.97 Baldensperger, W.  120 n.95, 257 n.23 Baltensweilaer, H.  513 n.179 Bardtke, H.  246 n.124 Barera, J. T.  113 n.4 Barkai, G.  34 n.4, 201 n.29, 202 nn.43, 44 Barkay, G.  170, 172 Barker, J.  3 Barr, J.  432 n.119 Barreto, J.  432 nn.114, 116 Barrett, C. K.  58 n.12, 70, 76 n.46, 114 n.13, 135, 142, 159 n.87, 240 nn.77, 82, 85, 221, 241 n.92, 275, 277 n.11, 283 n.103, 309 n.40, 312 n.70, 315, 338 n.102, 473, 514 n.192 Bar-Yosef, O.  201 n.23 Basile, C.  533 n.16 Bauckham, R.  37 n.55, 57 n.6, 101, 115 n.42, 117 n.59, 118 n.69, 122 n.135,



Author Index

123 n.141, 150, 151, 158 n.53, 162 n.134, 203 n.58, 204 nn.59, 61, 266, 267, 275, 280 n.55, 398 n.66, 491, 507 n.75, 514 n.189 Bauer, F. C.  165, 247, 509 n.106 Bauer, W.  59 n.43, 315, 323, 330, 334 n.29, 337 n.89, 510 n.122 Baumbach, G.  119 n.83 Baumert, N.  508 n.90 Baur, F. C.  20, 24, 37 n.43, 42, 43, 58 nn.11, 13, 69, 76 n.41, 79, 113 n.7, 132, 149, 156 n.9, 473, 474, 510 n.117 Beasley-Murray, G. R.  69, 70, 76 n.42, 416, 430 nn.76, 85, 473 Beck, D. R.  59 n.46 Becker, H.  338 n.94 Becker, J.  91, 119 n.79, 240 nn.78, 79, 264, 279 n.33 Beer, G.  513 n.179 Behm, J.  338 n.97 Beirne, M. M.  457 n.48 Ben-Dov, M.  205 n.82 Benoit, P.  42, 58 n.22, 122 n.127, 167, 243 n.112, 232 Ben-Tor, A.  170, 201 n.20 Berlin, A.  397 n.55 Bernard, J. H.  206 n.90, 241 n.99, 330, 336 n.63, 337 n.83, 417, 429 n.69, 430 n.86 Bernhard, M.  458 n.64 Bernier, J.  13 n.10 Bert, G.  315, 327, 331, 335 nn.52, 54, 338 n.101 Betz, O.  102, 123 n.142, 234 n.6, 235 n.17, 257 n.24, 281 n.66, 336 n.73, 369 n.45 Bezold, C.  309 n.36 Billerbeck, P., 513 nn.176–7 Binder, D. B.  204 n.59 Biran, A.  167–8, 200 nn.9, 11, 15, 202 n.37 Black, C. C.  141, 159 n.79, 283 n.100, 516 n.219 Black, D. A.  200 n.5, 291 n.1 Black, M.  232, 239 nn.66, 67, 245 n.124, 303, 304, 308 nn.19, 22, 310 n.46, 311 n.66, 365 nn.2, 3, 455 n.14 Blank, J.  395 n.17 Bliss, F.  166, 195

567

Blum, R.  533 n.19 Blundell, S.  505 n.41 Boccaccio, P.  218, 237 n.36 Böcher, O.  119 n.87, 219, 234 n.6, 238 n.58, 240 n.73, 242 n.102, 242 n.105, 367 nn.18, 19, 368 n.35 Bock, D. L.  36 n.37, 38 n.67, 138–9, 157 n.47, 159 n.67, 292 n.16, 306 nn.1, 5, 312 n.80 Bohstrom, P.  205 nn.77, 83 Boismard, M.- É.  37 n.48, 41, 43, 50, 57 n.10, 59 n.47, 105, 114 n.12, 119 n.80, 121 n.120, 122 n.127, 125 n.164, 126 n.194, 208 n.118, 232, 310 n.54, 427 n.17, 442, 457 n.41 Bolling, B.  183 Borg, M.  142, 163 n.159 Borgen, P.  35 n.12, 83, 115 n.41, 121 n.112, 162 n.144, 258 n.29, 261, 278 n.23, 306, 312 n.73, 313 n.94, 398 n.70, 401, 432 n.112, 433 n.120 Borig, R.  333 n.16, 370 n.59 Bornkamm, G.  132, 133, 134, 136, 156 nn.17–19, 159 n.85 Borsch, F. H.  309 n.40, 310 n.50 Boshoff, P. B.  397 n.45 Bousset, W.  24, 37 n.44, 222, 241 n.89 Bowman, J.  126 n.194 Brann, E. T. H.  503 n.24 Braun, F. M.  135, 231, 232, 243 n.113, 245 n.123, 323, 328, 330, 334 nn.32, 37, 336 n.66, 337 n.81, 365 n.1 Braun, H.  243 n.118, 245 n.122, 260, 277 n.9 Brenner, A.  514 n.179 Bretschneider, K. G.  148, 161 n.125 Brichto, H. C.  397 n.55 Briggs, C. A., 218, 237 n.35 Bright, J.  168 Brodie, T. L.  75 n.25, 396 n.44 Bronner, L. L.  507 n.80 Brooke, G. J.  113 n.6, 123 n.144, 126 n.195, 270, 279 n.31, 281 n.69 Brooten, B. J.  428 n.34 Broshi, M.  100, 122 n.130, 159 n.76, 280 n.61, 458 n.69 Brown, D.  455 n.2, 502 n.5 Brown, F.  218, 237 n.35 Brown, P.  503 n.15

568

Author Index

Brown, R.  xvi, 121 n.116, 125 nn.177–8, 182 Brown, R. E.  xii, 13 n.10, 15 n.33, 40, 42, 43, 44, 57 nn.3, 9, 58 n.20, 59 n.48, 60 n.60, 63, 65, 74 n.9, 75 n.26, 76 n.50, 77 n.57, 91, 92, 108, 119 nn.78, 81, 87, 88, 120 n.92, 123 n.144, 126 n.194, 130, 135, 139, 147, 149, 158 n.55, 159 nn.69, 71, 161 n.112, 162 nn.129, 168, 215, 231, 232, 234 n.11, 241 n.91, 241 n.95, 242 n.107, 245 nn.123, 124, 253, 257 nn.14, 17, 22, 264, 265–7, 275, 276, 278 n.15, 279 nn.35, 45, 46, 283 n.112, 301, 302, 310 nn.54, 57, 312 n.70, 315, 328, 330, 333 n.15, 334 n.34, 335 nn.60, 62, 336 n.64, 336 n.70, 337 n.85, 365 n.3, 368 n.33, 375, 376, 378, 380, 382, 384, 386, 391, 394 n.4, 395 nn.16, 26, 397 nn.48, 50, 57, 398 nn.67, 71, 427 n.12, 428 n.23, 439, 456 nn.17, 22, 457 n.40, 473, 477, 493, 510 nn.112, 118, 511 n.130, 512 n.158, 515 nn.202–3, 211, 516 nn.215–16, 532 n.10 Brownlee, W. H.  107, 168, 257 nn.22, 25, 265, 384 Brownlee, W. M.  125 n.174, 279 n.44 Brownson, J.  36 n.21, 322, 334 n.28 Bruce, F. F.  81, 114 n.22, 260, 278 n.14 Bruckberger, R.-L.  503 n.22 Bruston, C.  330, 337 n.78 Bryson-Gustová, A.  156 n.6 Buchanan, G. W.  126 n.194, 429 n.55 Bultmann, R.  20, 24, 35 n.6, 37 n.45, 40, 42, 43, 55, 58 n.16, 60 n.59, 65, 75 n.23, 95, 114 n.13, 120 nn.95, 104, 135, 144, 168, 240 nn.80, 94, 97, 98, 257 n.23, 266, 299, 307 nn.7, 9, 309 n.35, 315, 322, 323, 327, 328, 330, 331, 333 n.4, 334 n.30, 335 nn.55, 61, 337 n.92, 338 nn.93, 94, 95, 380, 381, 395 n.14, 396 n.41, 416, 427 n.20, 430 nn.72–4, 440, 457 n.33, 474, 478, 480, 483, 487, 511 nn.131, 136, 141, 513 nn.160, 173, 531 Burchard, C.  394 n.9 Burkitt, F. C.  337 n.91 Burney, C. F.  320, 330, 334 n.20, 336 n.75, 337 n.80 Burns, R. J.  416, 430 n.84 Burrows, M.  168, 245 n.122, 514 n.179

Cahill, L. S.  503 n.12 Callaway, J. A.  168, 183, 200 n.16 Callot, J.  451 Calmes, P. Th.  71, 431 n.91 Calvin, J.  479, 486, 511 n.134, 512 n.149, 513 nn.163, 170 Campbell, J.  398 n.59, 458 n.70 Capper, B. J.  123 n.144, 126 n.196, 272, 282 n.80 Capps, D.  513 n.174, 515 n.214 Caquot, A.  307 n.13 Caragounis, C. C.  309 n.46 Carmignac, J.  77 n.56, 95, 120 n.107, 329, 331, 333 n.6, 336 n.67, 338 n.104, 361, 365 n.1, 370 nn.55, 62 Carriker, A. J.  527, 533 nn.24–6 Carroll, M.  464, 467, 504 n.27, 506 n.63 Carson, D. A.  115 n.33, 473, 428 n.24 Carter, W.  158 n.61 Caruso, A.  458 nn.62, 65 Casson, L.  532 n.14, 533 n.22 Cerfaux, L.  245 n.121 Cerone, J. N.  200 n.5, 291 n.1 Cézanne, P.  183, 206 n.105 Chabin, M.  34 n.4 Chadwick, H.  333 n.6, 370 n.63 Chapman, J.  71, 76 nn.52–3, 77 n.54 Charles, R. H.  242 n.104, 301, 302, 304, 310 n.49, 311 n.61, 369 nn.41, 43 Charlesworth, A. T.  428 n.37 Charlesworth, J. H.  xiv nn.13–15, 21, xvn25, 13 nn.19–20, 14 nn.21, 30, 31, 15 n.34, 16 n.44, 20, 34 nn.1, 3, 34–5 n.5, 35 nn.7–8, 11, 13, 16–19, 36 nn.20–38, 41, 37 nn.48, 50, 53, 54, 38 nn.59–68, 39 nn.69–72, 74, 58 n.29, 59 nn.36, 46, 49, 64, 73 nn.1, 3, 74 nn.12–13, 15–16, 75 n.27, 76 nn.40, 45, 108, 112 n.1, 113 nn.3, 6, 114 nn.11, 17, 25, 116 nn.44, 51, 117 nn.55, 57, 60, 118 nn.64, 66, 119 n.71, 120 nn.97, 107, 121 nn.108, 110, 121, 122 n.122, 124 n.147, 124 nn.149, 151, 158, 160, 161, 125 nn.166, 170, 172, 175, 183, 184, 126 nn.186, 190, 192, 127 nn.198, 205, 156 n.29, 157 n.44, 158 n.52, 158 n.59, 160 n.104, 161 nn.113, 114, 161 n.120, 161 n.126, 163 nn.155, 156, 163 n.163, 174, 180, 200 n.15, 201 n.21, 203



Author Index

nn.49, 50, 57, 205 nn.78, 79, 206 nn.92, 99, 207 nn.112, 114, 208 nn.125, 127, 128, 209 nn.134, 135, 137, 233 n.1, 257 nn.13, 20, 22, 265, 275, 258 n.31, 278 nn.16, 20, 279 nn.32, 43, 280 n.49, 50, 58, 59, 281 n.71, 282 n.83, 292 nn.11, 13, 16, 18, 19, 22, 293 n.27, 306 nn.1, 5, 308 n.21, 309 n.46, 310 nn.47, 58, 312 nn.75, 77, 80, 83, 313 n.90, 333 nn.6, 7, 9, 10, 334 nn.17, 35, 39, 335 n.42, 336 n.68, 71, 364 n.1, 365 n.1, 366 n.8, 369 n.49, 370 n.56, 63, 394 nn.1, 11, 395 nn.20, 27, 29–30, 396 nn.34, 40, 397 n.49, 398 n.70, 427 nn.6, 13–14, 16–18, 428 nn.33, 36, 49, 429 nn.60, 64, 430 n.71, 431 n.99, 455 nn.1, 3, 15, 458 nn.61, 63, 69, 501 n.2, 502 nn.5, 7, 503 nn.19–20, 23–5, 504 nn.28, 38, 505 n.51, 507 n.76, 508 nn.86, 93, 509 nn.95, 109, 111, 510 n.119, 511 nn.145–7, 512 nn.148, 159, 513 n.172, 514 nn.187, 190, 515 nn.195, 200, 209, 213–14, 516 nn.215, 221, 532 nn.7, 11–13, 533 n.29–30, 534 n.32, 541 n.8 Charlesworth, J. P.  200 n.16 Charlesworth, T.  199 n.3, 201 n.21 Chialà, S.  310 n.48 Chilton, B. D.  83, 113 n.6, 151, 163 n.150, 488, 490, 508 n.85, 513 n.175, 514 n.184 Chrupcala, L. D.  203 n.53 Cioffari, G.  458 n.60 Clar, G.  502 n.9 Clark-Soles, J.  158 n.61 Clarysse, W.  256 n.5 Claudius, M.  403, 428 n.22 Claussen, C.  163 n.153, 37 n.47, 39 n.75 Claußen, C.  509 n.103 Clermont-Ganneau, C.  166, 273 Cohen, S.  510 n.121 Cole, W. G.  514 n.179 Collins, J. J.  113 n.4, 124 n.60, 311 n.69 Collins, R. F.  514 n.179 Coloe, M. L  12 n.7, 277 n.1, 281 n.75 Colson, F. H.  457 n.36 Colson, J.  375 Conzelmann  136 Cornfeld, G.  402 Corwin, V.  59 n.41, 371 n.66

569

Cothenet, E.  367 n.25 Cotton, H. M.  205 n.88 Cribbs, F. L.  3, 42, 58 n.23, 371 n.65 Cross, F. M., Jr.  101, 123 n.137, 168, 200 n.13, 202 n.46, 215, 218, 219, 232, 234 n.12, 238 n.51, 242 n.107, 244 n.121, 365 n.2 Crossan, J. D.  132–3, 134, 156 n.23–4, 157 n.45, 161 n.114, 200 n.18, 457 n.43, 511 n.144, 531 Cullmann, O.  121 n.112, 231, 232, 245 n.123, 258 n.29, 336 n.69, 370 n.58, 377, 391, 395 n.18, 398 n.67 Culpepper, R. A.  63, 71, 74 n.11, 75 n.25, 76 n.49, 120 n.98, 121 n.110, 121 n.121, 257 n.27, 274, 279 n.41, 282 n.91, 96, 97, 312 n.77, 310 n.50, 333 n.7, 375, 378, 394 n.4, 395 n.28, 396 n.44, 398 n.61, 452, 458 nn.67–8, 473 Cushman, R. E.  114 n.11 D’Étaples, J. L.  507 n.82 Dahl, N. A. 240 n.74 Daise, M. A.  36 n.28, 139, 159 n.74, 278 n.18 Daly-Denton, M.  293 n.25 Dan, J.  300, 309 n.41 Danby, H.  74 n.7, 235 n.19, 457 n.38 Daniélou, J.  243 n.117, 336 n.69, 343, 366 n.13 Davies, L. D.  455 n.7 Davies, W. D.  100, 117 n.57, 122 n.128, 234 n.6, 237 n.40, 257 n.21 Davila, J. R.  290, 293 n.25 Davis, M. T.  36 n.21, 233 n.1 Dayagi-Mendels, M.  200 n.10, 201 nn.24, 25, 202 n.42, 204 nn.60, 76, 206 n.95 de Boer, E.  506 nn.58, 69, 507 n.83 De Boer, M.  274, 282 n.98 De Gruyter, W.  256 n.6 de Jonge, M.  242 n.101, 282 n.90, 509 n.98 De Luca, S.  507 n.75 de Santo Otero, A.  307 n.15 de Unamuno, M.  392 de Vaux, P. R. 98, 167, 232, 244 n.121, 365 n.2 de Waard, J. 245 n.124

570

Author Index

Deines, R.  511 n.143 Deissmann, A.  256 n.4, 532 n.2 Del Verme, M.  457 n.34 Delcor, M.  219, 238 n.48, 366 n.17 Denis, A.-M.  366 n.5 Derrett, J. D. M.  484, 513 n.162 Descamps, A.  514 n.179 Descartes, R.  20 Deselaers, P.  514 n.182 Desto, A.  121 n.118 Deutsch, R.  202 n.41 Dever, W. G.  164, 199 n.2 Devillers, L.  139, 159 n.73, 278 n.18 Dexinger, F.  127 n.202 Dickie, A.  166, 195 Dillenberger, J.  501 n.2 Dillman, A.  308 n.17, 309 n.36 Dimant, D.  90, 118 n.70, 262, 279 n.30 Dinkier, E.  409, 410, 429 n.52 Dobbs-Allsopp, F. W.  205 n.86, 431 n.95 Dodd, C. H.  42, 43, 58 nn.17, 26, 123 n.145, 135, 149, 115 n.33, 162 n.128, 240 n.85, 312 n.70, 315, 327, 331, 335 nn.48, 50, 333 n.4, 335 n.48, 338 n.100, 473, 478, 510 n.127, 511 n.131, 512 n.149 Doller, J.  514 n.179 Donahue, D. J.  48 Doohan, L.  70, 76 n.48 Dothan, T. K.  206 n.93 Downs, R. B.  398 n.69 Driver, G. R.  234 n.4, 236 n.26, 239 n.67, 365 n.2 Driver, S. R.  218, 237 n.35, 239 n.69 Dronkert, K.  514 n.179 Dschulnigg, P.  75 n.24, 120 n.99, 396 n.43 Duchesne-Guillemin, J.  238 n.60 Dudar, H.  206 n.103 Dudman, H.  506 n.60 Duke, P. D.  75 n.25, 274, 282 n.93, 396 n.44 Dungan, D. L.  510 n.115 Dunn, J. D. G.  122 n.129, 127 n.204, 132, 154, 156 n.13, 163 n.158, 262, 280 n.53, 473, 509 n.109 Dupont-Sommer, A  117 n.58, 217, 219, 235 n.20, 236 n.26, 237 n.33, 238 n.52, 239 n.67, 242 n.101

Eckhardt, K. A.  395 n.19 Eckle, W.  375, 394 n.4 Edelstein, E.  208 n.126 Edelstein, L.  208 n.126 Edwards, D.  481, 511 n.147, 512 n.148 Ehrhardt, A. A. T.  370 n.60 Eissfeldt, O.  242 n.104 Elkins, J.  504 n.29 Elledge, C. D.  283 n.113 Eller, V.  375, 384, 394 n.4 Elliot, J. K.  160 nn.105, 108, 505 n.49 Ellis, E.  125 n.169 Ellis, H.  516 n.220 Emerton, J. A.  333 n.8, 371 n.64 Epp, E. J.  532 n.4 Epstein, L. M.  514 n.179 Esswein, M.  xiii Evans, C. A.  264, 279 n.41 Eve, E.  506 n.68 Ewald, H.  489, 514 n.180 Fabbri, E. E.  335 n.61 Fabry  456 n.21 Fantham, E.  505 n.41 Farmer, W. R.  139, 149, 159 n.72, 161 n.127 Faure, A.  483 Fehribach, A.  477, 500, 510 n.129, 516 n.222 Feine, P.  338 n.97 Ferreira, J.  103, 104, 111, 124 nn.152–4, 127 n.199 Feuillet, A.  337 n.84, 370 n.55 Finkelstein, L.  160 n.91 Fiorenza, E. S.  465, 504 n.36 Fishbane, M.  503 n.25 Fitzmyer, J. A.  87, 117 n.62, 118 n.63, 122 n.123, 168, 251, 256 n.9, 264, 267, 268, 270, 275, 279 n.36, 280 n.57, 281 nn.62, 67, 283 n.107, 467, 506 n.62, 514 n.183 Fleming, J.  333 n.3, 337 n.91 Florovsky, G.  124 n..145 Flusser, D.  37 n.54, 59 n.53, 73 n.5, 98, 100, 101, 118 n.69, 119 n.76, 122 n.124, 122 n.134, 124 n.163, 133, 134, 139, 144, 157 n.31, 159 n.68, 160 n.100, 167, 243 n.116, 264, 279 n.34, 395 n.22



Author Index

Foerster, W.  233 n.3, 234 n.4, 427 nn.10–11 Folberg, Neil  206 n.100 Foley, H. P.  505 n.41 Förster, H.  115 n.28 Fortna, R.  366 n.3, 395 n.21 Fortna, R. T.  38 n.58, 40, 59 n.45, 73 n.4, 114 n.18, 158 n.61, 259, 260, 277 nn.3, 5 Foster, P.  15 n.42, 57 n.4 Frankel, E.  427 n.4 Fredriksen, P.  83, 115 n.34, 147, 151, 157 n.40, 162 nn.147, 148, 261, 262, 278 n.24 Freed, E. D.  126 n.194, 245 n.124, 456 n.19 Freedman, D. N.  168, 200 n.14, 420, 431 nn.95, 97 Frenkel, R.  203 n.51 Frey, J.  13 n.14, 16 n.46, 102, 124 n.148, 135, 430 n.88, 431 n.102, 456 n.16, 456 n.17 Freyne, S.  139, 141, 142, 159 n.70, 159 n.81, 160 n.88, 506 n.59 Fritsch, C. T.  219, 236 n.26, 238 n.50 Fugsleth, K. S.  272, 281 n.76 Funk, R.  163 n.163, 509 n.108 Fusella, L.  307 n.14 Gabler, J. P.  438 Ganor, S.  34 n.4, 201 n.36 García-Huidobro, T.  201 n.31, 209 n.133 Gardner, J. P.  509 n.101 Gardner-Smith, P.  42, 58 n.15, 121 n.112, 258 n.29, 427 n.15 Garfinkel, Y.  34 n.4, 171, 201 nn.32, 33, 35, 36 Garnet, P.  118 n.65 Gemälde-Galerie, K.  457 n.57 Gerhard, H.  400, 427 n.7 Gesenius, W.  218 Ghose, T.  205 n.85 Gibson, J. C. L.  336 n.69 Gibson, S.  xivn4, 37 n.50, 180, 191, 208 nn.116, 122, 124, 507 n.74 Gieschen, C. A.  290, 292 n.23 Gimutas, M.  504 n.32 Ginzberg, L.  186, 207 n.110, 436, 455 n.7 Gitin, S.  181, 200 n.8, 206 n.93

571

Glueck, N.  168, 180, 200 n.13 Gmehling, M. S.  501 n.2 Goethe, J. W. von  392 Goguel, M.  69 Gold, D. B.  505 n.43 Goodenough, E. R.  121 n.112, 258 n.29 Goodison, L.  504 nn.31, 35 Goodman, G.  158 n.55 Goodman, M.  44, 58 n.30, 113 n.5 Goodspeed, E. J.  80, 114 n.10 Goodwin, C.  335 n.61 Goppelt, L.  429 n.55 Gordley, M.  114 n.16 Gormley, S.  xiii Goulder, M.  384, 397 n.54 Grafman, R.  205 n.82 Grant, F. C.  244 n.120, 336 n.75 Grant, R. M.  327, 335 n.47 Grassi, C.  506 n.71 Grassi, J.  506 n.71 Grassi, J. A.  375, 387, 394 n.4, 398 n.62 Grech, P.  127 n.200 Greenberg, B.  504 n.37 Greenfield, J. C.  309 n.46 Greeven, H.  514 n.179 Grenfell, B. P.  248 Gressmann, H.  330, 337 n.88 Griffith-Jones, R.  397 n.56 Griffiths, S.  207 n.109 Grimme, H.  331 Groot, A. De  201 n.22 Guglielmo, L.  458 n.61 Guilding, A.  120 n.90, 281 n.73 Gutman, S.  160 n.96 Haacker, K.  160 n.99 Haenchen, E.  42, 58 n.19, 67, 68, 75 n.32, 118 n.65, 135, 312 n.70, 336 n.71, 366 n.3, 384, 416, 430 n.82, 473, 480, 511 n.139 Hagen, J. L.  532 n.6 Hahn, F.  416, 430 n.78 Hall, J. F.  204 n.74 Hamburger, A.  204 n.69 Hamilton, V. P.  514 n.179 Hamman, A.  337 n.84 Hanson, P.  74 n.8 Hare, D. R. A.  308 n.20, 310 n.53, 313 n.84

572

Author Index

Harnack, A.  315, 330, 331, 333 n.3, 337 n.91 Harner, P. B.  334 n.40 Harrington, D. J.  276, 283 n.111 Harrington, H. I.  261 Harrington, H. K.  104, 124 n.157, 127 n.201 Harris, J. R.  316, 322, 323, 325, 331, 333 n.12, 334 nn.25, 36, 335 nn.45, 53, 338 nn.97, 98 Harrison, R. K.  448, 457 n.53 Haskins, S.  501 n.2, 502 n.3, 513 n.169 Haṣ-Ṣedeq, M.  124 n.149 Hawkin, D. J.  397 n.58 Headlam, A. C.  330, 337 n.76 Heidegger, M.  474 Heinemann, J.  58 n.31 Hemmer, B.  174 Hendler, Y.  177 Hengel, M.  45, 57 n.8, 58 nn.12, 13, 59 n.44, 80, 81, 113 n.7, 114 nn.13, 20, 119 n.74, 147, 161 n.111, 256 n.2, 260, 277 n.11, 278 nn.12, 15, 302, 311 n.59, 375, 376, 394 n.3, 395 n.15, 416, 420, 430 n.75, 431 n.96, 456 n.17, 473, 533 n.28, 534 n.32 Hengstenberg, E. W.  474 Hennecke, E.  506 n.55 Henry, M.-L.  429 n.57 Herrick, L. A.  369 n.42 Hershkovits, M.  204 nn.66, 67, 70 Higgins, A. J. B.  245 n.124 Hillers, D.  183 Hirsch  149 Hirschfeld, E.  206 n.98 Hirschfeld, Y.  203 n.52, 204 n.73 Hoffmann, R. J.  xvi, 510 n.122 Hofius, O.  333 n.15, 435, 455 n.5 Hofrichter, P. L.  42, 57 nn.1, 3, 58 n.24, 427 n.13 Holmberg, B.  509 n.105 Holm-Nielsen, S.  219, 238 n.47 Holzengerg, E.  533 n.22 Hooker, M.  311 n.69 Hopkins, C.  426 n.3 Horsley, R.  142 Hort, F. J. A.  189 Hoshaia, R. H b.  300 Hoskyns, E.  58 n.11, 473

Houziaux, A.  454, 459 n.74 Howard, G.  77 n.56 Howard, W. F.  58 n.11, 221, 223, 240 n.76, 241 n.90, 242 n.100, 338 n.102 Hudes, S.  161 n.121 Hunter, R.  533 n.19 Huppenbauer, H. W.  233 nn.1, 3, 239 n.71 Hurtado, L. W.  145, 290, 291 n.1, 292 n.24 Ibba, G.  208 n.131 Isaac, E.  312 n.76 Isenberg, W. W.  506 n.54 Janko, R.  533 n.16 Japelli, F.  458 n.63 Jaubert, A.  244 n.121, 245 n.124, 257 n.22, 278 n.21 Jeanine, A. M.  29, 37 n.56 Jeremias, G.  344, 394 n.11 Jeremias, J.  114 n.26, 124 n.145, 158 n.60, 191, 239 n.70, 256 n.7, 366 n.17 Jesen, M. H.  203 n.58, 507 n.75 Johns, L. L.  36 nn.25, 41, 121 n.121 Johnson, B.  504 n.33 Johnson, L.  70, 76 n.44, 142, 159 n.86 Johnson, S. E.  244 n.121 Jonsson, J.  432 n.105  Jordan, H.  338 n.97 Joüon, P.  427 n.9 Joyner, J.  xvi Jülicher  375 Jurgens, B. A.  xiii, 14 n.31, 313 n.90 Just, F.  15 n.41, 158 n.61 Kahle, P. E.  244 n.121 Kampen, N. B.  505 n.41 Kant, I.  20, 474 Käsemann, E  24, 37 n.46, 94, 120 n.93, 121 n.112, 168, 258 n.29, 307 n.3, 368 nn.33, 34, 375, 479, 502 n.10, 511 n.135, 522 Kaufman, P. S.  394 n.4 Kaufman, R. S.  375 Kazantzakis  461 Kazen, T.  115 n.32, 124 n.156, 512 n.150 Keck, L.  531



Author Index

Kee, H. C.  118 n.69, 125 n.179 Keener, C. A.  116 n.53, 119 n.82, 157 n.48 Keener, C. S.  85, 113 n.2, 158 n.61, 274, 282 n.94, 473, 491, 498, 515 n.193, 516 n.217, 541 n.13 Keith, C.  114 n.15, 200 n.5, 291 n.1 Kelber, W. H.  158 n.54, 277 n.8 Kenyon, D. K. M.  167 Khalaily, H.  201 n.22 Kimelman, R.  44, 58 n.34 Kittel, G.  438, 456 n.18 Klausner, J.  133, 134, 157 n.30 Klein, F. -N.  243 n.117 Kleinberg, A.  206 n.102 Klimkeit, H.-J.  75 n.28 Kloppenborg, J. S.  142, 151, 156 nn.8, 14, 159 n.84, 163 n.152 Knibb, M. A.  307 nn.10, 11, 309 nn.36, 37, 311 nn.60, 63, 68 Knust, J.  291 n.1 Koester, H.  280 n.53, 533 nn.23, 29, 534 n.32 Kosmala, H.  367 n.18 Kovacs, M. G.  428 n.32 Kraeling, C. H.  336 n.75, 338 n.97 Kraeling, E.  510 n.116 Kraemer, R. S.  502 n.11, 505 n.45 Kraftchick, S. J.  36 n.21 Kragerud, A.  375, 394 n.4 Kugel, J.  344, 367 n.20 Kügler, J.  375, 394 nn.4–8, 397 n.45 Kuhl, J.  368 n.27 Kuhn, H.-W.  124 n.146, 179, 205 n.80, 207 n.112, 235 n.21, 271, 281 n.72, 344, 367 n.21 Kuhn, K. G.  116 n.45, 125 n.183, 218, 219, 234 n.6, 235 n.16, 236 n.26, 238 n.49, 240 n.84, 275, 283 n.108 Kulakoǧlu, F.  36 n.40 Kümmel, W. G.  338 n.97 Kuper-Blau. T.  201 n.20 Kurz, W. S.  397 n.58 Kutscher, E. Y.  246 n.124 Kvam, K. E.  509 n.102 Kyser, R.  313 n.84 Lagrange, M.-J.  68, 71, 76 n.36, 135, 330, 337 n.79, 442, 457 n.42, 490 Lagrange, P. M. J.  514 n.186

573

Lamb, D. A.  14 n.29 Lambdin, T. O.  311 n.65 Lamouille, A.  41, 57 n.10, 114 n.12, 119 n.80, 427 n.17, 442, 457 n.41 Lange, A.  207 n.111, 268, 280 n.60 Lantinga, C.  457 n.51 LaSor, W. S.  264, 279 n.38 Lattke, M.  333 nn.6, 11 Laurence, R.  304, 312 n.82, 313 n.87 Leaney, A. R. C.  233 n.3, 234 n.5, 235 nn.15, 17, 237 nn.40, 41, 242 n.109, 257 n.22 Leclercq, H.  451, 458 n.59 Lee, G. A.  93, 120 n.91 Leibner, U.  161 n.119, 205 n.79 Leith, M. J. W.  202 n.46 Lembi, G.  35 n.13 Lena, A.  203 n.57 Léon-Dufour, X.  427 n.19 Lernau, O.  208 n.130 Leroy, H.  97, 121 n.119, 282 n.92, 431 n.100 Lesêtre, H.  454, 459 n.77 Levine, A.-J.  38 n.64, 151, 163 n.149, 463, 475, 503 n.18 Levine, L. I.  203 n.55, 456 nn.27, 29, 509 n.103 Lewis, N.  505 n.40 Leyh, G.  533 n.20 Licht, H.  506 n.64 Licht, J.  95, 120 n.106, 215, 236 n.25 Lichtenberger, H.  26 n.27, 119 n.75 Lietzmann, H.  376, 394 n.12 Lightfoot, R. H.  58 n.11, 473 Lilla, S.  308 n.28 Lim, T. H.  113 n.4 Lindars, B.  90, 119 nn.72, 73, 264, 279 n.42, 312 n.81, 473 Ling, T. J. M.  272, 282 n.81 Loisy, A. F.  42, 43, 58 nn.11, 14, 69, 79, 113 n.8, 247 Lorenzen, T.  375, 394 n.4 Lorenzi, R.  38 n.57 Lowth, R.  420 Luca, S. D.  161 n.116 Luther, M.  24 Luz, Ulrich  157 n.46 Lyle, J.  503 n.14

574

Author Index

Ma’oz, J.  456 n.31 Maarsingh, B.  514 n.179 Macaskill, G.  532 n.5 McDonald, L.M.  xiii, xvi, 14 nn.31–2, 36 nn.34–5, 313 n.90, 519, 532 n.12, 533 n.29 Mace, D. R.  514 n.179 McFague, S.  531 MacGregor, G. H. C.  241 n.96 Maclean, J. K. B.  510 n.126 MacLeod, R.  532 n.14 McNamara, M.  35 n.15 Magen, Y.  203 n.48, 206 n.97 Magness, J.  207 n.109 Maier, J.  124 n.150 Makrauer, G.  xvi, 532 n.1 Maldacea, G.  458 n.61 Malina, B. J.  432 n.111, 487, 513 n.171 Malvern, M. M.  501 n.2 Maneschg, H.  430 n.73, 456 n.17, 457 n.35 Mann, A. T.  503 n.14 Marder, O.  201 n.22 Margulies, A.  463 Margulies, M.  503 n.21 Marrs, R. R.  403, 428 n.28, 432 n.117 Marsh, J.  315 Martin, M.  95, 120 n.100 Martínez, F. G.  113 n.4, 122 n.123 Martini, C. M.  515 n.204 Martyn, J. L.  13 n.10, 45, 59 n.35, 92, 119 n.88, 126 n.194, 257 n.17, 278 nn.15, 22, 302, 473, 510 n.118 Marx, A.  368 n.26 Marxsen, W.  136 Mason, S.  35 n.13, 507 n.79 Massaux, E.  316, 322, 323, 325, 326, 331, 333 n.13, 334 nn.27, 31, 38, 335 n.43, 335 n.46, 338 n.99 Mastin, B. A.  371 n.65 Mateos, J.  432 nn.114, 116 Matera, F. J.  158 n.57 Matson, M. A.  3, 16 n.48 Matsunaga, K.  xii Mattos, D.  xiii Maugh, T. H.  37 n.53 Mayer, R.  235 nn.20, 21, 236 n.26 Mazar, A.  173, 202 n.45 Mazar, B.  167, 205 n.82

Mazar, E.  172, 202 n.38 Medina, J.  206 n.103 Medina, M.  201 n.21 Meeks, W. A.  92, 96, 119 n.89, 121 n.113, 126 n.194, 257 n.11, 278 n.15, 302, 313 n.94, 432 n.112, 510 n.125 Meier, J. P.  38 n.58, 64, 74 n.17, 83, 115 n.37, 149, 151, 162 n.132, 262, 278 n.27, 379, 398 n.70, 480, 511 n.137 Meinertz, M.  221 Meiser, M.  83, 115 n.39 Mendels, D.  115 n.40, 156 n.3, 277 n.6 Menken, M. J. J.  15 n.33 Menoud, P. H.  315 Merleau-Ponty, M.  64, 131, 396 n.31 Merz, A.  83, 115 n.38, 132, 149, 151, 156 nn.15, 16, 161 n.124, 162 n.133, 262, 278 n.28 Metzger, B. M.  291 n.1, 335 n.53 Meyer, B. F.  149, 151, 162 n.127, 162 n.146 Meyer, H. A. W.  474 Michaud, H.  238 n.62 Michel, C.  36 n.40 Miele, M.  458 n.60 Miguens, M.  515 n.201 Milik, J. T.  117 n.62, 215, 234 n.12, 246 n.124, 304, 308 nn.27, 30, 309 n.33, 312 n.79 Milkaw, F.  533 n.20 Millard, A.  202 n.36 Mingana, A.  316, 322, 323, 325, 334 nn.25, 36, 335 nn.45, 53, 338 n.97 Misgav, H.  201 n.36 Moloney, F. J.  135, 138, 149, 115 n.33, 157 n.42, 159 n.66, 310 nn.51, 53, 473 Moltmann-Wendel, E.  506 n.65, 516 n.218 Morgenthaler, R.  281 nn.63, 64, 292 n.12, 334 n.41, 368 n.30, 429 n.65 Morris, C.  504 nn.31, 35 Morris, L.  81, 114 n.21, 260, 278 n.13, 315, 473, 428 n.25 Moule, C. F. D.  124 n.145, 241 n.93 Mowinckel, S.  242 n.106 Mowry, L.  275, 283 n.102 Müller, C. D. G.  513 n.168 Mumcuoglu, M.  171, 201 nn.32, 33, 35 Murphy, R. E.  370 n.52



Author Index

Murphy-O’Connor, J.  37 n.53, 39 n.70, 113 n.6, 122 n.127, 127 n.200, 167, 232, 257 n.19, 343, 366 nn.5, 16, 471, 509 n.96, 539, 541 n.12 Murray, R.  361, 370 n.53 Na’aman, N.  208 n.115 Najjar, A.  203 n.58, 507 n.75 Naveh, J.  202 n.37 Negev, A.  507 n.74 Neirynck, F.  58 n.12 Nelson, M. C.  16 n.47, 204 n.63 Nestle-Aland  37 n.51, 189, 300 Netzer, E.  158 n.59, 180, 185, 205 n.85, 207 n.107, 208 n.116 Neufeld, E.  514 n.179 Neugebauer, F.  371 n.65 Neusner, J.  35 n.14, 74 n.7, 159 n.65, 202 n.47, 309 nn.42, 43, 395 n.24, 426 n.3, 441, 457 n.39, 514 n.181 Newman, H.  282 n.78 Newsom, C. A.  116 n.47 Newton, I.  539 Newton, M.  278 n.19 Neyrey, J. H.  121 n.117 Nezer, E.  124 n.159 Nickelsburg, G. W. E.  310 n.46, 311 n.69 Nicklas, T.  431 n.100 Nietzsche, F.  398 n.60 Nisetich, F.  533 n.17 Noack, B.  42, 58 n.18 Nongbri, B.  256 n.5 North, R.  244 n.121 North, W. E. S.  13 n.11, 14 n.29, 158 n.61 Notley, R. S.  37 n.54, 119 n.76, 157 nn.32, 39, 200 n.17 Nötscher, F.  219, 234 n.13, 237 n.31, 238 n.55, 242 n.105, 367 nn.18, 19, 368 n.29 Novak, M. A.  336 n.71 Nowell, I.  432 n.118 O’Connor, J. B.  59 n.42 O’Day, G.  422, 432 nn.107–8 O’Day, G. M.  75 n.25, 396 n.44 O’Day, G. R.  274, 281 n.77, 282 n.95 Oakman, D. E.  142 Odeberg, H.  306, 313 nn.92, 93, 315, 323, 334 n.33

575

Oden, R. A.  428 n.30, 429 nn.61, 63, 457 n.54 Oegema, G. S.  26 n.27, 38 n.62 Olsson, B.  282 n.91 Ong, H. T.  15 n.42, 57 n.4 Orlov, A. A.  293 n.26 Orr, W. F.  494, 515 n.207 Orsini, P.  256 n.5 Osiek, C.  508 n.86, 509 n.97 Overbeck, J. F.  458 n.64 Overman, J. A.  16 n.47, 204 n.63 Padovese, L.  127 n.200 Pagels, E. H.  59 n.40, 506 n.56, 532 n.9 Painter, J.  76 n.39, 92, 112, 119 n.86, 121 n.120, 232, 262, 264, 272, 276, 279 nn.29, 40, 282 n.79, 283 n.110, 376, 473, 483, 513 n.161 Pajunen, M. S.  113 n.5 Pamment, M.  126 n.194 Pancaro, S.  432 n.112 Panitz-Cohen, N.  202 n.45 Parker, P.  382, 383, 384, 397 nn.51–2 Parry, D. W.  122 n.123 Parsenios, G.  xiii, 258 n.28 Patai, R.  465, 504 n.34 Pati, R.  514 n.179 Patiffol, P.  336 n.63 Patrich, J.  205 n.85 Paul, A.  113 n.3, 192, 199, 283 n.114 Peat, F. D.  206 n.105 Pepper, M.  398 n.68 Peradotto, J.  503 n.16 Pesce, M.  121 n.118 Petersen, W. L.  534 n.32, 459 n.75 Petrie, F.  200 n.13 Philips, P. M.  114 n.16 Phillips, H.  532 n.15 Philonenko, M.  117 n.58 Phipps, W. E.  502 n.6 Pick, B.  505 n.47 Pierotti, E.  166 Pilgaard, A.  283 n.99 Piotrovsky, M.  xvi Piper, O.  514 n.179 Pixner, B.  59 n.56, 74 n.14, 117 n.55, 208 n.123, 280 n.58 Plaskow, J.  465

576

Author Index

Pokorný, P.  34 nn.1, 3, 36 n.33, 74 n.15, 131, 145, 156 nn.5–6, 277 n.8, 313 n.95, 534 n.32 Polanyi, K.  131 Pollard, T. E.  371 n.65 Pomeroy, S. B.  504 nn.39, 41 Porath, Y.  204 n.65 Porter, S. E.  15 n.42, 57 n.4, 256 n.5 Porton, B.  205 n.89 Poteat, W.  206 n.104 Powell, M. A.  162 n.145 Preisker, H.  509 n.95 Price, J. L.  233 n.1, 257 n.22 Pruszinski, J. G. R.  xiii, 163 n.163 Puech, E.  124 n.160, 202 n.36 Punch, J. D.  291 n.1 Purvis, J. D.  126 n.194 Quast, K.  375, 394 n.4 Quispel, G.  257 n.22 Rabinovich, A.  201 n.19 Rainey, A. F.  157 n.39, 200 n.17 Raney, W. H.  330, 337 n.86 Rapport, U.  160 n.93 Reed, A. Y.  34 n.2 Reed, J. L.  161 n.114, 200 n.18, 511 n.144 Regina, V.  501 n.2 Reich, R.  27, 115 n.31, 124 n.159, 170, 172, 195, 196, 200 n.6, 201 n.26, 202 n.39, 202–3 n.47, 208 nn.129, 130, 282 n.84 Reicke, B.  107, 265, 371 n.63 Reimarus  131, 135 Reinhartz, A.  15 n.39, 474, 510 n.14 Renan, E.  132, 156 n.10 Rengstorf, K. H.  410, 429 n.53 Reuss, J.  235 nn.20, 21, 236 n.26, 242 n.108 Rey, S. J.  39 n.70, 113 n.6 Rhea, B.  34 n.3, 74 n.15, 277 n.8 Ricca, P.  241 n.92 Ricci, C.  501 n.2, 506 n.70 Richardson, P.  xivn12, 163 n.154, 481, 511 n.147, 512 n.148 Richelle, M.  202 n.36 Ridderbos, H.  120 n.96 Ridley, M.  407 Riesner, R.  117 n.55 Rietz, H. W. L.  233 n.1

Ringgren, H.  215, 219, 234 n.12, 238 nn.55, 61, 366 n.12, 367 n.23, Ripley, J. J.  xvn22 Ritmeyer, K.  205 n.82 Ritmeyer, L.  205 n.82 Robert, A.  337 n.84 Robert, D. H.  431 n.92 Roberts, C. H.  532 n.2 Robinson, E.  166 Robinson, J. A. T.  44, 58 n.32, 258 n.29, 260, 277 n.10, 280 n.53, 473 Robinson, J. M.  506 n.55 Robinson, M. A.  291 n.1 Robinson, T.  121 n.112 Rogers, D. G.  69, 70, 76 n.43 Roloff, J.  63, 74 n.8, 371 n.63, 378, 394 n.10, 395 n.25 Rologg, J.  125 n.168 Roman, Y.  205 n.85 Roubos, R.  514 n.179 Rousseau, J. J.  429 n.67 Rozenberg, S.  200 n.10, 201 n.24, 202 n.42, 204 nn.60, 76, 206 n.95 Rubinstein, C. T.  200 n.7, 208 n.119, 282 n.82 Ruckstuhl, E.  63, 65, 74 n.14, 75 nn.21, 24, 109, 120 nn.98, 99, 126 n.189, 258 n.27, 266, 275, 280 n.52, 310 n.53, 379, 380, 396 nn.31, 39, 43, 427 n.14, 434, 455 n.4, 512 n.159 Running, L. G.  200 n.14 Rüttimann, R. J.  409 Rylands, L. G.  335 n.51 Sabar, A.  501 n.1 Sager, L. E.  206 n.95 Sakenfeld, K. D.  509 n.100 Samain, P.  158 n.62 Sanday, W.  473 Sanders, E. P.  64, 74 n.17, 116 n.48, 127 n.198, 132, 134, 144, 147, 156 n.20–2, 158 n.55, 160 n.98, 160 n.103, 309 n.34, 315, 335 nn.49, 56, 338 nn.96, 97, 379, 396 nn.33, 35, 470, 504 n.38, 508 n.85 Sanders, J. N.  371 n.65 Sanders, J. T.  315, 322, 327, 331 Sandmel, S.  110–11, 126 n.197, 231, 246 n.125 Saxer, V.  502 n.8



Author Index

Schaberg, J.  503 n.20, 505 n.42, 508 n.84, 510 n.123 Schaferdieck, K.  398 n.63 Schaten, S.  458 n.58 Schearing, L. S.  509 n.102 Schenke, H. M.  398 n.70 Schick, A.  199 n.4 Schick, C.  166, 191 Schiffman, L. H  113 n.5, 115 n.29, 116 n.49, 124 n.160, 257 n.18 Schillebeeckx  531 Schlatter, A.  147, 161 n.110, 206 n.90, 474 Schleiermacher, F.  24, 131, 149, 473 Schmidt, N.  303, 311 n.67, 483 Schmithals, W.  77 n.58, 397 n.45 Schnackenburg, J. R.  xvi, 65, 67, 69, 74 n.13, 75 nn.29–30, 76 n.38, 99, 100, 108, 120 n.92, 122 nn.125, 132, 135, 232, 265, 257 n.26, 337 n.82, 275, 283 n.106, 303, 312 n.72, 330, 354, 375, 376, 380, 382, 384, 394 nn.4–5, 13, 395 nn.16, 30, 398 n.71, 415, 430 n.71, 432 n.106, 473, 491, 515 n.194, 516 n.215 Schneemelcher, W.  160 nn.106, 107 Schneiders, S.M.  282 n.89, 501 n.2, 515 n.199 Schnelle, U.  279 n.41 Scholten, J. H.  375, 394 n.6 Schonfield, H. J.  219, 236 n.26, 238 n.58, 242 n.105 Schowalter, D. N.  16 n.47, 204 n.63 Schrage, W.  256 n.6 Schramm, A.  428 n.34 Schroer, S.  503 n.17 Schröter, J.  159 n.80 Schubert, K.  117 n.57, 234 nn.6, 7, 235 n.21, 236 n.26, 243–4 n.119, 257 n.21 Schultz, S.  303, 312 n.71, 313 n.94, 369 n.38 Schürer, E.  456 n.24 Schweitzer, A.  21, 123 n.145, 135, 509 n.107 Schweitzer, E.  65, 75 n.24, 120 n.99, 236 n.27, 237 n.39, 334 nn.30, 40, 370 n.54, 380, 396 n.43, 512 n.159 Scott, E. F.  428 n.34 Scott, J.  74 n.8

577

Scroggs, R.  509 n.105 Segal, A. F.  292 n.20, 36 n.21 Seltman, C.  509 n.99 Selwyn, E. C.  338 n.101 Senior, D.  158 n.61 Seybold, K.  431 n.94 Shanks, H.  208 n.130 Shapiro, H. A.  505 n.41 Shellard, B.  3 Shukron, E.  27, 130, 170, 195, 196, 208 nn.129 Sidebottom, E. M.  301, 310 nn.53, 56 Siegert, F.  14 n.25 Sievers, J.  35 n.13 Silberman, N.  201 n.19 Siliezar, C. R. S.  13 n.15, 15 n.36, 400, 427 n.5 Simoens, Y.  135, 431 n.101 Simon, M.  243 n.117 Simon, U.  234 n.6 Simons, J.  429 n.67 Slee, M.  427 n.13 Smalley, S. S.  42, 45, 58 n.21, 59 n.38, 87, 117 n.61 Smith, D. M.  3, 12 n.3, 14 n.26, 16 n.48, 42, 58 n.25, 60 n.58, 64, 70, 74 n.18, 83, 92, 96, 112 n.1, 150, 151, 115 n.36, 119 n.85, 120 n.92, 121 n.109, 121 n.112, 155 n.2, 158 nn.49, 51, 162 nn.137, 138, 140, 232, 241 n.92, 253, 257 n.16, 258 n.29, 262, 264, 273, 278 nn.15, 26, 279 n.39, 282 n.87, 312 n.73, 375, 379, 390, 394 nn.2, 6, 395 n.14, 396 n.36, 398 n.65, 401, 403, 410, 423, 427 n.15, 428 n.29, 429 n.54, 432 nn.109–10, 466, 473, 485, 491, 505 n.46, 513 nn.166, 168, 514 n.191 Smith, D. M. Jr.  233 n.1 Smith, G.  532 n.3 Smith, J. Z.  121 n.115, 257 n.12, 464, 504 n.26 Smith, M.  398 n.70 Smith, P.  205 n.81, 321, 334 n.21 Solvang, E. K.  502 n.4 Spinoza, B.  20, 474 Spitta, F.  316, 322, 327, 328, 333 n.14, 335 n.59 Stager, L. E.  181, 206 n.94 Stallman, R. C.  116 n.54

578

Author Index

Staubli, T.  503 n.17 Stauffer, E.  510 n.123 Stegemann  Stegemann, E. W.  473, 510 n.13 Stegemann, H.  113 n.3, 269, 281 n.65, 470, 508 n.91 Stegemann, W.  473, 510 n.13 Stein, L.  505 n.43 Stendahl, K.  117 n.57, 257 n.21 Stephens, S. A.  533 n.21 Stone, M. E.  309 nn.34, 36 Strachan, R. H.  318, 325, 334 n.18, 335 n.44 Strack, H. L., 513 nn.176–7 Strange, J. R.  161 n.121 Strange, J., Jr.  115 n.31 Strange, J., Sr.  115 n.31 Strathmann, H.  315 Strauss, D. F.  20, 24, 37 n.42, 131, 165, 473 Strawn, B. A.  118 n.66, 233 n.1 Strecker, G.  120 n.98, 257 n.27 Streeter, B. H.  58 n.11, 71 Strugnell, J.  168, 218, 219, 232, 233 n.1, 237 n.42, 519 Stuart, G. H. C.  116 n.43 Stuckenbruck, L.  127 n.203 Stuhlmacher, P.  120 n.103 Sukenik, E.  167, 519 Sullivan, J. P.  503 n.16 Swanson, R. J.  513 n.167 Szojda, O. D.  370 n.57

162 n.133, 163 n.159, 262, 278 n.28, 407, 428 n.37, 456 n.18 Thelwall, S.  313 n.88 Theobald, M.  437, 455 nn.6, 10, 456 n.32, 457 n.52 Thide, C. P.  113 n.6 Thiering, B.  461 Thompson, M. M.  81, 114 n.23, 120 n.93, 307 n.3 Thompson, M. R.  501 n.2, 506 nn.57–8 Thornecroft, J. K.  397 n.47 Thüsing, W.  427 n.20, 456 n.17 Thyen, H.  58 n.12, 381, 397 n.46 Tilborg, S. van  125 n.164 Tischendorf, C. von  166, 189 Tobler, T.  166 Tondelli, L.  330, 337 n.87 Tov, E.  95, 120 nn.101, 102, 207 n.111 Trafton, J. L.  281 n.68 Trever, J.  168 Treves, M.  236 n.27, 237 n.39 Tsafrir, Y.  206 n.91 Tuckett, C. M.  156 n.14 Tukasi, E. O.  122 n.133 Turner, J. D.  76 n.51 Turner, N.  310 n.52 Turner, V.  121 n.115, 257 n.12

Tabor, J.  180 Talmon, S.  124 n.150, 124 n.160, 125 n.171, 167 Taylor, V.  240 n.87 Teeple, H. M.  275, 283 n.104 Tervanotko, H.  113 n.5 Testa, P. E.  457 n.56, 459 n.72 Testus, M.  95, 120 n.105 Teutsch, B. P.  427 n.4 Thackeray, H. St. J.  429 n.66 Thatcher, T.  12 n.7, 15 nn.34, 41, 16 n.45, 158 n.61, 163 n.160, 277 nn.1, 6, 7, 278 n.25 Theissen, G.  20, 34 n.10, 83, 115 n.38, 132, 149, 151, 155, 156 nn.15, 16, 157 n.45, 158 n.50, 161 n.124,

van Aarde, A.  513 n.174 Van Andel, C. P.  308 n.18, 312 n.78 van Belle, G.  14 n.25, 59 n.45 Van den Bussche  315 van der Loos, H.  241 n.88 van der Ploeg, J.  219, 238 n.57, 242 n.105 Van der Toorn, T.  465 Van der Watt, J. G.  279 n.41 VanderKam, J. C.  16 n.45, 100, 113 nn.5, 6, 116 n.49, 122 n.131, 124 n.160, 158 n.55, 271, 281 n.74, 304, 309 n.38 VanTilborg, S.  105 Vaux, R. de  122 n.127, 206 n.98 Verbin, J. S. K.  207 n.106 Vermes, G.  51, 59 n.51, 133–4, 137, 157 n.33–8, 158 n.55, 235 n.20

Uhlig, S.  307 n.12 Ullendorf, E.  311 n.68 Urbach, E. E.  44, 58 nn.29, 33, 506 n.64, 510 n.124



Author Index

Vincent, L.-H.  167 von der Osten-Sacken, P.  344, 366 n.5, 367 nn.19, 22 von Rad, G.  239 n.68 Von Wahlde, U. C.  59 n.45, 73 n.4, 91, 114 n.19, 147, 197, 260, 273, 277 n.4, 282 nn.86, 88, 283 n.101, 395 n.21, 473, 510 n.128, 513 n.164 Vőrős, G.  204 n.75 Voss, R.  175, 206 n.96 Vouga, F.  97, 121 n.119 Wahlde, U. C. von  119 n.77, 158 n.58 Walther, J. R.  494, 515 n.207 Warren, C.  166 Wasserman, T. 291 n.1 Watson, A.  512 n.150 Watson, W. G. E.  431 n.93 Wayment, T. A.  159 n.64 Weaver, W. P.  36 n.20, 132, 156 n.12, 157 n.41, 207 n.114, 398 n.70, 531, 534 n.31 Weber, W.  468, 496 Weder, H.  416, 430 n.77 Weill, R.  166 Weiss, J.  80, 113 n.9, 132, 154, 156 n.11, 163 n.157 Weiss, Z.  207 n.108 Welch, J. W.  138, 159 n.64, 509 n.97 Wellhausen, J.  330, 337 n.77 Wengst, K.  428 n.27 Wernberg-Møller, P.  124 n.150, 217, 218, 236 nn.27, 29, 237 nn.32, 34, 37 Westcott, A.  532 n.1 Westcott, B. F.  71, 189, 416, 430 n.83, 473, 474, 532 n.1 Whiston, W.  515 n.208 Whitacre, R. A.  120 n.93 Whitaker, G. H.  457 n.36 Whiteley, D. E. H.  456 n.19 Whitson, W.  494 Wider, N.  365 n.2

579

Wieder, N.  244 n.121 Wikenhauser, A.  310 n.54, 513 n.165 Wilckens, U.  428 n.26 Wilcox, M.  365 n.3 Wiles, M. F.  315 Wilkenhauser, A.  315 Wilkens, W.  315 Wilkinson, R.  337 n.91 Williams, J. G.  402, 428 n.21 Wilson, C.  166 Wilson, K. J.  159 n.64 Wind, R.  501 n.2 Windisch, H.  58 n.11 Winston, D.  219, 238 n.53, 239 n.68 Winter, D.  20, 34 n.10, 155, 157 n.45, 158 n.50, 163 n.159 Winter, P.  158 n.55 Witetschek, S.  158 n.61 Witherington, B.  505 n.44 Witty, F. J.  533 n.18 Wright, G. E.  168 Wright, N. T.  133, 134, 156 nn.26–8, 200 n.13, 262, 504 n.30 Wrobel, M.  541 n.11 Yadin, Y.  204 n.74, 205 n.82, 219, 233 n.3, 235 n.20, 237 n.39, 238 n.45, 239 n.67, 246 n.124 Yamauchi, E.  207 n.114 Yuckman, C.  206 n.103 Yun Lee Too  532 n.14 Zadok, R.  200 n.12 Zaehner, R. C.  238 nn.60, 63, 242 n.110 Zahn, T.  205 n.90, 415, 430 n.70 Zani, L.  430 n.79 Zapata-Meza, M.  203 n.58, 507 n.75 Zeitlin, S.  365 n.2 Zias, J.  508 n.93 Ziebritzki, H.  101, 123 n.136 Ziegler, V. H.  509 n.102 Zumstein, J.  158 n.61

Ancient Index Biblical works Old Testament Genesis 1:1  448 1:1ff.  41, 368 n.35, 369 nn.40, 41 1:1–2  447 1:3–5  215 1:24  470 1:26–27  462 1:28  460, 470, 501, 540 2:2  xii, 30, 153 2:5  492 2:15  446, 447, 492 3  434, 444 3:1  310 n.55, 447, 448 3:1–15  447 3:3  446, 447 3:6  447 3:9  447 3:14  444, 447 4:1  462 5:21–24  299 5:23  297 5:24  299, 300 6  216 6:5  216 6:8ff.  230 6:18  508 n.91 7  508 n.91 8:17  540 8:21  216 9:1  470, 540 9:7  216, 540 13  508 n.91 14:19  368 n.35 14:22  368 n.35 19:19  230 20:4  494 26:22  456 n.20 28:10–17  307 n.7

28:12  29:27  31:34  34:12  41:32  43:32 

296 512 n.157 217 488 234 n.10 217

Exodus 3:14  145 4:5  436 12:46  443, 444 19:6  465 20:2  145 22:16  488 22:17  138 30:11–16  140 Leviticus 11:33  480 12  504 n.38 15  504 n.38 19:18  34, 105 19:29  469 19:34  105 21  138 21:7  469 27:1–8  488 Numbers 6:22–26  170 6:22–27  171 9:12  443, 444 21  402, 410, 411, 412, 417, 418, 426, 431 n.102, 436–9, 441, 442, 444,448, 453, 454, 457 n.37 21:7–9  418 21:8–9  403, 417, 440, 441, 450 Deuteronomy 2:46  217

6:4  6 16:16  17:17  18:10  22:29  23:17 

Ancient Index

187 508 n.91 138 488 469

Joshua 2:1  469 6:17  469 11:10–13  170 13:13  179 Judges 14:12  512 n.157 1 Samuel 2:3  358 9:20  217 17:52  172 18:25  488 25:40–42  488 2 Samuel 3:2  179 3:3  179 12: 20  217 1 Kings 1:4  462 6–7  171 7:21  171 2 Kings 4:10  173 18  436 18:4  436 18:5  172 18:17  188 21:19  160 n.89 24:1  160 n.89 2 Chronicles 13:19  180 Ezra 2:68  235 n.13 2:70  235 n.13 8:56–60  216

Nehemiah 1:1  180 3:1  190 3:32  190 10:2  180 10:33–34  140 11:4  235 n.13 11:25  235 n.13 12:39  190 13:24  292 n.9 Esther 2:17  230 Psalms 2  251, 271 4:3  235 n.13 8:5(4)  420 27:1  243 n.117 33:6  369 n.40 34:14  292 n.9 34:20 (21)  444 40:4  541 n.5 45  489 45:15–16  488 84:11  230 87  242 n.103 94:21  292 n.6 100:2  541 n.2 110:1  145 145:13–14  420 148:5  369 n.41 Proverbs 5:15–19  462 5:18  488 6:29  494 8:1–4  325 8:22ff.  322 30:18–19  462 Ecclesiastes 9:9  462 Song of Songs 1:12  500 4:5  462 7:1  516 n.220 Isaiah 1–39  42

581

582 2:4  225 7:3  188 7:20  516 n.220 11:1  271 11:2  358 14:9  368 n.35 26:19  242 n.103 36:2  188 40:3  33, 425 40–55  6 45:22–5  145 45:23 LXX  301 52:13  426, 433 n.120 53  284 53:1  288 53:3  288 53:4  288, 292 n.4 53:4ff.  288 53:7  288 53:9  288 66:18  292 n.9 Jeremiah 5:7  292 n.6 16:1–4  470 29:6  540 Daniel 7:13  434 7:13–14  433 n.120 11:35  235 n.13 12  116 n.52 12:2  228, 242 n.103, 359 Malachi 2:14  467, 488 New Testament Matthew 3:1  528 3:4  528 3:13  528 3: 14  528 4:12  528 4:21  528 5:5  300 5:22  145 5:28  145 5:32  145

Ancient Index 5:34  145 5:39  145 5:44  105, 145 8  147 8:5–13  147, 149 8:14  471 9:14  528 9:20  30 10:2  528 10:16  400 10:30  31 11:2  528 11:4  528 11:7  528 11:11  528 11:12  528 11:13  528 11:18  528 11:28–30  144 11.25–27  144 12  399 12:11  31 12:34  401 12:39  399 13:39  300 14:2  528 14:3  528 14:4  528 14:8  528 14:10  528 14:27  145 16  65, 380 16:2  183 16:14  528 16:16  135 17:1  528 17:1–9  3 17:13  528 17:24–27  140 19:6  540 21:25  528 21:26  528 21:32  528 22:1–14  477, 512 n.149 22:2  489 22:16  xii 22:30  478 23:5  30 23:33  401

23:37  438 25:1–13  512 n.149 25:31  300, 301 26:13  301 26:24  300 26:26  462 26:57  xi 27:49  398 n.64 27:56  466 27:61  466 28:1  466 28:20  145 Mark 1:4  528 1:6  528 1:9  528 1:14  528 1:16–20  138 1:19  528 1:29  528 1:30  471 1:39  203 n.56 2:4  147 2.18  528 3:6  xii 3:17  383, 528 3:18  487 4:35–41  174 5:37  528 5:37–42  383 6:3  485, 486, 490, 510 n.123 6:14  528 6:16  528 6:17  528 6:18  528 6:20  528 6:24  528 6:25  528 6:45–48  207 n.105 6:50  145 6:56  30 7:1–13  xiii 7:31–37  485 8:22  176 8:27  176 8:28  528 8:29  300 8:31  426, 448

Ancient Index 9:1  20 9:2  528 9:2–10  3 9:31  426 9:38  383, 528 10:2–12  471 10:9  540 10:32–33  426 10:35  528 10:35ff.  383 10:39  458 n.66 10:41  528 11:2–11  396 n.38 11:2–11  75 n.20 11:30  528 11:32  528 12:13  xii 12:25  300, 496 13  383 13:1  29 13:3  528 14:12–16  141 14:13–16  396 n.38 14:13–16  75 n.20 14:22  462 14:33  528 14:62  135, 145 15:21  491 15:40  466 15:47  466 16:1  466 16:6  421 16:9  466, 497, 506 n.61 16:18  401, 458 n.66 Luke 1  143 1:1–4  11, 50, 151, 401 1:2  41, 137 1–2  3 1:13  529 1:19  145 1:60  529 1:63  529 3:2  134, 529 3:7  401 3:15  529 3:16  529 3:19–20  482

583

584 3:20  88, 529 3:37  308 n.24 4:22  83 4:28–29  45 4:38  471 5:10  529 5:19  147 5:33  529 6:12  207 n.105 6:14  529 6:24  301 7:1–10  149 7:1–17  467 7:8  145 7:18  529 7:19  529 7:20  529 7:22  529 7:24  529 7:28  529 7:29  529 7:33  529 7:36–50  467, 469, 485 7:37–39  507 n.82 8:1–3  467 8:2  467–70 8:2–3  490 8:44  30 8:51  529 8:51–55  383 9:7  529 9:9  529 9:19  529 9:28  529 9:28–36  3 9:49  529 9:54  522, 529 10:21–22  144 10–19  3 11:1  529 11:30  429 n.68 11:37–41  485 12:7  31 12:19  301 12:35–36  512 n.149 13:34  438 16:8  118 n.69 16:9  300, 301 16:16  529

Ancient Index 16:26  300 17:26  429 n.68 20:4  529 20:6  529 21:8  145 21:28  300 22:8  383, 529 22:19  462 22:70  145 24:10  466 24:12  383 24:39  145 John 1  95, 380 1:1  6, 221, 240 n.87, 324, 325, 326, 423, 492 1:1–2  287, 353 1:1–3  222, 322 1:1–4  184 1:1–5  325, 353 1:1–6  531 1:1–18  41, 48, 65, 81, 95, 96, 247, 259, 284, 412, 435, 478 1:1–20:30  65, 380 1:1ff.  369 n.41 1:3  220, 223, 227, 325, 345, 353, 369 n.38 1:4  317, 346, 353 1:4–5  221 1:6  393, 529 1:6–8  49 1:7  325 1:9  221, 223, 325 1:9–10  346 1:10  220, 221, 345 1:10–12  319 1:11  220, 221, 319 1:12  222, 223, 268, 324, 325, 346 1:12ff.  347 1:12–13  101, 268 1:13  223 1:14  x, 3, 12 n.5, 26, 95, 99, 104, 221, 226, 229, 230, 242 n.100, 286, 298, 319, 321, 322, 325, 353, 355, 360, 461 1:15  324, 529 1:16  319 1:17  25, 223, 226, 230, 305, 346, 423 1:18  97, 221, 240 n.87, 520



Ancient Index

1:19  529 1:19–23  94, 254, 529 1:20  145 1:23  94, 254, 425, 519 1:26  324, 529 1:26–28  478 1:26–36  478 1:27  324 1:28  50, 529 1:29  94, 221, 254, 288, 393, 439, 491 1:30  324 1:32  529 1:33  292 n.14 1:34  94, 254 1:35  491, 529 1:35a  478 1:35–42  65, 380 1:36  393, 478 1:40  529 1:41  105 1:42  529 1:43  139, 491 1:44  179 1:45  83, 423 1:46–51  514 n.185 1:49  50, 289, 393, 532 n.3 1:51  220, 226, 296, 307 n.6, 435, 437, 479, 482, 499 1–20  382 1–21  8 2  151, 260, 261, 461, 464 2:1–11  82, 480, 481, 486, 497, 499, 514 n.185 2:1–12  476, 483 2:1a–2  483 2:6  x, 54, 82, 104, 152 2:9–10  318 2:10  223, 318, 478, 479 2:10–11  483 2:11  152, 417, 477 2:12  485, 489 2:13  139, 537 2:14–15  27 2:14–25  537 2:16  271 2:19–20  140 2:21  223, 482, 499 2:21–22  423 2:23  417

585

2:25  308 n.25 3  410, 411, 425 3:1  424, 447 3:1–2  54 3:1–10  92 3:1–21  368 n.33 3:2  417 3:3  240 n.73 3:3ff.  345 3:4  295, 423 3:6  100, 242 n.100, 264 3:7  240 n.73, 479 3:12  298, 299, 432 n.106, 437, 499 3:12–13  299 3:12–15  421 3:13  220, 222, 226, 297, 299, 300, 301, 302, 305, 306, 310 nn.50, 53, 55, 430 n.73, 435, 437, 447, 448, 479 3:13–15  441, 442 3:13–16  403, 417, 446, 447, 477 3:13–17  301 3:14  309 n.44, 310 n.55, 401–26, 427 n.19, 428 n.28, 429 n.55, 438, 439, 441, 442, 443, 444, 448, 451, 453, 454, 458 n.22, 459 n.75, 493 3:14–15  402, 403, 404, 405, 410, 412, 414, 415, 418, 419, 420, 423, 424, 425, 430 n.73, 432 n.114, 435–8, 444, 445, 446, 447, 448, 453, 454, 550 3:14–16  404, 439, 448, 451 3:15  229, 421, 432 n.106, 443, 448 3:15–16  356 3:16  87, 88, 89, 222, 224, 228, 229, 317, 320, 346, 347, 353, 360, 368 n.33, 430 n.73, 437, 443, 448 3:16ff.  222, 325 3:16–17  221 3:16–21  87, 88, 89, 101, 251, 252 3:17  221 3:18  222, 227, 346, 347 3:19  90, 221, 230, 346, 450 3:19–20  346 3:21  91, 231, 234 n.3, 264, 346 3:22  48, 537 3:22–23  478 3:24  478 3:23  529 3:24 5293:25  104, 529

586 3:26  48, 157 n.48, 529 3:27  222, 529 3:29  298, 478, 482, 499 3:31  101, 220, 345, 499 3:33  220 3:34  499 3:36  99, 224, 229, 252, 356, 443 4  118 n.65, 260 4:1  48, 529 4:6  479 4:7  479 4:10  103, 318, 321, 327, 328 4:10–14  91, 223 4:10–15  328 4:11  103, 327 4:12  223 4:13–14  102, 345 4:13f.  220 4:14  226, 229, 318, 321, 328, 356 4:15  423 4:15–17  41 4:16ff.  223 4:21  41, 47, 271 4:21–24  362 4:23  223 4:24  102, 229, 253 4:25  105 4:25–26  92, 253, 353 4:26  105 4:32  240 n.81 4:36  229 4:42  221, 408 4:42–44  101 4:46–54  149, 281 n.75 4:48  149 4:52ff.  149 5  65, 186, 190, 380, 408, 414 5:1  139, 187, 188 5:1–9  25 5:1–14  189 5:1–18  82 5:2  25, 26, 248 5:2–3  190 5:9–18  261 5:14  xi, 198 5:16  153 5:16–17  xii 5:16–18  30 5:17  153

Ancient Index 5:19  6, 479 5:19–47  417 5:21  426 5:22  301, 302, 303 5:24  224, 229, 443 5:25  223, 426 5:26  317, 426 5:27  302, 303 5:28ff.  227 5:28–29  223, 225, 227, 350, 368 n.31 5:29  222 5:30  6, 303, 478 5:30ff.  222 5:31–47  417 5:32  66, 389 5:33  264, 529 5:36  529 5:36ff.  346 5:39  229 5:40  222, 317, 422 5:46  422 5:47  298 6  65, 380 6:4  139 6:7  253 6:9  227 6:12  271 6:16–21  439 6:27  229 6:28  99, 230 6:33  221, 226, 325 6:35  224 6:37  319, 325, 423 6:37–45  224, 347 6:38  226 6:38ff.  227 6:38–40  220 6:39  223, 227, 368 n.31 6:40  222, 223, 227, 229, 368 n.31, 443 6:41  220, 226 6:42  83, 154, 362, 390 6:44  101, 223, 224, 227, 268, 368 n.31 6:45  101 6:46  287 6:47  229, 443 6:48–51  345 6:50  220, 226 6:51  220, 221, 226 6:51c–58  223, 227, 368 n.31



Ancient Index

6:52–59  3 6:54  229 6:54–58  12 n.5 6:58  220, 223, 226, 345 6:61  226 6:62  220 6:63  220, 242 n.100 6:68  229 6:70  222, 240 n.86 7:1  xii 7:2  93 7:7  220, 221, 345 7:10  93, 253 7:14  93, 253, 387 7:19  423 7:22–23  261 7:27  299, 423 7:28  240 n.81 7:29  240 n.81, 308 n.25 7:30–31  476 7:37  93, 328 7:37–38  197 7:37f.  318, 321 7:38  327, 328, 335 n.62, 439 7:39  328 7:50–52  445 7:51–8:11  477 7:53–8:11  2, 3, 9, 41, 43, 47, 48, 65, 81, 137, 166, 248, 259, 284, 291 n.1, 380, 401, 429 n.59 7–10  139 7–8  270, 537 7–9  253 8:1  221 8:12  52, 91, 93, 99, 222, 224, 229, 298, 346, 353, 355, 450 8:12–9:41  355 8:13  387 8:14  308 n.25 8:16  303 8:20  476 8:21  228 8:23  101, 220, 221 8:23f.  221 8:23–24  345 8:24  227, 228 8:28  6, 415, 426 8:31–32  346 8:31–59  xivn22

8:32  91, 226, 308 n.25 8:32–58  356 8:35  226 8:39–58  305 8:42  223 8:44  101, 222, 223, 346, 356 8:44–47  222 8:45  222 8:47  101, 222, 346 8:48  xii 8:51  226 8:52  226 8:57–59  324 8:59  387 8:59–9:12  194 9  26, 186, 188, 261, 271, 414 9:1  27, 387 9:1–2  229 9:1–12  26, 153 9:3  91, 99, 230 9:5  26, 99, 298, 346 9:7  xi, 26, 221 9:12  50 9:13  229 9:17  50 9:17–20  229 9:20–22  4 9:22  x, 13 n.10, 33, 43, 44, 92, 253 9:24–25  229 9:27  422 9:28  422 9:29  422 9:32  226, 229 9:33  50, 99 9:35–37  299, 425 9:35–38  296, 300 9:37  309 n.45 9:37–38  221 9:38  50, 224 9:39  221, 227 9:39–41  229 9:41  221 10  271 10:7  298, 323 10:9  323 10:10  317, 443 10:11  298 10:14  319 10:21  99, 229

587

588

Ancient Index

10:22–23  xii, 54, 152, 387, 536 10:28  226, 229, 317 10:36  271 10:40  529 10:41  529 11:1  38 n.58, 387 11:1–44  281 n.75 11:1–17  152 11:2  507 n.82 11:3  385 11:9  221 11:16  73 11:25  317, 414, 443 11:26  222, 226, 443 11:27  475 11:35  24, 479 11:36  61 11:37  229 11:38  152 11:38–44  152 11:41  345 11:45  538 11:48  292 n.14 11:50  423 11:52  320 11:54  xii, 5, 97, 98, 180, 387, 394 n.1, 510 n.11, 537, 538 11:55  27, 29, 139 11:56  537 11:57  98 11–20  141 12:1  387 12:1–8  500 12:3  387, 500 12:11  538 12:13  289 12:16  221 12:23  223, 346 12:23–33  476 12:25  221, 229 12:28–30  3 12:31  221, 222, 223, 225, 227, 346, 368 n.28 12:32  224, 325, 347, 360 12:32–33  410 12:32–34  415, 426 12:34  226, 417 12:34–35  298 12:34–36  299

12:35  99, 221, 229, 248, 346 12:35–36  52, 86, 89, 90, 222, 232, 262, 263, 279 n.31, 346, 450 12:36  99, 222, 229, 301, 347 12:38  186, 288 12:40  101, 245 n.124 12:42  x, 13 n.10, 33, 43, 92, 253 12:44–50  6 12:46  221, 222, 224 12:48  223, 227, 368 n.31 12:50  229, 346 12:56  346 13  281 n.75 13:1  221 13:2  221, 222, 240 n.86 13:8  226 13:18  245 n.124 13:23  385, 386, 398 n.61, 401 13:23–24  377 13:24  386 13:27  221, 240 n.86 13:31  299 13:33  8, 289 13:34  10, 105, 107, 289, 353, 357 13:34–35  270 13:36  8 14:1–4  316 14:2  12, 301, 321 14:2f.  316 14:4–5  348 14:6  226, 317, 323, 353, 356, 394 n.1, 414, 510 n.11 14:10  536 14:16  523 14:16–26  52, 59 n.55 14:17  99, 102, 229, 253, 317 14:17ff.  227 14:19  317 14:20  356 14:21  316 14:26  99, 101, 229, 292 n.14, 317 14:27  320, 322 14:28  6 14:30  221, 222 14:31  95 15  255, 270, 317, 322, 336 n.70, 362 15:5  320, 322 15:9–10  319 15:12  10, 270, 357



Ancient Index

15:15  287 15:16  316, 423 15:18–19  221 15:24  423 15:26  59 n.55, 99, 102, 223, 229, 253, 317 15:26f.  227 15–17  55, 65, 95, 255, 259, 269, 270, 284, 380 16:1–2  5 16:2  x, xivn22, 13 n.10, 33, 43, 92, 95, 253, 476 16:10–28  288 16:11  221, 222, 223, 346 16:13  59 n.55, 99, 102, 226, 229, 253, 269 16:13ff.  227 16:17  8 16:28  6, 8 16:32  221 16:33  223, 346, 362, 368 n.28 17  255, 324, 357 17:1  269, 324, 357, 476 17:2  357 17:2–3  229, 357 17:3  221, 298 17:4–5  286 17:5  325 17:6 324, 357 17:6–8  288 17:6–10  220, 319 17:7–8  308 n.25 17:9  324, 325, 357 17:9–10  357 17:11  292 n.14, 357 17:11f.  319 17:20  95 17:20–23  103 17:20–24  7, 95 17:21  221, 269 17:24  316, 325 17:25  308 n.25, 356 18  95, 255 18:1  27, 95 18:10  10, 147, 474 18:12  346 18:12–13  27 18:13  xi, 138, 152 18.13–14  134 18:15  27 18:15–17  109

589

18:15–18  27 18:16  28 18:18  28 18:19  138 18:24  xi, 138, 152 18:28  x, 28, 29, 261, 537 18:25–27  27 18:30  138 18:31  138 18:31–33  81, 248 18:33  29, 289 18:33–38  28 18:36  221 18:37  101, 264, 356 18:37–38  81, 248 18:39  289 19:1  70 19:2  424 19:3  289 19:6  28, 424 19:9  29 19:11  220, 345 19:12–16  424 19:13  x, 28, 152, 273 19:14  424 19:15  424 19:16  424 19:17  152 19:17–22  424 19:18  423, 424 19:19  70, 289 19:20  424 19:21  289 19:23  424 19:23–24  516 n.216 19:24  389 19:25  467, 475, 490 19:25–26  490 19:26  61, 385, 387, 389, 398 n.61, 445 19:26–27  448 19:27  387 19:30  289 19:31–32  444 19:31–33  443 19:32–35  72 19:33  443 19:33–36  447 19:35  66, 76 n.35, 109, 112, 150, 386, 389, 438

590 19:35  448 19:36  444 19:38–42  446 19:41  447 19:41–20:18  447 20  50, 461 20:1  447, 466, 492, 493, 495 20:1–18  475, 491, 493, 495, 499 20:2  385, 398 n.61, 492 20:2–10  492 20:3  492 20:4  492 20:4–10  392 20:8  492 20:9  417, 448 20:10  389 20:11–18  446, 491, 492 20:14  447, 497 20:15  446, 447, 492, 493 20:15–17  447 20:17  226, 288, 446, 447, 493, 494, 515 n.201 20:17–18  475 20:18  446, 466, 492, 497 20:19  299, 492 20:19–29  152 20:20  492 20:21  299 20:22  99, 101, 229, 292 n.14 20:24  73 20:24–29  72 20:25  72, 492 20:26  392 20:28  50, 240 n.87, 393 20:28–29  393 20:29  423 20:30  478 20:30–31  50 20:31  50, 87, 363, 443 21  64, 65, 95, 150, 255, 259, 284, 380, 393 21:1  50 21:7  385, 388, 398 n.61 21:15  529 21:16  529 21:17  308 n.25, 529 21:18–19  388 21:20  67, 385, 388, 398 n.61 21:20–23  64, 380

Ancient Index 21:21  270, 388 21:22–23  459 n.66 21:23  388 21:24  50, 63, 64, 66, 67–71, 76 nn.35, 50, 109, 112, 150, 378, 379, 386, 388, 389 21:25  11, 478, 529 Acts xxviii. 4  405 1:5, 13, 22  529 1:13ff.  383 1–12  85 2:33  415 3:1  30, 529 3:3  529 3:4  529 3:11  529 3:1–7  383 4:6, 13, 19  529 4:1–4  85 4:13  383 4:13–22  2 4:36  85, 266 5:17  85 5:31  415 6:7  84, 85 7:44  397 n.55 8:14  529 8:14–24  383 9:2  33, 85, 254 10:12  401 10:36–43  142 10:37  529 11:6  401 11:16  529 11:26  33 12:2  529 12:12  529 12:25  528, 529 13:5  529 13:13  529 13:24  529 13:25  529 15:37  529 18:8  39 n.75 18:25  529 19:1–7  523 19:3  529

19:4  529 19:9  254 19:23  254 19:32  33 19:39  33 20:9  146 21:26  30 22:4  33, 85, 254 22:17  30 24:5  33 24:14  33, 254 24:22  254 28:3  401 Romans 1:7  523 1:15  523 1:23  401 3:13  401 14:11  301 16:6  466 1 Corinthians 2:12  227 7:1  494 7:7–8  471 7:8  471 9:5  471 11  107 11:23  462 11:25  146 2 Corinthians 6:14–7:1  86, 110 11:2  355 12:1–10  308 n.21 Galatians 2:9  529 Ephesians 1:6  230 2:2  227 5:8  118 n.69 5:25–f.  355 Philippians 3:20  39 n.77 4:1  471 4:3  471

Ancient Index Colossians 1  322–323 1:15–16  323 1:16  478 1:17  322 4:16  524 1 Thessalonians 5:5  118 n.69, 243 n.114 Hebrews 11:31  469 James 2:25  469 3:7  401 2 Peter 2:2  254 3:5  369 n.41 1 John 1:5  222, 298, 323, 346 1:6  231, 234 n.3 2:7–11  56, 252 2:18  521 2:18–20  4 2:18–25  ix, 64, 97, 380 2:19  55, 94, 272 2:22  56 3:5  288 3:11  270 3:11–18  252 3:14  97, 270 4:1  316 4:1–3  4 4:1–5  ix 4:1–6  233 n.2 4:2  41, 43, 48, 65, 95, 259, 284, 380 4:6  99 4:19  316, 356 1–3 John  363 2 John 4  264 5  270 3 John 3  264 9–10  521–2

591

592

Ancient Index

Revelation 1:1  529 1:4  529 1:9  528, 529 7:17  328 11:15  320 12:3  401 12:4  401 12:7  401 12:9  400, 401 12:13  401 12:16  401 12:17  401 13:2  401 13:4  401 13:11  401 16:13  401 17  103 19:7  540 19:7–9  478 19:9  540 20:2  401 21:3  320 21:6  103, 328 21:24  320 22:1  103, 328 22:7  328 22:8  528, 529 22:17  324 Other ancient works 1 Apology 64–67  520 1 En  63, 106, 116 n.52, 140, 261, 296, 298, 299, 301, 303, 309 n.44, 311 n.60 1 En 1–36  216, 399, 467 1 En 5:7  300 1 En 6:1–6  215 1 En 7:1  215 1 En 10:4–13  359 1 En 10:8–9  215 1 En 10:15  225 1 En 10:17  299 1 En 11:1ff.  225 1 En 15:6s  300 1 En 15:7  478 1 En 15:8–12  467 1 En 16:1  300 1 En 19:3  298 1 En 22:9ss  300

1 En 37–71  94, 289, 300, 301, 303, 304, 305, 309 n.44, 310 n.46, 434 1 En 37–73  310 n.46 1 En 38:2  300 1 En 39:4  300 1 En 39:7  289 1 En 42  312 n.70 1 En 42:1  298 1 En 42:2  289 1 En 46:2  303 1 En 46:3  303 1 En 46:4  303 1 En 48  299 1 En 48:1–3  290 1 En 48:2  303 1 En 48:2–3  299 1 En 48:2–4  304 1 En 48:2–6  301 1 En 48:10  300 1 En 51:1  308 n.21 1 En 51:2  300 1 En 51:3  290 1 En 51:4  300 1 En 51:5  308 n.21 1 En 51:10  308 n.21 1 En 53:6  290, 302 1 En 55:4  290 1 En 58:2  298 1 En 58:3ff.  367 n.18 1 En 58:5f.  228 1 En 60:10  303 1 En 61:8  290, 300 1 En 61:8–10  302 1 En 62:2s  301 1 En 62:5  290, 303 1 En 62:7  303 1 En 62:9  303 1 En 62:14  303 1 En 63:2  358 1 En 63:10  301 1 En 63:11  303 1 En 65:2  303 1 En 67:4–23  359 1 En 69:26  302 1 En 69:26–27  302 1 En 69:26–71  311 n.69 1 En 69:27  299, 301, 303 1 En 69:29  290, 303 1 En 70:1  303



Ancient Index

1 En 70–71  312 n.70 1 En 71  300, 309 n.45 1 En 71:3  308 n.17 1 En 71:14  289, 296, 297, 303, 304, 308 n.17 1 En 71:15  299 1 En 71:17  303 1 En 89:36  298 1 En 89:42  298 1 En 89:59–90:22  308 n.29 1 En 89–90  298 1 En 92:4ff.  367 n.18 1 En 94:8  301 1 En 97:8–10  301 1 En 103:2  298 1 En 103:4  301 1 En 104:4–6  308 n.21 1 Esdras 4:13–32  465 1 Mac  143, 189 1 Mac 5:23  143 1 Mac 7:19  189 1 Mac 11–12  143 1 Mac 11:34  181 1 Mac 11:63–73  173 1Q22 2.8  85 1Q30 2  85 1QH  97, 102, 233 n.3, 234 n.3, 291, 329, 343, 344, 352, 358, 519 1QH 1.1–20  343 1QH 1.9  343 1QH 1.17ff.  343 1QH 1.26  358 1QH 2.9  345 1QH 2.16  344 1QH 2.22  344 1QH 3.21–22  219 1QH 3.22  345 1QH 3.23–36  344 1QH 3.28  344 1QH 3.29  344 1QH 3.32  344 1QH 4.10  344 1QH 4.13  344 1QH 4.15  358 1QH 4.23  91 1QH 4.31  343 1QH 5.7  345 1QH 5.26  344 1QH 5.39  344

593

1QH 6.6  345 1QH 6.12  91, 104 1QH 6.21  344 1QH 6.25  358 1QH 6.29–30  342 1QH 6.30  345 1QH 7.3  344 1QH 7.6–7  343 1QH 7.11  345 1QH 7.20  345 1QH 7.26–33  370 n.60 1QH 8:4–11  124 n.149 1QH 8.7  91, 103 1QH 9.25  344, 359 1QH 9.26–27  343 1QH 9.35  91 1QH 10.20  91 1QH 11.12–13  343 1QH 12.2  358 1QH 12.3–9  359 1QH 12.10  358 1QH 12.15  104 1QH 12.30  104 1QH 14  104 1QH 14.11–12  342, 343 1QH 14.24  345 1QH 14.26  359 1QH 15.13–21  345 1QH 16  91, 103, 107, 145 1QH 16.3  360 1QH 16–9ff.  343 1QH 16.9  104 1QH 17.23ff.  343 1QH 18.3  343 1QH 22  104 1QH 29  91 1QHa 26.6–9  286 1QM  55, 91, 97, 100, 153, 233 n.3, 234 n.3, 250, 286, 343, 344, 349, 358, 365 n.2, 366 n.12, 508 n.91 1QM 1.1  90, 342, 343 1QM 1.1–2f  218 1QM 1.4–7  344 1QM 1.5  343 1QM 1.8–14  343 1QM 1.13  343 1QM 3  90 1QM 7.6  349 1QM 9  90

594

Ancient Index

1QM 9.15–16  235 n.17 1QM 11  90 1QM 12.2  358 1QM 12.8  349 1QM 13  90 1QM 13.2–6  233 n.3, 234 n.3 1QM 13.9–11  342, 345 1QM 13.10  343 1QM 13.10–11  235 n.16 1QM 13.12  343, 358 1QM 13.15–16  218 1QM 16.11  349 1QM 17.6–7  235 n.17 1QM 18.1  349 1QpHab 7  32, 84, 96, 101, 269, 277 n.8, 478, 478 1QpHab 11  277 n.8 1QpHab 11.1  91 1QS  97, 234 n.3, 252, 465 1QS 1–4  105 1QS 1.2–3  270 1QS 1.5  91, 231, 234 n.3, 264 1QS 1.9ff.  360 1QS 1.9–10  356 1QS 1.9–11  341 1QS 1.10  89, 252, 263 1QS 1.16–2.25a  343 1QS 1.18  215, 343 1QS 1.24  343 1QS 2.5  215, 343 1QS 2.7–8  218 1QS 2.19  343 1QS 3  100, 226, 232 1QS 3–4  45, 84, 89, 91, 231, 250, 264, 360 1QS 3.6–8  228 1QS 3.7  91, 99, 229 1QS 3.13  84, 99, 218, 229, 232, 249, 263 1QS 3.13ff.  214, 218, 228, 230, 233 n.3, 239 n.71, 243 n.117, 352 1QS 3.13–4.6  226 1QS 3.13–4.14  110, 344 1QS 3.13–4.25  51 1QS 3.13–4.26  88, 90, 213, 214–220, 215, 216, 218, 217, 219, 225–230, 226, 229, 230, 231, 233 nn.1, 2, 3, 234 n.3, 237 n.41, 341, 343 1QS 3.13–15  219 1QS 3.14  217

1QS 3.14–4.26  233 n.3 1QS 3.15  84, 227, 266, 358 1QS 3:15ff.  219, 222 1QS 3.15b  215 1QS 3.15b–18a  214 1QS 3.15–16  215, 345 1QS 3.15–17  235 n.13 1QS 3.16  104, 215 1QS 3.16–18  234 n.3 1QS 3.17–21  249 1QS 3.18  215, 217, 218, 232, 237 n.41, 358 1QS 3.18ff.  217 1QS 3.18b  216 1QS 3.18b–4.1  214, 218 1QS 3.18–19  99, 102, 214, 229, 253, 269, 342 1QS 3.19  218, 219, 232, 358, 359 1QS 3.20  232 1QS 3.20–25  86, 263 1QS 3.21  52, 91, 99, 229, 232, 263 1QS 3.22  89 1QS 3.24  215, 229, 232, 234 n.3, 263 1QS 3.24–25  269 1QS 3.25  89, 99, 215, 218, 229, 232, 235 n.20, 263 1QS 4  100 1QS 4.1  226 1QS 4.2  99 1QS 4.2–5  230 1QS 4.2–6  217 1QS 4.2–8  214 1QS 4.2–11  360 1QS 4.2–14  214 1QS 4.4  91, 99, 229, 230 1QS 4.5  99, 229 1QS 4.6  264 1QS 4.7  229, 356 1QS 4.7–8  89, 228, 252, 344, 359 1QS 4.9–11  217, 227 1QS 4.9–14  214 1QS 4.10  230 1QS 4.11  91, 99, 229, 263 1QS 4.12  88, 217, 229, 252, 358 1QS 4.12–13  88, 252 1QS 4.14  228 1QS 4.15  264 1QS 4.15–26  214 1QS 4.16  217

1QS 4.17  232, 359 1QS 4.17–19  226 1QS 4.18  104, 216, 220, 237 n.40 1QS 4.18b–26  216 1QS 4.18–19  235 n.22 1QS 4.19  226, 234 n.3 1QS 4.19b–20a  216 1QS 4.20  226, 230, 235 n.13 1QS 4.21  99, 102, 229, 253 1QS 4.23  217, 220, 229, 234 n.13, 253, 358 1QS 5.2  253 1QS 5.3  91, 231, 234 n.3, 264 1QS 5:18  44 1QS 6.14–20  84 1QS 6.18  250 1QS 6.24–7.25  44 1QS 7  226 1QS 8  226 1QS 8.2  91, 231, 234 n.3, 264 1QS 8.5–6  253 1QS 8.6  89, 264 1QS 8.8  358 1QS 9  94 1QS 9–10  270 1QS 9.3–5  362 1QS 9.4  89 1QS 9.19  85, 254 1QS 9.21  85, 254 1QS 9:32  226 1QS 10  89 1QS 10.1  218 1QS 10.6–8  362 1QS 10.20  345 1QS 10.21  343 1QS 11.8  271 1QS 11.11  85, 254, 266, 369 n.38 1QS 12  226 1QS 13.10–1  235 n.20 1QS 16  226 1QS 17  226 1QS 19  215 1QS 22  226 1QS 23  99, 102 1QS 24  99, 215 1QS 25  99 1QSa  97 1QSa 1.8–9  140

Ancient Index 1QSa 1.28  85, 254 1QSb 4.25  358 1QSb 4.25–26  271 1QSerek 3:13–4:26  236 n.27 2 Apology 8.10  474 2 Bar  309 n.44, 487 2 Bar 17:4–18:2  228 2 Bar 21:4  369 n.41 2 Bar 48:50  228 2 Bar 51:12  308 n.21 2 Bar 59:2  228 2 En  309 n.44, 310 n.46 2 En 30:11  308 n.21 2 Enoch (A) 31:4  222 2 Mac 7:9  242 n.103 2 Mac 7:11  242 n.103 2 Mac 7:14  242 n.103 2 Mac 7:23  242 n.103 2 Mac 7:29  242 n.103 2 Mac 7:36  242 n.103 2 Mac 12:43–45  242 n.103 3 En  309 n.44, 310 n.46 3 En 4  290 4 Ezra  309 n.44 4 Ezra 4:4–11  216 4 Ezra 7:50  239 n.72 4 Ezra 13  94 4Q159 6–7  140 4Q161  271 4Q184  519 4Q186  96, 118 n.68 4Q246  88, 251, 271 4Q252  270 4Q274  261 4Q317  96 4Q394–399  104 4Q397  476 4Q402  84 4Q471  286 4Q491 11 1.13–19  286 4Q503  359 4Q504  103 4Q510 11.7  90 4Q521  88, 94, 116 n.52, 251 4Q543–49  89 4QEnc 1 ii line 6  308 n.31

595

596

Ancient Index

4QEnc 4 line 10  308 n.30 4QEnd 2 ii line 27  308 n.27 4QEne 4 ii line 21  308 n.27 4QEne 4 iii line 19–20  308 n.27 4QEng 1 ii line 23  309 n.32 4QFlor 1 + 1–9  90 4QHa  286 4QM1 1.13–19  286 4QpIsaa  271 4QpsDan  87 4Q Serek Šîrôt Haššabbāt  239 n.67 11Q13  291 11Q19  152 11Q Melchizedek  145 11QPsa 26.4  359 11QPsa 27.2–3  457 n.55 11QTemplea  xiii, 38 n.58, 55, 82, 98, 116 n.55, 137, 152, 180, 192, 196, 209 n.136, 392, 465, 480, 497, 499, 526 11QTemplea 45.16  103 11QTemplea 54.17  85, 254 Acts of John  458 n.66, 462 Acts of John at Rome  458 n.66 Acts of John by Prochorus  458 n.66 AdvHaer 3.1.1  522 AdvHaer 3.11.1  523 AdvHaer 3.11.9  523 AdvHaer 5.33  520 AdvHaer 5.33.4  522 AdvMarc 4.2.2  523 Against Celsus  408, 476 Alcibiades  471 AllegInt 2.53  441 AllegInt 2.76–79  441 Angelic Liturgy  84, 218 Ant 1.163  494 Ant 7.250  533 n.27 Ant 12.10.2–397  189 Ant 13.18–21  488 Ant 13.154  173 Ant 13.337  143 Ant 15.380–425  158 n.60 Ant 18.21  471 Ant 20.181  85 Apion 2.108  85 Apion 2.199–200  471 ApocAb  216, 519

Apocalypse of Adam  46, 519 Apocalypse of Moses  519 Apocrypha, The  301 Apocryphon of James  266 Apol.  474 Apol. 1.60  441 Ascension of Isaiah  519 Assumption of the Virgin  466 Astronomical Enoch  146 b. Aboda Zara 8.2  161 n.122 b. Baba Batra 43a  140 Berakot 9:5  216, 236 n.30 Biblia Hebraica  103 Bk. 12  463 b. Menachot 85b  143 Book of Jubilees 5:1–2  215 Book of Thomas the Contender  68, 71 Books of Enoch  98, 106, 291, 296, 297, 304 b. Sanhedrin 41.1  161 n.122, 488 b. Sanhedrin 76b  488 b. Sukkah 51b  180 CD 2.2–13  343, 367 n.25 CD 2.5  345 CD 2.6  343, 358 CD 2.7–8  345 CD 2.11–13  345 CD 4.13  343 CD 4.15  343 CD 5.3  261 CD 5.8  343 CD 5.17–19  342 CD 5.18  343 CD 6.20  270 CD 13.14–15  342 CD 19.34  91 Chaplet, The  409 Chronicon  527 City of God, The  408, 436 Commentary on Genesis A  270 Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans 1.1  471 Copper Scroll  98 Daily Prayers  359 Damascus Document  31, 51, 78, 98, 192, 264, 343, 344, 366 n.9, 471, 540



Ancient Index

Dame Folly and Lady Wisdom  465, 508 n.91, 519 Daniel Apocryphon ar  271 De Agricultura  450 Dialogue 91, 94, 112  441 Dialogue of the Savior  266, 467 Dialogues  406 Egerton Gospel  133 Egerton Papyrus 2  46 EH  527 EH 3.39  523 Eklogai 4.22.28  471 Ekron Royal Dedicatory Inscription  181 Encyclopedia of Jewish Symbols  399 Epictetus, Discourses 3.22.77 471 Epistula Apostolorum 5  485 Ethiopic Book of Enoch  225 Ethiopic Enoch  296, 303, 305 Ethothion  413 Euripides, Alcibiades 314  471 Genesis Rabbah  300 Gospel of Basilides  528 Gospel of Judas  528 Gospel of Matthias  528 Gospel of Peter  46, 528 Gospel of Philip  466, 467, 488 Gospel of the Egyptians  528 Gospel of the Hebrews  133 Gospel of the Twelve Apostles  528 Gospel of Thomas  41, 133, 136, 466, 528 Gospel of Truth  46 HE 3.39.3, 4  528 HE 3:11  491 HE 3:32  491 HE 4.29.6  530 HE 4:22  491 HE 5.20  520 HE 6.14.7  155 Horoscopes  101, 118 n.68 Hymn of the Pearl  4, 8 Joseph and Aseneth  376, 462, 465 Jubilees  98, 106, 140, 192, 215, 235 n.18, 261 Jud 14:10–18  489

597

Kelim 10:1  480 LadJac  296 Legum Allegoriae  450 Liber Flavus Fergusiorum  458 n.67 Life  469, 481, 488 Life 23  143 Life of Adam and Eve  261, 465, 509 n.102, 519 Life of Adam and Eve 6–7  261 Life of Constantine  527 LivPro 1:1–13  194 Logos Hymn  479 m. Abot 5:21  488 Martyrdom of Ignatius  445 Martyrdom of Isaiah  242 m. Besah 5:2 F  138 Mekhilta to Exodus 17:11  441 Midrash Sepher Moses  469 Miscellanies  471 Miscellanies 3.6.53  471 m. Middot 5:4  138 m. Negaim 3:2  489 More Works of the Torah  104 m. Rosh Hashanah 3  441 m. Sanhedrin 4:1 L  138 m. Sanhedrin 4:1 L  138 m. Sanhedrin 7.11  138 MS B 798  535 m. Shabbat 7:2 I  138 m. Shabbat 12:1 A-E  138 m. Shekalim 1.3  139 m. Shekalim 1.5  159 n.77 m. Shekalim 3.3  140 m. Yoma 1.1–8  138 m. Yoma 26b  196 Odes of Solomon  xli.4, 8, 13–14, 56, 95, 96, 110, 246 n.124, 290, 304, 315–64, 472, 474, 519, 540 Odes of Solomon 1  317, 336 n.70 Odes of Solomon 1:1–3  359 Odes of Solomon 1:2  351 Odes of Solomon 3  316, 330 Odes of Solomon 3:1  316 Odes of Solomon 3:1–7  351 Odes of Solomon 3:2–3  316 Odes of Solomon 3:3  356

598

Ancient Index

Odes of Solomon 3:5  316 Odes of Solomon 3:5–7  316 Odes of Solomon 3:7  352 Odes of Solomon 3:8  317 Odes of Solomon 3:9  317, 356 Odes of Solomon 3:10  317, 348, 358 Odes of Solomon 3:11  308 n.25 Odes of Solomon 4:15  347 Odes of Solomon 5:4–6  349 Odes of Solomon 5:11  351 Odes of Solomon 6  330, 362, 363 Odes of Solomon 6:3  369 n.38 Odes of Solomon 6:3–5  347 Odes of Solomon 6:7–8  328 Odes of Solomon 6:8  318, 328 Odes of Solomon 6:8–10  329 Odes of Solomon 6:9  335 n.58 Odes of Solomon 6:10–11  351 Odes of Solomon 6:11  328 Odes of Solomon 6:11–13  318 Odes of Solomon 6:12  349 Odes of Solomon 6:12ff.  351 Odes of Solomon 6:13  328, 335 n.58 Odes of Solomon 6:17  349 Odes of Solomon 6:18  318, 327, 328, 335 n.58 Odes of Solomon 6:21  328 Odes of Solomon 7  330 Odes of Solomon 7:1–6  353 Odes of Solomon 7:3  348 Odes of Solomon 7:3–6  327 Odes of Solomon 7:4  319 Odes of Solomon 7:4–6  350 Odes of Solomon 7:7  319, 347, 353, 358 Odes of Solomon 7:7–8  347 Odes of Solomon 7:10  319 Odes of Solomon 7:12  319 Odes of Solomon 7:14  349 Odes of Solomon 7:15  351 Odes of Solomon 7:20–21  351 Odes of Solomon 8:1–f.  362 Odes of Solomon 8:2  349 Odes of Solomon 8:6  348 Odes of Solomon 8:7  350 Odes of Solomon 8:8  353 Odes of Solomon 8:12  319 Odes of Solomon 8:13–18  352, 369 n.36 Odes of Solomon 8:19–21  319

Odes of Solomon 9:3  353 Odes of Solomon 9:4  317, 356 Odes of Solomon 9:6  350 Odes of Solomon 9:7  320 Odes of Solomon 9:8–9  359 Odes of Solomon 9:8ff.  351 Odes of Solomon 10  363, 370 n.60 Odes of Solomon 10:1  353, 355 Odes of Solomon 10:1f.  325 Odes of Solomon 10:2  317, 320, 350, 356, 359 Odes of Solomon 10:4  350, 362 Odes of Solomon 10:5  320, 369 n.43 Odes of Solomon 10:5–6  320 Odes of Solomon 11  318 Odes of Solomon 11:1  362 Odes of Solomon 11:2  351 Odes of Solomon 11:3  351, 359 Odes of Solomon 11:6  335 n.58 Odes of Solomon 11:6–8  321, 328 Odes of Solomon 11:7  327, 328, 335 n.58 Odes of Solomon 11:11  323, 349 Odes of Solomon 11:12  356 Odes of Solomon 11:16–17  356 Odes of Solomon 11:18–19  349 Odes of Solomon 11:19  323 Odes of Solomon 11:23  321 Odes of Solomon 12  322, 327, 330 Odes of Solomon 12:2  321, 335 n.58 Odes of Solomon 12:3  349, 353, 354 Odes of Solomon 12:4  362 Odes of Solomon 12:5  354 Odes of Solomon 12:5–6  347 Odes of Solomon 12:7  349 Odes of Solomon 12:10  347, 353, 354 Odes of Solomon 12:12  321, 353, 354, 355, 369 n.47 Odes of Solomon 14  322 Odes of Solomon 14:5  348, 350 Odes of Solomon 14:6  322 Odes of Solomon 14:7–8  362 Odes of Solomon 14:8  348 Odes of Solomon 15:1f.  323 Odes of Solomon 15:1–2  351 Odes of Solomon 15:2  349, 355, 359 Odes of Solomon 15:5  350 Odes of Solomon 15:6  349, 350, 359 Odes of Solomon 15:8–10  356 Odes of Solomon 15:9  353



Ancient Index

Odes of Solomon 15:10  350, 359 Odes of Solomon 16:2  362 Odes of Solomon 16:5  348 Odes of Solomon 16:8–12  347, 353 Odes of Solomon 16:8–14  353 Odes of Solomon 16:10  335 n.58 Odes of Solomon 16:14  353 Odes of Solomon 16:18  369 n.38 Odes of Solomon 16:18–19  322 Odes of Solomon 16:19  347 Odes of Solomon 17:2  350 Odes of Solomon 17:2–5  351 Odes of Solomon 17:4  350 Odes of Solomon 17:11  323 Odes of Solomon 17:15  350 Odes of Solomon 18:6  323, 349, 358 Odes of Solomon 18:7  350 Odes of Solomon 18:12  351 Odes of Solomon 18:13  351 Odes of Solomon 18:14  349, 351 Odes of Solomon 20:1–4  362 Odes of Solomon 20:3–6  351, 360 Odes of Solomon 21:2  73, 348, 384, 391, 393, 397 n.52, 398 n.71 Odes of Solomon 21:3  349 Odes of Solomon 21:6  347 Odes of Solomon 22:1–2  368 n.35 Odes of Solomon 22:12  358 Odes of Solomon 23:2–3  352 Odes of Solomon 23:3  351 Odes of Solomon 23:4  351 Odes of Solomon 23:5  347 Odes of Solomon 23:19  350 Odes of Solomon 23:20  350 Odes of Solomon 24:1  351 Odes of Solomon 24:10–12  351 Odes of Solomon 25:2  348, 350 Odes of Solomon 25:4  350 Odes of Solomon 25:7  349 Odes of Solomon 28  324 Odes of Solomon 28:6  350 Odes of Solomon 28:7–8  317 Odes of Solomon 28:10  350 Odes of Solomon 28:15  335 n.58 Odes of Solomon 28:17–19  324 Odes of Solomon 29:4  368 n.35 Odes of Solomon 29:6a  351 Odes of Solomon 29:6b  351 Odes of Solomon 29:7  349

599

Odes of Solomon 29:9  350 Odes of Solomon 29:10  350 Odes of Solomon 30:1  328, 335 n.58 Odes of Solomon 30:1f.  324 Odes of Solomon 30:1–6  328 Odes of Solomon 30:2  328 Odes of Solomon 30:4  335 n.58 Odes of Solomon 30:5  328, 335 n.62 Odes of Solomon 30:5f.  324 Odes of Solomon 30:107  328 Odes of Solomon 31:1  349 Odes of Solomon 31:1–2  350 Odes of Solomon 31:4  325, 357 Odes of Solomon 31:4f.  324 Odes of Solomon 31:4–5  357 Odes of Solomon 31:5  357 Odes of Solomon 31:7  357 Odes of Solomon 31:12–13  351 Odes of Solomon 32:1  349 Odes of Solomon 32:2  325, 353, 369 n.47 Odes of Solomon 33  348, 351, 358 Odes of Solomon 33:1  348, 354 Odes of Solomon 33:3–7  348, 358 Odes of Solomon 33:4  348, 354 Odes of Solomon 33:5  348 Odes of Solomon 33:5f.  351 Odes of Solomon 33:7  348 Odes of Solomon 33:8  348, 359 Odes of Solomon 33:8f.  348 Odes of Solomon 33:9  348 Odes of Solomon 33:10  348 Odes of Solomon 33:11  348 Odes of Solomon 33:12  348, 350 Odes of Solomon 33:13  348, 352 Odes of Solomon 34:4–5  348 Odes of Solomon 35:2  350 Odes of Solomon 35:7  350 Odes of Solomon 36:1  347 Odes of Solomon 36:3  304 Odes of Solomon 36:3–6  290 Odes of Solomon 37:3  327 Odes of Solomon 38  330, 348, 358 Odes of Solomon 38:1  349, 356 Odes of Solomon 38:2f.  350 Odes of Solomon 38:3  349, 356 Odes of Solomon 38:5  349 Odes of Solomon 38:6  349 Odes of Solomon 38:7  349 Odes of Solomon 38:8  349

600

Ancient Index

Odes of Solomon 38:9  349 Odes of Solomon 38:10  349, 354 Odes of Solomon 38:11  349 Odes of Solomon 38:12  349 Odes of Solomon 38:13  349 Odes of Solomon 38:15  349 Odes of Solomon 38:16  349 Odes of Solomon 38:17  350 Odes of Solomon 39–9  353 Odes of Solomon 39:9–13  369 n.46 Odes of Solomon 40:1–2  335 n.58 Odes of Solomon 40:2  321 Odes of Solomon 41  330 Odes of Solomon 41:3–4  350 Odes of Solomon 41:6  349 Odes of Solomon 41:11  350, 353, 356 Odes of Solomon 41:11–12  353 Odes of Solomon 41:11–15  325, 350, 369 n.46 Odes of Solomon 41:12  336 n.72 Odes of Solomon 41:14  326, 349, 353, 355 Odes of Solomon 42  323 Odes of Solomon 42:2  325 Odes of Solomon 42:3  356 Odes of Solomon 42:5  350 Odes of Solomon 42:11  350 Odes of Solomon 42:11–20  368 n.35 Odes of Solomon 42:15–17  323 Odes of Solomon 42:18  350 On Husbandry  441 On the Incarnation of the Word  408 On the Spirit  416 P52 manuscript  42, 81, 248 Papyrus 52  248 Papyrus Oxyrhynchus 1224  133 Papyrus Vindobonensis Greek 2325  133 Parables of Enoch  82, 145, 176, 271, 290, 291, 292 n.16, 296, 301, 304, 305, 306, 312 n.81, 434, 535, 540 Pesharim (the Qumran biblical commentaries)  32, 34, 102 Pesher Habakkuk 7  288 Pirke Aboth  146 Plea for the Christians, A  407 Prayer of Jonathan  113 n.3 Prayer of Joseph  98 Prayer of Manasseh  45

Prayer of Manasseh 3  369 n.41 Preparation for the Gospel  527 Proto-Gospel of James  528 Psalm 156  541 n.8 Pseudo-Philo  465, 472 PssSol  45, 519 PssSol 8:9  462 Qumran Pseudepigraphic Psalms  98 Reply to Faustus the Manichaean  424 Ru 3:4, 7  516 n.220 Rule of the Community  4, 7, 45, 51, 52, 78, 84, 86, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 101, 103, 108, 109, 110, 112, 153, 217, 226, 228, 230, 231, 232, 239 n.71, 248, 249, 250, 252–3, 262, 263, 264, 266, 267, 269, 291, 343, 344, 354, 355, 358, 366 n.7, 471, 508 n.91, 519, 540 Ryland Papyrus  42 Sanchuniathon  405 Second Ezekiel  98 Self-Glorification Hymn  6, 8, 10, 14 n.21, 90, 145, 284–91, 478, 535 Shabbat 1:14  104 Sibylline Oracles 4  46, 261 Sifri Devarim 316  143 Sir  45 Sir 7:25  540 Smyr  445 Smyr 1.1  529 Some Works of the Torah  34, 196, 272, 392 SpecLeg  465 SpecLeg 3.1–82  471 Sukkot 4:9  93 Syriac History of John  458 n.66 Talmudim  161 n.121, 440, 469 TAsh  86 TAsh 1:6–9  216 TBenj 6:1  86 TBenj 7:1–2  86 TDan 1:7  86 TDan 3:6  86 Testament of Abraham  299, 519 Testament of Job  465, 472 Testament of Moses  519



Ancient Index

Testament of Reuben  471 Testament of Solomon  519 Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs  51, 89, 98, 108, 117 n.58, 118 n.69, 225, 228, 242 n.101, 264, 344, 488 Testimonium Flavianum  136, 482 Thanksgiving Hymns  45, 78, 91, 102, 106, 110, 145, 219, 366 n.8, 478, 532 n.7 Theologumena  412 TJob 12:2  12 n.5 TJos 20:2  367 n.19 TLevi 19:1–2  367 n.19 TLevi 2:5–12  313 n.91 TLevi 2:8–3:1  228 Tob 7–8  489 Tob 8:20  512 n.157 True Doctrine  476 t. Shabbat 13.9  161 n.121 t. Sukkoth 3.3–8  270 Twelve Caesars, The  412 Visions of Amrana-g  89

War 1.180  176 War 1.3.3–75  192 War 1.670–73  180 War 2.120  471 War 2.590–595  143 War 3.503  533 n.27 War 3.539–40  468 War 4.104–105  143 War 5.10  53 War 5.108  429 n.66 War 5.334  53 War 5.5.8–246  189 War 6.91–92  ix Wis  441, 442 Wis 4:10  299 Wis 9:2  358 Wis 16  450 y. Berakhot 1.3  440 y. Berakot 63a  471 y. Betzah 2.4 61c.13  140 y. Nedarin 4 9G  161 n.121 y. Shabbat 16d, 121a  161 n.121

601

602