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Narrative Criticism of the Religious Authorities as a Group Character in the Gospel of John: Some Problems
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 March 2017
Abstract
Recent narrative critical studies of the religious authorities in the Fourth Gospel have proposed, first, that the term ‘Jews’ has only one meaning in the Gospel and, second, that ‘the Jews’ and ‘the Pharisees’ constitute a single group character. However, when viewed from a different perspective, the term ‘Jews’ can be said to have three different meanings in the Gospel. Moreover, when viewed from this perspective, the various usages exhibit a remarkable consistency, one not evident when all instances are thought to have the same meaning. If only those instances of ‘the Jews’ that refer to religious authorities are studied from the point of view of narrative analysis, their character exhibits a great homogeneity but at the same time contrasts consistently with the portrayal of the character of ‘the Pharisees’ (together with ‘the chief priests’ and ‘rulers’). This article describes eight ways in which the character of the religious authorities is portrayed differently (and in a contrasting manner) in the two sets of terms, thus indicating that not all instances of the term ‘Jews’ have the same meaning and that the terms for religious authorities do not constitute a single group character, thus raising substantial questions about the proper method for interpreting these texts within the Gospel.
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References
1 For example, in his review of Character Studies in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Approaches to Seventy Figures in John (ed. Hunt, S. A., Tolmie, D. F. and Zimmermann, R.; WUNT 314; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013)Google Scholar, C. Koester comments: ‘All follow some type of literary interpretation but otherwise represent a range of approaches. Some essentially provide a close reading of a passage with special attention to a particular figure or group; others emphasize certain aspects of character portrayal … ; still others work with a specific model of interpretation …’ (RBL 3/13/15, p. 1).
2 Resseguie, J. L., Narrative Criticism of the New Testament: An Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2005) 121–2Google Scholar. Resseguie lists further factors that can determine the contours of a character: their setting or environment, or their position within society, but these are not important for our purposes. See also R. Zimmermann (‘“The Jews”: Unreliable Figures or Unreliable Narration?’, Character Studies, 71–109, at 97–107), who takes a similar, although more detailed, approach. There are a considerable number of publications on character in the Fourth Gospel, among them: Hunt, Tolmie and Zimmermann (eds.), Character Studies; Skinner, C. (ed.), Characters and Characterization in the Gospel of John (LNTS 461; London: Bloomsbury, 2013)Google Scholar; Bennema, C., A Theory of New Testament Narrative (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014)Google Scholar; idem, Encountering Jesus: Character Studies in the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014 2)Google Scholar. These are the most recent and the most detailed studies. Earlier studies include: Nicklas, T., Ablösung und Verstrickung: ‘Juden' und Jüngergestalten als Characktere der erzählten Welt des Johannesevangeliums und ihre Wirkung auf den impliziten Leser (RST 60; Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2001)Google Scholar; Tolmie, D. F., ‘The ΙΟΥΔΑΙΟΙ in the Fourth Gospel: A Narratological Perspective’, Theology and Christology in the Fourth Gospel: Essays by Members of the SNTS Johannine Writings Seminar (ed. van Belle, G. et al. ; BETL 184; Leuven: Peeters, 2005) 377–98Google Scholar; Hylen, S., Imperfect Believers: Ambiguous Characters in the Gospel of John (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2009) 113–34Google Scholar.
3 This will be evident in the survey of scholarship below.
4 Recently there have been two studies of the terms individually: Zimmermann, ‘“The Jews”’, 91; U. Poplutz, ‘The Pharisees: A House Divided’, Character Studies, 116–26, at 116. These will be examined in some detail below.
5 I have discussed this term in various publications, particularly ‘The Johannine “Jews”: A Critical Survey’, NTS 28 (1982) 33–60 Google Scholar, ‘“The Jews” in John's Gospel: Fifteen Years of Research (1983–1998)’, Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses (Belgium) 76.1 (2000) 30–55 Google Scholar, and in my commentary ( A Commentary on the Gospel and Letters of John (3 vols.; ECC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010)Google Scholar i.70–1, 91, 145).
6 Culpepper, R. A., The Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 126 Google Scholar.
7 Culpepper was actually reacting to my article on the subject that appeared in 1982 (von Wahlde, ‘The Johannine “Jews”’). Culpepper (Anatomy, 130) treats ‘the Pharisees’ as ‘the leaders of the Jews’; they are ‘those most concerned about alleged violations of the law’; they ‘seem to be the power behind each of these other groups’ (i.e. the priests and Levites, the rulers and the chief priests).
8 Bennema, C., ‘The Identity and Composition of ΟΙ ΙΟΥΔΑΙΟΙ in the Gospel of John’, Tyndale Bulletin 60.2 (2009) 239–63Google Scholar.
9 Bennema, ‘Identity’, 244.
10 Bennema, ‘Identity’, 259. Also Bennema, Encountering Jesus, 216, 262.
11 Bennema, ‘Identity’, 262. There is an apparent contradiction in this statement. Perhaps Bennema means that the majority of this group of loyalists is hostile to Jesus but not all. However, hostility cannot be a group characteristic if not all in the group are hostile.
12 Bennema, Encountering Jesus.
13 Bennema, Encountering Jesus, 77.
14 Zimmermann, ‘“The Jews”’, 106.
15 Zimmermann, ‘“The Jews”’, 98.
16 Zimmermann, ‘“The Jews”’, 107.
17 Zimmermann, ‘“The Jews”’, 108.
18 ‘New’ to the contemporary discussion of the meaning and character of ‘the Jews’ in the Gospel of John.
19 Zimmermann, ‘“The Jews”’, 108.
20 Poplutz, ‘Pharisees’, 116.
21 Poplutz, ‘Pharisees’, 117.
22 Poplutz, ‘Pharisees’, 119.
23 Poplutz, ‘Pharisees’, 119.
24 Poplutz, ‘Pharisees’, 125–6.
25 For example, she finds that ‘the Jews’ are differentiated from ‘the Pharisees’ in 11.45.
26 Poplutz, ‘Pharisees’, 126.
27 In the analysis, only the plural is significant since it refers to a group, and it is the terms for groups of authorities that are being contrasted.
28 This does not include the use of ‘ruler’ in the phrase ‘ruler of this world’ (e.g. 14.30; 16.11). There are two reasons for this. First, it does not refer to religious authorities and, second, it refers to a specific individual (Satan).
29 This is undoubtedly the situation reflected also in John 4.22, where Jesus says to the Samaritan woman: ‘salvation is from the Jews’. Although some would argue that the Johannine statement means ‘salvation is from the Judeans’, the usage in Josephus is an argument against this.
30 The intention of the Gospel in at least one stage of its composition is clearly stated in 20.31: ‘These [signs] have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name.’ These are hardly the words of someone who had deliberately chosen to be an unreliable reporter of anything so important in this document that is intended to lead the readers to eternal life.
31 See von Wahlde, ‘The Johannine “Jews”’.
32 At times it is difficult to distinguish these meanings. Context can be a great help in making the distinctions, yet it is also true that such distinctions cannot be made in all instances. For example, when Pilate asks if Jesus is ‘King of the Jews’, he has in mind what he undoubtedly understands to be a political claim made for or by Jesus.
33 This similarity includes the fact that the hostility of all in this group is uniform in intensity, that the opinions of all in this group are identical and no division is ever expressed among them, that they are almost always engaged in dialogue and controversy with Jesus. These features will be discussed further below. See also von Wahlde, ‘The Johannine “Jews”’.
34 Culpepper (Anatomy, 25) does something similar when he combines ‘the Jews’ and ‘the crowd’ as two expressions representing ‘the common people’. As can be seen from the texts he selects (and combines) for analysis, some of the passages containing ‘the Jews’ which he understands to refer to common people I would identify as referring to religious authorities, e.g. 5.16, 18; 7.15; 8.27. Culpepper (Anatomy, 126) concludes given the complexity of usage that the reader of the Gospel would be required to be always asking whether the Jews in a given passage are the Jewish people in general, Judeans or authorities hostile to Jesus.
35 Lowe, M., ‘Who were the ΙΟΥΔΑΙΟΙ?’, NovT 17 (1975) 101–30Google Scholar. Lowe is one of the early proponents of this view although it has come to be quite popular as we have seen.
36 To cite only one example, in the recent essay collection Character Studies, the ‘Pharisees’ and ‘the Jews’ are treated in separate articles: Zimmermann, ‘“The Jews”’, and similarly Poplutz, ‘The Pharisees: A House Divided’, 113–26, at 119; also 113.
37 The wording of v. 52 is unusual. It would appear to mean that ‘the Jews’ were fighting with one another, i.e. that there is disagreement among them. However, that cannot be the intended meaning. ‘The Jews’ are upset by Jesus’ claim that he can ‘give us his flesh to eat’. There is no indication of disagreement among ‘the Jews’; they are all in agreement about the issue but the claim makes them violently angry.
38 In the text of the Gospel as it now stands, the Pharisees enter into dialogue with Jesus two other times (8.13; 9.40). See the Appendix for a discussion of these texts.
39 This is not to say that this group appears only in dialogue. That would be artificial and contrived. For example, in 7.1 and 11, the term ‘Jews’ appears in simple narrative. See also 9.18, 22; 11.8; 13.33; 18.12, 14. It also appears in the phrase ‘for fear of the Jews’ (7.13; 19.38; 20.19) and ‘because they were fearing the Jews’ (9.22). But this is consistent with the fact that they appear in dialogue with Jesus in the great majority of instances.
It will be recalled that Zimmermann found that ‘[e]ven if we limit ourselves to the passages in which “the Jews” appear as actors, the statements often remain manifold and even contradictory’ (‘Jews’, 107). This is because Zimmermann included instances of οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι with the regional meaning, failing to recognise the difference in meaning, as scholars have regularly done in the past, e.g. Brown, R. E. (The Gospel According to John (AB 29, 29a; Garden City: Doubleday, 1966–70, xxxvii, lxxi)Google Scholar) fifty years ago.
40 Nor can it be said that the portrayal of the religious authorities is ‘dialectical’. It is not a matter of holding these two in tension, it is a matter of one set having a function that is quite distinct from that of the other.
41 An example of such failure is found in a comment once made by Raymond Brown regarding the pattern by which ‘the Jews’ (in the sense of religious authorities) alternates with other terms for religious authorities. In his An Introduction to the Gospel of John (ed. Moloney, F. J.; ABRL; New York: Doubleday, 203) 165 Google Scholar n. 39, Brown commented on my first study of the Johannine Jews by saying that, in the matter of 6.41 and 52 (where ‘the Jews’ (identified as religious authorities) does not alternate with other terms for religious authorities but with ‘the ochlos’ (the common people)), ‘he [von Wahlde] has to admit that 6:41, 52 constitutes an exception’. The tone of the comment suggests that there was something wrong with recognising that inconsistency. It was not a matter of ‘having to’ admit something, it was a matter of accurately addressing what the text contains! But that inconsistency was understood by Brown as a flaw in my analysis. Yet that apparent inconsistency can be explained within the larger context of the Gospel (see von Wahlde, Commentary, ii.297–9). The earlier article was dealing only with one aspect of the Gospel and I was not able to address the reason for the inconsistency in a satisfactory way given the limits of the article.
42 I have discussed this at greater length in my Commentary, ii.295–301, 319–22.
43 See von Wahlde, Commentary, ii.389, 397, 402, 408.
44 See von Wahlde, Commentary, ii.383–9, 440–1, 561–5.