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Copyright. Rodney A. Thomas Jr., 2009BRITE DIVINITY SCHOOLTEXAS CHRISTIAN UNIVERISTYFORT WORTH, TEXAS
 Heaven Has Opened Up:
Finding an Intertextual Relationship between Zechariah LXX 3:1-10and John 1:47-51BRITE DIVINITY SCHOOLNETE 70133: Exegesis in the Gospels and Acts: Johannine LiteratureDR. FRANSCISCO LOZADA, Jr.March 8, 2009RODNEY A. THOMAS JR.
 
Copyright. Rodney A. Thomas Jr., 2009IntroductionWarren Carter notes that the Evangelist in the Gospel of John utilizes a mosaic of traditions from the Hebrew Bible, and in particular the traditions that highlight the limitationsand destruction of earthly kingdoms. Metonymic intertextuality, which Carter is referring to, is atactic in which the author of a text, who is specifically located in an oral culture, makes
“abbreviated refe
rences to larger well-known cultural codes, relying on the audience to supply
and elaborate the assumed cultural tradition as the work is performed.”
1
In other words, theauthor, and her/his readers possess a common frame of reference and vocabulary in which onlythey comprehend; usually, this may leave those outside of the community at a disadvantagewhen they attempt
to examine the writer‟s texts. A number of scholars
2
, with Carter, AdeleReinhartz, John Dominic Crossan, and John J. Collins among them, have noted the importance of 
Zechariah‟s royal visions in chapters
9-14 and their influence on the Evangelist
‟s telling of 
thePassion narrative; however, a comparison between the divine council court scene in Zech LXX 3and the final four passages in the first chapter of John has yet to be examined. In this work, I
hope to first, evaluate Nathanael‟s confession of Jesus in light of the meanings of the dual title of 
the Son of God/King of Israel(
ὁ
 σἱὸς
ηοῦ
θεοῦ
βαζιλεὺς
ηοῦ
Ἰζραήλ 
); second, remark on theJohannine
Jesus‟s re
-enactment of the conclusion of the oracle in Zech LXX 3:10; and lastly,evaluate the prevailing cosmic dualism of the Evangelist and Zechariah.
1
 
Warren Carter.
 John and Empire: Initial Explorations
. New York: T & T Clark, 2008,
339.
 
2
See for instance, Dominic Cross
an‟s God and Empire; Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan‟s The Last Week:
The Day-by-
Day Account of Jesus‟s Final Week in Jerusalem.
 
 
Copyright. Rodney A. Thomas Jr., 2009Messianic Names
“Now
Listen! Joshua, the High Priest, you and your neighbors, the ones who are seated in front of your face. These men will be signs of wonders. For, Behold! I bring my servant the Branch.
”
(Zech
LXX 3:8, author‟s translation)
 
 Nathanael answered and says to him, “Rabbi, You are the Son of Go
d; you are the King of 
 Israel.”
(John 1:49, author‟s translation)
 The story that we find in John 1 after the Prologue contains several witnesses who makeconfessions either about themselves or concerning the identity of others, specifically Jesus of Nazareth. When the two disciples that John commands to follow Jesus first address Jesus, theyrefer to him as Rabbi, which the Evangelist goes on to explain means teacher
(
διδαζκαλε
)
in thiscontext (1:38). If we go further along in the text, we observe that Jesus of Nazareth meets a mannamed Nathanael and calls him
“a true Israelite” who does not have any treachery within him(1:47). The Evangelist‟
s record
of Nathanael‟s final response to his encounter with Jesusconcludes with him telling John‟s a
udience that this Jesus is again, first, a Rabbi, and then theSon of God as well as the King of Israel (1:49).Warren Carter contends that the Fourth Gospel was written sometime around the firstcentury in the city of Epheseus.
3
If this is the case, it would not be a stretch to say that Israeliteslike Nathanael, located within the Roman Empire, were familiar with the language used byHellenistic ruler cults. The act of attributing divinity to a military conqueror was normativeseveral centuries before
the Common Era. For example, the Ptolemies‟ dynasty attempted
tosynthesize the phaoronic and the Greco-Hellenistic traditions; Ptomely I was enshrined as Soter
3
 
Warren Carter.
 John and Empire: Initial Explorations
. New York: T & T Clark, 2008. 15 &52
 
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