The Courageous Gospel

Resources for Teachers, Students, and Preachers of the Fourth Gospel

Robert Allan Hill

• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781610973748
• eBook ISBN: 9781621897002
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The Courageous Gospel is intended for use alongside a commentary (Ashton, Brown, Bultmann, Barrett, other) in a class introducing the Fourth Gospel. The book has four parts: -A succinct summary of key matters of introduction;-A collection of sermons on the Gospel's core chapters, with reflective reminiscence and remembrance of what Raymond Brown said in lecture about the Gospel thirty years ago;-A series of background lectures that attempt, on the one hand, to honor the key insights of the current opinion communis (that Jewish apocalyptic explains John) and, on the other hand, to open the door to further insights from an older perspective needed for a full appreciation of John (that the Hellenistic Gnostic background explains John);-A set of pedagogical appendices, employable in the classroom, to aid discussion.Together these components attempt to provide the necessary second book for an introduction to the Fourth Gospel, engaging the commentaries with the hermeneutical, homiletical, exegetical, and pastoral implications of a first-level study of John.

Part One

1 / Abstract

—Robert Allan Hill

Boston University 2011

Some who have taught the Gospel of John over the last generation have recognized a need for a second book, for class use, beyond the commentary (Ashton, Brown, Bultmann, Barrett, et al.). The second book is needed to engage the commentaries with the hermeneutical, exegetical, homiletical, and pastoral implications of the study. The Courageous Gospel intends to meet this need. (In fact, at Boston University, 2007–2013, in offprint form, and with annual redaction, it has done so).

The book has four parts. The first is a succinct summary of the key matters of introduction, taken from the author’s lectures, and summarized by a graduate student. The second is a collection of sermons on the Gospel’s key chapters, with reflective reminiscence and remembrance of what Raymond Brown said in lecture about the sermons 30 years ago (to my knowledge no one has yet offered anything like this). The third is a series of lectures which attempt on the one hand to honor the key insights of the current opinion communis (Jewish apocalyptic background explains John) and on the other hand to open the door to key insights from an older perspective (now new again) needed for us fully to interpret John (Hellenistic Gnostic background explains John). In this section I refer not primarily to my first teachers (Martyn and Brown) but to my dissertation advisor and mentor (F. Wisse). The fourth is a set of pedagogical appendices, employable in the classroom. Together, the four parts attempt to provide the necessary second book for an Introduction to the Fourth Gospel.

All of the material for the book has been written in connection with teaching at Lemoyne College, Colgate Rochester Crozier Divinity School, and Boston University, and has already been repeatedly used—field tested in various settings.

Here is the argument of section two, in sermonic form:

The two basic historical problems of the New Testament are ancient cousins, first cousins to our two fundamental issues, the two existential battles in your salvation today.

The first historical problem behind our 27 books, and pre- eminently embedded in John, is the movement away from Judaism. How did a religious movement founded by a Jew, born in Judea, embraced by 12 and 500 within Judaism, expanded by a Jewish Christian missionary, become–-within 100 years–-entirely Greek? The books of the New Testament record in excruciating detail the development of this second identity, this coming of age, that came with the separation from mother religion.

The second historical problem underneath the Newer Testament is disappointment, the despair that gradually accompanied the delay, finally the cancellation, of Christ’s return, the delay of the parousia. Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet. Paul expected to be alive to see the advent of Christ. Gradually, though, the church confessed disappointment in its greatest immediate hope, the sudden cataclysm of the end.

These two problems, historical and fascinating, create our New Testament: the separation from Judaism and the delay of the parousia. In the fourth Gospel the two come together with great ferocity. What makes this matter so urgent for us is that these very two existential dilemmas—one of identity and one of imagination—are before every generation, including and especially our own.

Here is the argument for part three, in lecture form:

We come now to the strange, mysterious figure of the Paraclete (actually the second Paraclete, for Jesus himself is the first comforter). The Paraclete functions as Jesus’ eternal presence in the world, Jesus on earth. In this way, the Paraclete himself creates the two level drama. Where the world is mono focal, and can see only the historical level of Jesus in history or only the theological level of Jesus in the witness of the Christian community, the Paraclete binds the two together. The Word dwelling among us, and our beholding his glory are not past events only. They transpire in a two level drama. They transpire both on the historical and contemporary levels, or not at all. Their transpiration on both levels is itself the good news.

Martyn’s hypothesis has won the day and has been able to stand the test of time. While several points of criticism have arisen, still, the key turns very well in the lock. Interpretation of the fourth Gospel not only deserves but requires acknowledgement of the two-level drama, acknowledgement of the historical movement from Christian Judaism to Jewish Christianity, and acknowledgement of their homiletical embedding in John.

What Martyn describes is the way the community was ‘pushed out.’ He depends on the Jewish background to the NT, and to the sources for John in his reading, his constructive and imaginative reengagement with the text. Apocalypticism, broadly construed, provides the language and imagery for his interpretation. What Martyn’s thesis does not address is the foreground not the background of the Gospel. John was not only pushed, he also was pulled. The two go well, and surprisingly well together. The expulsion from the synagogue pushed John forward. But what pulled him? From the outside, from the Gnostic foreground of the NT, John was pulled forward. Gnosticism, broadly construed, provides the language and imagery for this further interpretation. Gnosticism provided the speculative intrigue which equipped the community in its primitive Christological imagination. Gnosticism provided the communicative connection with the new wilderness, the non-Jewish world and thought world for life outside the synagogue. Gnosticism provided the audacity of hope in a new language, not that parousia but that of paraclete, not that of the end of the age, but that of the realm of light. Gnosticism especially provided the language and imagery of new identity, the confidence of identity in the face of alienation, which pulled the community along in its growth and change, even as they were pushed out of the synagogue. Hence, the fourth Gospel is not only a two level drama, it is also a two stage drama. In its first stage, that robed in Apocalypticism, the community is expulsed from Judaism. In its second stage, that robed in Gnosticism, the community is drawn to Hellenism. To understand both its history and its theology, both its origin and its meaning, the Johannine interpreter will need both Apocalypticism and Gnosticism. You cannot understand John 9:1 without the former. You cannot understand John 1:9 without the latter. To date, from Bultmann to Brown, we have had one or the other. We need both in order to do justice to the interpretation of what Clement rightly called “The Spiritual Gospel.”

2 / Introduction

—Cathryn Turrentine

People are passionate about the Gospel of John, in both directions. They may simultaneously love its soaring spiritual language, abhor its representation of “the Jews,” and find some of its discourses maddeningly obscure. This book is intended to lead students into a passionate interaction with the Fourth Gospel. It is written for students who have already had an introduction to the New Testament and are ready now for a closer look at the Fourth Gospel. This introduction briefly summarizes some background information that students will need in this quest.

Authorship, Date, and Location

The author of the Fourth Gospel is not identified anywhere within the text itself. The inclusion of many favorable references to the “Beloved Disciple”—who is not named in this Gospel nor mentioned at all in the Synoptics—led to the assumption that this Gospel was written by him. It has been traditional, beginning with Irenaeus, to associate the Beloved Disciple with John, son of Zebedee, and so authorship of the Fourth Gospel has long been ascribed to him,1 and all of the Johannine corpus has taken his name. Modern scholars differ as to whether the Beloved Disciple was, in fact, John, son of Zebedee,2 but they are in accord in asserting that it was not the Beloved Disciple himself but one of his own disciples, a later member of the Johannine community, who was the Fourth Evangelist.3

The version of the Fourth Gospel that we read today is not exactly as the Evangelist created it. Sometime after it was first recorded, a redactor added materials and likely changed the order of some sections. The opening hymn and the final chapter of the Gospel are examples of likely additions by this editor.4 Scholars disagree, however, about the purpose of these emendations. Bultmann asserts that the redactor had an ecclesiastical focus, and wanted to make this text less Gnostic and more acceptable to the wider church, outside the Johannine community.5 Raymond Brown argues that the redactor’s principal interest was to preserve Johannine materials that had not been included in the original text.6

The Fourth Gospel was the last gospel to be recorded7 (possibly 90–110 CE).8 The author’s location is disputed, however. Tradition, beginning with Irenaeus in the second century argues for Ephesus,9 and most scholars now accept this view.10 Bultmann objects, however, noting that “nothing in the Gospel points to its origin in . . . Asia Minor.” He suggests Syria as a more likely location.11

Structure

The Gospel is comprised of two main sections. The first is widely referred to as the Book of Signs, roughly chapters 1–12. This section describes Jesus’ public ministry. It is named for the seven signs that Jesus performs, pointing to himself as the One who came down from heaven to reveal the glory of God. These are th...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Frontispiece
• Part One
• Chapter 1 / Abstract
• Chapter 2 / Introduction
• Chapter 3 / Summary of the Courages in John
• Part Two
• Chapter 4 / Two Battles
• Chapter 5 / Two Brides
• Chapter 6 / Two Births
• Chapter 7 / Two Biographies
• Chapter 8 / Two Blessings
• Chapter 9 / Two Beggars
• Chapter 10 / Two Beliefs
• Chapter 11 / The Spirit of Truth: Communion
• Chapter 12 / The Spirit of Truth: Conversation
• Chapter 13 / The Spirit of Truth: Commandment
• Chapter 14 / The Spirit of Truth: Catechesis
• Part Three
• Chapter 15 / An Embraceable Variant
• Chapter 16 / An Introduction to Gnosticism for Students of John
• Chapter 17 / Book Review: Understanding the Fourth Gospel
• Chapter 18 / Teaching through John Ashton
• Chapter 19 / Summary
• Chapter 20 / “The Word Being Made Flesh, and the Priesthood of All Believers”
• Chapter 21 / Notes on the Community of the Beloved Disciple by Raymond Brown
• Chapter 22 / The Gnostic Worldview
• Chapter 23 / The Jewish Background to the New Testament
• Chapter 24 / The Two Level Drama
• Chapter 25 / The Insights of George MacRae
• Chapter 26 / Gnosticism
• Chapter 27 / Toward a New View of Eschatology in Gnosticism
• Chapter 28 / Hill’s Thesis
• Chapter 29 / An Overview of Hill’s Thesis
• Chapter 30 / The Treatise on the Resurrection (NHC1, 4)
• Part Four
• Chapter 31 / A Brief History of Christian Theology
• Chapter 32 / The Gospel of John
• Chapter 33 / The Gospel of John
• Chapter 34 / The Gospel of John
• Chapter 35 / The Gospel of John
• Chapter 36 / The Gospel of John
• Chapter 37 / The Gospel of John
• Chapter 38 / The Gospel of John
• Chapter 39 / The Gospel of John
• Chapter 40 / The Gospel of John
• Chapter 41 / Finale