No CrossRef data available.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2009
The problem of the Beloved Disciple (BD) has come to seem virtually insoluble. It cannot be John bar-Zebedee: there would be no reason to suppress the name of so high an authority; striking events which he attended (Jairus' daughter, the Transfiguration) are passed over in silence; and anyhow the whole Gospel is antipathetic to the Jerusalem leadership (see below). It cannot be an anonymous jerusalem disciple: none such is mentioned in the Jerusalem events of 2–12; these latter seem to consist of elements also found in the synoptic tradition, given a Johannine slant; and why should his name be suppressed, if he were Jesus' favourite, and the Gospel community's hero? It cannot be a totally fictitious ‘symbolic’ figure: no proposed symbolism is clear or adequate; and it was rumoured in the Church that he would not die. No one believes that he was Lazarus or John Mark: so what are we left with? It is time to approach the question from a different angle.
page 487 note 1 Schnackenburg, R. argued that John bar-Zebedee was the BD in the first volume of his Das Johannesevangelium (Herder, Freiburg, 1965), 75–104Google Scholar; but he changed his view in ‘Der Jünger, den Jesus liebte’, in EKK Vorarbeiten, Heft 2 (Zürich/Neukirchen 1970), 97–117Google Scholar. The latter view is restated in the third volume of the commentary, 1975 = ET, The Gospel according to St John (Tunbridge Wells, 1968–1980)Google Scholar, III, Excursus 18, 375–387. Brown, R. E. similarly defended the traditional view in his The Gospel according to John (Anchor Bible, New York, 1966/1970)Google Scholar. In The Community of the Beloved Disciple (London, 1979)Google Scholar he writes, ‘Parenthetically, I am inclined to change my mind…’ (33); and the book shows that he has changed his mind. The traditional position is maintained, but with much sophisticated nuancing, by Barrett, C. K., The Gospel according to St John (2nd edn.London, 1978), 133fGoogle Scholar.
page 487 note 2 This is however the solution currently most favoured: by Schnackenburg, by Brown, Community, 31–34; by Culpepper, R. A., The Johannine School (Missoula, 1975), 265Google Scholar; by Haenchen, E., A Commentary on the Gospel of John (Tübingen, 1980, ET Hermeneia, Philadelphia, 1984), II, 236ff.Google Scholar; by Hengel, M., The Johannine Question (London, 1989), 133ffGoogle Scholar. (‘very hypothetical’).
page 488 note 3 Bultmann, R., Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen, 1964–1966 = ET Oxford, 1971), 673 (the Gentile Church)Google Scholar, Kragerud, A., Der Lieblingsjunger im Johannesevangelium (Oslo, 1959)Google Scholar (the charismatic Church). Similarly: Lindars, B., The Gospel of John (London, 1972), 34 (the ideal disciple)Google Scholar; Thyen, H., ‘Entwicklungen innerhalb des johanneischen Theologie und Kirche im Spiegel vom Joh. 21 und der Lieblingsjüngertexte des Evangeliums’, in de Jonge, M. ed., L'Evangile de Jean (BETL 44, Leuven, 1977), 259–299Google Scholar, and Beckerm, J., Das Evangelium nach Johannes (OTK 4, Gütersloh, 2nd ed. 1985/1984), II, 434–438Google Scholar (an old and honoured teacher of the Johannine community idealised with fictitious stories). More recently B. Bonsack, ‘Der Presbyteros des dritten Briefs und der geliebte Jünger des Evangeliums nach Johannes’, ZNW 79 (1988), 45–62, and J. Kügler, , Der Jünger. den Jesus liebte (SBB 6, Stuttgart, 1988)Google Scholar make the BD a historical fiction; for Bonsack he does not die because he is the successive witness to the community's theology. Such bold hypotheses do not seem to go very comfortably with details like outrunning Peter or being acquainted with the High Priest.
page 488 note 4 I use the simple name John for the author of the Gospel, Jn. 1–21. There is not leisure here to defend this naive position against proponents of three-and five-strata theories of composition. As my John wrote Jn. 21.24. he is not the BD — ‘we [the community that produced the Gospel, including the author] know that his [the BD's] witness is true’.
page 488 note 5 A.H. 2.22.5.
page 489 note 6 A.H. 3.3.4.
page 489 note 7 A.H., 3.1.1. Irenaeus says, ‘Afterwards [viz. after the other Gospels], John the disciple of the Lord, who also reclined in his bosom, issued his Gospel while staying at Ephesus in Asia’. It is now widely accepted that Irenaeus has made the leap from ‘the disciple of the Lord’, i.e. the long-established Christian, to ‘the disciple’ of Jn. 13. The benefits in increased authority were large. Cf. Barrett, 100–105.
page 489 note 8 Eusebius, H. E., 5.24.2–7.
page 489 note 9 Eusebius, H. E., 3.39.4: Papias gives the apostles in the Johannine order, Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas.
page 489 note 10 Chronicon Pascale: PG 92, 80C–81A. Jesus is pierced in his holy side, and pours out the two means of cleansing.
page 489 note 11 There are numerous references to John in his Paschal Homily.
page 490 note 12 It is unclear from 2 Cor. 1 what is the nature of the θλῖψις which has overtaken Paul; the inference that it was the loss of his position in the Ephesian church rests upon (a) 2 Tim. 1.15, (b) hints in Acts that all was not well there, and (c) Paul's similar loss of position at Antioch, and peril at Corinth.
page 490 note 13 Paul has apparently taken command of the ship. The fierce wolves are often taken to be Gnostics (E. Haenchen, The Acts of the Apostles [Oxford, 1971 = 14th German edition], 596f.; H. Schürmann, ‘Die Warnung des Lukas vor der Falschlehre in der “Predikt am Berge”, Lk. 6, 20–49’, BZ 10 [1966], 57–81). However Lk. 6.39–46 is about disciples who require more than their Lord, and see motes in their brethren's eyes, and would suit Jewish Christians better than Gnostics.
page 491 note 14 The picture of ajohannine ‘school’, which is widely canvassed today, e.g. by Culpepper and Hengel, needs to be treated with caution; it has disappeared, on Hengel's reckoning, by the time of Ignatius. John's ‘teaching’ was done in a church, and the evidence of life in the Asian churches, which can be drawn from Paul, Acts, the Pastorals, the Johannine literature, Ignatius and 1 Peter, needs to be fitted into an integrated picture.
page 491 note 15 For a review of opinion see Barrett, C. K., ‘Jews and Judaisers in the Epistles of Ignatius’, in Essays on John (London, 1982), 133–158Google Scholar; he finds a simple analysis impossible. Schoedel, W. R., Ignatius of Antioch (Hermeneia. Philadelphia, 1985), 118Google Scholar, thinks Ignatius invented the link between Judaising and docetism. See also Bammel, C. P. Hammond, ‘Ignatian Problems’, JTS ns33 (1982), 62–97Google Scholar.
page 492 note 16 See my ‘Nicodemus’, SJT 44 (1991) 153–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 492 note 17 Lindars, 323f., ‘excises’ the words ‘who had believed in him’; but he has no MS authority for this, and is increasingly isolated. Schnackenburg, II, 204f., and Becker, I, 301f., accept them without discussion, and stress the relevance of John's tensions with Jewish Christians.
page 492 note 18 Thyen, ‘Entwicklungew’, 280. denies that there is any Gentile/Jewish Christian tension in John, or any discussion of the themes and problems associated with such a tension. But this is to assume that the circumcision issue remained crucial. The Jewish Christians tried to force this on the Galatian churches in the 50s and failed. All our evidence (2 Cor., Phil.. Col., the Pastorals, Ignatius) is that they were more circumspect afterwards, and pushed less abhorrent demands from the law. But John does reflect these in its depreciation of the Law — ‘your law’, ‘their law’, ‘Moses' law’.
page 493 note 19 Lindars, ad 7.3–10, comments of the brothers, ‘they appear to be positively hostile’. Surprisingly, W. Pratscher, Der Herrenbruder Jakobus und die Jakobustradition (FRLANT 139, Göttingen, 1987), 24ff.Google Scholar, says this is ‘weit übertrieben’, and argues that in the Semeia-Quelle Jesus' family were behind him.
page 494 note 20 I have given an account of this in ‘The Jewish-Christian Mission, 30–130’, in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, II.26.2 (1993). The title has survived from the pre-Marcan tradition in the demon's words at Mk. 1.24, cf. τ⋯ν ἅγιον παῖδ⋯ σου Acts 4.27.
page 494 note 21 Thyen repeatedly denies in ‘Entwicklungen’ that there is any rivalry between Peter and the BD; but an overall review of the Petrine matter in John shows the depreciation of Peter plainly. Thyen, and many, speak of Peter in ch. 21 as the good shepherd of the Church who will lay down his life for the sheep. This is not quite accurate. Peter will be taken to his death by another, where he would not, and there is even a contrast with Jesus whose life no man takes from him but he lays it down himself.
page 494 note 22 On this important topic see Schnackenburg, R., ‘Paulinische und johanneische Christologie. Ein Vergleich’, in Luz, U., Weder, H., edd. Die Mitte des Neuen Testaments (Fs. E. Schweizer, Göttingen. 1983), 221–237Google Scholar; Zeller, D., ‘Paulus und Johannes’, BZ 27 (1983), 167–182Google Scholar. Cf. also Hengel, , Question, 68fGoogle Scholar.
page 495 note 23 Bonsack, ‘Presbyteros’, 50, comments, ‘…scheint es heute beinahe zur communis opinio geworden sein, beim geliebten Jünger handle es sich um den Gründer der johanneischen Schule. um den Gewährsmann am Anfang, seit dem Anfang der johanneischen Tradition’. The communis opinio also thinks the Fourth Gospel comes from Asia; but surely the founder of the Asian church and the guarantor of its theology was thought to be Paul? Bonsack does not accept the consensus.
page 497 note 24 Haenchen, Acts. 114 n. 5 takes the word to mean ‘envoys from Antioch’, but there is no support for this in the text. If he were right, there would be no exception to the statement. After 70 ⋯π⋯στολος in the full sense means one of the Twelve.
page 497 note 25 This text was noted by Bacon, B. W., The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate (2nd ed.New Haven, 1918), 325fGoogle Scholar: Bacon thought the BD was an ideal figure, but that Paul had ‘sat for the portrait’. Lindars, 33, is not quite accurate in saying that Bacon thought the BD was Paul, an idea which he describes as ‘grotesque’; in fact Lindars' view is almost the same as Bacon's, that the BD is an ideal disciple.
page 498 note 26 John wisely does not give a list of the names of the Twelve. He uses the phrase in two contexts only, 6.67–71 and 20.24, and never speaks of them as apostles: it is not till 20.21 that Jesus sends them.
page 498 note 27 Midrash and Lection in Matthew (London, 1974), 153–170Google Scholar; Luke: A New Paradigm (Sheffield, 1989), ch. 4.Google Scholar
page 498 note 28 Cf. Barrett, , John, 346Google Scholar, on 8.35: ‘The connection of this verse with its context is not immediately apparent … This recalls Gen. 21.9; Gal. 4.30’.
page 500 note 29 As did Lietzmann, H., Mass and Lord's Supper (ET Leiden 1972 = expanded version of German 1923), 208.Google Scholar
page 500 note 30 Cp. Hengel, , Question, 92Google Scholar: ‘Possibly the miracle story about the feeding of the five thousand was used as a starting point for a topic the climax and conclusion of which was a reference to the eucharist’. In other words John suppressed the central act of the Last Supper, an act known and celebrated throughout Christendom, to provide a good ending to the Feeding Story! And Hengel is not exactly a radical.
page 501 note 31 Cf. Ignatius, Philad. 4, Smyrn. 6.
page 501 note 32 ἔμελlambda;εν perhaps ‘was about to’.
page 502 note 33 ‘So Simon Peter signs to him to enquire τ⋯ς ἄν εἴη’ — the only optative in John, opposite Luke's favoured εἴη makes perhaps the strongest single argument for John's knowledge of our Luke. Only Luke has the disciples enquiring ‘among themselves’ (πρ⋯ς ⋯αυτο⋯ς) too.
page 502 note 34 For the ‘information’ about the BD in Jn. 13, 19, 20, 21 John has texts in the Pauline epistles, so he can write confidently of the disciple whom Jesus loved. Here in ch. 18 he has no Pauline text, only his own (considerable) powers of inference. He feels sure it is Paul who got Peter in, but lacking full authority he writes ‘another disciple’.
page 504 note 35 Irenaeus, A. H. 1.26, ascribes this belief both to Cerinthus and to the Ebionites; to the latter he also credits many Jewish Christian beliefs. For an account of the presence of this christology from the time of John and Ignatius (and back to Paul and Mark) see my ‘The Jewish Christian Mission, 30–130’, in ANRWII.26.2.
page 504 note 36 Lev. R. 15; so Billerbeck II, 582f., Schnackenburg, III, 289, 462.
page 505 note 37 Testamentary adoptions are evidenced from Isaeus in the fourth century in Greece, and are ‘recorded in the non-legal sources in the late Republic and Principate’ (The Oxford Classical Dictionary, 2nd ed.Oxford, 1970, p. 9)Google Scholar.
page 505 note 38 F. Neirynck has argued for the dependence of Jn. 20.1–18 on the redactional sections of Luke and Matthew, in a series of articles collected in Evangelica (BETL 60, Leuven, 1982), 273–455Google Scholar, and in ‘John and the Synoptics: the Empty Tomb Stories’, NTS 30 (1984). 161–187CrossRefGoogle Scholar. In particular he offers cogent reasons for accepting Lk. 24.12 as authentic.
page 506 note 39 So Neirynck, , ‘John 21’, NTS 36 (1990), 321–336.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 507 note 40 So Gee, D., ‘Why did Peter spring into the sea?’ JTS 40 (1989), 481–490.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 507 note 41 This traditional interpretation is better than ‘Do you love me more than these (others do)?’ (Brown, Lindars). How should Peter know how much the others love Jesus? Besides, Jn. 4.1 suggests that the Greek would then be πλ⋯ον ἢ ο⋯τοι.
page 509 note 42 Cp. Neirynck, F., ‘The Anonymous Disciple in John 1’, ETL 66 (1990), 5–37.Google Scholar
page 511 note 43 Cf. Hengel, , Question, 83Google Scholar, ‘the Gospel is fall of aporias, some of which cannot be resolved.