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Expulsion from the Synagogue: J. L. Martyn's History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2020

Martinus C. De Boer Open the ORCID record for Martinus C. De Boer [Opens in a new window]
Martinus C. De Boer*
Affiliation:
Faculteit Religie en Theologie, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1105, 1081 HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

In History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, Martyn argued that John 9.22 concerns the formal expulsion from the synagogue of Jews who were confessing Jesus as the Messiah of Jewish expectation. Johannine scholars following Martyn have often claimed that a ‘high’ Christology must have provided the catalyst for this trauma, not the ‘low’ Christology posited by Martyn. For Martyn, however, a ‘high’ Christology was a subsequent development, leading to a second trauma, that of execution for blasphemously claiming that Jesus was somehow equal to God. Accepting Martyn's argument on 9.22 with respect to this issue, and leaving aside the debate about the relevance of the Birkat ha-Minim, this article seeks to determine why local synagogue authorities, evidently represented in John's narrative by the Pharisees, would have found the acceptance of Jesus as Messiah so offensive that they formulated a decree to expel fellow Jews espousing this new messianic faith. Analysis of John 5, 7 and 9 demonstrates that the Pharisees in the Johannine setting found this confession offensive because they regarded the behaviour of Johannine disciples on the Sabbath as thoroughly inconsistent with their own understanding of the Sabbath commandment and as significantly hindering their desire to play an authoritative role in determining what counted as acceptable behaviour on the Sabbath and what did not. In short, the specific catalyst for expelling Jews confessing Jesus as Messiah from the synagogue was their Sabbath observance, which the Pharisees in the Johannine setting came to regard as an unacceptable deviation from their own developing views on the matter in the period after 70 ce.

Keywords

Gospel of JohnJ. Louis Martynexpulsion from the synagogueaposynagōgosSabbath observancePharisees
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 66 , Issue 3 , July 2020 , pp. 367 - 391
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Slightly revised version of the Main Paper presented in a plenary session at the 74th General Meeting of the SNTS in Marburg on 1 August 2019. Due to space limitations, the text of the footnotes provided with the version distributed at the conference has been drastically reduced.

References

1 New York: Harper & Row, 1968. Martyn's ongoing importance is attested by two recent major attempts to deconstruct his contribution, both published in the fiftieth anniversary year: Reinhartz, A., Cast Out of the Covenant: Jews and Anti-Judaism in the Gospel of John (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic, 2018)Google Scholar, incorporating earlier publications, and Frey, J., Theology and History in the Fourth Gospel: Tradition and Narration (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018)Google Scholar.

2 Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 19792.

3 The Gospel of John in Christian History (New York: Paulist, 1979).

4 Martyn, Christian History, 90–121. Martyn's colleague at Union Theological Seminary in New York, Raymond E. Brown, published his well-known The Community of the Beloved Disciple the same year (New York: Paulist, 1979). Brown was significantly influenced by Martyn's work though he went his own way in several respects.

5 Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 20033.

6 Martyn, History and Theology 3, 145–67. All subsequent references to ‘Glimpses’ are to the reprint in the third edition of the monograph.

7 All unmarked page references in the main text below, or in the footnotes, refer to the reprint in History and Theology 3, 25–143. (The first twenty-three pages consist of an essay by D. M. Smith, ‘The Contribution of J. Louis Martyn to the Understanding of the Gospel of John’).

8 Martyn, History and Theology 3, xiii.

9 Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 145. Martyn (‘Glimpses’, 145 n. 1) refers in this connection to Brown's hypothesis concerning the composition history of the Gospel in Brown, R. E., The Gospel according to John (i–xii) (AB 29; Garden City, NY: Doubleday 1966) xxxiv–xlGoogle Scholar.

10 Martyn seeks ‘to move from the relatively secure points in the document's literary history to reasonable hypotheses as regards the community's social and theological history’ (‘Glimpses’, 146; emphasis added).

11 Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 145.

12 I leave aside here the question whether it is appropriate to refer to the Johannine community as ‘sectarian’, as Martyn does; it is in any event the case that the Johannine language and idiom are remarkably distinctive with respect to other NT documents, including the Synoptics. On the Johannine community, see M. C. de Boer, ‘The Story of the Johannine Community and its Literature’, The Oxford Handbook of Johannine Studies (ed. J. M. Lieu and M. C. de Boer; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018) 63–82; and M. C. de Boer, ‘The Johannine Community under Attack in Recent Scholarship’, The Ways That Often Parted: Essays in Honor of Joel Marcus (ed. Lori Baron et al.; SBL Early Christianity and its Literature 24; Atlanta: SBL, 2018) 235–65.

13 Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 167 (emphasis original); repeated verbatim in J. L. Martyn, ‘The Johannine Community among Jewish and Other Early Christian Communities’, What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present, and Future of Johannine Studies (ed. T. Thatcher; Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007) 183–90, at 187. Martyn's concern is to understand ‘the Johannine community during a period in which it remained a Jewish-Christian church’ (J. L. Martyn, ‘Persecution and Martyrdom’, Christian History, 55–89, at 56; emphasis original). He has argued that an active mission to gentiles (as opposed to a mission to Jews) does not play a significant role in the formative version of the Gospel composed by ‘the evangelist’ (J. L. Martyn, ‘A Gentile Mission That Replaced an Earlier Jewish Mission?’, Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor of D. Moody Smith (ed. R. A. Culpepper and C. C. Black; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox) 124–44.

14 Cf. 40: ‘the text [of John 9] presents its witness on two levels: (1) It is a witness to an einmalig event during Jesus’ earthly lifetime. … (2) The text is also a witness of Jesus’ powerful presence in the actual events experienced by the Johannine church.’

15 A rudimentary form of Martyn's thesis about the relevance of the Birkat ha-Minim for the Gospel's three expulsion texts can already be found in Brown, John, xxxv, lxxiv–lxxv, lxxxv.

16 Also Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 145–6, 147 n. 6.

17 I will not enter the debate about the relevance of the Birkat ha-Minim for the Johannine texts here, but see J. Marcus (‘The Birkat ha-Minim Revisited’, NTS 55 (2009) 23–51), who renews and strengthens the case Martyn made for a relationship, and P. Alexander, ‘“The Parting of the Ways” from the Perspective of Rabbinic Judaism’, Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways ad 70 to 135 (ed. J. D. G. Dunn; WUNT 66; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1993) 1–25, at 6–11; P. Alexander, ‘Jewish Believers in Early Rabbinic Literature’, Jewish Believers in Christ: The Early Centuries (ed. O. Skarsaune and R. Hvalvik; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2007) 659–709, at 673–4.

18 Martyn refers to 16.2 for the first time well into chapter 1, and then only in a footnote (43 n. 17), and sporadically further on in chapters 1 and 2 (45, 48, 51, 60 n. 69, 61 n. 71). The focus remains on John 9.22.

19 Notice the use of the third person plural in both cases, as well as in 15.25 (‘their law’). On the meaning of the term ἀποσυνάγωγος in the Johannine context, see Martyn 48–51; S. Pancaro, The Law in the Fourth Gospel: The Torah and the Gospel, Moses and Jesus, Judaism and Christianity according to John (NovTSup xlii; Leiden: Brill, 1975) 247–8.

20 A. Reinhartz, ‘The Johannine Community and its Jewish Neighbors: Reappraisal’, What is John?, vol. ii: Literary and Social Readings of the Fourth Gospel (ed. F. F. Sevogia; Atlanta: Scholars, 1998) 111–38, at 133.

21 The term ‘disciples’ (μαθηταί), which occurs some seventy-eight times in John, is the designation the Fourth Gospel favours for those who have come to believe in Jesus as ‘the Christ, the Son of God’ (20.30–1). The designation is not limited to the Twelve (cf. 6.60–71) nor, seemingly, to pre-Easter adherents of Jesus. See P. Trebilco, Self-Designations and Group Identity in the New Testament (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012) 208–46, esp. 240–1. The fact that the term is absent from the Johannine Epistles suggests that the designation functioned only in an earlier period of Johannine history. That earlier period is the focus of this paper.

22 Martyn recognises this of course (140).

23 R. Kimelman, ‘Birkat ha-Minim and the Lack of Evidence for an Anti-Christian Jewish Prayer in Late Antiquity’, Jewish and Christian Self-Definition, vol. ii (ed. E. P. Sanders; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981) 226–44, at 234; S. T. Katz, ‘Issues in the Separation of Judaism and Christianity after 70 ce: A Reconsideration’, JBL 103 (1984) 43–76, at 66 n. 88;  R. Kysar, ‘The Whence and Whither of the Johannine Community’, Life in Abundance: Studies of John's Gospel in Tribute to Raymond E. Brown (ed. J. R. Donahue; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2005) 65–81, at 71; A. Reinhartz, ‘Building Skyscrapers on Toothpicks: The Literary-Critical Challenge to Historical Criticism’, Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present, and Future of the Fourth Gospel as Literature (ed. T. Thatcher and S. D. Moore; Atlanta: SBL, 2008) 55–76, at 76.

24 For this reason, Schnelle's attempt to reduce John 16.2, including the reference to expulsion, to ‘traditionelle Motive’ without ‘eine konkrete Auseinandersetzung’ (U. Schnelle, Das Evangelium nach Johannes (THNT 4; Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 20165) 322) is unconvincing.

25 Even more so if Reinhartz's argument is correct that everyone was welcome in the synagogue and that there was traffic back and forth between the Johannine community and the (local) synagogue (Reinhartz, ‘Skyscrapers’, 72–3).

26 E.g. H. N. Ridderbos, Het evangelie naar Johannes: Proeve van een theologische exegese, vol. i (Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1987); E. W. Klink III, ‘Expulsion from the Synagogue? Rethinking a Johannine Anachronism’, TynBul 59 (2008) 9–18; S. E. Porter, John, his Gospel, and Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015).

27 There is, I believe, also no compelling Synoptic corroboration of such a drastic and formal step. Luke 6.22 comes closest but even here the following verse (‘in that day’) indicates that a post-Easter situation is in view. Moreover, as Martyn astutely points out, the contrast drawn between discipleship to Jesus and discipleship to Moses in John 9.28 ‘is scarcely conceivable in Jesus’ lifetime, since it recognizes discipleship to Jesus not only as antithetical, but also as somehow comparable, to discipleship to Moses’ (47). Cf. Brown, John, 380; J. D. G. Dunn, The Partings of the Ways Between Christianity and Judaism and their Significance for the Character of Christianity (London: SCM/ Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991) 221.

28 Marcus points to ‘the fear’ that Martyn's reconstruction ‘will also lend credence to the belief … that subsequent Christian persecution of Jews has simply been payback for what Jews did to Christians’ (‘Birkat ha-Minim’, 526). He rightly adds: ‘This fear is not entirely paranoid.’ In my opinion, there is nothing in the Gospel of John, or in Martyn's reconstruction of the history of Johannine Christianity, that would in any way legitimate such a ‘payback’ mentality or the actions to which this mentality could lead (and has led), namely, the persecution, maltreatment or defamation of Jews. See M. C. de Boer, ‘The Depiction of “the Jews” in John's Gospel:  Matters of Behavior and Identity’, Anti-Judaism in the Fourth Gospel (ed. R. Bieringer et al.; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001) 141–57.

29 I prefer the term ‘expulsion’ to Martyn's ‘excommunication’, which has ecclesiastical overtones; also J. M. Lieu, ‘The Synagogue and the Separation of Christians’, The Ancient Synagogue from its Origins until 200 ce (ed. B. Olsson and M. Zetterholm; Coniectanea Biblica, New Testament Series 39; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 2003) 189–207, at 195.

30 According to Martyn, the expulsion meant that ‘an inner-synagogue group of Christian Jews now became – against its will – a separated community of Jewish Christians’ (70; emphasis original).  As a result, he has to wonder about the grounds on which the authorities could proceed to execution against members of this separated (Johannine) community. His answer is not strong: ‘I can only suggest that this authority exercised over excommunicates was of a very peculiar sort carried out in light of what Jewish leaders regarded as extremely provocative activity on the part of Jewish-Christian evangelists’ (75 n. 99). Given the continuing evangelistic efforts of Johannine preachers among Jews and the phenomenon of secret believers who feared expulsion from the synagogue (12.42), it is not so clear that the expelled Johannine believers thought of themselves at this stage of the conflict as a separated community rather than as an alienated group that still hoped for acceptance and reinstatement, even if their religious identity as Jews was already being called into question (9.28; cf. Alexander, ‘Parting’, 5). It is, then, perhaps more appropriate to speak of a community of Jewish Christians, fully separated from the synagogue, only after the second trauma had occurred, when all hope of acceptance and reconciliation had disappeared. J. Kloppenburg may thus be correct when he surmises that the term ἀποσυνάγωγος ‘originally applied to a temporary, disciplinary exclusion’ (‘Disaffiliation in Associations and the ἀποσυναγωγός of John’, HTS Teologise Studies/Theological Studies 67(1; Art. #962, 16 pages; DOI: 10.4102/hts.v67i1.962) 8).

31 Cf. 5.18; 8.53c, 58–9; 10.30–6; 19.7. This leaves Jesus open to the charge of blasphemy as happens in 10.33, 36.

32 On the death penalty for blasphemy and leading astray, see Lev 24.16; Deut 13.6–10; m. Sanh. 7.5, 10–11 (cf. John 19.7). Martyn finds historical corroboration for the second trauma in sources such as Justin's Dialogue with Trypho and certain rabbinic texts (78–82) which, he believes, attest ‘a legal process according to which one who leads the people astray (to worship a god alongside God) is subject to arrest, trial, and execution’ (78). In ‘Persecution and Martyrdom’, Martyn finds further support in the Pseudo-Clementine literature.

33 Cf. de Boer, ‘Johannine Community under Attack’, 233–4. After a review of the evidence from the first and second centuries, S. G. Wilson (Related Strangers: Jews and Christians 70–170 ce (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 173) concludes that ‘there is little reason to doubt that on some occasions some Jews took the opportunity to have [Jewish-]Christians put to death’.

34 On the importance of the fulfilment of Jesus’ predictions, including that of expulsion in 16.2a, for the reliability or truth of his testimony, see A. T. Lincoln, Truth on Trial: The Lawsuit Motif in the Fourth Gospel (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2000) 200, 205, 269.

35 Martyn himself encourages such a reading when he alludes to John 16.2b as part of his two-level dramatic presentation of John 9 in chapter 1 of his monograph (45).

36 Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 154–7.

37 This is the case despite the fact that he explicitly speaks of ‘two major traumas’ here (‘Glimpses’, 154). There are indications that Martyn was leaning in the direction of distinguishing more sharply between them in the second edition (and so also in the third edition) of History and Theology (60 n. 69, 71–2) than he had in the first.

38 Following Brown, Martyn posits that there were two editions of the Fourth Gospel by ‘the evangelist’ after the second trauma (‘Glimpses’, 157 with n. 38), with a final redaction after that, when John 21 was added (Martyn, ‘Gentile Mission’, 127). He does not, as one might expect, correlate the two editions by ‘the evangelist’ with ‘the two major traumas’ that overtook the Johannine community. See de Boer, ‘Story’, 75–6.

39 Brown, Community, 34, 43, 166.

40 Lincoln, Truth, 278.

41 Smith, ‘Contribution’, 21.

42 J. Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 20072) 23.

43 J. Zumstein, Das Johannesevangelium (Meyers KEK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016) 360–1.

44 J. Frey, ‘Towards Reconfiguring our Views on the “Parting of the Ways”: Ephesus as a Test Case’, John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context (ed. R. A. Culpepper and P. N. Anderson; Atlanta: SBL, 217) 221–42, at 236.

45 Zumstein is among those who argue that a high Christology developed ‘sehr früh und ist vielleicht sogar an den Anfang der joh[anneischen] Entwicklungslinie zu setzen’ (Johannesevangelium, 13). But the evidence of the Gospel seems to speak against this surmise (see below).

46 Brown, Community, 174; cf. 36.

47 Martyn, ‘Contribution’, 21.

48 In John 1.41 and 4.25, the Greek term Χριστός, used in 9.22, is given as the translation of the transliterated Aramaic counterpart Μεσσίας.

49 The use of παρὰ θεοῦ in John 1.6 shows that a high Christology is not inherent in this or similar phrases.

50 Martyn appeals to such passages as 1.35–49; 2.23; 6.2 (with 11.45 and 12.18), 14; 7.31; 20.30–1. Cf. his discussion of 1.35–49 in ‘Glimpses’, 147–50. See now in support of Martyn, M. Novenson, ‘Jesus the Messiah: Conservatism and Radicalism in Johannine Christology’, Portraits of Jesus in the Gospel of John: A Christological Spectrum (ed. C. Koester; LNTS 589; London: T&T Clark, 2019) 109–23, at 117.

51 Martyn follows the reading of P66 (104 n. 155, 112 n. 175).

52 On the connection of the term σημεῖον with Moses (and the Exodus), cf. LXX Exod 4.1–9, 28–31; 7.3; 10.1; Num 14.11, 22; Deut 7.19; 34.11; Jer 32.20; Acts 7.36. The figure of Elijah (John 1.21) also plays a role in Martyn's discussion (97, 110 n. 172), but I leave that aside here. See Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 149–50; Martyn, Christian History, 9–54; and M. C. de Boer, Johannine Perspectives on the Death of Jesus (CBET 17; Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1996) 87–9.

53 Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 150. Martyn appeals to the work of his student R. T. Fortna in particular (The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the Fourth Gospel (SNTSMS 11; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), without however adopting his results tout court. Fortna regarded this Signs Gospel as a non-Johannine ‘source’, but since Martyn ascribes its composition to ‘one of the preachers’ of the ‘inner-synagogue messianic group’, he evidently regards the Signs Gospel as basically a Johannine product which served as a Grundevangelium for ‘the evangelist’ and his community.

54 Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 150 (emphasis added). Cf. John 7.31; 20.30.

55 Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 155. Cf. John 1.45; 5.46.

56 In the period leading up to the edict to expel, according to Martyn, the authorities ‘began to be quite suspicious of the rapidly growing messianic group, and both they and some rank-and-file members demanded that the group prove the validity of its messianic proclamation on the basis of exegesis. There ensued a number of midrashic debates’ (‘Glimpses’, 154; emphasis added). See e.g. John 6.30–2 (on which see Martyn 119–23) and 7.45–52.

57 According to Martyn, and as others have noted, ‘the absence of the definite article before the word “prophet” is by no means an infallible signal that the reference is to be taken in a general sense’ (110 n. 72). See M. Labahn, Jesus als Lebenspender: Untersuchungen zu einer Geschichte der johanneischen Tradition anhand ihrer Wundergeschichten (BZNW 98; Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1999) 351–2.

58 The threefold denial of John the Baptist that he is ‘the Messiah’, ‘Elijah’ or ‘the prophet’ in 1.20–1 becomes in 3.28 the single denial that he is ‘the Messiah’. The latter title functions here as the overarching term encompassing motifs and expectations associated with the other two.

59 Cf. S. J. D. Cohen, ‘The Significance of Yavneh: Pharisees, Rabbis, and the End of Jewish Sectarianism’, Hebrew Union College Annual 55 (1984) 27–53, at 27–8.

60 Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 166 n. 53. For a similar analysis of the situation, see earlier Brown, John, lxxiv–lxxv.  See further Alexander, ‘Parting’, 6–11; Alexander, ‘Jewish Believers’, 671–7; Wilson, Related Strangers, 193.

61 Martyn moves in this direction when he intimates that successful Johannine missionary efforts played a role in the separation: ‘the local Jewish authorities came at some point to view the growing numbers of ‘believing’ Jews as a stream of apostates that had to be stopped’ (70; emphasis added). Cf. ‘Glimpses’, 155.

62 Five times John uses the expression ‘the chief priests and the Pharisees’ (οἱ ἀρχιερεῖς καὶ οἱ Φαρισαῖοι, 7.32b, 45; 11.47, 57; 18.3) whereby, as Martyn convincingly argues, John ‘refers simultaneously to the Jerusalem Sanhedrin of Jesus’ day and to the Gerousia of John's city’ (86; emphasis original), ‘the majority of whose members are (or appear to John to be) Pharisees’ (86). The Pharisees are, then, ‘for all practical purposes, the Gerousia’ (88).

63 Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 152.

64 Reinhartz, ‘Skyscrapers’, 71.

65 Cohen, ‘Yavneh’, 41.

66 Kloppenborg, ‘Disaffiliation’.

67 Kloppenborg rejects the standard view that a high Christology lies behind the expulsion. He suggests that John's high Christology is ‘a response to exclusion’ (‘Disaffiliation’, 13) which was also Martyn's view.

68 Kloppenborg, ‘Disaffiliation’, 5.

69 Kloppenborg, ‘Disaffiliation’, 8.

70 Kloppenborg, ‘Disaffiliation’, 13.

71 Kloppenborg, ‘Disaffiliation’, 8.

72 Kloppenborg, ‘Disaffiliation’, 8.

73 Kloppenborg rejects it because the two passages in which Sabbath observance is an issue (John 5 and 9) ‘introduce the Sabbath dating almost as an afterthought (Jn 5.9; 9.14) rather than relating the stories as Sabbath controversies from the beginning’. This suggests to Kloppenborg ‘that whilst Sabbath observance was a contentious issue, it was not the main problem for the synagogue’ (‘Disaffiliation’, 13). Coming to a similar conclusion on similar grounds are W. A. Meeks (‘Breaking Away: Three New Testament Pictures of Christianity's Separation from the Jewish Communities’, ‘To See Ourselves as Others See Us’: Christians, Jews, and ‘Others’ in Late Antiquity (ed. J. Neusner and E. S. Frerichs; Chico, CA: Scholars, 1985) 98) and Labahn (Lebenspender, 360). I think the evidence can be read differently and that is what I am proposing to do here.

74 Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 152. Pancaro notes that ‘there is no element whatsoever in the traditional healing story [of John 9] which would allow us to connect it with the Sabbath’ (Law, 18). The same can be said for the story in John 5.

75 Martyn acknowledges that the text of the original miracle story in 9.1–7 has also been worked over, especially through the addition of 9.3b–5 (36 n. 14). The key point for Martyn, however, is ‘the dramatic expansion’ of the miracle story in 9.8ff. where new characters are introduced.

76 See also e.g. Pancaro, Law, 13; Schnelle, Johannes, 141–2, 222–3. Otherwise Brown (John), who regards the references to the Sabbath as already having been present in the Signs Source/Gospel or in the received tradition (also, among others, H. Weiss, ‘The Sabbath in the Fourth Gospel’, JBL 110 (1991) 311–21, at 314). But the belated mention of the Sabbath in the two chapters speaks against this; cf. E. Haenchen, ‘Johanneische Probleme’, ZTK 56 (1959) 19–54, at 48; C. H. Dodd, Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963) 178, 185.

77 Martyn, ‘Glimpses’, 153.

78 Whether John's depiction of the story of Jesus is historically accurate is of course another matter and one Martyn leaves aside. The ‘einmalig’ level is the Gospel's depiction of the earthly life of Jesus in the past.

79 So Pancaro, Law, 46.

80 Another possible explanation is to attribute the Sabbath controversy material to received tradition that was independent of the Synoptics (cf. Zumstein, Johannesevangelium, 210). This explanation seems to depend on an assumption articulated by Brown (John, 210): ‘That Jesus violated the rules of the scribes for the observance of the Sabbath is one of the most certain of all historical facts about his ministry.’ If so, it would not be surprising that the Jesus tradition available to the Johannine community also contained evidence of this violation (cf. Smith, ‘Contribution’, 18). E. P. Sanders, however, disagrees (The Historical Figure of Jesus (London: Penguin, 1993) 222–3; cf. E. P. Sanders, Jewish Law from Jesus to the Mishnah: Five Studies (London: SCM/Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1990) 6–23). Even with respect to the Synoptics, he makes a case for post-Easter retrojections of Sabbath controversies with Pharisees into the accounts of Jesus’ public ministry (cf. H. Weiss, ‘The Sabbath in the Synoptic Gospels’, JSNT 38 (1990) 13–27; Weiss, ‘Sabbath in the Fourth Gospel’, 313–14). P. Alexander notes that it is in any case ‘hard to say what would, or would not, have been an “acceptable” attitude toward the Torah of Moses’ in the time of Jesus; there was then ‘no normative base-line from which to measure Jesus’ deviance from, or conformity to, Judaism in general, or the law in particular’ (‘Jewish Law in the Time of Jesus: Toward a Clarification of the Problem’, Law and Religion: Essays on the Place of the Law in Israel and Early Christianity (ed. B. Lindars; Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 1988) 44–58, at 46, 58. As we will see below, the point is especially relevant with respect to Sabbath observance.

81 Cf. Frey, Theology and History, 43. However, Martyn does not regard the text ‘simply’ as a mirror of its external world; he argues his case with considerable care, caution and sophistication.

82 See discussion in de Boer, ‘Johannine Community under Attack’, 216–17. Martyn writes that ‘John was neither playing a kind of code-game, nor trying to instruct members of his church about points of correspondence’ (89).

83 Zumstein, Johannesevangelium, 358; cf. 360–1, 365, 370–1.

84 If one understands ἁμαρτωλός as an adjective instead of as a noun, an alternate translation could be: ‘How can a sinful human being (ἄνθρωπος ἁμαρτωλός) perform such signs?’ There is little difference in meaning, since a sinful human being is of course a sinner. Similar alternate translations would apply to 9.24 and 9.25a below. The term is clearly used nominally in 9.31.

85 Pancaro, Law, 500; cf. 45, 47, 52.

86 The interrogators are here characterised as οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι (9.18, 22), which I take to be interchangeable in this context with οἱ Φαρισαῖοι mentioned earlier (9.13, 15, 16).

87 Cf. Dunn, Partings, 106: ‘In the time of Jesus, to call a fellow Jew a “sinner” was both to condemn that person as effectively outside the covenant and to defend one's own identity and boundaries, the group's interpretation of what the covenant means.’ This observation would still apply in John's time and is confirmed by John 9.28 and 34, where a Jewish disciple of Jesus is effectively placed ‘outside the covenant’ (cf. Alexander, ‘Parting’, 5), as understood by οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι. (John turns the tables on the latter in 9.40–1; cf. 5.45; 8.24, 34; 15.22–4).

88 Note the use of the first person plural in 9.4 (Martyn 39).

89 Martyn, 40. That miracles of healing were attributed to or claimed by early Christian preachers/apostles is attested in other New Testament texts, e.g. Matt 10.8; Acts 5.12; 9.34–40; 14.8–10; 2 Cor 12.12, and in rabbinic accounts such as t. Hull. 2 and y. Shabb. 14d, which are cited by Martyn (41 n. 28). Martyn remarks, however, that ‘[w]hether on the contemporary level of the text we are to think of physical as well as spiritual healing is not clear’ (40 n. 24). In the narrative of John 9 as it now stands both seem to be involved, even though the emphasis shifts to the latter (cf. 9.3 with 14.12). The gaining of spiritual (in)sight is clearly indicated by 9.3–5 (cf. 26–7, 39–40). See Zumstein, Johannesevangelium, 355–6.

90 The Hebrew equivalent of this expression occurs in a baraita of b. Yoma 4a; cf. m. Aboth 1.1. See Trebilco, Self-Designations, 212–13.

91 John 9 can be read as providing a christological redefinition of sin (9.1–3, 34, 41; cf. 15.22–4).

92 According to E. P. Sanders, ‘Rabbinic literature as a whole shows continuity with Pharisaism on this point’ (Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 bce – 66 ce (London: SCM/Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992) 421; cf. Cohen, ‘Yavneh’, 36–8). Another significant indication that the traditionally posited link ‘between Pharisaism and rabbinism still holds’ is ‘the emphasis on non-biblical traditions’ (Sanders, Judaism, 413). Cf. Josephus, Ant. 13.297.

93 The synagogue was not originally a Pharisaic/rabbinic institution and did not fully become so until the third and fourth centuries. See L. I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2000) 458–63.

94 In 9.34a, the formerly blind disciple is dismissed as an unlettered ignoramus (Martyn 44), as is Jesus himself in 7.15 (Martyn 118), whereby he is being regarded as someone not competent to enter into midrashic discussions or to make decisions based on them (Martyn 101–2, 112). In John 9, as elsewhere in John (7.40–52), the Pharisees are assumed to be experts in Torah (‘Moses’), i.e. in its interpretation and application (cf. 3.10).

95 Alexander writes that ‘the rabbis, though probably a minority party in Palestinian Judaism down to the mid third century ce, aspired from the outset to control every aspect of Jewish communal life and to bring it into conformity with their understanding of the Torah’ (‘Jewish Believers’, 676; emphasis added). To that end, according to Alexander, ‘Rabbinic members of the congregation insisted on the rabbinic forms being observed, if necessary interrupting public prayer, to rebuke, or silence, or possibly correct any sheliah ha-sibbur who was following a non-rabbinic practice’ (‘Jewish Believers’, 673; emphasis original). The rabbinic party or their immediate predecessors, the Pharisees, may have been able to develop such tactics because of the wide respect they evidently enjoyed among rank-and-file Jews (Josephus, Ant. 18.15–17).

96 Cf. Exod 20.8–11; Deut 5.12–15 (one of the Ten Commandments); also Gen 2.1–3; Exod 23.12; 31.12–17; 34.21; 35.1–3; Lev 19.3; 23.3; Neh 13.17–19; Isa 58.13–14; Jer 17.19–27.

97 Cited from Sanders, Judaism, 423.

98 Sanders observes that most of the early material in the Mishnah consists of ‘debates, not rules’ (Judaism, 414; emphasis original).

99 Some of the traditions in the Mishnah go back to the first century ce. For those relevant to the interpretation of John, see Thomas, J. C., ‘The Fourth Gospel and Rabbinic Judaism’, ZNW 82 (1991) 159–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, relying on the conclusions of Neusner. On the importance of the Sabbath, see Philo, Migr. 91; Spec. Laws 2.249–51; Mos. 2.209–20; Jub. 2.17–33, 50.6–13; CD 10.14–11.18; Josephus, Ant. 11.346; Ag. Ap. 2.282. Cf. G. F. Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christians Era (2 vols.; New York: Schocken Books, 1971 [1927, 1930]) ii.21–9; Sanders, Judaism, 208–11, 425–8; Barclay, J. M. G., Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 bce – 117 ce) (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1996) 440–2Google Scholar.

100 For more texts and the antiquity of the principle, see Thomas, ‘Fourth Gospel’, 173–4; Doering, L., ‘Sabbath Laws in the New Testament Gospels’, The New Testament and Rabbinic Literature (ed. Bieringer, R. et al. ; Leiden: Brill, 2010) 207–53Google Scholar, at 246–7.

101 Cf. similarly m. Yoma  8.6; t. Shabb. 15.16. Moore comments: ‘It may safely be assumed that this was an ancient commonsense custom’ (Judaism, 2.30).

102 Kloppenborg, ‘Disaffiliation’, 13; cf. Weiss, ‘Sabbath in Fourth Gospel’, 321.

103 Following the lead of C. Keener (The Gospel of John: A Commentary (2 vols.; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson 2003) i.634–45) and Schnelle (Johannes, 139–43), I discern three subunits in John 5: vv. 1–9ab (the story of the healing of the lame man), vv. 9c–16 (the Sabbath controversy) and vv. 17–18 (Jesus’ claim of equality with God as the reason for the plot to kill him), with an extension in vv. 19–47 (Jesus’ apologetic discourse in response to the accusation that he was ‘making himself’ equal to God).

104 In this context, these are arguably Pharisees, who are being labelled οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι by John as an ironic acknowledgement of their (the Pharisees’) claim to be the authoritative arbiters of a genuinely Jewish identity (de Boer, ‘Depiction’, 142, 155), which was in turn based on their close study of Torah or ‘Moses’ (5.45–6; 9.28). See Cohen, ‘Yavneh’, 40–1.

105 Cf. Jub. 2.29–30; Jer 17.21–27; and Neh 13.15–19. The stress in these pre-rabbinic texts falls on not carrying burdens on the Sabbath or moving them from one domain to another. Cf. similarly m. Shabb. 7.2 (one of the thirty-nine classes of work forbidden on the Sabbath) and m. Shabb. 11.1–2, on which see Thomas, ‘Fourth Gospel’, 171–2, who, following Neusner, argues that this text preserves an early rabbinic tradition. See further Doering, ‘Sabbath Law’, 244–5.

106 Does he become an informant against Jesus in 5.15 (so Martyn 74–5) or a disciple and witness? See the discussion in Zumstein, Johannesevangelium, 216.

107 Zumstein, Johannesevangelium, 217.

108 Gospel of John, i.645.

109 There are passages in the Law that mandate the death penalty for intentionally violating the Sabbath commandment: Exod 31.14–15; 35.2; Num 15.32–6. See also Philo, Spec. Laws 2.249–51; Mos. 2.209–20; Jub. 2.27; 50.6–13. In the Mishnah, inadvertent breaches of the Sabbath require a sin-offering (m. Sanh. 7.8), but, according to Sanders, ‘there is no direct evidence about what the Pharisees thought should be the penalty for intentional transgression of the Sabbath’, in particular one that would ‘require the death sentence’ (m. Sanh. 7.8). Sanders speculates that probably only ‘deliberate transgression, carried out in full view of others, with the intention of defying God’, would count as a capital offence (Sanders, Judaism, 426). The charge against Jesus in John 5.18 implies that he was defying God in a radical way, for he is accused not simply of working on the Sabbath but of ‘abrogating’ (ἔλυεν) it with his claims about himself (5.17–18).

110 Cf. Weiss, ‘Sabbath in Fourth Gospel’.

111 Sanders, Historical Figure, 222–3 (emphasis original).

112 See again the quotation from m. Hag. 1.8, cited above.

113 Sanders, Historical Figure, 222–3 (emphasis added).

114 These considerations serve to confirm that the Fourth Gospel originated in a predominantly Jewish milieu and is, as Martyn argued, largely the legacy of a Jewish-Christian community.