The Dionysian Gospel

The Fourth Gospel and Euripides

Dennis R. MacDonald

• Publisher: Fortress Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781506423456
• eBook ISBN: 9781506421667
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

MacDonald observes that the Fourth Gospel sounds themes proper to the Greek god Dionysos (the Roman Bacchus), not least as he was depicted in Euripides's play The Bacchae. A divine figure, offspring of a divine father and human mother, takes on flesh to live among mortals, but is rejected by his own; miraculously provides wine; includes women as his close devotees; dies a violent death—and returns to life. The Johannine Evangelist not only imitated Euripides but expected his readers to recognize Jesus as greater than Dionysos.

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Appendix 1: A Conjectural Reconstruction of the Dionysian Gospel

Appendix 1

Introduction

This appendix suggests a textual reconstruction of what seems to be the earliest stratum of the Gospel by removing secondary additions, many of which were discussed in parts three and four. The translation (based on Michael W. Holmes, The Greek New Testament: SBL Edition [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2010]) identifies these omissions by placing the verse numbers in [square brackets] with justifications of the omissions in footnotes. In many respects this assessment agrees with that of Urban C. von Wahlde, and the notes indicate where we concur. Throughout, one should keep in mind that, unlike von Wahlde, my goal is to isolate only the earliest discernible Johannine Gospel.

The following criteria inform all proposed omissions.

Criterion A: Coherence with the Epilogue. The most important criterion is coherence with John 21. Part four discussed every such instance.

Criterion B: Relecture. Several scholars (e.g., Jean Zumstein) have identified in the Fourth Gospel evidence of extensive rewritings of the foundational edition. The most obvious example of such relecture is the extended farewell discourse in 15:5—17:26, which elaborates themes introduced in 13:1—15:4 (see part three).

Criterion C: Explanations or Corrections. Frequently one finds additions designed to interpret potentially ambiguous statements or to correct mistakes.

Criterion D: Aporiae. These non sequiturs “indicate where the material from one author ends and another begins.”^[1]

Criterion E: Repetitions (Wiederaufnahme). “After making an insertion, the editor repeats some of the material from before the insertion as a way of attempting to resume the original sequence.”^[2]

Criterion F: Adiaphora. One occasionally finds detailed information about geography or the time of day that has little bearing on the narrative and may issue from an attempt at verisimilitude, to give the book the appearance of eyewitness testimony.

Criterion G: References to Religious Authorities as οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι. The first edition prefers Pharisees, chief priests, and rulers. The second and third editions prefer “the Jews”.

Occasionally these omissions require conjectural adjustments to the text, which are flagged with obelisks († . . . †).

Once, the reconstruction relocates a story. The healing of the old paralytic in ch. 5 surely did not originally appear at that point in the Gospel. “At the end of chapter 4, Jesus is in Cana of Galilee. At the beginning of chapter 5, he suddenly goes to Jerusalem for a feast. . . . All of chapter 5 deals with events . . . in Jerusalem. At the beginning of chapter 6, without any mention of a return trip to Galilee, Jesus is suddenly reported to have ‘crossed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.’”^[3] Many scholars thus reverse the sequence of chs. 5 and 6. Von Wahlde relocates the healing story between 6:4 and 5. Others skirt the difficulty simply by interpreting the order as it now appears in the manuscripts.

The literary locus of the tale only modestly reflects the Evangelist’s imitations of the Bacchae, but it profoundly contributes to the integrity of the Gospel as a whole. The following arguments favor locating 5:2–9 between 2:16 and 23.

1. Verses 2:17–22 probably are secondary. Verse 17 likely is a secondary addition to link Jesus’s temple action to Jewish Scriptures. His dispute with οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in 18–21 is the first of several insertions in which the Jewish authorities are so designated, and not as Pharisees, chief priests, and rulers (G: οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι; vW 2). Furthermore, v. 22 is the first of several instances where a redactor states that the disciples understood events in the narrative only after Jesus’s resurrection (B: relecture; see part three).
2. 5:9b–47 also comes from the second edition. “The aftermath of the miracle [of the healing of the lame man] comes entirely from the second edition” (von Wahlde, Gospel and Letters, 2:224). The primary reason for this assessment of vv. 10–18 is the identification of the hostile Jewish leaders again as οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι (criterion G). “The discourse of 5:19–30 presents the essential Christology of the Gospel for both the second and third authors. Moreover, the larger discourse of 5:19–47 forms what can be rightly called the architectonic discourse of the Gospel” in its later two editions (von Wahlde, Gospel and Letters, 2:243). It is also a continuation of the controversy with οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι in 5:10–18.
3. The end of the purging of the temple (2:15–16) segues comfortably to 5:2. Notice the word play between the πρόβατα in 2:15 and προβατικῇ in 5:2. (See also the orthographic similarities between κολλυβιστῶν in 2:15 and κολυμβήθρα in 5:2.)
4. Without the healing story the references to “signs” that Jesus performed in Jerusalem in 2:23 and 3:2 are risible insofar as Jesus had not performed a single miracle in Jerusalem!
5. John 2:23 provides the expected favorable reaction of the crowd to the “signs,” which even impressed the Pharisee Nicodemus (3:2).
6. The story of the healing of the paralytic per se strongly resembles Mark 2:1–12, which similarly takes place earl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• The Beginning of the Johannine Tradition
• The Earliest Gospel Stratum and Euripides’ Bacchae: An Intertextual Commentary
• Rewriting the Gospel
• The Final Gospel Stratum and a Johannine Corpus
• Appendix 1: A Conjectural Reconstruction of the Dionysian Gospel
• Appendix 2: Euripides’ Bacchae
• Appendix 3: The Sinful Woman (John 7:53—8:11)
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Ancient Sources Index