Jesus Research

The Gospel of John in Historical Inquiry

James H. Charlesworth, Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, James H. Charlesworth, Jolyon G. R. Pruszinski, James H. Charlesworth

• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9780567696113
• eBook ISBN:
  9780567681386
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Criticism & Interpretation

Most experts who seek to understand the historical Jesus focus only on the Synoptic Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke. However, the contributors of this volume come to an important consensus: that the Gospel of John preserves traditions that are independent of the Synoptics, and which are often as reliable as any known traditions for understanding the historical Jesus. As such, the contributors argue for the use of John's Gospel in Jesus research.

The volume contains various critical approaches to historical inquiry in the Gospel of John, including new evaluations of the relationship between John and the Synoptics, literary and rhetorical approaches, comparative analysis of other early traditions, the judicious use of archaeological data, and historical interpretation of John's theological tendencies. Contributing scholars include Dale C. Allison, Jr., Paul N. Anderson, Harold W. Attridge, James H. Charlesworth, R. Alan Culpepper, Michael A. Daise, Craig S. Keener, George L. Parsenios, Petr Pokorný, Jan Roskovec, and Urban C. von Wahlde, who help to reassess fully the historical study of John's gospel, particularly with respect to the person of Jesus.

Part One

John and the Synoptics in Jesus Research

1

Why the Gospel of John is Fundamental to Jesus Research

Paul N. Anderson

The constellation of the Johannine riddles—theological, historical, literary—and their implications for understanding the Jesus of history as well as the Christ of faith, and thus the historical and religious basis of Western civilization, comprises arguably the most difficult set of biblical critical issues and discussions in the modern era. Just as John’s theological tensions precipitated and contributed to the most intensive and extensive of theological discussions in the patristic era (circa 90–451 CE),¹ so John’s literary and historical tensions have contributed to the most intensive and extensive literary and historical biblical discussions in the modern era. Understandably, the issues are complex. The discussions are multidisciplinary; the implications are momentous. That is why this study is needed and why it is needed now.²

Brief overviews of scholarship

Over the last century and a half, two platforms have ruled the day among critical scholars engaged in Gospel studies and Jesus Research: the dehistoricization of John and the de-Johannification of Jesus. These terms might overstate the issues a bit, in that many first-rate scholars have taken exception to particular issues along the way, and even those holding such views might acknowledge any number of exceptions. Overall though, as the work of the Jesus Seminar asserted, these two platforms are touted as foundational for modern critical scholarship in researching the Jesus of history rather than the Christ of faith. The problem, however, is that each of the planks upon which such platforms are constructed is flawed. Good points abound in critiquing a traditional view here and there, but simply to question a thesis is not to have proven its antithesis; that takes more work. A brief overview of scholarship within Jesus Research and Johannine studies is thus in order as an introduction to the subject at hand.³

The first three quests for Jesus⁴

Formative within the emergence of these critical platforms is the historic debate between Friedrich Schleiermacher and David F. Strauss in the nineteenth century quest for Jesus. In general terms, Schleiermacher, in his Halle lectures on Jesus and his later book on the subject,⁵ argued that between John and the Synoptics, John’s presentation of Jesus is the most reliable because it shows a deeply penetrating understanding of Jesus and his mission—the sort of knowledge that represents first-hand acquaintance with the subject of the Gospels: Jesus of Nazareth. Conversely, the Synoptic Gospels (he takes Matthew to be the first—the standing view during his time) present a fragmentary picture of Jesus, reflecting the gathering of bits of traditional material in second-hand, editorial ways. Challenging this approach, Strauss⁶ argued in his first book that while there appears to be historical material in the Gospels, much of it betrays the influence of contemporary religions. Therefore, miraculous and wondrous elements in the Gospels root not in the facts of history but in the incorporation of wondrous elements characteristic of mythic contemporary religions and folkloric embellishments. In his second book, Strauss drove two wedges in his focused attack against Schleiermacher. First, he forced a divide between theology and history; if a narrative shows theological interest and character, it cannot be regarded as historical. Second, because John is different from the Synoptics and theological in its thrust, the quest for Jesus must side with the Synoptics to the exclusion of John. Thus, the Jesus of history must be divorced from the Christ of faith if one is to rescue biblical studies from their traditional encumbrances, liberating their reasoned use in the modern era. While nineteenth century critical scholarship did not share this view entirely, traditional confidence in John’s historical contribution to the quest for Jesus overall lost out to its distinctive presentation of Jesus over and against the Synoptics.

Along these lines, Strauss’ paradigms largely became the foundational bases for the first three quests for Jesus over the next century and a half. The nineteenth century quest came to settle on Mark as the basis for Matthew and Luke, although with Wrede’s⁷ questioning of Mark’s historicity, the quest was somewhat abandoned rather than looking to John as an informative alternative. This phase has been overstatedly called the “No Quest” for Jesus phase. While Bultmann and some others sidestepped the historical quest of Jesus as a factor of diminished confidence in Mark’s historicity as the first Gospel and subjective results of so-called objective quests, the next phase of gospel-critical scholarship nonetheless focused on the history of gospel traditions as a means of informing the history of Jesus and his ministry.⁸ This led to source-critical investigations of gospel traditions, aided by form and redaction-critical analyses and history-of-religions comparisons. Assuming (correctly, most scholars believe) that Matthew and Luke made use of Mark, the inference of an unknown Q source was advanced as an attempt to explain their similarities beyond their Markan connections. Some Q theorists also sought to identify such a source as the early form of Matthew in Hebraic language, as referenced by Papias in Eusebius (Hist. eccl. 3.39), although that view has not carried the day critically. With these advances in Synoptic studies, the quest for sources underlying the Johannine narrative got well underway within the twentieth century and beyond, bolstered by these other critical methodological advances.

Launching a new stage in Jesus Research, the “New Quest” for Jesus, so named by James Robinson,⁹ began in 1951 following Käsemann’s calling for a sustained study of Jesus as a first century Jew.¹⁰ Despite the Gospels’ presentations of Jesus of Nazareth in religious terms, attempts were made to distinguish the historical figure of Jesus from emerging religious trappings, both Jewish and “Christian.” As a minimalist approach, seeking to make use of only that which is fairly certain, scholars of the second half of the twentieth century sought to exclude anything that seems overtly “Christian” or characteristically Jewish from presentations of Jesus in the Gospels, privileging also material that is multiply attested and cohering with majority-view impressions of his ministry. Of course, these four criteria (dissimilarity, embarrassment, multiple attest ation, coherence) function to exclude anything distinctive in Matthew or Luke, and especially in John, bolstered by the fact of John’s highly interpretive presentation of Jesus. Thus, siding with Reimarus two-and-a-half centuries earlier, since John’s narrative begins with a Christological hymn and includes distinctive I-am sayings of Jesus, these features justify the exclusion of John from Jesus studies. Käsemann’s own approach to the Gospel of John was to virtually ignore all of its mundane and incarnational features, arguing that its presentation of Jesus was that of God striding over the earth,¹¹ whose feet rarely touched the ground. Thus, John’s dehistoricization made it easier to focus on the Synoptics primarily, simplifying the task in albeit distortive ways.

With the advent of social-scientific, anthropological, politico-religious, and cognitive-critical analyses of Judaism in its first century Mediterranean contexts, what N. T. Wright¹² described as a “Third Quest” for Jesus emerged in the 1970s. In looking at the Jewishness of Jesus and seeing him as a transformer of Judaism into its best self, viewing Jesus as challenging purity laws and religious codes in the name of an authentic Jewish vision of faith and practice produced new insights into the Jewishness of Jesus and the rest of the New Testament writers, including Paul. As a more generous approach to ascertaining historical knowledge of Jesus and his ministry, this new set of investigations into the life of Jesus took seriously his work alongside other first century messianic prophets and Jewish leaders, seeking to understand psychological and sociological aspects of Jesus’ ministry more fully. Lest their work be considered less than critically compelling, however, Third Questers have, overall, been content to leave John out of their studies so as to not jeopardize the reception of their portraitures of Jesus of Nazareth. This is understandable, but it also bespeaks the timidity and inadequacy of modern Jesus scholarship overall.

As a means of pushing back against these more exploratory approaches to Jesus Research, though, a reassertion of New-Quest skepticism took form in what was called “the Renewed Quest” for Jesus by Robert Funk and John Dominic Crossan, reasserting a parsimonious approach. From the mid-1980s on, Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar worked to consolidate the findings of the New Quest for future generations, lest the previous generation’s skeptical stances on a variety of issues be lost.¹³ Presenting to the general public what critical scholars believed about the Jesus of history—over and against traditional, churchly views—the Seminar played to the media, claiming the mantle of New Testament scholarly opinion for itself. Over its first decade of operation, papers were presented on each of the sayings and deeds of Jesus in the New Testament, which were then voted on by the membership. Marbles denoting black (no way, no how), grey (possibly, but probably not), pink (could have said or done that), and red (probably said or did that) were cast after each element, and the votes were tabulated mathematically. The results were published in the volumes of the Jesus Seminar, affirming only 18 percent of the material in the Gospels goes back to the Jesus of history (red or pink). Marcus Borg¹⁴ put it more positively: “at least this much” goes back to Jesus, by means of these evaluative criteria.

Within that venue, the primitiveness of the Q tradition was linked to the Gospel of Thomas, leading scholars to judge that the sayings of Jesus in the second century Gnostic gospel were far superior in terms of historicity over and against the presentation of Jesus in Mark or any of the other canonical Gospels. Simultaneously within that project, the Gospel of John suffered the most programmatic exclusion from historicity and Jesus studies for over a century. As a result, even the semblance of a Johannine feature within one of the Synoptic Gospels was deemed to make it unreliable historically; thus, Johannine verisimilitude came to be seen as a basis for rejection in terms of Jesus-research historicity. However, if all worthy sources for Jesus Research are being utilized, why has the one canonical gospel tradition claiming first-hand contact with Jesus been programmatically excluded from the venue?

This anti-Johannine thrust of modern Jesus scholarship exposes several fallacies, calling for incisive skepticism and critical correction. First, because the Synoptics are theological as well as John, and because John shows evidence of historical memory as well as theological development, a more nuanced approach deserves consideration. Second, given that Matthew and Luke used Mark, the difference is not necessarily three against one; rather, differences often reflect distinctive presentations of Jesus and his ministry between Mark and John—two highly individuated perspectives. Third, if every source is open for historical-Jesus consideration, however, including the Gospels of Thomas, Philip, and Truth, what is to be made of the one canonical Gospel claiming first-hand knowledge of Jesus and his ministry—what are the critical bases for rejecting that claim altogether? Fourth, as criteria for determining gospel historicity—by function and design—served to exclude Johannine contents and perspectives from the historical quest for Jesus, do the results point to John’s ahistoricity, or do they simply reflect the results of applying biased, anti-Johannine criteria? A fifth fallacy applies positivism to verification but not to falsification; “not necessarily” can never imply “necessarily not.” To simply question a traditional view is not to demonstrate its opposite; that requires evidence, which on nearly all default proposals regarding the origin and character of the Johannine tradition, remains lacking. By means of these and other operations, John’s historicity has been challenged programmatically, and yet, they are individually and collectively fallacious in either their design or their operation. This also explains why overly skeptical approaches to Jesus Research have failed to convince some audiences; after all, simply to challenge a view is not to disconfirm it compellingly.¹⁵

Since the turn of the new millennium, however, the unsustainability of excluding the Gospel of John from Jesus Research, while including everything else, evoked a backlash. Given that most historical-Jesus scholars in the twentieth century could not also claim to be Johannine scholars, leading Johannine scholars began to weigh in on the discussions, calling for a new quest for Jesus—one that included the Gospel of John rather than ignoring it. In 2001 the John, Jesus, and History Project got underway at the national SBL meetings, looking at these three seemingly incompatible subjects in conjunction with each other and testing the durability of modern platforms and their constitutive planks. I might call this the beginnings of...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Notes on Contributors
• Preface
• Introducing the Focus of the Third Princeton-Prague Symposium: John in Jesus Research
• Part One John and the Synoptics in Jesus Research
• Part Two Literary and Rhetorical Approaches for Jesus Research in John
• Part Three Johannine Relationships to Early Traditions, Josephus, and Archaeological Data
• Part Four Johannine Tendenzen, Theology, and History
• Part Five Summaries of Symposium Discussions
• Part Six Appendices
• Notes
• Jesus Research and the Gospel of John: Selected Bibliography
• Modern Author Index
• Scripture Index
• Ancient Sources
• Copyright