Historical Tradition In The Fourth Gospel

An historical investigation of the narrative material and Sayings of St John's Gospel.

The Fourth Gospel is deeply shaped by its remarkably high Christology. It depicts the earthly Jesus, the incarnate one, as fully divine. This unrelenting Christology has led interpreters, both ancient and modern, to question the historical value of John's Gospel. For many, the Gospel is just theology. It is to the vexed relationship between history and theology that Jörg Frey turns in Theology and History in the Fourth Gospel. John's theological obsession with Christology might suggest that history counts for little in the Gospel. But, as Frey argues, the Gospel's clear and central claim is that John narrates the story of Jesus of Nazareth, his ministry, and his death, as "factual," and that this narrated "history" is foundational for the Christian message. Frey traces the Gospel's use of the available historical tradition by chiefly drawing from Mark and the Johannine community. Even if the Gospel of John used this received witness in a remarkably free manner, replotting and renarrating traditional episodes and even creatively staging new episodes, Frey contends that the historical life and person of Jesus remain central to John's enterprise. In the end, Frey warns that Johannine interpretation will miss the intention of the Gospel and the interpretive perspective of the evangelist if it remains preoccupied merely with questions of historical accuracy. The interpretive goal is to "let John be John," and, as Frey shows, readers will always yield to the priority of theology over history in the Fourth Gospel. In John's telling of the Christ story, the significance of history lies precisely in its disclosure of theological meaning, just as the significance of the historical Jesus is only understood in the theological language of Christology.

This volume explores the distance, historically and theologically, between the historical Jesus and the Gospel of John. Essays on these topics are provided by 27 authors from a variety of backgrounds.

In A Journey Round John Wendy E. S. North considers a range of themes relevant to the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. First, the relationship between the Gospel and 1 John. North explores the value of the Epistle as a means of identifying traditional material the evangelist knew; on which basis she appeals to 1 John to account for the form of Jesus' prayer in chapter 11. Second, John's Christology in which North looks to John's cultural roots in monotheistic Judaism to understand his capacity to align Jesus with God. Third, the crucial issue of 'the Jews' in John, where North clarifies the data by observing a narrative logic in John's use of the expression. Fourth, North identifies John's 'anticipated' eschatology as a consolation strategy aimed at a readership struggling under life-threatening circumstances in the absence of Jesus. Finally, North looks at John and the Synoptics, and demonstrates how evidence drawn from the Gospel itself can serve to indicate whether or not John composed directly on the basis of the Synoptic record. This collection draws together a number of ground-breaking studies from over thirty years of work on the Fourth Gospel, presenting a coherent development of thought on this crucial Christian text.

Reflects upon and looks beyond the pioneering scholarship of C.H. Dodd, charting a course for future research on John.

Werner Kelber's The Oral and the Written Gospel substantially challenged predominant paradigms for understanding early Jesus traditions and the formation of written Gospels. Since that publication, a more precise and complex picture of first-century media culture has emerged. Yet while issues of orality, aurality, performance, and mnemonics are now well voiced in Synoptic Studies, Johannine scholars remain largely unaware of such issues and their implications. The highly respected contributors to this book seek to fill this lacuna by exploring various applications of orality, literacy, memory, and performance theories to the Johannine Literature in hopes of opening new avenues for future discussion. Part 1 surveys the scope of the field by introducing the major themes of ancient media studies and noting their applicability to the Fourth Gospel and the Johannine Epistles. Part 2 analyzes major themes in the Johannine Literature from a media perspective, while Part 3 features case studies of specific texts. Two responses by Gail O'Day and Barry Schwartz complete the volume.