"EPILOGUE: Responses to The Christology of the Fourth Gospel and Continuing Inquiry"

EPILOGUE

Responses to The Christology of the Fourth Gospel and Continuing Inquiry

While the Christology monograph here remains unchanged, reporting suc-cinctly on some of the more significant responses to it furthers scholarly analyses of matters Johannine.1 Because the book was published first in Tübingen in Martin Hengel’s prestigious WUNT II series, it had the benefit of being engaged extensively in Europe and Britain; after it appeared a year later in America, its influence was extended to more general readerships. In reflecting upon the forty or more reviews of which I am aware,2 including

1. Much of this analysis was gathered as a reception report for the 1998 Psychology and Biblical Studies Section of the SBL, where James Fowler responded to it. That exchange, including a fuller engagement of the cognitive-critical aspects of the investigation and a review by J. Harold Ellens, is published as “A Way Forward in the Scientific Investigation of Gospel Traditions: Cognitive-Critical Analysis” (2004, full references to my works are available in the bibliographic appendix at the end of the new introduction).

2. Over 40 reviews were received, but the substantive published reviews surveyed include (some comments from these reviews and those in the following note, marked with an asterisk, *, are included in the flyleaf ): Alan Kolp*, Quaker Religious Thought 27:4 (a pre-publication review, 1995) 53–55; Michael A. Daise*, Koinonia Journal 8 (Spring 1996) 100–106; F. C. Molina, Archivo Teologico Granadino 60 (1997) 375; J. Gutiérrez Herrero, La Ciudad de Dios 211 (1998) 330–31; John Painter*, Journal of Biblical Literature 117 (1998) 144–45; Craig A. Evans*, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 68 (1997) 121; James F. McGrath*, Theological Gathering 3 (Spring 1997); R. Sanz Valdivieso, Carthaginensia 23 (1997) 223–24; Peder Borgen, Journal of Theological Studies 49 (October 1998) 751–58; John T. Carroll*, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 60 (January 1998) 139–40; Francis Moloney*, Pacifica 11 (October 1998) 335–38; Michèle Morgen*, Recherches de Science Religieuse 86:2 (1998) 296–99; D. Moody Smith, Religious Studies Review 24:1 (1998) 89; Sidney G. Sowers*, Anglican Theological Review 80 (Spring 1998) 272–73; Geoffrey Turner*, Heythrop Journal 39 (1998) 436–37; Kavin Rowe*, Themelios 25:1 (1999) 95–96; Graydon Snyder*, Journal of Religion 78:4 (October 1998) 613–14;

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fuller treatments and engagements,3 following is a digest of responses that have been received, grouped into five categories: consensus appraisals, ma-jority reports, minority opinions, individual comments, and extended engage-ments. While responding to questions and counterquestions is important, noting aspects of agreement also furthers advances within the field and sets the stage for further dialogue and continuing inquiry. Movement within Johannine and christological studies, of course, will be furthered by factors extending far beyond engagements of one book alone,4 but my larger inter-est lies in furthering understanding and benefitting from agreements and critiques alike. In that sense, this epilogue report is intended to serve as a prologue to further studies and investigations—in service to the truth and quests for it—an ever-liberating endeavor (Jn 8:32).

1. Consensus Appraisals

First, nearly all or most reviews reflect the following judgments: a) the book makes inroads into the study of John’s Christology. Not surprisingly, apprecia-tion is expressed regarding the ways the book addresses the origins of John’s christological tensions—one of the enduring sources of debate within the Christian movement and beyond. Some disappointment is expressed by one or two scholars in the fact that extended developments of such themes

Ulrich Mauser*, Princeton Theological Seminary Bulletin 20:2 (1999) 221–23; Andreas Dettwiler*, Revue de Théologie et Philosophie 131:2 (1999) 246–48; Andreas J. Köstenberger*, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 42 (March 1999) 150–51; Paul Livermore, Journal of Psychology and Christianity 18 (Spring 1999) 94–96; Andrianjatovo Rakotoharintsifa*, Étude Théologiques et Religieuses 75:1 (2000, Chronique johannique I, #17) 92–93; Thomas Schreiner, Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 9 (2001) 110–12.

3. In addition to the published journal reviews, several more sustained engagements may be found in the five reviews by Robert Kysar*, Sandra Schneiders*, R. Alan Culpepper*, Graham Stanton*, and Alan Padgett*, followed by the author’s response, in the Review of Biblical Literature 1 (1999) 38–72. See also the more in-depth treatments of Cognitive-Critical Analysis (2004) in the review by J. Harold Ellens* (252–57), my reception report (257–67), and the response by James Fowler* (267–72) in “A Way Forward.”

4. Some transitions in Johannine scholarship over the last two decades or so can be seen in “Beyond the Shade of the Oak Tree: Recent Growth in Johannine Studies” (2008). This review should be considered alongside the research reports in Christology, Chs. 1–3.

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as the Son of Man and Logos motifs are undertreated, and that is under-standable.5 The main interest here, though, is identifying the epistemo-logical origins of John’s christological tensions, laying the groundwork for further study. These four features (the Mosaic agency schema, the dialectical thinking of the evangelist, the evolving dialectical Johannine situation, and the rhetorical literary work of the evangelist) may also be seen exceptionally clearly in the Johannine Prologue, which provides a fitting case study for their further consideration.6

b) The book is a detailed and suggestive study of John 6. Some review-ers also note the significance and difficulty of the chapter, and thus the relevance of such a study for Johannine composition, gospel-traditions, and theological studies more generally. Some responses appropriately make con-nections with “The Sitz im Leben of the Johannine Bread of Life Discourse and its Evolving Context” (1997), and this is fitting, as that lengthy essay expands on rhetorical, midrashic, and situational aspects of John 6. Here the three levels of dialogue outlined in Part III of the monograph are taken further as a two-level (history and theology) approach to this provoca-tive chapter, which I call “the Grand Central Station of Johannine critical issues.”7 Implications, of course, extend to larger discussions as well, so as

5. Walter Wink, for instance, noted the lack of sustained treatment of the Son of Man motif as he was developing his book on the subject; I pointed him to Frank Moloney’s good work; I have addressed the Logos motif further in “The Word” (2009).

6. The outline of Table 22 (Christology, 262) is developed more fully in “On Guessing Points and Naming Stars” (2007), using the Johannine Prologue as a case study.

7. See Alan Culpepper’s comments on the essay’s implications for understanding the history of the Johannine situation (Critical Readings of John 6, 245–57), and note Rakotoharintsifa’s review of the collection (2000, Chronique johannique I, #24). Building on Tables 20 and 21 in Christology (240, 246–48), the lengthy Sitz im Leben essay (1997) attempts with John 6 something similar to what J. Louis Martyn achieved with John 9. Rather than inferring only one dialogical crisis reflected in John 9, however, John 6 as a later composition betrays at least four or five dialectical crises within the Johannine situation. Three of these are internal to the Johannine situation as suggested in Christology, Table 20 (Judaizing, docetizing, and institutionalizing tensions), while other tensions might have been more extramural (Markan/Synoptic valuations of Jesus’ ministry and Roman demands for Emperor worship). As clarified in Outline B, two earlier crises also preceded those (north-south Palestinian tensions and competition with Baptist-adherents) for a total of at least seven dialogical crises within the Johannine situation from 30–100 ce.


Culpepper and others point out, it would be wrong to consider Parts II and III of the monograph a treatment of one chapter in John alone. Their implications extend to the rest of Johannine studies, and studies of Jesus, gospel relations, theological interests, and the history of early Christianity, as well.

c) The book makes an innovative interdisciplinary contribution, espe-cially in the application of Cognitive-Critical Analysis to the study of gospel traditions. Several reviewers deem this aspect of the book the most likely to be controversial, but that it also could be the most stimulating and fruitful. In particular, Robert Kysar, Sandra Schneiders, Alan Kolp, Michael Daise, J. Harold Ellens, and James Fowler, among others, engage my uses of James Fowler and James Loder constructively, and more extended discussions of cognitive-critical analyses of gospel traditions may be found in Volume 3 and 4 of Psychology and the Bible; A New Way to Read the Scriptures (2004).8 Here the human and experiential components of gospel-tradition develop-ments are assessed critically, and five weaknesses of historical-critical biblical analysis are assessed in the light of improvements availed by cognitive-crit-ical biblical analysis.9 Gospel traditions were not disembodied clusters of

8. “The Cognitive Origins of John’s Christological Unity and Disunity” (Vol. 3, 127–49), “A Way Forward in the Scientific Investigation of Gospel Traditions: Cognitive-Critical Analysis” (Vol. 4, 246–76; by Paul Anderson, J. Harold Ellens, and James Fowler); see also “Jesus and Transformation” (Vol. 4, 305–28).

9. The first part of “A Way Forward” (2004, 248–52) contrasts five weaknesses of historical-critical analyses of gospel traditions to scientific strengths of cognitive-critical analyses: 1) rather than an overly objectivistic approach to historiography, subjective factors of traditional origins and development are considered analytically; 2) rather than overly empirical and mechanistic approaches to tradition development, human aspects of perception and developing understandings are taken into account as intrinsic factors of memory development and historiography; 3) overly-brittle categorizations of data into natural-versus-supernatural categories are improved upon by considering factors of human experience and perceptions of the wondrous within the ancient Mediterranean world; 4) rather than understanding “gospel traditions” as aggregates of disembodied notions, the human sources and conveyors of those traditions deserves sustained scientific consideration; and 5) rather that assuming literary sources were invariably consistent internally, cognitive-critical analysis introduces more adequate understandings of human reflection and the capacity to deal with ambiguity and paradox. As an interdisciplinary approach, the best tools deserve to be sought for addressing the particular interest at hand, and this should

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ideas, floating around ethereally within the Mediterranean world. Rather, they were persons—human purveyors of ideas, stories, and insights—con-necting experience and perception together in addressing diverse audiences and evolving situations. These factors in early Christian narratology and historiography have hardly been studied at all scientifically, and this ap-proach attempts to open that venture in a disciplinary way.

d) The book is an incisive treatment of Bultmann’s ground-breaking literary-critical paradigm, and it engages serviceably related scholarly lit-erature. Several comment in particular on the combination of critical and constructive engagement of his work. While the evidence for Bultmann’s complex theory of composition is lacking, even on its own terms, his in-sights contribute significantly to alternative theories of composition and contextual history. None of the reviews took serious issue with the analysis of Bultmann’s work or its importance for getting at the heart of modern Johannine studies. This could be significant as a marker of a real shift in Johannine studies; the promise of source-critical analysis as an answer to the Johannine riddles has apparently waned, perhaps to be replaced by a fresh set of literary-critical and tradition-analytical approaches. While a few important source-critical Johannine studies have been written in Germany recently, few, if any, new studies of the sort have been have been produced in America or Britain.10

Along these lines, one of the most notable comments in all the reviews is that made by Robert Kysar in his part of the 1999 Review of Biblical

include sociological, religious, social-sciences, literary, and archaeological studies as well. Further, as all historiography is rhetorical, and all valuations of historical significance are subjective, the enterprise of modernistic historiography itself deserves something of an overhaul, at least when applied to gospel-tradition analysis. What is needed is a dialectical approach to historiography parallel to a dialectical approach to theology; we need the right scientific tools for addressing particular historiographic tasks.

10. In addition to Jürgen Becker’s works, Folker Siegert’s Das Evangelium des Johannes in seiner ursprünglichen Gestalt; Wiederstellung und Kommentar (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 2008) builds on a source-critical approach to John, as does Urban C. von Wahlde’s The Earliest Version of John’s Gospel; Recovering the Gospel of Signs (Wilmington: Michael Glazier, 1989). Robert Fortna continues to argue his Signs-Gospel thesis, taken as a plausible source within the Jesus Seminar, but few new source-critical approaches to John have been marshaled in recent years.


Literature engagement, where he signals his own change of mind on the discernibility of Johannine sources. As the leading authority on Johannine secondary literature and as a formerly strong advocate for the use of this methodology, Kysar’s change of mind might reflects a turning of the tide regarding source-critical approaches to John’s development.11 Given the extensive critique of the strongest of Johannine source theories—the Signs-Source hypothesis—by Gilbert van Belle and renewed assertions of John’s autonomy by D. Moody Smith, the stage is set for a new paradigm to be forwarded regarding the origin and development of the Johannine tradition.12

From these responses, it can be assumed that the basic integrity of the Johannine tradition is a worthy inference, requiring other approaches to John’s theological tensions. A synchronicity of tradition developing within a diachronicity of composition and situation seems a plausible way to

11. Acknowledging his change of mind regarding his 1973 article (engaged in Christology, Ch. 3), Robert Kysar says of my treatment, “His argument that source criticism is not a profitable enterprise in Johannine studies—much less the assumption that source-critical work holds possibility of reaching a consensus—is precisely right, I believe! His critique of my 1973 article decisively deconstructs the argument there with vigor and insight.” RBL 1 (1999) 40. Kysar expands on his analyses and their implications in his foreword to The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus (2006, xvii-xx), connecting the two book-length projects and affirming also my emphasis upon Johannine dialectical thought and theory of gospel-tradition interfluentiality over the interim:

Anderson brings a dialectical mode of thought to the question of the relationship between John and the Synoptics as well as source criticism. For one who has followed Anderson’s scholarly work, especially in the last ten years, it is clear that he has introduced another entirely different facet into the question of the relationship among the Gospels. . . . I find Anderson’s suggestion of a two-way influence very valuable with numerous implications, such as his theory of a ‘bio-optic [sic] perspective on Jesus.’ . . . This volume challenges biblical scholars to rethink the foundations of much of our study. It will, I believe, make readers assess their own methods and stimulate new discussions of John and the quest for Jesus. (xix–xx)

12. See Gilbert Van Belle, The Signs Source in the Fourth Gospel: Historical Survey and Critical Evaluation of the Sēmeia Hypothesis (Leuven: Louvain University Press and Peeters) 1994, and D. Moody Smith, John Among the Gospels; Second Edition (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2001).

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proceed. The dialectical character of the Fourth Evangelist’s thought, con-necting perception and experience within his developing reflection, also bears significant implications for gospel-tradition studies—and even Jesus studies. Therefore, an adequate interpretation of John’s theological motifs will seek to ascertain the factors that contribute to each of their tensions, and such considerations will likely be trademarks of meaningful Johannine interpretation in the future.

2. Majority Reports

Second, comments made by over half of the reviewers include the fol-lowing: a) the book makes compelling contributions regarding composition theories and the use of sources. A good deal of agreement emerges regarding its source-critical analyses and the findings that stylistic, contextual, and theological evidence for alien sources underlying John is insufficient. This is not a new judgment, but the way it is here analyzed, testing first the evidence marshaled by Bultmann himself—on its own terms—and finding it evidentially insufficient, could be significant within the larger assessment of gospel-tradition theories. Conversely, the constructive use of Bultmann’s analyses where they do seem strong, such as the author of the Epistles likely having been the redactor, serves one’s emerging theory well. In that sense, building a new paradigm on many of Bultmann’s strongest insights and in-ferences may yet provide new ways forward if combined with the strongest evidence emerging from other analyses, as well.

b) The book contains many helpful footnotes, appendices, summaries, tables and bibliographies. One reviewer comments that the footnotes at times strayed off the subject, but several comment specifically on the help-fulness and richness of the notes as ventures into further study. While some repetition of themes is acknowledged, the reinforcement of related theses was intentional. It is designed to build an overall set of impressions, espe-cially where issues have bearings on each other, and it is crafted in such a way as to be of assistance to the scholar reading a particular section on its own. The outlines and references to other studies develop some of these points further, seeking to heighten the relevance of corroborative studies and their related implications. Following Bultmann’s example, the reitera-


tion of central theses in relation to particular texts and issues is essential for any constructing of an overall paradigm.

c) The book is felt to be largely convincing in terms of its exegesis and treatment of issues and that it could make a difference in Johannine studies. Particular instances are cited by most, but the comment is also stated gener-ally by over half of the reviewers. In particular, Andreas Köstenberger and Moody Smith suggest that the book could make a difference in Johannine studies, and David DeSilva outlines some of the more significant theories and their implications for New Testament studies in general.13 Several com-ment on particular aspects of John 6 and the value of engaging its related issues accordingly. These include aspects of John’s literary unity, theological tensions, the primary place where Synoptic and Johannine presentations converge (other than the Passion narrative), and a dramatic turning point in the mission of Jesus.14

d) The book engages helpfully the substantial secondary literature sur-rounding John’s Christology, including treatments of John 6, sacramentology, Johannine Christianity, and interdisciplinary studies. Ulrich Mauser, Moody Smith, and Robert Kysar, in particular, have expressed appreciation for the analysis of international and important contributions in a synthesizing way. Therefore, the literature reviews in the introduction, Ch. 1, and elsewhere (often in the notes) are felt to be serviceable to others seeking to engage the best of scholarly Johannine literature. The bibliographies are also cited with appreciation at times, as bringing to light particular works that might be of interest for further study.15

13. For one of the most useful and up to date introductions to the New Testament, See David DeSilva’s, An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), especially his Johannine chapters, 391–474.

14. Raymond Brown was especially taken with the three levels of dialogue in Part III in commenting on his endorsement for the TPI printing. He was scheduled to review the book at the 2008 Orlando AAR/SBL meetings, but his death the previous summer was most untimely, and a loss on many levels. Francis J. Moloney has performed an invaluable service in editing and finalizing Brown’s new introduction he was working on: An Introduction to the Gospel of John (Anchor Bible Reference Library; New York: Doubleday, 2003).

15. For an additional literature review see “Beyond the Shade of the Oak Tree: Recent Growth in Johannine Studies” (2008). See also Pamela Kinlaw, The Christ is Jesus; Metamorphosis, Possession, and Johannine Christology (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2005) 1, who

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e) The book develops clearly the Prophet-like-Moses agency Christology (based on Deuteronomy 18) within John, which accounts for at least one source of John’s christological unity and disunity—the Father/Son relationship. The subordinationist and egalitarian aspects of the Son’s relation to the Father in John are not factors of disparate Christologies emerging from different sources. The one who is sent is to be regarded in all ways like the Sender precisely because he does nothing on his own behalf—only what the Sender instructs. This feature has extensive implications for Christian theology, but as of yet few theologians have engaged the work’s theological implications on this matter.16

f ) The book opens interesting possibilities regarding the apostolic origins of the pre-Markan and the early Johannine traditions, which reflect “bi-optic” perspectives on the ministry of Jesus from the earliest stages of the material rather than later, and only later, divergences. Oddly enough, the striking observa-tion of Appendix VIII, developing a hitherto undetected first-century clue to possible origins of the Johannine tradition, was explicitly engaged by only a few reviews. Michael Daise mentions it briefly, although Andreas Köstenberger, Kavin Rowe, and David DeSilva do more with it. While the arguments and theses of the book hold together independent of this detail, as Borgen notes, it could be one of the most provocative aspects of the study. At the very least, it calls for critical skepticism regarding scholarly claims to know whom the Fourth Evangelist cannot have been based on only partially adequate construals of primitive evidence.17

builds on the five categories of the secondary literature approaching John’s Christology.16. See, however, Alan Padgett’s engagement of the theological implications of the

book in RBL 1 (1999): 56-61. On the agency schema, see “The Having-Sent-Me Father” (1999) and Outline D; one scholar criticized the work for the absence of developing the shaliach motif but failed to note the extensive treatments of the agency schema rooted in Deut 18.

17. Consider also the impressive critical work of Charles Hill, The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), which cites no fewer than 42 second-century opinions regarding John’s authorship in addition to (and mostly before) Irenaeus (450). He also effectively challenges the views that John was the favorite text of heretics (Gnostics) and a scandal to the orthodox as flawed historical assumptions. While the second-century opinion on John’s authorship may have been wrong, it was nonetheless unanimous, and Christology, Appendix VIII (274–77), identifies what may be the earliest


The implications of these responses support one’s proceeding with an inter-disciplinary approach to addressing the Johannine riddles—literary, histori-cal, and theological. The sequence of these three fields is also serviceable in terms of providing the most solid bases for constructing new paradigms of interpretation. Literary analysis works first with the phenomenology of the text—dealing with its rough transitions, aporias, and nuances—seeking to pose a tenable theory of composition; historical analysis assesses the char-acter of the Johannine rendering of the ministry of Jesus, comparing it also with parallel traditions, seeking to ascertain what knowledge it might shed on is subject—Jesus—in the light of its evolving situation history; and theological analysis leads to the inference of meaning with relation to understandings of original audiences and present ones. The construction of workable paradigms progresses most effectively when building on the strongest inferences and moving from thence toward the more speculative.

3. Minority Opinions

Third, comments common to some (but less than half of ) reviewers include the following: a) the book makes suggestive historical-critical contributions, especially related to the historicity of the Johannine tradition and its evolving context. While a couple of reviewers question the degree to which matters of history—either of Jesus’ ministry or of Johannine Christianity—can be inferred from this (or any) analysis of John’s tradition, historical-critical ob-servations and suggestions are nonetheless felt to be very important among several reviewers. In particular, Culpepper, Snyder, Borgen, and Smith take note of the multiplicity of dialogical partners in the Johannine situation toward the end of the first century ce.18 Reviewers questioning the enter-

clear association between the apostle John and a Johannine associative phrase—a full century before Irenaeus.

18. According to Borgen (Journal of Theological Studies 49, 1998, 751–58), “Anderson’s dissertation has many merits. He formulates a relevant problem in Johannine research, and with energy and creative analyses he works through the secondary literature and primary sources. In a fruitful way he points to the interplay between, on one hand, one’s understanding of John’s distinctive unitive and disunitive Christology, and on the other hand, one’s understanding of the literary sources…. Moreover it is impressive that he is able to tie together into his solution of the problem insights gained from the research of

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prise of situation-history analysis, and thus my approaches to these issues, include Turner and Köstenberger. My view is that John was written from a particular situation, not for a particular situation.

b) The book makes a plausible corrective to Borgen’s identification of a manna-related homiletical pattern in Philo and ancient midrashim, and the related implication that Exodus 16:4 was a text that was developed homileti-cally in John 6. Professors Painter and Moloney, in particular, are confirming of the thesis that the closest Hebrew text is Psalm 78, and they endorse the view that John 6 represents not an expansion upon a biblical text proper, but a homiletical expansion upon the words and works of Jesus. Borgen, of course, objects that the poetic form of Psalm 78 distances it from the narrative form of John 6, which should be considered closer to Exodus 16. Other than Mackay (see note 44), none of the reviewers (even Borgen) comments on the finding that the prevalent (about 85% by my estima-tions) use of manna in the ancient literature itself betrays a different pattern from the ones inferred by Borgen. Rather than being a proem text to be expanded upon, the manna motif in ancient Hebrew writings is primarily used as a secondary text—what I call “a rhetorical trump”—used to add punch to another interpretation or argument.19 As a trump card takes all the other cards in a hand, so the manna from heaven silences all opposition to an argument.

c) The book makes timely contributions along the lines of ecclesiology. In particular, the juxtaposed presentations of Peter and the Beloved Disciple, combined with contrastive (corrective?) presentations of themes related to Matthew 16:17–19 in John, have been mentioned as intriguing by review-ers. Some, such as Turner’s review in the Heythrop Journal, question whether such egalitarian approaches fit too neatly with the author’s background,

C. K. Barrett (the dialectical character of John’s thought), of C. H. Dodd (oral tradition), of B. Lindars and P. Borgen (homiletic use of tradition and Scripture), of R. E. Brown and J. L. Martyn (a situation of tension within a synagogal context), and of E. Käsemann (anti-Petrine understanding of the church).”

19. This is also the way it is used by the crowd in John 6, and the Johannine Jesus is portrayed here as overturning conventional Jewish manna rhetoric and emphasizing response to the divine initiative in the eschatological present over and above wistful commemorations of the momentous past. The use of manna as a rhetorical trump is developed further in Sitz im Leben (1997) 11–17.


and others have voiced this criticism, as well. In defense of one’s objectivity, though, may I point out that I do not spiritualize away the Matthean “keys to the Kingdom” passage as though the foundational “rock” of the church were a confession, or even the revelatory charism behind it. I believe this passage did serve centralizing and institutionalizing functions in the proto-Ignatian sub-apostolic era; but, unlike some interpreters, I believe a more realistic appraisal of the late first-century church must account also for the apparent Johannine challenge to Petrine structural leadership as noticed by Professors Käsemann, Snyder, Agourides, Dunn, and others. It is no accident that Martin Luther constructed his doctrine of “the priesthood of believers” squarely on John 20:21–23, and some of the ecclesial tensions in later church situations plausibly have echoed real tensions in the late first century ce. In the light of 3 John and rising Ignatianism, John’s ecclesiology likely reflects a set of intramural discussions about the way the risen Lord is understood to lead the community of faith. With Raymond Brown’s con-tribution on the sub-apostolic era,20 the mistake is to assume there was only one apostolic ecclesial approach to the organizational and community life of the early church. The Johannine Gospel poses a spirit-based alternative to emerging structural leadership, and the best way forward ecclesiologi-cally is to incorporate the strongest features of each model, appreciating also its weaknesses.21

20. See Raymond Brown’s excellent book, The Churches the Apostles Left Behind (New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1984), where no fewer than seven approaches to church organization in the New Testament era are described and analyzed according to their strengths and weaknesses. One place where I would take issue with Father Brown involves the basis for his excluding one of the Twelve as a candidate for being the Fourth Evangelist: his critical presentation of Peter, and implicitly, apostolic hierarchy. I believe the opposite is actually more arguable: it may have been precisely one of the Twelve (or one following in this apostle’s wake) that was pointedly critical of apostolic authority being co-opted by structuralizing, third-generation leadership. The charismatic work and words of Jesus come through in the Johannine Gospel in ways that may be both distinctive and authentic precisely because they argue for a more primitive and informal approach to church leadership. For more on the congruence of this feature with the ministry of the historical Jesus, see The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus (2006, 171–72); for more on the engagements with Diotrephes and his kin, see, Sitz im Leben (1997) 50–57 and “‘You Have the Words of Eternal Life’” (2007).

21. Practical implications here abound! This is what was suggested in my response to

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d) The book contributes to our understanding the evolution of the sacra-ments and builds upon significant parallels with Ignatius’ writings. In particu-lar, Moloney and several others concur with the view that John 6:51–58 refers not to the indispensability of the eucharist for salvation, but to soli-darity with Jesus and the community of faith in a context of persecution. He also requests, however, an elaboration upon how the “Way of the Cross” in John would have been distinct from the same motif in Mark and Paul. Here I infer a thematic similarity of exhortation with primary differences extending to expression, situation, and formalization. One is reminded that even the challenge of Jesus to the sons of Zebedee in the Synoptics regarding sharing Jesus’ cup and participating in his baptism was an in-vitation to martyrological faithfulness, rather than cultic means of grace (Mk 10:38–39). Those developments came later. John thus shares in that more primitive martyrological association, which later became more for-malized in the Synoptic and Pauline writings, but apparently not in John. Some scholars question my analysis here as adverse to sacramental theol-ogy and practice,22 but more accurately it is intended to get at the core of Johannine sacramentology in a critical-yet-constructive way, honoring the innocence of the text rather than intrusively filling in the gaps with anachronistic formalizing inferences.

e) The book contributes to new-literary analyses of John’s text. Jeff Staley and Andrianjatovo Rakotoharintsifa mention specifically this use of Mikhail Bakhtin’s work in the study of John, and several comment favorably on the development of irony and the outlining of the rhetorical structure and

Pope John Paul II, “Petrine Ministry and Christocracy,” (2005). Structural and charismatic modes of leadership are both apostolic, and effective Christian leadership maximizes the strengths of each. Commissioned by the NCCC Faith and Order Commission, I was able to give published copies of my response to Cardinal Kasper and Pope Benedict XVI personally in October 2006 on my visit to the Vatican as an advisor to the Conference of Secretaries of World Christian Communions.

22. See Alan Padgett’s critique and my response to it for a vigorous discussion of sacramental issues in RBL 1 (1999) 56–61, 69–72. Padgett is apparently unaware of the important theological distinction made by Bultmann regarding the incompatibility between Jesus’ being the only way to the Father in John 14:6 and the cultic interpretation of John 6:53–54 as requiring a cultic form as a soteriological criterion. Here I side with Bultmann on the tension, although he fails to see 6:51–58 as also a reference to the “Way to the Cross,” while regarding John 6:60–71 explicitly as such.


function of the Johannine misunderstanding dialogue. Some applications of the rhetorical function of misunderstanding in John have been noted, and connecting the rhetorical functions of the Johannine dialogue to the dialectical Johannine situation poses new vistas of interpretation. When considered in the light of seven dialogical crises over seven decades within the Johannine situation, one can benefit from a two-level reading of John in each of these settings, not just one.23

f ) The book casts light on the larger dialogical Johannine situation. Rather than a single crisis, the book poses a new synthesis of at least five crises (sequential yet overlapping) within later Johannine Christianity, each of which is engaged dialectically by the evangelist’s narration. Intramural engagements include conflicts with the local Synagogue, docetizing incli-nations of Gentile Christians eschewing a human (and therefore a suffer-ing) Jesus, and challenges resulting from centralizing and institutionalizing moves within the larger Christian movement. Extramural engagements involved hardships received from the local Roman presence, calling for ex-plicit emperor worship during the reign of Domitian, and some interaction with alternative gospel traditions and emphases (see Sitz im Leben 1997, 24–57). As Outline B shows, however, two additional earlier dialogical en-gagements include north-south dialogues between Galileans and Judeans and dialogues with followers of John the Baptist. The running set of en-gagements with parallel gospel traditions likely spanned all the others over a seven-decade period of Johannine tradition development.24

g) The book makes strides toward a new theory of Johannine/Synoptic relations. As spelled out in Outline C, the pre-Markan and oral Johannine traditions were “interfluential” in their early contacts (John did not depend on Mark as a written source); Luke drew from the Johannine tradition in

23. For a setting-engaged analysis of the rhetorical function of the Johannine misunderstanding dialogue, see the application of Bakhtinian theory to Johannine literary and situational factors in “Bakhtin’s Dialogism and the Corrective Rhetoric of the Johannine Misunderstanding Dialogue” (2007). See also Sitz im Leben (1997) 17–24.

24. See “Mark, John, and Answerability: Aspects of Interfluentiality between the Second and Fourth Gospels” (2001) for six levels of interfluential engagement between the Johannine and Markan traditions. See also “John and Mark—the Bi-Optic Gospels” (2001).

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its oral stages (which affected his augmenting or departing from Mark at many junctures, and which likely influenced his theological treatments of women, Samaritans and pneumatology); the Q tradition may have drawn from particular aspects of the Johannine oral tradition (hence the “bolt out of the Johannine blue in Matthew and Luke); and the later Matthean and Johannine traditions were both engaged in addressing ecclesial matters (but may also have been in dialogue with each other on these and other issues). More detailed evidence for an emerging “Bi-Optic Hypothesis” is available elsewhere.25

h) The book has implications for theology proper, and also for the quest for the Jesus of history. In addition to Ulrich Mauser, several comment on the book’s interdisciplinary methodology, and likewise implications. Implications for theology of course extend to various aspects of Christology, soteriology, pneumatology, ecclesiology, and sacramentology, to name a few; the work also has implications for the historical study of Jesus (see Outlines E and F). While much of John’s content can be traced to develop-ments within the Johannine tradition, not all of it can. Some distinctive content in the Fourth Gospel appears to reflect an individuated perspective on the ministry of Jesus, and sorting out aspects of historicity remains a task to be done.26

As a factor of taking these issues further, several new constructs have been emerging in my overall theory, which I call the dialogical autonomy of the Fourth Gospel. First, a two-edition theory of composition, with the Epistles being written between the first and final edition of the Johannine Gospel, seems the best way forward (see Outline A). Second, the evolving Johannine situation calls for analysis as to a realistic inference of multiple partners

25. See “Interfluential, Formative, and Dialectical: A Theory of John’s Relation to the Synoptics” (2002). Note the impressive divide among European scholars regarding the priority and posteriority of John represented elsewhere in this important collection and in the concluding discussion (281–318). A revision of the above essay was published in The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus (2006, 101–26).

26. See “Aspects of Historicity in John: Implications for Archaeological and Jesus Studies” (2006); see also The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus (2006) and what will eventually be the three volumes in the John, Jesus, and History Project (2007, 2009).


in dialogue over a 70-year span, including transitions from Palestinian to Asia Minor settings and movement from a primary community to multiple ones (see Outline B). Third, John’s particular relation to each of the Gospel traditions deserves to be analyzed, leading to a comprehensive and nuanced theory of gospel relations (see Outline C). Fourth, interpreting Johannine theological and christological motifs in relation to those original dialogues lends itself to viable applications within later settings (see Outlines D and E). And fifth, given an adequate appraisal of John’s dialogical autonomy, its contributions to quests for the Jesus of history and the development of early Christianity become apparent (see Outline F). In addition to the outlines of emerging approaches to these issues included at the end of the new introduction, further developments are referenced in the bibliographic appendix.

4. Individual Comments

Particular critical comments have also emerged, and some of these include challenges by scholars who have taken exception to particular aspects the book. While this is not the place to address fully any of these critical com-ments, at least brief responses are here provided. Other fuller engagements will be found elsewhere.

a) Some have questioned whether applying psychological tools to biblical analysis is a suitable way to conduct biblical analysis. Francisco Contreras Molina raises a question on this matter, suggesting that psychological tools are used at the expense of theological interpretation, although most review-ers infer the opposite. In clarification, as James Fowler points out, neither his nor Loder’s approach to cognitive-critical issues is merely “psychologi-cal.” Rather, they are both scientific studies in religious anthropology de-signed to ascertain on the basis of empirical research and critical analysis the relation between human religious experience and cognition. Indeed, with the introduction of any new discipline to biblical critical studies, cognitive-critical analyses will need to be tested in terms of their effective-ness and serviceability. A template of how this might be done is provided, however, in the introduction to the four-part essay (by Anderson, Ellens,

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and Fowler) which lays out what Cognitive-Critical Biblical Analysis might look like.27

b) Some scholars have raised questions about whether Peter is indeed presented as “returning the Keys of the Kingdom” to Jesus in John 6:68-69. Indeed, the point is cast in overstated terms, so the criticism is well taken. However, the larger question is the degree to which there may have been a corrective set of dialogues between Johannine approaches to ecclesiology and developing Christian institutionalism. Correctives may have gone the other way, as well.28 It therefore may be a mistake to see the Johannine-Matthean dialogues as reflecting direct debates between Gospel texts or traditions, their authors, or even their communities in particular. Rather, all it takes is one strident appropriation of Matthean authority (say, by Diotrephes who “loves to be first” in 3 Jn 9–10) to evoke an ideological response from the Johannine leadership. This clarifies what I believe may have happened within the Johannine-Matthean interfluential dialectic.

c) As mentioned above, some scholars have raised questions about the degree to which the history of the Johannine situation can be inferred, or whether John contributes to the historical investigation of Jesus. Indeed, ques-tions of historicity are relevant to any gospel-critical studies, but to say that nothing historical can ever be known from a gospel narrative pushes things too far. Corroborative literature for understanding the Johannine situation includes the three Johannine Epistles, and corroborative literature for assessing the Fourth Gospel’s contribution to the historical study of Jesus includes the three Synoptic Gospels. John Painter criticizes my infer-ring of Peter as a source for Mark as “somewhat naïve,” but he misses two points. First, my contention is that persons like Peter and John (not neces-sarily either or both of these two leaders) may account for the individuated

27. See “A Way Forward” (2004); also consider the fuller development of Christology, Ch. 7 in “The Cognitive Origins” (2004).

28. See Professor Stanton’s critique and my response in RBL 1 (1999) 53–56, 67–69. Nuancing my points a bit in Christology, Ch. 10, I can affirm in my response the many ways the Matthean and Johannine approaches cohere with each other and to distinguish the best of Matthean structuralizing work from its more strident expressions. The same should be done regarding the best of Johannine pneumatism versus its distortions.


character of the Markan and Johannine traditions (Christology, 154–60).29 Second, Painter fails to note the many ways a Petrine trajectory can be inferred in Mark, 1 Peter, Acts, and Matthew (Christology, 226–51), and he does not comment on the newly discovered first-century clue to Johannine authorship (Christology, 274–77). Naïvete is one thing; an alternative judg-ment based on an overlooked connection is another. On those bases, there are sound critical reasons for at least exploring such a consideration. Both in its originative and developing histories, the Johannine tradition demands fresh approaches to its historical-critical analysis, and more work is yet to be done.

d) A couple of minority reports criticize the work in ways that fail to appreciate the issues being addressed. One questions the value of a work that is hopelessly caught up in the world of biblical critical scholarship; to which I must confess, “Guilty as charged!”30 The work is critical through and through, hoping to make advances in the scientific investigation of the New Testament; general audiences are addressed in other writings. The second questions whether my own work is itself dialogical, in that I make several judgments along the way—juxtaposing Johannine authentic faith with Markan-type signs faith, and comparing/contrasting Matthean and Johannine ecclesiologies. Thomas Schreiner, however, does not read far enough, in that I do make reference to the Markan emphasis on suffering in dialectical perspective, and he misstates my points only to disagree with them.31 On these matters, making a clear judgment is sometimes a factor

29. See, for instance, Martin Hengel’s Studies in the Gospel of Mark (E.t. by John Bowden, Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985, 50-58), where he argues compellingly for Mark’s being an interpreter of Peter. Put conversely, is it critically tenable to hold that no first-generation leaders stood behind the oral rendering of the pre-Markan and early Johannine traditions? Such a view is incredulous, not that Painter holds such a view.

30. The review by Paul Livermore appears to reflect little awareness of Johannine critical issues, and while it lauds my critiques of Bultmann’s work, it lumps it in the same category: a wrong-headed historical-critical approach to the Gospels. Surprisingly, despite being published in a leading psychological journal (Journal of Psychology and Christianity), little is done with the cognitive-critical approaches advanced in this study. J. Harold Ellens’ valuation is far more profitable from a psychology-and-biblical-studies perspective.

31. Apparently Schreiner misses the fact that other scholars also see Markan wonder-attestations as unreflective and thaumaturgical (Betz, Bultmann, Fortna, etc.). He also

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of considering the evidence critically rather than the failure to engage in dialectical thinking. At the risk of seeming monological, on that I have a singular opinion.

e) One of the most engaged of critiques is that of Professor Borgen, who continues to defend the midrashic character of John 6. In particular, Borgen faults the study for connecting John 6 with Psalm 78, arguing that the differences of literary form (a psalm versus a narrative) make the focus on the latter text a questionable move. He also cites form-critical analyses to show that the homiletical pattern he earlier proposed indeed can be seen in John 6 and argues that the focus on verse 27 rather than 35 pushes things from Christology to anthropology.32 A third objection involves my use of the term “homiletical pattern” to refer to what Borgen insists should be called “a pattern of exegetical debate.”33 Borgen’s points are well taken, and his third criticism is correct; the midrashic pattern closest to the dialogue over the manna in John 6 is what he calls “a pattern of exegetical debate” elsewhere. However, on the primary use of manna in nearly all the ancient Jewish literature is primarily rhetorical, used as a secondary text (in Philo, the midrashim, Hebrew Scripture, and in John 6), despite differences in literary forms. Regarding his second criticism, because the implications of christological content cannot be separated from their pressing existential importance, John 6:35 must be taken in the light of the ethical implica-

overlooks my treatment of the Way of the Cross in Mark 8 and its parallels in John 6, and misstates my presentation of the death-producing manna only to register a complaint. A closer reading might invite other questions, but on these matters I plead “not guilty” of alleged monologism.

32. See Borgen’s extended engagement in his review in the Journal of Theological Studies 49 (October 1998) 751–58.

33. Peder Borgen, “The Scriptures and the Words and Works of Jesus,” in Tom Thatcher (ed.), What We Have Heard From the Beginning; The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007) 44. While Borgen calls my reference to “the exegetical pattern of debate” as a “homiletical pattern” a “confusing mistake,” when both patterns are compared with John 6, the manna reference is used rhetorically rather than exegetically. My further engagement of the exegetical pattern of debate is developed in Sitz im Leben (1997) 11–17; there I build on Borgen’s good work and the rhetorical use of manna to infer not simply the unity of a narrative text, but the likelihood that manna-rhetoric may have played a role in discussions during the ministry of Jesus as well as their developing representations.


tions: seeking the way of life over the way of death, parallel to the “two ways” of the Didache. In that sense, Christology does have anthropologi-cal implications, originally and otherwise. To believe in Jesus as the life-producing Bread (vs. 35) is to be willing to follow him to the cross (vss. 53–58); this is what scandalized the disciples (vs. 60), revealing the paradox of the life-producing nourishment that Jesus gives and is (vss. 27, 35, 51, 63). According to John, faith in Christ without faithfulness to Christ is neither authentic nor efficacious. As in Paul and in Mark, the gift of the resurrection implies willingness to embrace the Way of the Cross. In that existential sense, Christology and anthropology are inextricably linked.34

f ) In one of the most important scholarly treatments of New Testament Christology in recent years—and indeed a compelling answer to Bousset’s Kyrios Christos—Larry Hurtado responds favorably to my treat-ment of John’s agency Christology as the central feature in the Father-Son relationship in the Fourth Gospel. Hurtado agrees the egalitarianism and subordination of the Father-Son relationship in John do represent “two sides of the same coin,” and that the theological bases for inferring a dia-chronic history of John’s composition, with disparate sources reflecting earlier low Christologies and later ones reflecting high Christologies, are insufficient.35 Hurtado is less taken, however, with my judgment that the three “Antichrist” passages (1 Jn 2:18–25 and 1 Jn 4:1–3; 2 Jn 7) represent two different crises, siding with “the most popular scholarly view,” that the schismatics represent a singular docetic threat (Hurtado 416–17). On this matter, however, most scholars have overlooked several facts. a) The timing of the two threats is different: the first threat is passed (they went out from us), while the second is impending (test the spirits). b) The actions of the two threats are entirely different: the first threat involved a secession (their going out shows they never really were a part of us), but the second threat

34. Note also Borgen’s critique of Bornkamm’s failure to “discuss anthropology and Christology together” at the end of Bread from Heaven (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1965, 192). Verse 27 has a direct bearing upon verses 63 and 35. Again, the contentious issues surrounding most theological debates are their existential and personal implications; both must be considered together.

35. Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003, 393).

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involves impending visitations of false teachers from the outside (be on your guard). c) The content of their beliefs is entirely different: the schismat-ics of 1 John 2:18–25 refuse to believe Jesus is the Messiah/Christ, clinging to “the Father,” but if they reject the Son they will lose the Father; if they re-ceive the Son they will retain the Father.36 The false teachings referenced in 1 John 4:1–3 and 2 John 7, however, deny that Jesus came in the flesh. Rather than simplistically lumping of all the threats within the Johannine situation into a harmonized amalgam, more plausible is the emergence of several threats, which the Elder addresses with the plural reference Antichristoi as a means of confronting at least two major issues within his Christ-centered situation.

g) A final note should be made of James Loder’s primary contention with his otherwise appreciative evaluation of my incorporation of his work into the study of Gospel traditions.37 While Loder indeed concurred with the inference of transformative experiences as inherent to the origin and development of much of the distinctive Johannine memory, he was not content to leave the study on the level of tradition-analysis alone. He felt I had not gone far enough, in that he would assert that the appearance of Jesus on the lake actually performed a change in the natural state of things. This is what was attested and reflected upon within the Markan and Johannine traditions—distinctive impressions of a supra-normal event. While my primary interest was to infer the epistemological origin and

36. Errors of interpretation and the errors of the Johannine Antichrists are sketched further in “Antichristic Errors” (2007) and “Antichristic Crises” (2007). Indeed, it is the first Antichristic group, which had split off in the interest of preserving Jewish monotheism, which the evangelist also addresses with emphasizing the unity of the Father-Son relationship endorsed by Hurtado earlier. The docetist threat was not a schism, but a visitation of Gentile-Christian false teachers. While my use of the term “obviously” may be a bit strong, “arguably” would certainly suffice.

37. In his The Logic of the Spirit; Human Development in Theological Perspective (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 1998), James Loder says, “Paul Anderson, in his acclaimed study, The Christology of the Fourth Gospel, has shown how this [transformational] pattern shapes biblical narratives.” (247) He goes on to clarify: “My point with Anderson’s carefully worked out exegetical study is that the theophany was not merely making things better; it actually altered the physical reality at stake. This is a paradigm for how the spiritual presence of Christ works in the formation and transformation of the believer and his world” (333).


character of these distinctive bi-optic impressions, this approach neither discounts the possibility of such a reality, nor does it depend upon it for the inferences to be sound. Indeed, the words of the evangelist are as true regarding perceptual openness as they are regarding ocular sight: blessed are those who have not seen, and yet believe (Jn 20:29).

Among the above responses, both affirming and challenging engagements are serviceable. They help to clarify particular concerns and issues, pressing the inquiry further. Most of the negative critiques appear to have overlooked more nuanced aspects of the argument, and some of the more significant evidence put forward in the book appears to have been overlooked entirely by some reviewers despite being iterated in various ways. Nonetheless, al-ternative insights are appreciated, as they facilitate engaging other issues further.

5. Extended Engagements

A fifth category includes engaged reviews: more in-depth reviews to which I have also responded. Five of these were published in the first volume of the Review of Biblical Literature (1999, 38–72), following the review session at the 1998 AAR/SBL meetings. Raymond Brown was scheduled to be one of the reviewers, but due to his untimely death in August 1998 Alan Culpepper and Graham Stanton were asked to step in and fill out the review session, along with Robert Kysar, Sandra Schneiders, and Alan Padgett. Two other reviews engaged the cognitive-critical implications of the work as part of the reception report in the Psychology and Biblical Studies Section in 1999.38 J. Harold Ellens reviewed the book with a spe-cial eye toward Cognitive-Critical Analysis, and James Fowler responded to my reception report, suggesting further applications of Cognitive-Critical Analysis to classical biblical texts. Ian Mackay drew the work centrally into his discussion of John 6 and Mark 6 and 8, and I also have benefitted greatly from his contributions.

38. See the five reviews of Christology and my response in the RBL 1 (1999). See the three-part essay by myself, J. Harold Ellens and James W. Fowler, “A Way Forward” (2004). Only selected points are here summarized.

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a) Robert Kysar’s review of Part I notes the significance of the three surveys and their relevance to the issues. Most significant in his review is his emphatic agreement with my analysis of his 1973 article in chapter 3 (40). Kysar uses the occasion to highlight his own change of mind on scholars’ ability to discern inferred sources underlying John and points to the im-portance of engaging directly the presence of John’s dialectical tensions for Johannine interpretation to be meaningful and adequate. Kysar challenges, however, the assumption that the intention of the evangelist can ever be known—a common question among post-modern interpreters. On the surface level of the text, however, the evangelist does declare his intention explicitly in John 20:31: this narrative is written that its hearers and readers might believe. What that means, of course, is another matter. The claim that the evangelist presents Jesus’ original intentionality for the Church, of course, is a rhetorical point; demonstrating its historicity, though, is yet an-other task. In dialogue with rising institutionalism in the late first century, the intention of Jesus, wrongly or rightly, is presented in John as offsetting those developments. Interestingly, the Johannine presentation of a charis-matic Jesus with a spirit-based message is also arguable as commensurate with the latest historical-Jesus research. This discussion is not yet over.

b) Sandra Schneiders begins her review of Part II of the book by af-firming her “substantial agreement not only with the thesis of this volume but with almost all of its developments and conclusions” (42). She affirms the expansion upon Barrett’s contribution on John’s dialectical theology and appreciates treatment of the tensive relationship between signs and faith within John. Schneiders here raises a question, pointing out that be-lief, or at least openness to faith in John, leads to signs as well as being the result of them, citing pertinent examples. On this point, her critique is correct; nonetheless, I would still argue that the lack of faith as a reason for miracles not having happened is more characteristically Markan than Johannine. From there Schneiders argues that the interest in John’s stylistic unity and disunity was a factor of “misplaced anxiety” shared by Bultmann and Anderson alike. On this point, I might clarify that my analysis is mo-tivated by an attempt to address Bultmann’s concerns on his own terms. In the light of the present analysis, I would say there is not much to be anxious over—John’s tradition seems more unitive than disunitive. She concludes


her review with an insightful treatment of the need for interdisciplinary approaches to John, and an emphasis on noting the relation between trans-formative encounter behind and in front of the text. On these good points, I could not agree more!39

c) Alan Culpepper begins his review of the exegetical analysis of John 6 in Part III, with noting the larger implications of using this chapter as a case study: “In fact, one quickly discovers that John 6 is merely the window through which Anderson looks at the history of the Johannine commu-nity and the effects of its crises on the development of the Gospel and its Christology” (48). Culpepper notes his agreement with John’s autonomy with relation to the Markan tradition, as well as its development in dia-logical relation with an unfolding set of crises in the Johannine situation. He also comments positively the familial aspects of John’s ecclesiology and compares the interdisciplinary approach to Vernon Robbins’ sociohistorical criticism. Culpepper is less impressed, however, with the inferences of the historicity of the Johannine tradition—at least with the markers that might suggest such. Illustrative details, he contends, may have been added to the text, and Psalm 77 and 107, as well as Job 9:8, could have provided ample bases for the Johannine sea-crossing narrative, as Gail O’Day has argued. These points are appreciated, although demonstrating them is different from asserting them. In my view, the burden of proof extends to claims of ahistoricity as well as historicity, and the former is often more difficult to prove. On the question of whether a miracle narrative has developed into a theophany in the Johannine sea-crossing narrative, I still think the evi-dence points in the other direction: a theophanic associative memory seems integral to the Johannine tradition rather than emerging solely as a later development. In cognitive-critical perspective, I believe this is arguable and an even more plausible approach.40 The presence of theological, biblical,

39. In my contribution to the collection of essays in honor of Culpepper’s Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel, I develop this interdisciplinary and dialogical approach further: “From One Dialogue to Another—Johannine Polyvalence from Origins to Receptions” (2008).

40. On investigations of aspects of John’s historicity, my treatments of archaeological and topographical features (“Aspects of Historicity” 2006) and historical contributions of John’s tradition (The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus 2006) lay out the argument in greater detail. In addition, Alan Culpepper and I have served on the steering committee of the John, Jesus, and History Group (along with Moody Smith, Tom Thatcher, Felix Just, Jaime Clark-Soles, and Mary Coloe), which by the end of its nine-year run (2002–2010)

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or inter-religious packaging neither supplants nor establishes a tradition’s origin; nonetheless, Culpepper’s highlighting these associative links is most helpful.

d) The fourth review was provided by Graham Stanton of Cambridge, arguably the leading Matthean and Synoptic scholar of the UK, who was asked to comment on the Johannine-Synoptic dialogical contributions of the book. Stanton’s favorable comments include affirmations of the Prophet-like-Moses agency schema underlying John’s Christology, the theory of Johannine-Markan interfluentiality at the oral stages of their traditions and Luke’s likely employment of the Johannine tradition, the intra-traditional dialogues between oral and written stages of the Johannine and other traditions, and the plausible set of dialogues between the Johannine and Matthean traditions. Stanton raises questions, though, about whether John and Matthew are as far apart as inferred, given that Matthew is also familial and egalitarian. He also rightly raises the need to include more focused treatments of other christological passages and themes (the Prologue and Son-of-Man references) in addition to John 6, and a need to expand not just on how the tensions in John’s Christology originated and developed, but also on how they might be resolved and interpreted meaningfully. I agree entirely with all of Stanton’s points, and the Johannine-Matthean connections cause me to think further about the ecclesial functions of their traditions in both corrective and complementary ways. Also, more work on John’s Christology indeed has yet to be done, including working on the Prologue and christological themes as well as considering their meaningful interpretation.41

will have contributed three volumes of essays on critical assessments of critical views, aspects of historicity in John, and glimpses of Jesus through the Johannine lens (John, Jesus, and History, 3 Vols., 2007, 2009, scheduled for 2011). The point is that degrees of plausibility regarding John’s historicity, or lack thereof, are intended to help scholars achieve greater agreement in how to approach these matters.

41. Influenced by Stanton’s linking of the Gospels of John and Matthew in second-century Christian literature, I developed a dialogical outline of their ecclesial developments internally and in dialogical relationship together in “You Alone” (2007). For a treatment of John’s christological tensions and their origins in the Prologue, see “On Guessing Points and Naming Stars” (2007). I hope to address the Johannine riddles in a future book-length treatment, including an analysis of Johannine theology in dialogical perspective; see The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel (2010).


e) Alan Padgett was asked to review the book from the standpoint of a systematic theologian, and his judgments were both favorable and unfavor-able. Favorable judgments include noting the feeding narrative as a means of “testing” the audience, the importance of John 6 for biblical studies and the implications of its demonstrated unity, and the building upon C. K. Barrett’s inference of the evangelist’s dialogical thinking. Padgett is wary, however, of inferring anachronistically modern analyses of psychological factors within the works of first-century authors. He appreciates interdisci-plinary work but calls for analysis in terms the ancient authors themselves would have used, as much as possible. More critically, Padgett challenges my treatment of Johannine sacramentology, charging it with being an antisacramental treatment in itself. On modern tools and approaches, I appreciate the cautions, but I see the burden of proof as being upon those who argue (not that Padgett is doing so) that first-century persons were existentially different from present-day persons. More serious, however, is Padgett’s failure to note why the sacramental tensions within the Johannine text are a real problem for interpreters.42 The puzzle is not simply the ab-

42. Interestingly, Padgett acknowledges that “There can be no question of a cultic, formal eucharist at this point of Christian history” (59), while at the same time rejecting my attempts to describe Johannine sacramentology as incarnational rather than formalistic. I also believe, counter to Padgett’s claims, that symbolization can lead to deeper religious associations and experiences, and I appreciate Raymond Brown’s work (which he cites), comparing the Johannine sacramentology to its semeiology—citing the value of the outward, but also the blessedness of believing without having seen (or heard, or tasted, or felt, or smelled; Jn 20:29). The problem is not so much John 6:54, but verse 53: “I tell you the truth, if you do not eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in yourselves.” To take this as a direct eucharistic reference rather than a eucharistic association is to say, “Unless you participate in the Eucharistic cult, you are damned!” Such an assertion would overturn John 20:29; 4:21–24; 14:6; and finally 3:16; so I still side with Bultmann against Padgett on this matter. It is a contradiction to Johannine Christocentric soteriology rather than a dialectical alternative. However, if 6:53 it is a direct reference to the Way of the Cross in 6:51 and its implications for saving faith and discipleship faithfulness, table fellowship within the community (informal or formal) could indeed have been a meaningful expression (and measure?) of corporate solidarity with Jesus and his followers—which for John is ever the essential matter. So, I still see Johannine sacramentology as incarnational (with C. J. Wright and others) rather than formalistic, and in that sense, it is the most primitive and least developed among the gospel traditions, despite its location in the last Gospel to be finalized.

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sence of sacramental formalism in John, but the apparent soteriological requisite for ingesting the “flesh and blood” of Jesus in John 6:53, whatever that means. Given the absence of an institution of the eucharist in John 13, where formalistic sacramentology would have been far more suitable if it were intended, the more primitive martyrological association—the Way of the Cross—seems more directly the thrust of John 6 (as it was in Mark 10:38–39 and parallel passages). This is also the main thrust of the discussion between Jesus and Peter following his confession in Mark (see Mark 8:31–38). Therefore, John’s use of sacramental imagery and associa-tions points to costly discipleship rather than formalized means of grace. On this matter, the Johannine tradition also seems closer to the informal ministry of Jesus rather than Pauline and Synoptic developments. Padgett concludes his review by picking up again on the importance of doing theol-ogy dialectically, by citing that great dialectical theologian, Karl Barth and his development of John 6:51 emphasizing Jesus’ overcoming death by suf-fering. On this point, I couldn’t agree more, so I think we do agree on the essential meaning here. I might like to have seen Padgett’s treatment of the implications of the agency schema for looking again at some of the classical issues of Christian theology and the relation of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but those discussions will have to be developed in the future.

f ) The reviews by J. Harold Ellens and James Fowler are included in an important four-volume collection, Psychology and the Bible, which launches a valuable interdisciplinary resource.43 After a gracious overview of the book, Ellens affirms its locating of tensions as internal to the think-ing of the evangelist, and he notes its potential impact upon Johannine studies in particular, and biblical studies in general. James Fowler was in-vited to respond to my reception report at the 1999 SBL meetings, and his evaluations were most favorable. Identifying the Gospel of John as a “Classic Text,” contributing to what Ricoeur refers to as “a surplus of mean-ing,” Fowler develops the importance of moving from analyzing how a text develops to understanding how it impacts its readership. Here he draws in the works of Paul Ricoeur, David Tracy, and Hans-Georg Gadamer into the

43. See the four-volume collection, Psychology and the Bible; A New Way to Read the Scriptures, ed. by J. Harold Ellens and Wayne Rollins (Westport/London: Praeger Publishers, 2004).


task of biblical interpretation and commends further engagement between the disciplines of biblical scholarship, theological reflection, and religious anthropology. Fowler agrees with the inference that Bultmann has limited the Fourth Evangelist to a Stage 4 level of Faith Development, and connects the evangelist’s thinking more with that of Nicolas of Cusa in its dialectical conjunction of opposites. Fowler also commends the employment of both his and Loder’s approaches together, in contrast to some who have been reluctant to do so. Fowler commends the importance of this cognitive-critical approach for understanding the development and transformational content of John, especially as it also facilitates helping us “recognize that truth takes form in the meaning space created between the apparently tensional dualities that the Gospel of John holds together.” In that sense, Fowler’s critique comes in the form of recommending more of this sort of work be done, not less. In particular, a dialectical treatment between ap-parent Johannine exclusivism and universalism (Jn 14:6 and 3:16) would further Johannine and theological studies, and a cognitive-critical approach to Paul’s experiential crisis in Romans 7 (failing to attain one’s intended goals yet appreciating the empowering work of the Spirit) would be greatly serviceable in the broader field of biblical studies. It might even contribute to Jewish-Christian dialogue (Romans 9-11) and a greater appreciation for the process of spiritual maturation behind and in front of the biblical text.

g) In one of the most sustained engagements of my work, Ian D. Mackay covers very well my Johannine-Markan analysis and draws it into the larger discussions of Gospel compositions and their relations.44 Mackay concurs with John and Mark being bi-optic traditions, although his basic thesis is that the Johannine evangelist is likely to have been familiar with the orally-delivered Gospel of Mark, affecting the crafting of the Johannine narrative along the lines of its overall pattern. On this score, Mackay actu-ally changed my mind, causing me to acknowledge likely familiarity with Mark, although I still hold to John’s traditional independence from it. Mackay concurs that there may also be some early interfluentiality between these two traditions, and he concurs with my analysis of the theological unity of John 6 (Mackay 74). He also appreciates the parallels with Socratic

44. Ian D. Mackay, John’s Relationship with Mark; An Analysis of John 6 in the Light of Mark 6–8. WUNT 2, 182 (Tűbingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2004).

EPILOGUE358

dialectic (101), the incarnational thrust of John’s sacramentality (versus for-malistic readings, 74), and he agrees with my treatment of Borgen’s work noting that the “haggadic text” of the discourse is John 6:1–27 instead of a biblical text (58, 65–66). He also notes the likely backdrop of Roman persecution (279) and can see the plausibility of John 6:71 being an in-terpolation by the redactor (277). In that sense, Mackay appreciates the complexity of the Johannine-Synoptic relationships, while at the same time laying out a case for the Fourth Evangelist’s familiarity with the Markan narrative. Mackay’s contribution is reflected in my overall analysis of the Johannine-Markan relationship.

In reflecting upon these reviews, I am greatly appreciative of the responses and the ways they contribute to the further exploration of these important issues. Certainly, the importance of establishing literary, historical, and theological bases for interpretation, building on the strongest and most plausible of inferences and moving from there to the more speculative, seems the best way forward. This is what I continue to attempt, and I look forward to continued development of a paradigm that might be serviceable to Johannine interpretation overall. In producing this third printing of The Christology of the Fourth Gospel with a new introduction, outlines, and epi-logue, I hope to outline these elements of a new paradigm and approaches to the Johannine riddles that are alluded to in the original monograph. As my theories continue to develop, all input and engagements are welcome. Indeed, the truth is always liberating (Jn 8:32), and that pertains to ap-proaches to biblical texts as well as their subject.

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"EPILOGUE: Responses to The Christology of the Fourth Gospel and Continuing Inquiry"

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