History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, Revised and Expanded

By J. Louis Martyn

This volume, a part of the New Testament Library series, surveys the scholarly work that has been done concerning the book of John. J. Louis Martyn also provides his own reading of the forth Gospel.

The New Testament Library offers authoritative commentary on every book and major aspect of the New Testament, as well as classic volumes of scholarship. The commentaries in this series provide fresh translations based on the best available ancient manuscripts, offer critical portrayals of the historical world in which the books were created, pay careful attention to their literary design, and present a theologically perceptive exposition of the text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press
• Release date: Mar 31, 2003
• ISBN: 9781611645743

J. Louis Martyn

J. Louis Martyn is Edward Robinson Professor Emeritus of Biblical Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He is the author of The Gospel of John in Christian History and Theological Issues in the Letters of Paul.

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HISTORY AND THEOLOGY IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL

THE NEW TESTAMENT LIBRARY

Editorial Board

C. CLIFTON BLACK

JOHN T. CARROLL

BEVERLY ROBERTS GAVENTA

J. Louis Martyn

HISTORY AND THEOLOGY IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL

Third Edition

© 2003 J. Louis Martyn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Westminster John Knox Press, 100 Witherspoon Street, Louisville, Kentucky 40202-1396.

Scripture quotations from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible are copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and are used by permission.

Scripture quotations from the Revised Standard Version of the Bible are copyright © 1946, 1952, 1971, and 1973 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and are used by permission.

Scripture quotations from The Jerusalem Bible, copyright © 1985 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd., and Doubleday & Co., Inc. Used by permission of the publishers.

Scripture quotations from The New Jerusalem Bible, copyright © 1985 by Darton, Longman & Todd, Ltd., and Doubleday & Co., Inc. Used by permission of the publishers.

Scripture quotations from The New English Bible, © The Delegates of the Oxford University Press and The Syndics of the Cambridge Press, 1961, 1970. Used by permission.

Scripture quotations from the New King James Version of the Bible are copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Scripture quotations from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Book design by Jennifer K. Cox

Third edition

Published by Westminster John Knox Press

Louisville, Kentucky

This book is printed on acid-free paper that meets the American National Standards Institute Z39.48 standard.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

03  04  05  06  07  08  09  10  11  12 — 10  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Martyn, J. Louis (James Louis), 1925–

    History and theology in the Fourth Gospel / J. Louis Martyn — 3rd ed.

        p. cm. — (The New Testament library)

Rev. ed. of: History & theology in the Fourth Gospel.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-664-22534-9 (alk. paper)

1. Bible. N.T. John—Criticism, interpretation, etc.2. Bible, N.T. John—

Theology. I.Martyn, J. Louis (James Louis), 1925– History & theology in the Fourth Gospel.II. Title.III. Series

BS2615.52 .M26 2003

226.5'06—dc21

2002033151

Tιµoθέῳ

Πέτρῳ

∆αυίδ

CONTENTS

Preface to History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel Third Edition

The Editors, The New Testament Library

Preface to the First Edition (1968)

Preface to the Second Edition (1979)

Preface to the Third Edition (2003)

Abbreviations

The Contribution of J. Louis Martyn to the Understanding of the Gospel of John 1

D. Moody Smith

Postscript for Third Edition of Martyn,

History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel

D. Moody Smith

Introduction

Part I  A Synagogue-Church Drama:

Erecting the Wall of Separation

1  A Blind Beggar Receives His Sight

So he went and washed and came back seeing.

2  He Is Excluded from the Synagogue and Enters the Church

And they cast him out.… ‘Lord, I believe.’

Part II  After the Wall Is Erected:

The Drama Continues

3  The Jewish-Christian Beguiler Must Be Identified

He is leading the people astray.

4  He Must Be Arrested and Tried by the Court

The chief priests and Pharisees sent officers to arrest him.

5  Yet the Conversation Continues

Why are you listening to him?

Part III  Major Theological Terms of the Conversation

6  From the Expectation of the Prophet-Messiah like Moses…

As the first redeemer, so also the last.

This is truly the Prophet.

7  … To the Presence of the Son of Man

Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you.

It was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven;… I am the bread of life.

Glimpses into the History of the Johannine Community

Index of Ancient Sources

Index of Modern Authors

Index of Subjects

PREFACE TO HISTORY AND THEOLOGY IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL

THIRD EDITION

In his comprehensive survey, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford University Press, 1991), John Ashton divides the history of modern Johannine scholarship into three epochs: Before Bultmann, Bultmann, and After Bultmann. The reference is, of course, to the towering commentary on John (English translation 1971) by Rudolf Bultmann (1884–1976). In Ashton’s view, which many would share, J. Louis Martyn’s History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel for all its brevity is probably the most important single work on the Gospel since Bultmann’s commentary (107). Whereas Bultmann’s interpretation of John seemed oddly timeless, detached from any social dimension in Christian antiquity, Martyn’s thesis located the Fourth Gospel firmly and plausibly along a Jewish landscape. Moreover, Martyn encouraged an interpretation of John that, with variations, persists in twenty-first-century scholarship: as a drama of conflict occurring simultaneously on two historically different planes, that between Jesus and his adversaries and that between believers within the Johannine community and Jewish leaders of the evangelist’s day. As D. Moody Smith observes in his appreciative introduction to the present volume, Martyn’s approach was not without precedents. But he rightly gets credit for a sea change in Johannine studies for somewhat the same reason that the Wright brothers got credit for the airplane. Others may have gotten off the ground, but Martyn—like the Wright brothers—achieved sustained flight (6).

We are proud to present J. Louis Martyn’s History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, accompanied by his subsequent Glimpses into the History of the Johannine Community, as the first in a series of Classics of the New Testament Library. Veteran scholars will rejoice with us in the return of these masterly studies, too long out of print. With equal confidence, we believe that a new generation of interpreters will discover in Martyn’s contribution not only scholarship of the highest caliber, but also absorbing literature that is a delight to read.

THE EDITORS

THE NEW TESTAMENT LIBRARY

PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION (1968)

The origin of the Fourth Gospel is enveloped by mists of unusual density. To achieve a single clearing among them and to realize some of the possibilities of interpretation corresponding to this clearing is the task of the present work.

He who seeks to make a clearing must add to his boldness an adequate measure of humility. The mists conceal surprises. Indeed, they are themselves surprising. They are extensive, so that one necessarily encounters them whatever his avenue of approach. Furthermore, they seem to gather themselves into somewhat independent groups. To dispel the mists on one side is not to conquer those on another. This point demands emphasis because not a few interpreters have mistaken the achievement of a small clearing for a complete removal of the mists. I have had repeatedly to remind myself not to make this same mistake, and I must warn the reader not to do so. The setting in which the Fourth Evangelist composed his work was, I am sure, unusually complex. I have tried to illuminate one aspect of it and to view the interpretative task in light of that aspect.

We have grown somewhat suspicious, I suppose, of the scholar who exclaims that his findings surprise him at least as much as they will surprise any of his readers. I must add to the fund of suspicion. When I began to study the Fourth Gospel, two brilliant articles of Rudolf Bultmann and his incomparable commentary soon convinced me that the conceptual milieu in which the evangelist penned his work was dominated by a kind of gnostic thought kin to that reflected in the Mandaean literature.* The commentary still seems to me an indispensable tool, and its major thesis partly correct. But several remarkable points of correspondence between certain passages in the Fourth Gospel and data from Jewish sources gradually pressed their special claim on me, and I have had to follow a somewhat different path.

The path is different not only with regard to the extrabiblical sources most frequently cited, but also with respect to the way in which the resulting points of correspondence are interpreted. The reader will quickly see that these points of correspondence seem to me not only to illuminate important aspects of the conceptual milieu in which the Fourth Evangelist worked, but also—one might even say primarily—to point toward certain historical developments transpiring in the city in which he lived. It is in the sense thus indicated that I have employed the word history in the title.†

It is pleasant to recall conversations with those who generously read and helpfully criticized the manuscript in whole and in part: colleagues John Knox, Cyril Richardson, and James Smart; friend Ernst Käsemann; former students Robert T. Fortna, Walter Wink, and Ed P. Sanders. Fortna wrote his dissertation (Cambridge University Press)‡ on a very important aspect of Johannine studies as I was working at the present task, and the hours we spent together discussing our respective labors were greatly enriching to me. I was also helped by the careful and thoughtful reading of Nils A. Dahl.

The major part of the research and writing was done during a period of scholé made possible by sabbatical leave from Union Theological Seminary and generously sponsored by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Part of the cost of printing the occasional Greek and Hebrew terms was also graciously borne by the foundation.

J. L. M.

Footnotes

*Der religionsgeschichtliche Hintergrund des Prologs zum Johannesevangelium, Eucharisterion, Festschrift Gunkel (1923), vol. 2, 3–26; Die Bedeutung der deuerschlossenen mandäi-schen Quellen für das Verständnis des Johannesevangeliums, ZNW, 24 (1925), 100–146; Das Evangelium des Johannes, K-eK (195313).

†Contrast, e.g., A. J. B. Higgins, The Historicity of the Fourth Gospel (1960).

‡The Gospel of Signs (1970).

PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION (1979)

The period since the original edition—almost exactly a decade—has seen the continuation of an extraordinary flow of critical literature on John’s Gospel. To make one’s way through the major items listed in the bibliographies of E. Mala-testa, A. Moda, and H. Thyen* is to see the scope, and indeed, as regards many items, to sense the depth of recent Johannine research. In the midst of such a wealth of publications it is, of course, encouraging to an author to note that certain aspects of his interpretative efforts seem to have borne nourishing fruit. References that are being made to the original edition indicate that its major theses have won a rather wide following.

At the same time, it is no surprise that flaws of some consequence have been detected, and these call for correction. Moreover, some of the most significant items in the bibliographies just mentioned have been directed to issues central to the book, and a revised edition offers a welcome opportunity not only to alter one’s line of argument here and there, but also to enter into what one may hope is mutually illuminating conversation with recent interpreters. That conversation will be truly illuminating if it enables us in the midst of our communities to converse more generously with the evangelist in the midst of his community.

J. L. M.

Footnote

*E. Malatesta, St. John’s Gospel 1920–1965: A Cumulative and Classified Bibliography of Books and Periodical Literature on the Fourth Gospel (1967); A. Moda, Quarto Vangelo: 1966–72, Una selezione bibliografica, Rivista Biblica 22 (1974), 53–86; H. Thyen, Aus der Literatur zum Johannesevangelium, ThR 39 (1974), 1–69, 222–52, 289–330; 42 (1977), 211–70.

PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION (2003)

During the decades following the Second World War, biblical studies were on the whole heavily theological, sometimes at the expense of meticulous historical research. Some interpreters, for example, read John’s Gospel through the timeless philosophical lenses of existentialism, as though this Gospel had fallen from heaven straight into our modern times.

Now, at the outset of the twenty-first century, we find in some circles very nearly the opposite tendency. In a rather prosaic manner, early Christian documents are mined for their historical and literary ore, while the theological passions that moved their authors are given little sustained attention. In fact, however, the Gospel of John bears clear marks both of the historical setting in which it was written and of the theological issues that were matters of life and death in the author’s community. The present volume is the attempt of one interpreter to honor the confluence of Johannine history and Johannine theology.

I am happily indebted to the editorial board of the New Testament Library for taking the initiative to include my work in the Classics Series. And for the substantive, introductory essay, I am deeply grateful to Professor D. Moody Smith, the dean of current Johannine studies in America.

J. L. M.

ABBREVIATIONS

THE CONTRIBUTION OF J. LOUIS MARTYN TO THE UNDERSTANDING OF THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

*

D. Moody Smith

In the decades immediately after World War II, the study of the Gospel and Epistles of John was dominated by theological questions, a state of affairs that was appropriate enough, for the controlling issues of the Johannine literature are clearly theological. The sharpest debates had to do with the historical setting and its bearing on the theological issues. In fact, Martyn’s contribution lies precisely in the determination of that historical setting and its impact on the interpretation of Johannine theology, particularly in the Gospel. He called into question the view that the most relevant historical setting was Hellenistic, gnostic, or Christian by proposing that the primal context of Johannine thought was Jewish, or Jewish-Christian.

Johannine Interpretation in the Decades after World War II

The dominant modes of Johannine interpretation in the postwar decades were rooted in research going back much earlier. Fittingly, the era’s two most notable scholars, in Great Britain and Germany respectively, capped lifetimes of scholarship with magna opera on the Fourth Gospel: Bultmann with his magisterial commentary;¹ Dodd with his two weighty books on the interpretation and historical tradition of the Gospel.² A third work should perhaps be put alongside them—namely, Hoskyns’s The Fourth Gospel.³ A kind of exegetical Unfinished Symphony, it was brought to completion and published by Hoskyns’s colleague Davey. In order to see Martyn’s contribution in perspective, it will be useful to characterize each of the three, for in their approach and assessment of the issues they represented alternatives that differed, while sharing certain important presuppositions. All set the problem of Johannine interpretation against a horizon of Christian or more general religious or existential theological concerns.

Dodd’s work was based on his wide-ranging and deep research in the Hellenistic cultural and religious world, as well as his appreciation of Judaism, its traditions and scriptures. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (1953) set the Gospel of John against a wide range of Hellenistic and Jewish backgrounds, which Dodd deemed more or less relevant for its understanding. While Dodd saw important connections with Judaism, and particularly the Old Testament, he was satisfied to characterize the intended audience of the Gospel as those intelligent, literate, and religious readers who were fairly numerous in the Hellenistic world. Interestingly enough, Dodd did not dismiss the tradition of apostolic authorship, although it becomes quite clear in Interpretation that he placed little or no stock in it. That is, it was wholly unnecessary to the perspective and approach that work represents. The situation may change just slightly with Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, for in that book Dodd clearly intends to trace the Johannine tradition, whether in written or oral form, to its historical roots. Moreover, he is strongly disposed to view it as standing in a significant and positive relation to Jesus himself. Nevertheless, he does not rest his case on apostolic authorship, but rather he analyzes the text with a view to establishing its traditional, and putatively historical, roots. Interestingly enough, the Johannine tradition’s rootage in Jesus himself would be congruent with Dodd’s view of Jesus’ own realized eschatology. Thus the Fourth Gospel represents, not a development or departure from Jesus, but rather the fundamental eschatological perspective of Jesus, albeit dressed out in more hellenized form.

The hellenized form of the Fourth Gospel is roughly equivalent in meaning or import to its universal scope. Its message is adapted to cultured, literate readers with religious interests, be they Jew or Greek. Whether in Palestine, Athens, Alexandria, or Rome, the intended reader would understand and feel the appeal of the Gospel of John. Specific historical circumstances of the Gospel’s setting are less important than general religious and cultural relevance and affinities in Dodd’s view.

To a remarkable extent the same can be said of the equally influential perspective and theological interpretation of Rudolf Bultmann.⁴ Of course, Bultmann had a quite specific and distinctive view of the Gospel’s historical origin and literary development. Its origin lay close to the same baptist circles in Syria or Palestine from which John the Baptist emerged. In fact, the sign-source of the Gospel may have first been used as a missionary tract among disciples of John the Baptist, and the evangelist himself may have once followed John. These early baptists seem to have been heterodox Jews, from whom (or in near proximity to whom) the Mandaeans later developed or emerged. The Mandaean sources, with their dualism and terminological affinities with the Johannine literature, became for Bultmann extremely important documents for understanding the milieu and meaning of the Gospel and Epistles of John. The Mandaeans—whose name, of course, means knowledge (or gnostic)—provide the gnostic connection of the Fourth Gospel. One should recall, however, that the Gospel of John was written not to embrace or affirm a gnostic point of view, but rather to oppose it. It remained for his student Ernst Käsemann to espouse a much more positively gnosticizing interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Of course, Bultmann assumed that the traditional view of Johannine authorship had long since been shown to be problematic. In fact, the ecclesiastical redactor of the Gospel was the first to equate the Beloved Disciple with the evangelist.⁵

While Bultmann’s historical and literary theories are amazingly specific and detailed at some points, much more so than Dodd’s, they too are at the service of a higher theological interpretation that tends to be universal or universalizing. The connection through Mandaeism with a largely hypothetical early oriental gnosticism developing at the fringes of Judaism is the key to this process. Bultmann, drawing upon the work of his student Hans Jonas, understood historic gnosticism to enshrine a classic understanding of existence as alienation, embodied in its typical dualism. It is this understanding of existence that is overcome in the Christian gospel as presented by John. The gnostic mythology becomes the vehicle for the Christian message. By the same token the Jews, who appear throughout the Gospel as Jesus’ opponents, are not real, historic Jews, but symbolize unfaith’s rejection of Jesus. Bultmann acknowledges almost incidentally that their presence in John may be rooted in a synagogue-church conflict.⁶ Nevertheless, the Gospel of John can be properly read and understood without knowledge of its specific historical setting and purpose. At the same time, however, the Gospel can be appreciated in its theological purity only if Bultmann’s various literary reconstructions are followed. Otherwise, one encounters a Gospel somewhat diluted, even corrupted, by later accretions