Ambiguous Signs, an Anonymous Character, Unanswerable Riddles: The Role of the Unknown in Johannine Epistemology

Abstract

While the Gospel of John makes some forceful and explicit claims about the identity of Jesus and the character of his mission, it also invites readers into a deepened appreciation of its claims. Part of its strategy for doing so is to exploit ambiguity and to point to what the readers do not know. The article explores three examples of this pedagogical strategy: the deliberately hidden identity of the Beloved Disciple; the initial deeds of Jesus, labelled ‘signs’, which, however, do not in any direct and obvious way ‘signify’ anything, as the later works do; and the question debated by the crowds in Jerusalem, of where Jesus is from. In each case recognition of the unknown can be the first step towards discovering Truth.

Jesus in the Fourth Gospel famously declares to his Judaean interlocutors that his mission is to provide to his disciples the ‘truth’ that will ‘set them free’ (8.32). Equally familiar is his declaration to Pilate that he came into the world for one purpose, to bear witness to the truth (18.37). The Fourth Gospel thus tells a tale of gnosis, not in the sense in which Gnostics of the second century would use the term, but yet in a profound and encompassing way. Many interpreters of the Gospel have worked diligently to unpack the content of that liberating Truth and most would no doubt have some version of the summary found in 1 John 4.16, that God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God in them. That core claim would be surrounded by other affirmations, about the person of Jesus, the role of the Spirit, the implications of a commitment to live in love, etc. All of this Johannine teaching constitutes the positive truth to which the lapidary claims of Jesus to the Judaeans and to Pilate point. That familiar territory is not what I would like to explore in this article. Instead I would like to focus on an element of the process of coming to acquire knowledge of the truth in the framework provided by the gospel.

I choose the word ‘process’ deliberately because the gospel assumes that the way to liberating knowledge involves one. The initial claim about liberating truth in 8.31 points in that direction. There Jesus says, ‘If you continue [so the NRSV, we might prefer to translate μείνητε as “abide”] in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth.’ ‘Continuing’ or ‘abiding’ involves moments of recognition, the anagnoresis of a Mary Magdalene or Doubting Thomas.¹ But ‘abiding in the word’ also involves preparation for that point of dramatic encounter, and that process involves encounters with what is not known or what cannot be known in a simple way.

This feature of the gospel is part of the sophisticated conceptual fabric interwoven in the dramatic narrative, a fabric that many scholars such as George van Kooten² and Troels Engberg-Pedersen³ have insightfully explored. This conceptual fabric concerns not only ontology, but also religious epistemology. Engberg-Pedersen offers some important insights into this dimension of the gospel,⁴ as does Jason Sturdevant's work on the pedagogical functions of the Logos.⁵ But more can be said about the role of the unknown and indefinite in the pedagogical process. This process is reflected in what commentators have identified as the gospel's ‘riddles’,⁶ provocative statements in Jesus’ conversation,⁷ elements of Johannine characterisation,⁸ or tensions or apparent contradictions in the conceptual affirmations of the text.⁹ As Clement of Alexandria noted in the second century, riddles entice and provoke, which is what the gospel does in so many different ways.¹⁰ Confrontation with the unknown is also a part of the overall strategy. This article will explore three cases in which the unknown or unknowable plays a role.

1. The Unknown Witness

In an earlier essay¹¹ I explored the function of an unknown element in the gospel, the identity of the character defined as a major eyewitness to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In brief: the final epilogue (21.24) to the gospel identifies the disciple whom Jesus loved as the one who has given written testimony to what Jesus did and said and his testimony is validated by the authorial ‘we’. The detail about the witness to the piercing of Jesus’ side makes a similar claim about the truth of his testimony (19.35). The most likely character to play that testimonial role is the Beloved Disciple who stood by the cross with Jesus's mother (19.26). The gospel's account thus claims to be based on an eyewitness, but unlike the witnesses encountered in legal circumstances, signing wills or contracts, this eyewitness cannot be definitively identified. Lack of proof has not prevented readers from trying to make an identification. As James Charlesworth's comprehensive survey documents, virtually every named character in the gospel, and many named elsewhere, have been proposed as the one whom Jesus loved.¹² Yet the very fact that for almost 1,900 years people have been making the effort should give us pause.

Various explanations might account for such futility. It could be that the original readers knew the identity of the Beloved Disciple and he did not need to be named. Or it could be that the evangelist (or evangelists, if there were multiple authors), writing for a wider audience, deliberately kept the identity unknown, in order to do precisely what we can see readers constantly doing: rereading the gospel, looking for the true eyewitness to the Word. If, in their quest, they are attentive to what they read, they should eventually come across One whose name they do know, and who tells them that he is THE witness to the Truth. That, of course, is the claim that Jesus makes to Pilate (19.35), one of the texts with which we began. If this process or rereading is correct, anxiety over the unknown can ultimately lead to a part of the knowledge that the gospel wants to convey.

One might attribute this interpretation of the rhetorical functions of the unnamed Beloved Disciple to the idle fantasy of a (post-)modern critic. It is certainly true that the Beloved Disciple has other functions in the text.¹³ Chief among these is his role as an ideal disciple, close to Jesus in his sacred meal, keeping watch at the crucifixion, and coming to belief at the sight of the empty tomb. As the adopted brother of Jesus he may also serve as an alternative to other ‘brothers’ of Jesus prominent in the early Christian movement. That a character can have more than one rhetorical function is certainly possible and, in the case of the Fourth Gospel, entirely likely, but these other functions do not preclude the possibility that the unidentified disciple is a deliberate literary ‘hook’. What enhances the plausibility of this reading is that the ‘hook’ is not unique. The ill-defined and unknown work in similar ways in other aspects of the gospel.

2. Ambiguous Signs¹⁴

The initial conclusion to the Fourth Gospel (20.30–1) indicates that this is a text full of ‘signs’, written so that readers may ‘believe’. Yet only two deeds of Jesus are formally designated as ‘signs’, the wine miracle at Cana (2.11) and the healing of the royal official's son (4.54). The other deeds or ‘works’ of Jesus in the first twelve chapters, including his ‘cleansing’ of the Temple and his miraculous healings, may count as signs, as do events in the last half of the gospel, despite the lack of the designation. The generic references to Jesus’ wonders as ‘signs’ at 11.47 and 12.18 suggest as much.

Exactly what constitutes a ‘sign’ has been a matter of considerable debate.¹⁵ At one level, and perhaps in a source document or tradition underlying the gospel,¹⁶ ‘signs’ may be construed simply as portents of eschatological significance, part of the dynamic duo of ‘signs and wonders’.¹⁷ That pair could elsewhere characterise what Moses did in Egypt (Acts 7.36), what Jesus did in first-century Palestine (Acts 2.22), and what his disciples did in imitating him.¹⁸ Yet Jesus in the Fourth Gospel is critical of those whose faith rests on such wondrous signs (4.48). Moreover, the signs that he does throughout the gospel are never labelled with that well-worn combination of ‘signs and wonders’. For the evangelist then, the ‘signs’ that Jesus does are probably not simple miraculous portents.

Among the many possible senses that σημεῖον might have,¹⁹ it could refer to a ‘standard’ or a ‘token’ identifying its bearer. That seems to be the obvious sense of the second appearance of the word, shortly after the miracle at Cana. When Jesus throws the merchants and moneychangers out of the Temple (2.18), ‘the Jews’ ask him what σημεῖον he might show them ‘that he does these things’ (ὅτι ταῦτα ποιεῖς). The question seems to be asking for some symbol authorising Jesus’ action. His response, promising the restoration of a destroyed sanctuary (ναός), seems to suggest that a ‘sign’ is indeed a wondrous occurrence. Yet as so often in this ironic gospel, his interlocutors misunderstand Jesus’ comment. They believe, quite naturally perhaps, that he is talking about the Temple, while the narrator notes that he is referring to his body (2.21), something that his disciples later creatively ‘remembered’.²⁰ When it comes to understanding ‘signs’, misperceptions happen. Is there perhaps a misperception on the part of Jesus’ interlocutors that the ‘signs’ that Jesus performs are simple ‘tokens’ of his status?

While σημεῖον has a broad semantic range, an alternative to the association with the miraculous is the term's philosophical usage.²¹ Aristotle defined a σημεῖον as a ‘demonstrative premise that is generally accepted’²² and applied the term to the basis of plausible argument, as opposed to a certain proof.²³ For Plato, the term can mean ‘proof’.²⁴ Epicurean philosophers of the Hellenistic period had a more positive notion, arguing for the invisible (atoms or the explanation of an eclipse) from visible ‘signs’. Thus a σημεῖον is a ‘an observable basis of inference to the unobserved or unobservable’.²⁵ Stoics too used the notion, debating what kind of inference moved from the visible to the invisible. The academic Sceptic Sextus Empiricus, in arguing against inferences, discussed two kinds of sign. Some are what ‘renew an object observed’.²⁶ Others make the ‘non-evident’ ‘evident’.²⁷ They come in two forms, signs that stimulated recollection and signs that revealed something new. For some philosophers of the Hellenistic period ‘signs’, or at least some signs, are thus reminders or pointers that can disclose what is hidden, which is precisely what ‘signs’ usually do in the Fourth Gospel.

The suggestion that ‘signs’ have to do with signification in some technical sense should not be surprising. That the gospel might be interested in how ‘signs’ ‘signify’ anything is part of its pervasive epistemological concern. Like any signifiers, Johannine σημεῖα have a connotation, a sense that they convey, and a denotation, a reality to which they point, as was clearly the case with the misunderstood ‘sign’ at 2.18–22. For many of the gospel's ‘signs’, abundant indications within the text guide readers or hearers towards the realities to which they point. Elements of the narrative or accompanying discourses shape the ways in which ‘signification’ occurs. Often the signification is not univocal. Kaleidoscopic signs can have multiple senses and references.²⁸ The healing of a paralytic on Shabbat, as the following defensive exchange makes clear,²⁹ points to the reality of Jesus’ equality with the Father, while it foreshadows the power of Jesus to effect resurrection. The multiplication of loaves and fish, as the Bread of Life homily³⁰ indicates, points to the reality of Jesus, as the source of life, both through his teaching and through the ‘flesh’ and ‘blood’ that his followers must ‘consume’, however eating flesh and drinking blood are understood.³¹ The healing of a man born blind, in contrast with the spiritual ‘blindness’ of the Pharisees (9.40–1), points to the reality of the opening of the mind's eye resulting from an encounter with Truth incarnate.³² The raising of Lazarus shows Jesus as Lord over life and death; foreshadowing his own resurrection, it offers a hope of new life here and now, in a relationship with Jesus.³³ In all of these ‘signs’ the sense and the referent of the signified may be complex, but abundant indications in narrative and dialogue direct the reader to interpret how the ‘signs’ ‘signify’.

What obtains for most of the gospel's signs, however, does not obtain in the case of the first two deeds explicitly labelled ‘signs’. No subtle dialogue or suggestive motifs surround the wine miracle or the healing of the royal official's son to guide the reader into a process of reflection. Yet the absence of textual clues has not prevented interpreters from suggesting how these ‘signs’ ‘signify’. Consider just the miracle at Cana.

Not guided by obvious textual prompts, readers have heard in this story echoes of scripture³⁴ or found symbolic significance in its structure and its many curious details³⁵ including Jesus’ relationship with his mother, the ‘stone jars’, and the apparent abundance of wine. How to make sense of those details has been hotly debated. As Barnabas Lindars noted, ‘the possibilities are endless’.³⁶ For Lindars himself the ‘nucleus’ of the story is the saying in v. 10, ‘You have kept the good wine until now’,³⁷ a pointer to the newness of the revelation that Jesus brings. Or one could hear in the story a polemical edge. Here the stone jars play a role, since, as the combination of the Mishnah and archaeological evidence of first-century Galilee suggests, they involve halakhic concerns for purity.³⁸ Lurking in the background of the stone jars could be the old wineskins of Mark 2.22 and parallels.³⁹ Yet the setting of the Synoptic saying⁴⁰ clearly frames it within the context of controversy with Pharisees. The Fourth Gospel lacks such a setting. An intertextual allusion here construing the ‘sign’ as a pointer to the supersession of old halakah is possible, but the story itself lacks any clear indication of such concern.⁴¹

Other interpreters focus on the abundance of the wine that Jesus produces, often deemed excessive,⁴² although even that judgement has been challenged by evidence of domestic facilities for storing large quantities of wine.⁴³ Whether the wine is excessive may be debated; that it is abundant for the needs of the wedding seems sure. Some find in this oenological abundance an allusion to⁴⁴ or perhaps polemic against⁴⁵ a rival cultic tradition, the worship of Dionysus. Such an interpretation usually depends on a theory of the role of Dionysus in the larger religio-historical context,⁴⁶ and a source critical analysis of the gospel.⁴⁷ Since it is difficult to construe the whole gospel in its current form as an anti-Dionysiac tract, the wine miracle is located at an early stage of the gospel's development. But if that is where the ‘sign’ resides, does it have any significance for the constellation of signs in the gospel's mature form? Ancient stories of wine miracles may lie in the background of John 2, but that the story in its current form engages with them in an effort to convey some (anti-Dionysiac) sense or point to some rival (Dionysiac) referent is dubious.

Another option that the ‘sign’ of abundant wine might evoke is the banquet of the messianic or eschatological age,⁴⁸ described in Isa 25.6-10. The ‘glory’ that the disciples glimpse in this event (2.11) is a beam of light from that splendid reality now dawning. The event as a ‘sign’ would point to that reality and convey something of its promised joy. Yet as such a sign this too is imperfect, since Jesus and his disciples here do not eat, drink or make merry. Jesus is not the ‘drunkard and glutton’ he is accused of being in the Synoptics⁴⁹ and he does not recline at table with publicans and sinners,⁵⁰ actions that in Matthew (21.31–2) hail the inbreaking Kingdom. At Cana Jesus transforms water to wine and that's it.

The relationship to Jesus’ mother may be a sign of something.⁵¹ Some find the story to symbolise the relationship between the Johannine community and its Jewish source.⁵² Jesus’ remark to his mother, incorrectly judged to be abrupt (2.4), indicates the Johannine community's distance from its source. Other details can be integrated into this symbolism. Thus the creation of the abundant new wine indicates the new reality that Jesus delivers. Yet other interpretations build on social science paradigms⁵³ or focus on the practices of the community that read the gospel, finding in the new wine an allusion to Christ's Passion or to the ‘blood’ which the disciples must drink (John 6.53).

The fact that the Cana story recounts a wedding is potentially significant,⁵⁴ particularly if this sign is read against the background of the Synoptic Gospels, where Jesus is often not very family-friendly.⁵⁵ Jesus’ aid to a potentially embarrassed bridal couple would seem to support the institution. Yet the story does not explicitly endorse marriage. The story of the wedding banquet is the first of several passages that will involve hints of erotic attraction that could be tied to the theme of Jesus as bridegroom. Such touches appear in the encounter of Jesus with the Samaritan woman (ch. 4),⁵⁶ in the Last Supper vignettes of Jesus and the beloved disciple (ch. 13),⁵⁷ and in the encounter with Mary Magdalene (ch. 20).⁵⁸ In these stories too the transformative power of encounter with Jesus is at work, rendering incipient erotic attachment into service of the gospel.

The ‘bridegroom’ saying uttered by John the Baptiser at 3.29 may support the possibility that the Cana story evokes marital symbolism. John's recognition of Jesus as the ‘groom’, in whose voice the ‘friend of the groom’ delights, might encourage a reader to return to the mysterious first sign and understand Jesus in its light, a ‘bridegroom’ who does not marry, but who provides for abundant festivity. But it is significant that this hint comes well after the Cana story itself.

How do we evaluate all these options? And why would the storyteller interested in the symbolism or the ‘sign’ value of Jesus’ deeds leave such ambiguity? While many options have something attractive about them, none is completely satisfactory. Objections or doubts can easily be raised to each. Perhaps this fact of the history of interpretation should be taken into account as we struggle with the potential meaning of the ‘sign’.

The designation of the miracle at Cana as a ‘sign’, while perhaps rooted in traditions of labelling miraculous deeds as ‘signs and wonders’, functions as do the other ‘riddles’ of the gospel. The many tantalising touches of the brief story hint at possible ways in which this sign might signify, but none of those clues provides enough evidence to identify securely either the sense or the referent of the sign. A first-time reader or hearer might quickly skip over this fact, perhaps construing ‘sign’ in a simpler fashion, but once she has a taste of how other signs ‘signify’, she may return, as so many readers have in fact done, to probe further. The probing has yielded some intriguing results, but its major result is to engage the reader to explore the significance of all the ‘signs’.

Furthermore, once the recurrent reader comes to the next encounter with the language of ‘sign’, in the question by ‘the Jews’ at 2.18 after the Temple event, she will appreciate all the more the irony of that exchange. Those who seek ‘signs and wonders’ to ground and authenticate their reaction to Jesus miss the point of what they have encountered. The action of Jesus, in the creative memory of his disciples,⁵⁹ referred not to the Temple made of stone, but to the place(s) where He dwells, and it conveyed the message that there is no place in that dwelling for commercial exploitation.

In short, the ‘signs’ that Jesus offers perform an educative function. Their studied polyvalence, or in the case of the initial signs, their pronounced and probably deliberate ambiguity, engages the reader, provoking reflection and stimulating a deepening encounter with the Word embedded both in flesh and in the evangelist's words. Their unknowability provokes a quest to discover the hidden Truth.

3. Origins Unknown⁶⁰

The identity of the Beloved Disciple and the ambiguity of potentially significant ‘signs’ are devices that have in fact stimulated engagement with the gospel. Both rely on what is not made known in the text and have produced various quests for the gospel's liberating truth. Yet another similar device is rooted in the fact that many episodes in the gospel portray scenes of ignorance on the part of characters. Dramatic irony, familiar to all recent readers of the gospel,⁶¹ is involved in many of these stories. One case, however, is particularly interesting because of its subtle, unstable irony, addressing knowledge about Jesus that many readers probably thought they had. The gospel challenges that presumed knowledge, much in the way that a Socratic dialogue or a Sceptic's elenchus would do.

The issue is where Jesus was from. Before examining John's treatment of the theme, it is useful to recall the different testimonies in other early Christian sources.

Mark's Jesus is from Nazareth (Mark 1.9) and Mark regularly labels him a Nazarene,⁶² which might have some esoteric meaning, but most likely simply means an inhabitant of the Galilean town.⁶³ That town was then his ‘native place’ (πατρίς, Mark 6.1), where his nameless father, his mother Mary and his brothers and sisters lived (Mark 6.3).

Matthew and Luke supplement Mark with the name of the father, at least the earthly father of Jesus, Joseph.⁶⁴ They also provide an additional report about his birthplace, his πατρίς in a very specific sense. It was not Nazareth, but, of course, Bethlehem, which according to Matt 2.6 fulfils the prophecy of Mic 5.1, 3. Luke (2.4, 15), on the other hand, sees the birth of Jesus fulfilling not prophecy but typology: the city of David is where shepherds appropriately come to honour their newborn king. As for Jesus being a Nazarene (or more precisely, a Ναζωραῖος), Matt 2.23 explains that label as the fulfilment of a mysterious scriptural prophecy, either Judges (Judg 13.5, 7; 16.17) or Isaiah (Isa 11.1).⁶⁵ Gospel readers thus have two sets of witnesses, Mark, who knows nothing of Bethlehem, and Matthew and Luke, who may have invented or at least welcomed the tradition of Bethlehem as the birthplace of Jesus.⁶⁶

John initially seems to follow in Mark's footsteps, with the addition of the name of Joseph. Among the first disciples of Jesus is Philip, from Bethsaida, who tells Nathanael that he has found the one of whom Moses and the prophets spoke, ‘Jesus, the son of Joseph, from Nazareth’ (John 1.45). Nathanael, of course, utters his famous sceptical putdown, ‘What good indeed can come from Nazareth!’: a stinging one-liner.

So, by the end of the gospel's first chapter readers seem to know where Jesus is from and what his father's name is. They will be reminded of these data in the words of the Ioudaioi in 6.42, and in the opinion of Pilate, who orders Jesus crucified as ‘Jesus the Nazorean, King of the Jews’ (19.19).⁶⁷ But is this information, to put the question in Platonic terms, just δόξα, ‘opinion’, rather than ἐπιστήμη, ‘knowledge’, or as John might put it, ἀλήθεια, ‘truth’? What we know is what Philip, the Ioudaioi and Pilate think about Jesus. Are Philip, the Ioudaioi and Pilate right to think so?⁶⁸

Nazareth does not serve as the setting for anything in the Fourth Gospel. Nearby Cana does, and Capernaum, a major venue in the Synoptics, makes cameo appearances. Jesus goes there after the wedding (2.12); there from a distance he cures an official's son (4.46), and there he delivers his Bread of Life homily, in a synagogue, where, the gospel tells us, he used to preach (6.17, 24, 59). The Fourth Gospel knows of Jesus’ activity in these parts of Galilee as well as in Judaea. Nazareth is nowhere in view.

The question of Jesus’ native place resurfaces oddly at the end of chapter 4, after his successful visit to Samaria. The evangelist reports that Jesus left Samaria and went to Galilee, telling us he did so because he ‘witnessed that a prophet has no honour in his homeland (ἐν τῇ ἰδίᾳ πατρίδι)’ (4.44). When Jesus arrived, the Galileans received him, having seen all that he did in Jerusalem at the feast, a reference to the ‘signs’ in Jerusalem mentioned, but not reported, at 2.23.

The report at the end of chapter 4 leaves the reader, and most commentators, puzzled.⁶⁹ Accepting the proverb about dishonoured prophets, Jesus leaves Samaria. Does that move, plus the fact of a warm welcome in Galilee, imply that Jesus is a Samaritan? Hardly, in view of his dialogue with the Samaritan woman (4.9), who identifies him as a Ioudaios. Moreover, he has just been warmly welcomed in Samaria, recognised as ‘saviour of the world’ (4.42). So the prophet without honour in his homeland has been warmly received in both Galilee and Samaria.

Perhaps Jesus is portrayed as testing the proverb. Knowing its truth, and having been recognised in Samaria, he realises that Samaria cannot be his true ‘homeland’. So he tries Galilee, where he had family. That makes an interesting story, but it is not compatible with the gospel's portrait of Jesus. One who usually has preternatural knowledge should surely know what is his πατρίς. Another obvious option is that the proverb refers to Judaea, although readers have no reason to suspect that at this point, unless, of course, they had been reading Matthew and Luke. Yet even in Judaea, according to John 2.23, many believed in Jesus, having seen the signs he performed. So one could argue that at least at this point no region of ancient Israel would count as the ‘homeland’ where Jesus was not honoured.

Perhaps this puzzle is the result of inept redaction. Urban von Wahlde suggests that the proverb was inserted by a final editor, who intended to echo the saying in the Synoptics, but this editor, in von Wahlde's words, ‘has not understood the original meaning of the material and the insertion results in confusion’.⁷⁰ Yet perhaps the proverb, with its questionable application, is connected to a larger theme.

The question of where Jesus is from resurfaces when Jesus teaches in the Temple at Succoth (7.14). After his initial response to hostile opposition (7.14–18), Jesus presents a defence (7.19–24) of his Sabbath healing, reported in chapter 5. Jerusalemites react, noting the plot against him (7.26), reminding readers that Jesus is in hostile territory. The Jerusalemites, however, go on to wonder if the rulers (οἱ ἄρχοντες) know Jesus to be the Messiah (7.26).⁷¹ They reject that possibility because they know where he is from, and one is not supposed to know where the Messiah is from (7.27).⁷² The crowd seems to know what Philip and Pilate know, that Jesus is apparently from Nazareth, though they do not make that clear. They also establish a principle that the Messiah's origins should be unknown.⁷³

A brief digression on that principle is in order. John 7.27 suggests that some Jews thought that the Messiah's origins would be unknown. Enhancing that sense is the tone of the verse, which suggests that the notion is a truism, something so self-evident that no one would question it.⁷⁴ Commentators have certainly taken it that way. Hartwig Thyen, following Walter Bauer, refers to the statement as a ‘jüdische Schulmeinung’.⁷⁵ But was the notion of a hidden Messiah common in the ‘schools’? Most commentators cite as evidence passages from 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch and Justin Martyr.⁷⁶

Consider Justin. Trypho argues: ‘If the Messiah has come to be and is present somewhere, he is unknown and does not even understand himself nor does he have any power, until Elijah comes, anoints him, and makes him known.’⁷⁷ Trypho's argument, as Raymond Brown suggests, may reflect speculation about the Son of Man as a mysterious heavenly figure found in 1 Enoch and 4 Ezra.⁷⁸ If Brown is correct, what the crowds are saying, that the Messiah's origins are unknown, is not exactly what would be in the ‘schools’ of the first century; it is a Johannine adaptation of a messianic expectation.

Some commentators connect Trypho's statement with the so-called ‘hidden Messiah’ motif of the Rabbis,⁷⁹ citing b. Sanh. 97a–99b. Yet the stories in the Bavli are not about a messiah whose origin is unknown, nor a messiah hidden in heaven, but a human being who does not even know that he is the messiah. So, the Jerusalemites in the Fourth Gospel are not saying what Trypho said, nor are they articulating the kinds of doubts that the Bavli contains about the human ability to know when the Son of David will come. As some commentators recognise, the ‘evangelist’ is responsible for framing a motif that suits his narrative purpose; he is not simply recording Jewish tradition.⁸⁰

So, let us return to the main issue, the quest for the ‘native land’ or ‘fatherland’ of Jesus. The conversation among Jesus’ listeners in Jerusalem at John 7.26–7 establishes two things. The Judaeans think they know where Jesus is from and they certainly know that the place where the Messiah comes from will be a mystery.

Jesus’ immediate response at 7.28 makes the basic Johannine position clear. Crying out loud (ἔκραξεν), Jesus tells the crowds that they know him and where he is from (κἀμὲ οἴδατε καὶ οἴδατε πόθεν εἰμί). The phrase, which has more than a hint of sarcasm, might be read as a question, ‘So you know about me, do you?’ Jesus goes on: he did not come from himself (καὶ ἀπ′ ἐμαυτοῦ οὐκ ἐλήλυθα). This remark too is laced with sarcasm. Who, apart perhaps from some supernal entities in gnostic cosmologies, ‘come from themselves’?⁸¹ Finally Jesus says, the Father who sent him is true and of that Father the crowd is ignorant.⁸² In case his interlocutors did not get it the first time, Jesus restates the principle in v. 29 in positive terms: he knows the Father, he is from the Father, and it is the Father who sent him.⁸³ This is familiar Johannine territory with claims frequently made.⁸⁴ Unlike the hidden Messiah of Trypho or the Bavli, Jesus knows who he is and where he is from; his truest homeland is the Father's bosom. Of this origin the Jerusalemites remain ignorant.

At this point most readers savour the ironic twist in the encounter. The crowds claim to know where Jesus is from, but because they, like Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman and the well-fed disciples before them, are thinking only in earthly terms, they do not know what they think they know. The fact that they do not really know where the Messiah is from illustrates the truth of their proverbial principle, as shaped by the evangelist in v. 27.⁸⁵ In their misperception of a theological claim, as in the case of the cynical Caiaphas (11.50), lurks what the evangelist takes to be a profound truth.

So far, so good, and so far so characteristic of the gospel, and it is hardly a controversial point that this gospel uses irony to make theological claims, but the story does not end at v. 29. The simple historical question remains open.

The account of Jesus in Jerusalem at the luminous Feast of Tabernacles continues. His enemies seek to seize him, but it is not yet time (7.30). Some locals believe in him; the Pharisees and high priests are worried (7.31–3). The suspense builds as Jesus bides his time before departing (7.34–6). On the last day of the festival, Jesus cries out once more and invites people to believe and become a source of living water (7.37–9).⁸⁶

The evangelist is not done with the issue of Jesus’ origins. Jesus’ invitation leads to more contention (7.40–3). Some respond thinking that he is ‘the prophet’; others ‘the Christ’. Then at 7.41 they ask, ‘The scripture does not say that the Messiah will come from Galilee, does it?’⁸⁷ The question confirms what the reader suspected, but what was not made explicit in v. 27, that the crowd believes that Jesus came from Galilee. But, birthers that they are, they pose another question implying that a Galilean origin disqualifies Jesus from Messianic status. Their new question, unlike the first, expects a positive answer: ‘Does not Scripture say that he [the Messiah] must be of the lineage of David and be from David's village, Bethlehem?’ (7.42).⁸⁸

Two claims thus are supposed to have a scriptural foundation. The crowd could have cited many texts to support the Messiah's Davidic descent.⁸⁹ The key issue, however, is the second claim, the place of the Messiah's origin. The crowd no doubt found its information on this point in the text cited by Matthew, Mic 5.1. Had the evangelist read Matthew or was he, and the crowd, simply familiar with a Jewish Messianic interpretation of the prophet? We may never know, though I suspect that Matthew was indeed on the evangelist's horizon.⁹⁰

In any case, there was, says the narrator (v. 43), a ‘division’ (σχίσμα) in the crowd, as there has been in the interpretative tradition. Various readings of the episode's literary dynamics are possible. Which way one chooses largely depends on the way in which one sees the evangelist playing with intertexts.

The first possibility is that the evangelist thinks that the tradition represented by Mark is correct. Jesus was a Galilean. The crowd, by assuming that the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem, on the basis of Mic 5.1, showed their ignorance, on a natural level, of the origins of Jesus. Their factual ignorance matched the spiritual ignorance or blindness displayed in their unwillingness to admit Jesus’ claims about his heavenly origin.

The second possibility is that the evangelist thinks that the tradition represented by Matthew and Luke is correct. The crowd was then wrong to assume that Jesus was a Galilean. Their assumption that the Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem, on the basis of Mic 5.1, was correct, but their unwillingness to entertain the possibility that the prophetic text was fulfilled in Jesus, again, showed their ignorance, on a natural level, of his origins. Their factual ignorance matched the spiritual ignorance or blindness displayed in their unwillingness to admit Jesus’ claims about his heavenly origin.

Another unlikely alternative reconciles the two options by finding a ‘Bethlehem’ in Galilee. Bruce Chilton has proposed such a solution, focusing on the city of Bet Lahm about 10 km west of Nazareth in the territory of the tribe of Zebulon (Jos 19.15).⁹¹ But that would not, of course, be a city of David.

Some commentators defend the first possibility and see the evangelist defending Jesus’ Galilean origin,⁹² whether or not that tradition was historically accurate.⁹³ Other commentators find it highly unlikely that the evangelist is unaware of the Bethlehem tradition,⁹⁴ and, defending the second position,⁹⁵ see elaborate irony at work. Through the ignorance of his characters the evangelist reveals important truths.⁹⁶

What is a reader to make of the ambiguity, particularly if the reader is familiar with other gospels, as Richard Bauckham argues?⁹⁷ One might, like Schnackenburg, remain undecided.⁹⁸ Or perhaps, one might wonder whether the carefully structured ambiguity is itself a psychagogic device. When learned and insightful commentators divide so dramatically as they do on this point; when scholars of all stripes are hung to dry on a crux interpretum, it is time to reflect on the ironic narrative rhetoric of this text.

Bauckham is probably right on the general principle: the evangelist knows the Synoptics and presumes awareness of what other gospels say about Jesus in his narrative, although he also feels quite free to adapt and use synoptic material as suits his purpose. Wherever it came from, John 7.40-2 probably does exhibit knowledge not simply of Jewish expectations, but of the claim about Jesus made in Matthew and Luke that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. The prologue signals concern with the issue of where Jesus was from in commenting that his own ‘did not receive him’ (1.11). The tale of his rejection by Judaeans, from whom salvation is supposed to come (4.22), is particularly poignant. The plot describing that rejection reaches a preliminary climax at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles, although the rejection will become even more pronounced in what follows. Wherever Jesus was originally from, his rejection in Judaea is significant. The Ioudaioi were ‘his own’, but is that because he was ‘from’ Judaea? Perhaps, but can we be sure?

The irony is indeed complex. The crowd is hopelessly confused about where Jesus is from. But the dialogue in this chapter does not enable the reader to discern definitely which of the competing traditions is correct. In the interaction of the text and its (implied) reader an ironic play on knowledge and ignorance is at work. That play sheds light on the ambiguity encountered at the end of chapter 4. The fact that Jesus, ‘a prophet’, as some Jerusalemites now describe him (7.40), is rejected in Judaea could lie behind the ambiguous application of the proverb about dishonoured prophets in 4.44. But in chapter 7 Jesus is rejected by his Galilean brothers as much as by the fickle Judaean crowds. The interplay between the earlier saying and the elaborate irony of this chapter suggests that the insertion of the saying in chapter 4 is not a blunder but part of a larger narrative strategy, a strategy designed to force the reader to question assumptions.

The evangelist knows a tradition, probably from Matthew and Luke, that the birth of Jesus took place in Judaea, and uses it to good effect in developing the theme of Jesus’ origins. But, at the end of the day, he does not positively confirm that tradition. He does not provide a clear and definitive answer to the question of where the earthly Jesus is from. Instead, he invites readers who approach his gospel either with Markan or Matthean/Lukan presuppositions to put themselves in the position of the crowds in Jerusalem. He asks, ‘By embracing one or another claim about Jesus’ physical origin are you, like the people in the Temple, missing the basic point?’ The historical fact does not, at the end of the day, matter. What counts is to recognise that Jesus was sent by the Father. His homeland, his Fatherland, his πατρίς, is his Father's heavenly abode, which, in another twist of Johannine irony, will become available on earth (14.23). The evangelist in effect says, recognising what you don't know, O Reader, can be the first step on the path to knowing something vitally important.

Conclusion

The evangelist wants his readers to know Jesus and the liberating Truth that he brings, but the narrative he creates assumes that coming to that knowledge can be a process that first involves an encounter with the unknown, the uncertain, an encounter that may baffle but also enthrals. Like Paul's appeal to an inscription ‘to the unknown god’ as a pedagogic device, it is worth noting that John too plays on the unknown as a step on the way to the Truth.