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John and the Synoptics: Some Dimensions of the Problem*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

D. Moody Smith
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Extract

The relationship of John to the synoptic gospels has been a recurring problem, not only for two centuries of modern critical scholarship, but for Christian theology and exegesis over a much longer period. To my knowledge a full history of this problem is yet to be written,1 although it might well be helpful in arriving at a solution, as well as illuminating the present situation. The purpose of this paper is not to treat the history or to resolve the problem, but to sketch out and assess its dimensions.

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New Testament Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , July 1980 , pp. 425 - 444
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

1 Brief but helpful is the review of scholarship by Blinzler, Josef, Johannes und die Synoptiker: Ein Forschungsbericht, Stuttgarter Bibelstudien, 5 (Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1965)Google Scholar, which is not, however, intended to be a thorough history of the problem. Earlier scholarship, through the first quarter of the present century, is treated by Windisch, Hans, Johannes und die Synoptiker: Wollte der vierte Evangelist die älteren Evangelien ergänzen oder ersetzen, Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament, 12 (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1926), 1–40.Google Scholar

2 Windisch, , Johannes und die Synoptiker, 42–54Google Scholar. Indeed, as Bultmann pointed out, the contention that John was intended to supplant the other gospels presupposes the evangelist's knowledge of them. See his review of Windisch, in Theologische Literaturzeitung 52 (1927), 198Google Scholar: ‘…hat er sie nicht gekannt, so hat er sie auch nicht verdrängen wollen’. Bultmann at that time clearly expressed his reservations about both Windisch's position and its presupposition.

3 Saint John and the Synoptic Gospels (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938).Google Scholar

4 ibid. p. 93; cf. pp. x–xi. Gardner-Smith mentions form criticism only on p. 93, but he frequently refers to oral tradition as the explanation of existing agreements.

5 This is in a real sense the recurring theme and thesis of his work. But see especially pp. x–xii, and p. 88.

6 See my article, ‘The sources of the Gospel of John: an assessment of the present state of the problem’, N.T.S. 10 (1963–1964), 349Google Scholar; cf. idem, ‘Johannine Christianity: some reflections on its character and delineation’, N.T.S. 21 (1974–1975), 229.Google Scholar

7 ‘John and the Synoptics’, in L'Évangile de Jean: Sources, rédaction, théologie, ed. de Jonge, M., Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 44 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1977), 73–106.Google Scholar

8 See Perrin, Norman, The New Testament: An Introduction (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1974), 228–9Google Scholar. Representative of the Perrin school is the collection of essays, The Passion in Mark: Studies on Mark 14–16, ed. Kelber, Werner H. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976)Google Scholar. Of course, the consensus on John's independence has at no point included every significant voice. Barrett, C. K., The Gospel According to St John: An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 2nd edn (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 42–54Google Scholar, espouses John's knowledge of Mark and probably Luke, as does Kümmel, , Introduction to the New Testament, rev. edn, trans. Kee, H. C. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1975), 200–17Google Scholar, esp. 200–4. (The most recent editions of their works reflect long-standing positions.)

9 For nearly a decade and through a number of publications, F. Lamar Cribbs has pursued the possibility that Luke knew either John or, more likely, traditions or sources used by John. In his article, ‘St Luke and the Johannine Tradition’, J.B.L. 90 (1971), 422–50Google Scholar, he first called attention to the remarkable fact that Luke often differs from Mark (and usually also from Matthew) precisely at points where John is at odds with Mark. Subsequent articles developing this line of evidence have appeared in the Society of Biblical Literature 1973 Seminar Papers, ed. MacRae, George, pp. 1–93Google Scholar and in Perspectives on Luke-Acts, ed. Talbert, Charles H., Perspectives in Religious Studies: Special Studies Series, 5 (Danville, Va.: Association of Baptist Professors of Religion, 1978), 40–61.Google Scholar

10 Even scholars who believe John knew the synoptics do not, as a rule, regard them as his only, or even principal sources. See Barrett, , ‘John and the Synoptic Gospels’, Exp. T. 85 (1974), 31Google Scholar: ‘It seems clear that John did not use Mark (or Luke or Matthew) in the way in which most students of the synoptic problem suppose that Matthew and Luke used Mark…For this there simply is not enough parallel material. The greater part of John has no parallel in the synoptic gospels and the evangelist must have drawn it either from non-synoptic tradition, or out of his own head. This non-synoptic material is very extensive, and undoubtedly gives to the Fourth Gospel not only its main substance but its familiar characteristics.’ In the recent, revised edition of his commentary, Barrett makes clear that in his judgment the non-synoptic material is not sheer fabrication, but owes much to other sources (St John, p. 17). Cf. Windisch, , Johannes und die Synoptiker, 54–8Google Scholar, esp. 54–5.

11 Johannes und die Synoptiker, 1–40.Google Scholar

12 ibid. p. 134. Interestingly enough, Windisch differentiates his own position from the conservative independence theory on two points: (1) in his thinking that John knew and rejected the synoptics, and (2) in finding John significantly less worthwhile historically than the synoptics. Of course, what Windisch rejects in the latter point is not germane to the independence theory.

13 Interestingly enough, Gardner-Smith appears to be unaware of his German predecessors, who are cited by Windisch (Johannes und die Synoptiker, 12–20), as, indeed, of Windisch himself, whom he does not cite. Nor does he entertain the possibility that John wrote to displace the other gospels. (My colleague W. D. Davies reminds me, however, that C. H. Dodd, whose theory of realized eschatology is generally taken to be a response to Albert Schweitzer's thoroughgoing futuristic eschatology, does not characteristically mention Schweitzer by name or direct his arguments against him.)

14 Morton Smith has expanded and helpfully refined the evidence of similarity of order between John and Mark in his article, ‘Mark 6: 32–15: 47 and John 6: 1–19: 42’, Society of Biblical Literature 1978 Seminar Papers (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1978), 2, 281–7Google Scholar. He finds in the latter part of each gospel twelve common reports (counting the passion, in which the order is mainly the same, as only one) of which seven are in the same order. Of the five that are not, three (the Cleansing of the Temple and the accompanying prophecy of its destruction, as well as the question about Jesus' authority) are found in the single Cleansing pericope, which John has placed at the beginning of his gospel. The other two, the Plot against Jesus and the Anointing in Bethany, are in John placed before the Triumphal Entry, whereas in Mark they come after. Smith believes this difference is related to the omission of the Lazarus cycle, with which in John they are associated, in canonical Mark (but not, in Smith's view, in the early second-century Carpocratian longer text of Mark). Moreover, Smith identifies eight brief geographical notices which occur in much the same order and relationship to parallel stories in canonical Mark and John (Mark 6.32/John 6.1; Mark 6.45/John 6.16–17a; Mark 6.46/John 6.15; Mark 6.54–5a/John 6.24–5a; Mark 9.30–1/John 7.1; Mark 10.1a/John 7.10; Mark 10.1b/John 10.40–1a; Mark 10.32/John 11.7–8). Cf. idem, Clement of Alexandria and a Secret Gospel of Mark (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973), 158–63Google Scholar. To explain these phenomena, Smith conjectures that a common source (an Urevangelium) in different Greek recensions underlies the greater part of Mark and John. In his later article Smith suggests (p. 281), I think quite accurately, that in the discussion of other issues raised by his book his contribution to the question of Johannine-Marcan relations was overlooked. The similar ordering of the common reports is more readily explained by common tradition than is the paralleling of geographical notices. (Cf. Glusman, Edward F., ‘Criteria for a Study of the Outlines of Mark and John’, S.B.L. 1978 Seminar Papers, 2, 239–49Google Scholar, for a vigorous reformulation of that viewpoint, rooted, as Glusman readily acknowledges, in the work of Dodd and Bultmann. Also, idem, ‘The shape of Mark and John: a primitive gospel outline’, Ph.D. thesis, Duke University, 1977.Google Scholar) The question of whether there was a common tradition or common written source would then depend largely on one's assessment of the parallels in these notices, which it seems to me are clearer in some cases than in others.

15 For example, Barr, Allan, A Diagram of Synoptic Relationships (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark., 1938)Google Scholar, which allows one to see the relationships at a glance. The relationships among the synoptics are so clear and obvious that such a colour chart, with each gospel represented by a column, can adequately portray it. But in the case of John the parallels with the synoptics are much more scattered and diffuse, as well as much fewer, and the job of representing them on a chart would be very difficult indeed! With regard to such comparisons, one should note also the older work of Abbott, E. A., Johannine Vocabulary: a Comparison of the Words of the Fourth Gospel with Those of the Three (London: Black, 1905).Google Scholar

16 Aland, K., ed., Synopsis quattuor evangeliorum, 9th edn (Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelstiftung), 497Google Scholar (para. 352). The growing tendency to regard Luke 24. 12 as a part of the original text is a reflection of recent text-critical work. Thyen, H., ‘Aus der Literatur zum Johannesevangelium (3. Fortsetzung), Theologische Rundschau 52 (1977), 252Google Scholar: ‘…der Vers [ist] Bestandteil des ursprünglichen Lukastextes und als solcher zugleich die Grundlage für die gesamte Konstruktion unserer Lieblings-jünger-Episode’. In a following note Thyen cites the relevant literature (Jeremias, Aland, Snodgrass, Neirynck). This and other readings of D and the Old Latin in Luke 24 involve the question of ‘Western non-Interpolations’, highly valued by Westcott and Hort, but more recently fallen out of favour.

17 On the possibility of assimilation of Luke to John in the resurrection narratives see Grant, F. C., ‘Was the author of John dependent upon the Gospel of Luke?’, J.B.L. 56 (1937), 285–307Google Scholar, esp. 300–4. Grant thinks such assimilation likely. On textual fluidity and the tendency to harmonize parallel gospel accounts in the second century and earlier, see also Birdsall, J. N., ‘The New Testament Text’, The Cambridge History of the Bible, vol. 1: From the Beginning to Jerome, ed. Ackroyd, P. R. and Evans, C. F. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), 336–7Google Scholar, 344. He writes (p. 344): ‘It is also clear that a tendency existed from the first to harmonize the parallel accounts of the gospels: the earliest instances of this are perhaps better explained by the hypothesis of parallel oral traditions than by that of harmonization of written documents.’ Birdsall goes on to mention the likelihood of harmonization in several second-century figures, including Marcion, Justin, Irenaeus, and of course Tatian.

18 It is difficult, and in all probability not very important, to substantiate the geographical point. Suffice it to say that the elaborate source theory set forth by Bultmann nearly forty years ago in his commentary was a landmark in at least two senses. Not only did Bultmann stimulate discussion of the sources of John; his work was also the harvest of a generation of such source-critical work. More recently other Continental scholars have struck out in new directions. Langbrandtner, W., Weltferner Gott oder Colt der Liebe: Der Ketzerstreit in der johanneischen Kirche: eine exegetisch-religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung mit Berücksichtigung der koptisch-gnostischen Texte aus Nag Hammadi, Beiträge zur biblischen Exegese und Theologie, 6 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1977)Google Scholar, under the influence of H. Thyen develops a new view of the Johannine Grundschrift (esp. pp. 1–106). No longer a semeia-source, it is a proto-gospel of a Gnostic type. Boismard, M.-E. and Lamouille, A., L'Évangile de Jean, vol. 3, Synopse des Quatre Évangiles (Les Éditions du Cerf, 1977)Google Scholar, present the latest, and presumably final, version of an elaborate source and recension theory involving the synoptics as well as John. Neither is derivative from Bultmann. In America, my monograph, The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel: Bultmann's Literary Theory, Yale Publications in Religion, 10 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1965)Google Scholar, made Bultmann's source-critical work and the Continental discussion more readily accessible, especially to an Anglo-Saxon audience. Fortna, Robert T., The Gospel of Signs: a Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the Fourth Gospel, S.N.T.S. Monograph Series, 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970)Google Scholar, represented an advance upon, or refinement of, Bultmann's theory in so far as the narratives were concerned. Lindars', B. sharp critique of Fortna, Behind the Fourth Gospel, Studies in Creative Criticism, 3 (London: S.P.C.K., 1971)Google Scholar, was not atypical of the English scene, where earlier on Dodd, Barrett and Gardner-Smith had evinced little interest in written sources behind John.

19 See Lord, Albert B., The Singer of Tales, Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature, 24 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), 63–4Google Scholar, 223–34; idem, ‘The Gospels as Oral Traditional Literature’, The Relationships Among the Gospels: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue, ed. Walker, William O. Jr, Trinity University Monograph Series in Religion, 5 (San Antonio, Texas: Trinity University Press, 1977), 33–91Google Scholar, esp. 87–9.

20 Goodenough, , ‘John: A Primitive Gospel’, J.B.L. 64 (1945), 145–82Google Scholar, was criticized by Casey, R. P., ‘Professor Goodenough and the Fourth Gospel’, J.B.L. 64 (1945), 535–42Google Scholar; Goodenough, responded, ‘A Reply’, J.B.L. 64 (1945), 543–4.Google Scholar

21 Cf. Dibelius, M., From Tradition to Gospel, trans. Woolf, B. L. (New York: Scribner's, 1935), 178Google Scholar: ‘In no respect is that remarkable. For what we know of the Christian message makes us expect a description of the whole Passion in the course of a sermon, at least in outline. Every formulation of the message as preached mentions the facts of the Passion and Easter story.’ (The second German edition of this work, which contains this statement on p. 179, appeared in 1933.) So also Bultmann, R.The History of the Synoptic Tradition, 2nd edn of Eng. trans. by Marsh, John (Oxford: Blackwell, 1968), 262–91Google Scholar, esp. p. 275: ‘Unlike other material in the tradition, the Passion narrative was very early fashioned into a coherent form; indeed it can almost be said that the coherence was the primary fact in this case. For what led to a coherent narrative…was above all the Kerygma, as we know it in the prophecies of the Passion and Resurrection in Mk. 8: 31; 9: 31; 10: 33f. and in the speeches of Acts.’ (From second German edition of 1931, p. 297.)

22 Cf. the statement of Kümmel, , Introduction, 77Google Scholar, n. 81: ‘It has been widely recognized since the beginning of form-critical investigation…that the passion story was already a connected account in the old oral tradition.’ Kümmel himself agrees with this position, against Schreiber and Linnemann.

23 Aside from Gardner-Smith, see, for example, Dodd, C. H., Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Noack, B., Zur johanneischen Tradition: Beiträge zur Kritik an der literarkritischen Analyse des vierten Evangeliums, Publications de la Société des Sciences et des Lettres d'Aarhus, Série de Théologie, 3 (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde og Bagger, 1954).Google Scholar

24 Although this hypothetical source is now justifiably associated with Bultmann, who gave it wide currency, it was earlier proposed by Faure, A., ‘Die alttestamentlichen Zitate im 4. Evangelium und die Quellenscheidungshypothese’, Z.N.W. 21 (1922), 99–121.Google Scholar

25 Cf. the work of Fortna by that name (n. 18, above).

26 Perrin, , Introduction, 228–9Google Scholar. He writes: ‘A particular consideration is the fact that the trial before the High Priest (John 18. 19–24) is set in the context of the denial by Peter (18. 15–18, 25–7), as it is also in the Gospel of Mark. But there is a strong case that Mark himself originally composed this account of the trial at night before the Jewish authorities and then set it in the context of the story of Peter's denial. If this is so, the evangelist John must necessarily have known the gospel of Mark.’ In support of this view of Mark's redactional activity at this point in the narrative, Perrin is able to cite the excellent work of his student Donahue, John R., Are You the Christ? The Trial Narrative in the Gospel of Mark, S.B.L. Dissertation Series, 10(Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1973)Google Scholar, the implication of which is to cast doubt upon the existence of a pre-Marcan passion narrative (pp. 239–40). Cf. also the essays in Kelber, , The Passion in Mark, cited above (n. 8)Google Scholar. Against this view of the bearing of Donahue's analysis of the redactional character of the Marcan sequence upon the question of the relationship of Mark and John, see now Fortna, Robert T., ‘Jesus and Peter at the high priest's house: a test case for the question of the relation between Mark's and John's gospels’, N.T.S. 24 (1978), 371–83.Google Scholar

27 See the above note and especially the monograph of Linnemann, E., Studien zur Passionsgeschichte, Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments, 102 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who was among the first to reject the consensus of a pre-Marcan passion narrative in a full-length monograph devoted to the subject.

28 In an important and thoroughgoing study A. Dauer has argued that traces of Matthean and Lucan redactional work turn up in the Johannine passion narrative, which he does not regard as based on Mark. See Die Passionsgeschichte im Johannesevangelium: Eine traditionsgeschichtliche und theologische Untersuchung zu Foh 18, 1–19, 30, Studien zum Alten und Neuen Testament, 30 (Munich: Kösel, 1972)Google Scholar. Dauer takes up and develops insights of Nils Dahl, A., ‘Die Passionsgeschichte bei Matthäus’, N.T.S. 2 (1955–1956), 17–32Google Scholar, esp. 22, and Borgen, Peder, ‘John and the Synoptics in the Passion Narrative’, N.T.S. 5 (1958–1959), 246–59Google Scholar, esp. 251. In his view the Johannine passion source reflects knowledge, perhaps indirect, of Matthew and Luke.

29 Kittlaus, Lloyd R., ‘John and Mark: A Methodological Evaluation of Norman Perrin's suggestion’, Society of Biblical Literature 1978 Seminar Papers (Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press, 1978), 2, 269–79Google Scholar, abjures for the present the task of attempting to decide the question of the relationship of John and Mark on the basis of the determination of whether knowledge of specifically Marcan redaction is reflected in John, because we are not able to be sufficiently certain about what is, and is not, Marcan redaction.

30 Redactional Style in the Marcan Gospel: A Study of Syntax and Vocabulary as Guides to Redaction in Mark, S.N.T.S. Monograph Series, 33 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978)Google Scholar. I am not, in fact, always convinced by Pryke's apparent reasons or evidence for assigning material to redaction rather than tradition. Moreover, in the case of the Feeding of the Five Thousand (Mark 6. 30–41), for example, it is difficult to see how there could have been a traditional story at all, granted Pryke's far-reaching identification of redactional material (cf. pp. 159–60); cf. also the walking on the water (6. 45–52; cf. p. 160). Nevertheless, if Pryke's assignment of material to redaction is provisionally accepted, nothing will be overlooked.

31 E.g. in John 1. 23/Mark 1.3 ρημος, καθώς, φωνἡ in John 6. 16–17/Mark 6.45 έμβαíνειν, μαθητής πλοīον ibid. pp. 139, 142 respectively; cf. pp. 151, 160.

32 In this respect the general position of Hoskyns, E. C., The Fourth Gospel, ed. Davey, F. N., 2nd rev. edn (London: Faber and Faber, 1947)Google Scholar, and also Barrett, C. K., St JohnGoogle Scholar, seems to me to be well taken.

33 The best known of whom is now Bishop Robinson, J. A. T.; see Redating the New Testament (London: S.C.M., 1976), 254–311Google Scholar. During the Durham S.N.T.S. meeting Bishop Robinson presented before the Johannine Seminar a vigorous defence of his position on the dating of John, contesting the validity of arguments for a date after A.D. 70 (or 80) based on the dating of the Twelfth Benediction (and therefore the synagogue controversy), c. 85. An animated discussion followed. It was suggested, and Robinson agreed, that his dating of John resolves the problem of Johannine-synoptic relationships in favour of John's independence only if the conventional dating of the synoptics (between 65 and 100) is accepted. On Robinson's own accounting the problem remains, although he is inclined to regard John as substantially independent for somewhat the same reasons I am. Thirty-five years ago the late Professor E. R. Goodenough of Yale, who had even less reason than Robinson to defend an early date on theological grounds, argued for a primitive (pre-70) origin of the Fourth Gospel (n. 20, above, noted by Robinson, p. 307, n. 218). Like Robinson, Goodenough was also unimpressed with arguments for dating Matthew and Luke, much less Mark, after the fall of Jerusalem, and delighted in debating the point with ‘critically orthodox’ graduate students like myself, who were on the whole less astonished by his other heresies. Goodenough stated orally that John could have been written in Jerusalem before A.D. 40.

34 That such documents existed is more than a matter of sheer speculation. The so-called apocryphal gospels are known only through patristic references and surviving fragments. Schneemelcher, W., New Testament Apocrypha, vol. 1: Gospels and Related Writings, founded by E. Hennecke, trans. and ed. Wilson, R. McL. (London: Lutterworth, 1963), 27–8Google Scholar, clearly reflects the widely held position that most such gospels are later than, and largely derivative from, the canonical gospels, in some cases obviously so. Yet he also remarks (p. 61): ‘For the earliest works of this kind still more can be said: they appear in part…to be almost contemporary with the canonical writings and to have been written on the basis of the same traditions, and accordingly were valued in particular districts precisely as the canonical Gospels were in other churches.’ While granting that these earliest apocryphal gospels probably took their inspiration from Mark, Schneemelcher concedes that we cannot be certain of it. (Probably the Gospel of the Hebrews is the strongest candidate for independence of the synoptics, although little enough is known of it.) Further grist for the mill is the Fragment of an Unknown Gospel (Egerton Papyrus 2), as well as the discovery of a Carpocratian longer text of Mark claimed by M. Smith (n. 14, above). Quite possibly the Fragment evidences acquaintance with, although not copying from, the canonical gospels (Jeremias, , in New Testament Apocrypha, 1, 95Google Scholar). This at least seems to be the predominant view. Mayeda, Yet G., Das Leben-Jesu-Fragment: Papyrus Egerton 2 und seine Stellung in der urchristlichen Literaturgeschichte (Bern: Paul Haupt, 1946), 65–75Google Scholar, argues that precisely such linguistic and stylistic evidence as would demonstrate dependence is lacking. To mention the numerous proposals of hypothetical primitive gospels underlying John or the other canonical gospels (e.g. Fortna's Gospel of Signs) might appear to be arguing in a circle. Yet few if any of them were put forward with a view to proving or supporting John's independence of the synoptics.

35 Cf. Talbert, Charles H., What is a Gospel? The Genre of the Canonical Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977)Google Scholar, who succeeds in showing significant affinities of the gospels with contemporary Hellenistic biographical literature. Whether, or in what sense, the genre itself antedates the canonical gospels may depend on how sharply, or narrowly, it is defined.

36 See the recent extensive Forschungsbericht and discussion of sacramentalism in John by Thyen, , ‘Aus der Literatur zum Johannesevangelium’, Theologische Rundschau 53 (1978), 328–59Google Scholar, and Xliv (1979), 97–134.

37 Cf. Käsemann, E., Jesu Letzter Wille nach Johannes 17, 3rd rev. edn (Tübingen: Mohr, 1971), 154Google Scholar: ‘Spiegelt sich im Evangelium historisch jene Entwicklung, welche von den Schwärmern in Korinth und von 2. Tim 2, 18 zum christlichen Gnostizismus führt, so ist seine Aufnahme in den Kanon der Grosskirche errore hominum et providentia Dei erfolgt.’

38 While Bultmann would scarcely characterize John as the end-product of a development, it is nevertheless clear from his Theology of the New Testament, trans. Grobel, K., 2 vols. (New York: Scribner's, 1951–5)Google Scholar, that in his view Johannine theology is the high point of New Testament theology. Neither would Hoskyns subscribe to such language, but one could describe John as pivotal in his view (cf. The Fourth Gospel, 133Google Scholar): ‘The test that we must apply in the end to the Fourth Gospel, the test by which the Fourth Gospel stands or falls, is whether the Marcan narrative becomes more intelligible after reading the Fourth Gospel, whether the Pauline epistles become more transparent, or whether the whole material presented to us in the New Testament is breaking up into unrelated fragments.’ The sheer weight of Dodd's work (as of Bultmann's and Hoskyns') points in a similar direction. See also The Apostolic Preaching and Its Developments (New York: Harper, 1936), 73–5Google Scholar, esp. p. 75: ‘It is in the Fourth Gospel, which in form and expression, as probably in date, stands farthest from the original tradition of the teaching, that we have the most penetrating exposition of its central meaning.’ Cf. Kümmel, , The Theology of the New Testament According to its Major Witnesses: Jesus-Paul-John, trans. Steely, John E. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1973).Google Scholar

39 It cannot be said that there is any wide consensus in favour of such a source, despite its adoption by the students and followers of Bultmann (among whom Thyen is a notable exception), as well as others. The evidence for a semeia-source has been frequently rehearsed and need not be repeated here. Cf. Becker, jürgen, ‘Wunder und Christologie: Zum literarkritischen und christologischen Problem der Wunder in Johannesevangelium’, N.T.S. 15 (1970), 130–48Google Scholar. Fortna, Gospel of Signs, represents a distinct variation of this thesis, which in its general conception and bearing seems not at all implausible to me. Cf. my article, ‘The Setting and Shape of a Johannine Narrative Source’, J.B.L. 85 (1976), 231–41.Google Scholar

40 This is, in effect, the position of a number of scholars, including Bultmann, Brown, Thyen and Boismard. It is not, as becomes increasingly clear, the position being developed by Neirynck and his school. See his Jean et les Synoptiques: Examen critique de l'exégèse de M.-E. Boismard, with the collaboration of Jöel Delobel, et al. , Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium, 49 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 1979)Google Scholar, which is as the subtitle implies a monograph-length examination of aspects of Boismard's work, esp. the third and final volume (n. 17, above).