Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels Volume 4 The Gospel of John Thomas R Hatina Full Chapter

Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian
Gospels: Volume 4: The Gospel of John

Thomas R. Hatina
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i
LIBRARY OF
NEW TESTAMENT STUDIES
613
Formerly the Journal for the Study of the New Testament Supplement Series
Editor
Chris Keith
Editorial Board
Dale C. Allison, John M. G. Barclay, Lynn H. Cohick, R. Alan Culpepper,
Craig A. Evans, Robert Fowler, Simon J. Gathercole, Juan Hernández Jr., John
S. Kloppenborg, Michael Labahn, Matthew V. Novenson, Love L. Sechrest,
Robert Wall, Catrin H. Williams, Britanny Wilson
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Biblical Interpretation in Early

Christian Gospels
Volume 4: The Gospel of John
Thomas R. Hatina
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iv
T&T CLARK
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Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published in Great Britain 2020

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Copyright © Thomas R. Hatina and Contributors, 2020
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Contents
Series Preface vii

List of Abbreviations viii
List of Contributors xi
1 Search the Scriptures: A Survey of Approaches to the Use of Scripture in

the Fourth Gospel Kyle R. L. Parsons 1
Part I Historical Perspectives 29
2 “Of Whom Moses Wrote”: Torah Themes in

John’s Prologue Craig A. Evans 31
3 Jesus the Good Shepherd: An Intertextual Approach to Ezekiel 34 and

John 10 Warren Carter 45
4 The Fulfilled Word in the Gospel of John: A Polyvalent Analysis Paul

N. Anderson 57
5 Rumors of Glory: A Narrative, Exegetical, and Reception-Historical

Reading of John 12:36b–43 Archie J. Spencer 83
Part II Rhetorical and Linguistic Perspectives 101
6 Jesus’s Dialogues with Those Who Do Not Understand: A Rhetorical

Analysis of John 4:1–42 Jiří Lukeš 103
7 The Linguistic Function of Biblical Citations in John’s Gospel Stanley

E. Porter 121
Part III Literary Perspectives 137
8 Quotation as Commentary: The Good News of a King on a Donkey

(John 12:12–15) R. Alan Culpepper 139
9 The Authentication of the Narrative: The Function of Scripture

Quotations in John 19 Susanne Luther 155
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vi Contents
10 Jesus and Moses in John Jan Roskovec 167
Part IV Social Memory Perspectives 181
11 Proclamation Rejected, Truth Confirmed. Reading John 12:37–44 in a

Social Memory Theoretical Framework Sandra Huebenthal 183
12 Zeal That Consumed: Memory of Jerusalem’s Temple and Jesus’s Body in

the Gospel of John Rafael Rodríguez 201
13 Memory and Method: Theorizing John’s Mnemonic Use of

Scripture Thomas R. Hatina 219
Bibliography 237
Index of Authors 265
Index of References 270
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vii
Series Preface
This collection of essays on the interpretation of Scripture in John’s Gospel is the fourth
contribution in a scheduled five-volume series, which now includes each of the four
canonical Gospels. The final volume will focus on the extracanonical Gospels and Acts.
The objectives of the series are to situate the current state of research and to advance
our understanding of the function of embedded Scripture texts and their traditions
in the historical, literary, and socioreligious contexts of these early Christian writings.
Being methodologically broad, the series aims to identify, advance, and, in some cases,
bridge the concerns of variegated perspectives and approaches that are practiced today.
Unlike the previous volumes, which were not organized according to predetermined
categories, the present volume is more deliberate about categorical divisions,
recognizing at the same time that these kinds of boundaries are not always fixed.
I wish to express my heartfelt gratitude to the contributors whose expertise,
creativity, generosity, and enthusiasm have made this ambitious project possible. I am
also grateful to the editorial staff at Bloomsbury Press who painstakingly bring such
collaborations to completion. Finally, I would like to express a profound appreciation
to Kyle Parsons who has been a tremendous help throughout the editorial process.
This series is dedicated to my colleagues in the Religious Studies department at
Trinity Western University whose scholarship, friendship, and good humor are
sincerely cherished.
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viii
Abbreviations
AARAS American Academy of Religion Academy Series

AB Anchor Bible
ABD Anchor Bible Dictionary
ABRL Anchor Bible Reference Library
AGJU Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums
ANF The Ante-Nicene Fathers
BAR Biblical Archaeologist Reader
BBB Bonner biblische Beiträge
BECNT Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament
BETL Bibliotheca Ephemeridum Theologicarum Lovaniensium
BEvT Beiträge zur evangelischen Theologie
Bib Biblica
BibInt Biblical Interpretation Series
BibOr Biblica et orientalia
BINS Biblical Interpretation Series
BR Biblical Research
BSac Bibliotheca Sacra
BTB Biblical Theology Bulletin
BZ Biblische Zeitschrift
BZAW Beihefte zur ZAW
BZNW Beihefte zur ZNW
CBET Contributions to Biblical Exegesis & Theology
CBQ Catholic Biblical Quarterly
ECC Eerdmans Critical Commentary
ECL Early Christianity and Its Literature
ESCO European Studies of Christian Origins
ESEC Emory Studies in Early Christianity
EThL Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses
FRLANT Forschungen zur Religion und Literatur des Alten und Neuen Testaments
GCS Griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller
GNS Good News Studies
HeyJ Heythrop Journal
HNT Handbuch zum Neuen Testament
HTS Harvard Theological Studies
HUCA Hebrew Union College Annual
HvTSt Hervormde teologiese studies
IB Interpreter’s Bible
ICC International Critical Commentary
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ix
Abbreviations ix
IDBSup Supplement to Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible

Int Interpretation
ITQ Irish Theological Quarterly
JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion
JBL Journal of Biblical Literature
JECS Journal of Early Christian Studies
JJS Journal of Jewish Studies
JMS Johannine Monograph Series
JQR Jewish Quarterly Review
JQRMS Jewish Quarterly Review Monograph Series
JR Journal of Religion
JSHJ Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus
JSJ Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic and
Roman Period
JSNT Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JSNTSup Journal for the Study of the New Testament—Supplement Series
JTS Journal of Theological Studies
KEK Kritisch-exegetischer Kommentar über das Neue Testament
LCL Loeb Classical Library
Leß Leßonénu
LNTS The Library of New Testament Studies
LS Louvain Studies
LXX Septuagint
MT Masoretic Text (Hebrew)
NCB New Century Bible
NCBC New Century Bible Commentary
Neot Neotestamentica
NET Neutestamentliche Entwürfe zur Theologie
NICNT New International Commentary on the New Testament
NIGTC The New International Greek Testament Commentary
NovT Novum Testamentum
NovTSup Novum Testamentum, Supplements
NPNF Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers
NTA New Testament Abstracts
NTL New Testament Library
NTM New Testament Message
NTMon New Testament Monographs
NTS New Testament Studies
NTSI New Testament and the Scriptures of Israel
OBO Orbis biblicus et orientalis
Or Orientalia (Rome)
PCNT Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament
PTMS Pittsburgh (Princeton) Theological Monograph Series
PTS Patristische Texte und Studien
QD Quaestiones disputatae
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x
x Abbreviations
RA Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale

RBS Resources for Biblical Study
RE Realencyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche
REA Revue des études anciennes
RES Répertoire d’épigraphie sémitique
RHE Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique
RNT Regensburger Neues Testament
SBG Studies in Biblical Greek
SBLDS SBL Dissertation Series
SBLECL SBL Early Christianity and Its Literature
SBLEJL SBL Early Judaism and Its Literature
SBLMS SBL Monograph Series
SBLRBS SBL Resources for Biblical Study
SBLSBS SBL Sources for Biblical Study
SBT Studies in Biblical Theology
Sem Semitica
SemeiaSt Semeia Studies
SJ Studia judaica
SJLA Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity
SNT Studien zum Neuen Testament
SNTSMS Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series
SP Samaritan Pentateuch
SR Studies in Religion/Sciences religieuses
SSEJC Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity
ST Studia theologica
SymS Symposium Series
TBT The Bible Today
TENTS Texts and Editions for New Testament Study
THKNT Theologischer Handkommentar zum Neuen Testament
TS Theological Studies
UBS5 United Bible Societies Greek New Testament, 5th ed.
UNT Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
UTB Uni-Taschenbücher
VWGTh Veröffentlichungen der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft für Theologie
WBC Word Biblical Commentary
WUNT Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament
WW Word and World
YJS Yale Judaica Series
ZNW Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft
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Contributors
Paul N. Anderson Visiting Professor

Professor of Biblical and Quaker Studies Hussite Theological Faculty
George Fox University Charles University, Prague
Newberg, OR, USA
Sandra Huebenthal
Extraordinary Professor of Religion
Lehrstuhl für Exegese und Biblische
North-West University
Theologie
Potchefstroom, South Africa
Universität Passau
Warren Carter Passau, Germany
LaDonna Kramer Meinders Professor of
Jiří Lukeš
New Testament
Lecturer in New Testament Studies
Phillips Theological Seminary
Hussite Theological Faculty
Tulsa, OK, USA
Charles University, Prague
R. Alan Culpepper
Susanne Luther
Dean and Professor of New Testament
Assistant Professor of New Testament
Emeritus
Faculty of Theology and Religious
James and Carolyn McAfee School of
Studies
Theology
University of Groningen
Mercer University
The Netherlands
Atlanta, GA, USA
Research Fellow Kyle R. L. Parsons
Department of Old and New Testament Instructor in Religious Studies
University of the Free State Trinity Western University
Bloemfontein, South Africa Langley, BC, Canada
Craig A. Evans Stanley E. Porter
John Bisagno Distinguished Professor of President, Dean, and Professor of New
Christian Origins Testament
Houston Theological Seminary Roy A. Hope Chair in Christian
Houston Baptist University Worldview
Houston, TX, USA McMaster Divinity College
Hamilton, ON, Canada
Thomas R. Hatina
Professor of Religion and Culture Rafael Rodríguez
Chair of the Religious Studies Professor of New Testament
Department Johnson University
Trinity Western University Knoxville, TN, USA
Langley, BC, Canada
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xii
xii Contributors
Jan Roskovec
Lecturer in New Testament Studies
Protestant Theological Faculty
Charles University, Prague
Archie J. Spencer
John H. Pickford Professor of Theology
Northwest Baptist Seminary
Associated Canadian Theological
Seminaries
Langley, BC, Canada
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1
Search the Scriptures: A Survey of Approaches to

the Use of Scripture in the Fourth Gospel
Kyle R. L. Parsons
Scholars generally agree that the use of Scripture in the Fourth Gospel (FG), like
that of the rest of the New Testament, is hermeneutically Christocentric.1 However,
scholars do not agree on the exact purpose or function of this hermeneutic within the
Johannine context(s). While there is agreement that the Scriptures were appropriated
to legitimize Jesus’s messianic identity,2 one cannot be as sure about their function in
relation to the intended audience—whether they were meant to convince nonbelievers
(evangelical or apologetic aims)3 or to encourage those who already believed (pastoral
aims).4 In either case, the Fourth Evangelist (FE) faces the difficult task of explaining
how the Scriptures make sense of a suffering, and indeed dying, Messiah figure, which
was an unusual concept, to say the least.5 Alicia Myers summarizes it well by writing
that messianic exegesis “had to explain the scandal of the cross and the reality of the
resurrection as events entirely unanticipated by Israel’s scriptural narratives.”6
This introduction offers an overview of the shifting trends, goals, questions, and
their related approaches to the FG’s use of Scripture. The approaches are organized into
“historical,” “literary,” and “media” categories that have been trends in recent years,
which I label as “perspectives” for convenience’s sake. Yet, each should be recognized
as fluid in the sense that each can accommodate and overlap with the other(s) and be
varied in its own right. Historical-critical approaches have often focused on both the
1
For the duration of this chapter, “Scripture,” “Scriptures,” or “Jewish Scriptures” will refer to the body
of authoritative writings accepted as Scripture in Judaism prior to the delineation of a formal canon.
These terms will also imply the designations “Old Testament” and “Hebrew Scriptures.”
2
Alicia D. Myers, “Abiding Words: An Introduction to Perspectives on John’s Use of Scriptures,” in
Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John, ed. Alicia D. Myers and Bruce G. Schuchard,
RBS 81 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2015), 2.
3
See D. A. Carson, “Syntactical and Text-Critical Observations on John 20.30–31: One More Round
on the Purpose of the Fourth Gospel,” JBL 124 (2005): 693–714; Barnabas Lindars, New Testament
Apologetic: The Doctrinal Significance of the Old Testament Quotations (London: SCM, 1961), 18.
4
See J. Louis Martyn, “Listening to John and Paul on the Subject of Gospel and Scripture,” WW 12
(1992): 73.
5
Donald H. Juel, Messianic Exegesis: Christological Interpretation of the Old Testament in Early
Christianity (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988), 26.
6
Myers, “Abiding Words,” 3.
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2
2 Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels
FE’s sources and his interpretive method(s) in relation to his contemporaries. Typically,
these approaches have aimed at understanding the world behind the FG.7 Literary
approaches have most often appropriated rhetorical criticism, narrative criticism, and
aspects of intertextuality. As such, the text itself is privileged along with the reader/
audience in contrast to the author. Media criticism covers more recent approaches that
build on orality studies and investigates both how an oral performance affects textual
meaning for an audience and how groups use the past for making sense of the present
through the medium of social memory.
As a methodological survey, the aim of this introduction is to lay the groundwork
for the essays in this volume, which are organized according to the most recent
approaches. The summary of the articles is found at the end of this introduction. It is
hoped that this structure will not only provide a fuller context for the following essays
but also bring some degree of organization to many decades of study into the function
of Scripture in the FG.
1. Historical Perspectives
Historically oriented inquiry has most often concentrated on explicit quotations in the
FG.8 Apart from anomalies like the quotation in John 7:38,9 which does not correspond to
any known scriptural form despite its being introduced with a typical quotation formula,
most scholars have concentrated on interpretive patterns, preferred sources, and quotation
formulae. A historical approach to the FG’s use of Scripture has a long tradition. Almost
a century ago, Alexander Faure, for example, saw the value of subjecting the explicit
quotations to form- and source-critical analysis in order to show how patterns may reveal
pre-Gospel traditions. One of Faure’s key findings was that the FE switches from so-called
“prooftexts” that dominate the first two-thirds of the Gospel to “fulfillment texts” in the
Passion account. On the basis of this observation, Faure hypothesized that two distinct
source layers were in play which a later redactor combined.10
Sources and Their Use by the FE

While Faure focused on the form of the citations in order to identify distinct pre-
Gospel traditions within the early Church, others have traced the citations back
to their “original” sources. The studies of C. H. Dodd, Edwin Freed, Günter Reim,
7
Paul Ricoeur, Interpretation Theory: Discourse and the Surplus of Meaning (Fort Worth: Texas
Christian University, 1976), 87–94. As helpful as organizing methods and approaches into three
textual (Ricoeurian) worlds might be, the methods and approaches used are too complex to be
completely captured by this simplistic categorization. Though, it is useful as an orientation. Many
approaches tend to have a foot in two or more “worlds” even if their primary aim is to understand
one particular “world.” But it is helpful to view the general chronological movement of approaches
this way so long as one does not think that past approaches and concerns are surpassed or obsolete.
8
John 1:23; 2:17; 6:31, 45; 10:34; 12:13, 15, 38, 40; 13:18; 15:25; 19:24, 28, 36, 37.
9
“Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”
10
Alexander Faure, “Die alttestamentlichen Zitate im 4. Evanglium und die Quellenscheidungshy-
pothese,” ZNW 21 (1922): 99–121. See also Myers’s summary of Faure (“Abiding Words,” 6).
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3
Search the Scriptures 3
and Maarten Menken aptly exemplify the aims and breadth of the historical-critical
approach.11 Methodologically, these studies attempt to identify not only the scriptural
versions that the quotations were based on but also how they came to be constructed,
especially when they do not align with extant forms. When a given quotation in the FG
differs from an alleged source text or scriptural version, explanations of origins and the
compositional process are proposed. Typically, the explanations have pointed to the
evangelist who shaped the versions that were accessible to him in order to address his
community’s theological needs and idiosyncrasies.
For Dodd, who has been particularly influential, the differences resulted from
the evangelist’s reliance on testimonia, which Dodd argued were written lists of
scriptural prooftexts used by the Early Church.12 An example of this usage is found in
a comparison of John and Mark’s versions of Jesus’s response to the Temple crowd. In
John 2:16, Jesus tells the Temple crowd, “Take these things out of here! Stop making
my Father’s house a marketplace (ἐμπορίου).” The form of this response, which
incorporates Zech 14:21, is different from Mark’s version that uses a combination of
Isa 56:7 and Jer 7:11 (Mark 11:17). Dodd explains this variance by arguing that the FE
chose different testimonia than Mark’s author. While the FE could have just as easily
used the same testimonia that Mark’s author used, his motivation was guided by a very
different theological aim. The FE had in mind the “day of the Lord” being fulfilled in
Jesus’s expulsion of the “traders,” which was different from the motivation of Mark’s
author.13
Though Freed, Reim, and Menken depart from Dodd’s hypothesis of testimonia,
they too focus on determining the FE’s source texts. The sources they suggest, however,
differ depending on the specific quotation. Accumulating all these sources, then,
suggests the improbable scenario that the FE had quite a vast awareness (or even
possession) of written material. For Freed, the FE was not only aware of a wide array
of material but also drew from it extensively. With the majority of quotations coming
from the Septuagint (LXX), Freed contends that some also came from the Masoretic
Text (MT), several Targumic traditions, and still others from (probably) the Dead Sea
Scrolls (DSS).14 Reim’s range of material, however, is much narrower. For Reim, only
Deutero-Isaiah and other early Christian traditions provided the FE’s sources.15 Akin
11
Edwin D. Freed, Old Testament Quotations in the Gospel of John, NovTSup 11 (Leiden: Brill, 1965);
Günter Reim, Studien zum alttestamentlichen Hintergrund des Johannesevageliums, SNTSMS 22
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974); Maarten J. J. Menken, Old Testament Quotations in
the Fourth Gospel: Studies in Textual Form, CBET 15 (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1996).
12
See C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1953), 300–302, 428–29; C. H. Dodd, According to the Scriptures: The Sub-Structure of New
Testament Theology (New York: Scribner, 1953), 23–60. Dodd’s use of testimonia stems from J. R.
Harris’ Testimonies, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1916–1920). See also Alfred
Loisy, Le Quatrième Évangile (Paris: Émile Nourry, 1921), 495, where the use of Scripture in John
19:37 is explained via testimonia. D. Moody Smith also utilizes testimonia to explain John 19:37. See
Smith’s “The Setting and Shape of a Johannine Narrative Source,” JBL 95 (1976): 237.
13
Dodd, Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, 300. It is worth noting that the Hebrew word that Dodd
takes as “trader” can also mean “a Canaanite” (‫)כנעני‬. Dodd argues that it should be read as “trader”
since the context of Zechariah describes all nations as invited to the feast of Tabernacles. Excluding
a nation, then, counters this context.
14
Freed, Old Testament Quotations, 127–30.
15
Reim, Studien zum alttestamentlichen Hintergrund, 188–90 (cf. 241–46).
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4
to Freed, Menken maintains that the majority of the FE’s source material came from
the LXX, with the caveat that a few also originated from a Hebrew Vorlage. Bruce
Schuchard nuances Menken’s view by claiming that one ought to be more precise by
specifying Old Greek (OG), rather than LXX, as the more accurate designation of the
Greek source material. Moreover, Schuchard goes so far as to say that the OG is the
“one and only textual tradition” used by the FE.16
Menken critiques previous source-critical scholarship for not focusing enough on
the editorial practices of the FE.17 As an editor, the focus shifts more to the whole of
the Gospel, especially its entire theological program. Thus, for many historical critics
trying to reconstruct the rationale for the use of Scripture in the FG, the differences
between the meaning of the citations and their source texts expose not a faulty memory,
as Charles Goodwin argues,18 but intentional changes based on a particular theological
perspective held by the FE.19
The problem that ensued by pointing to the evangelist’s broader theological aims
was that scholars could not agree on the key aims or even an overarching aim.20 For
example, Menken argues that the citation of Isa 40:3 in John 1:23, which curiously
condenses the LXX version,21 was constructed purposely by the FE to show his
disagreement with the Synoptic tradition (where John the Baptist is presented as Jesus’s
forerunner rather than, as the FE prefers, a contemporary witness to Jesus).22 Freed,
however, argues that the FE is motivated by wisdom traditions. As such, the FE drops
ἑτοιμασατε (“prepare”) for εὐθύνατε (“make straight”) so that ὁδὸς (“the way”) may
16
Bruce G. Schuchard, Scripture within Scripture: The Interrelationship of Form and Function in the
Explicit Old Testament Citations in the Gospel of John, SBLDS 133 (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press,
1992), xvii. See also Bruce G. Schuchard, “Form versus Function: Citation Technique and Authorial
Intentional the Gospel of John,” in Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John, ed.
Alicia D. Myers and Bruce G. Schuchard, RBS 81 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2015), 23–45, where he
states that most scholars at least agree that the FG relies on Greek versions of Scripture.
17
Menken, Old Testament Quotations, 205–6.
18
Charles Goodwin, “How Did John Treat His Sources?” JBL 73 (1954): 61–75, argues that John must
have had faulty memory since his quotations differ from the written sources.
19
20
Moreover, determining the source text(s) that the FE uses in his citations of Jewish Scripture is
no simple task. It is complicated by the number of versions of Scripture in circulation during
the time. Not only were different translations in circulation (e.g., the Greek LXX, the Aramaic
Targums, the Hebrew Codices, even the Old Latin predating the Vulgate), but there were several
versions of each. See Craig A. Evans, “From Prophecy to Testament: An Introduction,” in From
Prophecy to Testament: The Function of the Old Testament in the New, ed. Craig A. Evans (Peabody,
MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 3–4. Moreover, what is now understood to be Scripture (canonically)
may not have been what various Jewish groups deemed Scripture. This is exemplified by the
“phantom” citation in John 7:38. Though cited by the FE as Scripture, it does not match any
extant text.
21
The LXX Isa 40:3 reads: φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν τῇ ἐρήμῳ, Ἑτοιμάσατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου, εὐθείας
ποιεῖτε τὰς τρίβους τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν (“A voice crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of
the Lord, make straight the paths of our God’ ”); whereas John 1:23 reads: ἐγὼ φωνὴ βοῶντος ἐν
τῇ ἐρήμῳ, εὐθύνατε τὴν ὁδὸν κυρίου (“I am a voice crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight
the way of the Lord’ ”). So, the substantial change the FE makes here, apart from condensing
two lines into one, is the omission of “prepare” (ἑτοιμάσατε), while retaining “make straight”
(εὐθύνατε).
22
Menken, Old Testament Quotations, 30–31.
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5
take on a “moral and ethical” meaning.23 Although the text is subjected to the same
method, different results follow.
Goodwin is a good example of the breadth of possible theological motivations
that reshaped the forms and meanings of Israel’s Scripture. For Goodwin, the FE’s use
of Scripture demonstrates ineptitude, given that the quotations, if indeed they were
before him, are expressed “loosely, and confusedly.” For this reason, Goodwin argues
that the FE “appears to have quoted from memory, and the attentive reader has seen
how elusive are the tricks his memory could play. And whatever was the original intent
of the source material used, John has forcibly accommodated everything to his own
purposes.”24
Schuchard agrees that the FE used memory, but he has a much more optimistic
view. Following the work of Paul Achtemeier,25 he acknowledges that the environment
in which the FE composed his Gospel was infused with orality and that citations were
likely quoted from memory rather than copied from a written source,26 but he takes
issue with the inference that the search for the sources used by the FE is “an exercise
in futility.”27 Instead, Schuchard understands memory to be as reliable as the practice
of copying from a written text.28 Since the FE’s citations do not always reflect its source
texts, such inquiries into the FG’s use of Scripture naturally lead to questions about
the nature and reliability of memory. Both Goodwin and Schuchard assume that
memory is either unreliable or reliable, respectively, allowing little room for a “grey
zone” or for extended findings in the fields of psychology or sociology. The latter is
addressed below.
William Bynum also appears optimistic about one’s ability to determine not only
the changes made by the FE to the source text but also the FG’s historical reliability.29
What distinguishes Bynum’s study from the aforementioned ones is its limited analysis
of Zech 12:10 in John 19:37. His conclusion is that the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll,
known as 8HevXIIgr (“R”), is the FE’s source text. Consequently, Bynum’s study
demonstrates continuity directly with the DSS, and as Myers notes, “it even leads him
to the provocative suggestion that John’s consistently careful citation style can be used
to support increased confidence in the Gospel’s historicity.”30
23
Freed, Old Testament Quotations, 6. See also the discussion by Ruth Sheridan, Retelling Scripture: “The
Jews” and the Scriptural Citations in John 1:19–12:15, BIS 110 (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 113. Schuchard
follows Freed in seeing wisdom traditions influencing the FE’s reworking of Isa 40:3 (Scripture within
Scripture, 11), but Sheridan differs from both Menken and Freed/Schuchard (Retelling Scripture,
110–16).
24
Goodwin, “How Did John Treat His Sources?” 73.
25
Paul J. Achtemeier, “Omne verbum sonat: The New Testament and the Oral Environment of Late
Antiquity,” JBL 109 (1990): 3–27.
26
Schuchard, Scripture within Scripture, xvi.
27
Ibid. He quotes Achtemeier, “Oral Environment,” 27.
28
Schuchard, Scripture within Scripture, xvii. He states, “My own investigation will show that, even
if John cited from memory, his citations do, in fact, represent precise and therefore perceptible
recollections of a specific textual tradition.”
29
William Randolph Bynum, The Fourth Gospel and the Scriptures: Illuminating the Form and Meaning
of Scriptural Citation in John 19:37, NovTSup 144 (Leiden: Brill, 2012).
30
Myers, “Abiding Words,” 8. See also William Randolph Bynum, “Quotations of Zechariah in the
Fourth Gospel,” in Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John, ed. Alicia D. Myers and
Bruce G. Schuchard, RBS 81 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2015), 47–74.
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6
The concern for the Gospel’s historical portrayal of Jesus is often interwoven with its
use of Scripture.31 If the evangelist quoted his source text(s) inaccurately, it is typically
inferred that the FG’s historicity is problematic. Goodwin’s assessment of the FE as an
inept “proof-texter,” who makes up the material during the writing process, is a case
in point.32 Another approach scholars take to these so-called inaccurate quotations is
a consideration of how the FE interpreted Scripture in relation to the contemporary
practices and techniques of his day. Nevertheless, the tension that scholars attempt
to resolve here with the FE’s interpretive method is the same as it was with the
sources: Since Scripture does not speak of a dying or crucified Messiah, how does
the FE extricate specific texts from their host contexts and give them a Christological
meaning?
The FE’s Interpretative Method

Explanations of the FE’s practices have been found in the broader context of early Jewish
and Christian interpretations of Scripture. To the modern novice observer, the FE appears
to be proof-texting or misquoting Scripture. While this is a suitable observation, scholars
have attempted to explain the method in more detailed ways within the exegetical
practices of the ancient world that would have been familiar to the FE.33 One of the
main debates that has arisen from the attempt to find a precedent for the FE’s practices is
whether the evangelist is indebted to Jewish exegetical methods, Greco-Roman ones, or
some combination of each.
The debate was largely sparked by Dodd’s groundbreaking According to the Scriptures34
where he challenged Rudolf Bultmann’s insistence that the FE was indebted primarily
to Hellenistic sources. The Jewish Scriptures, traditions, and their exegetical practices
(by implication) were viewed as more foundational for the earlier kerygma.35 Dodd’s
argument was strengthened, and won the day, with the discovery of the DSS and the
subsequent explorations into the varied interpretive methods of early Judaism. More
recently, however, there has been renewed interest in reviving Greco-Roman rhetorical
practices, which were widespread in antiquity, as models for better understanding the FE’s
use of Scripture.36
31
See Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher (eds.), John, Jesus, and History, Volume 1: Critical
Appraisals of Critical Views, SBLSymS 44 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2007); Paul N. Anderson, Felix
Just, and Tom Thatcher (eds.), John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Historicity in the Fourth Gospel,
ECL 2 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2009); and Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Tom Thatcher (eds.),
John, Jesus, and History, Volume 3: Glimpses of Jesus through the Johannine Lens, ECL 18 (Atlanta,
GA: SBL Press, 2016).
32
Whereas the opposite is also the case: A source text quoted accurately suggests that the FG is
historically reliable, as Bynum maintains.
33
Bruce G. Schuchard, “Conclusion,” in Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John, ed.
Alicia D. Myers and Bruce G. Schuchard, RBS 81 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2015), 239.
34
Dodd, According to the Scriptures.
35
Rudolph Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, ed. R. W. N. Hoare and J. K. Riches, trans.
G. R. Beasley-Murray (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster, 1971).
36
Alicia D. Myers’s work in the FG is a prime example of a Greco-Roman approach, which will be
discussed below.
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7
Jewish Exegetical Models

Many scholars posit that the FG’s quotations have a pesher-like quality to them,37
although, as Myers critiques, “few go far in fleshing out this characterization.”38 My
focus is on the “few” exceptions. Daniel Patte, for example, understands the FG’s use
of Scripture within an eschatological pesher-like interpretative environment such
as the one represented at Qumran.39 Patte argues that scholars should see pesher as
exemplifying the typological perspective of Second Temple Judaism as a whole, which
is a sentiment that has been adopted by many scholars who are interested in the
FG’s use of Scripture, including Donald Juel, Richard Longenecker, Martin Hengel,
and J. Harold Ellens.40 Ellens, as a more recent example, typifies this approach in his
treatment of John 1:51, which is compared with early Jewish practices.41 He concludes
that the FE interprets his sources in a loose manner, subjecting them to the will of
his theological themes, conveying “more isogesis than exegesis,” as he puts it, but
methodologically it remains a typical example of Jewish pesher.42 It is worth noting
that the status of the FG as an adequate source for the historical Jesus quest is never far
from his thoughts.43
In contrast to Patte’s conclusion that the FG’s Christocentric hermeneutic is well within
a pesher-like interpretive method, Stephen Witmer offers another proposal.44 Witmer
agrees that the FG displays pesher-like qualities, particularly the Bread of Life discourse
in John 6:22–58.45 But for Witmer, the lack of the line-by-line interpretation, which is
characteristic of pesher technique at Qumran, along with the FG’s “radical Christocentric
hermeneutic,” distinguishes it sharply from the exegetical practices at Qumran.46
Although the majority of Johannine scholars have pointed to pesharim, others have
argued that the FG’s techniques are more akin to rabbinic models of exegesis. Focusing on
John 6:31–58, Peder Borgen has been influential in comparing the method in the FG to the
37
Lindars, New Testament Apologetic, 265–70. Apart from those listed below, see also Raymond E.
Brown, “The Qumran Scrolls and the Johannine Gospel and Epistles,” in New Testament Essays
(London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1965), 102–31.
38
39
Daniel Patte, Early Jewish Hermeneutic in Palestine, SBLDS 22 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1975),
161–67, 321–23. Lindars similarly built upon Dodd’s work on testimonia combining it with Qumran
practices, specifically the interpretive model of pesher, which he ties closely to the Johannine uses of
Scripture (New Testament Apologetic, 15–16).
40
Juel, Messianic Exegesis, 49–57; Richard N. Longenecker, Biblical Exegesis in the Apostolic Period, 2nd
ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 80–87; Martin Hengel, “The Old Testament in the Fourth
Gospel,” in The Gospels and the Scriptures of Israel, ed. Craig A. Evans and W. Richard Stegner,
JSNTSup 104, SSEJC 3 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994), 380–95; J. Harold Ellens, “A Christian
Pesher: John 1:51,” Proceedings: Eastern Great Lakes Biblical Society 25 (2005): 143–55.
41
Ellens, “A Christian Pesher,” 152.
42
Ibid.
43
Ellens writes, “The Son of Man logia in John probably tell us something significant about the
historical Jesus, namely, that the logia, or at least the concept of Jesus being the Son of Man, most
likely comes directly from his mouth” (145). It would have been beneficial for Ellens to have
interacted with previous scholarship, especially Rudolf Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament
[New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951], 9, 29–30).
44
Stephen E. Witmer, “Approaches to Scripture in the Fourth Gospel and the Qumran Pesharim,”
NovT 48 (2006): 313–28 (esp. 327–28).
45
Ibid., 322–26.
46
Ibid., 313, 327–28.
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8
midrashic practices in synagogue contexts and in Philo.47 Borgen’s study not only supports
a Jewish background to the FG’s interpretive approach, as opposed to a Hellenistic one, but
also has sparked interest in broader relationships between other New Testament writings
and more technical Jewish exegetical practices, such as rabbinic middoth. For instance,
Frédéric Manns seizes on Borgen’s insights and offers a thorough study that addresses the
potential relationship between the FG’s use of the middoth of Hillel and that of Paul.48 The
claim that rabbinic interpretive methods were used by the FE is problematic, however.
The main problem is the difficulty of retroactively applying rabbinic sources back onto
the time period of the FG’s composition, which could be anachronistic. Although it may
be plausible that the FE knew and used what would later be called rabbinic interpretive
techniques, it is unclear how confident one can be in assuming that they reflect first-
century interpretive techniques, especially Christocentric ones.
Although midrash does not regularly contemporize Scripture as pesher does, many
Johannine scholars have assumed the FG relies on Jewish exegetical practices while
allowing room occasionally for Christological expansions.49 A. T. Hanson summarizes
this scholarly presumption by concluding that the FE, who was well acquainted with
the methods of Jewish exegesis of Scripture, was not unlike his contemporaries since
“New Testament writers had no other starting place when they set out on the enterprise
of reinterpreting Scripture in a christocentric sense.”50
Problems persist, however, and such a claim is weaker than it looks at first glance.
For one thing, Jewish exegetical practices in the Second Temple period cannot fully
or precisely account for the FE’s interpretive practices, as Witmer observes. Yet, most
scholars still claim that the FG exhibits a Jewish exegetical method without defining the
specific techniques used, as Myers notes. Moreover, some do not distinguish between
pesher or midrash; and when pesher is selected as the main method, the inconsistencies
between Jewish examples and the FE’s practices are overlooked. Witmer concludes
that very few of the scholars who claim that the FG employs a pesher method do so
after a thorough survey and careful consideration of what the pesher genre is and
how it is utilized within Second Temple Judaism.51 Likewise, Myers argues that these
terms (pesher, midrash, and middoth) run the risk of becoming a “loose description,
providing little more than an assertion of John’s Jewish milieu rather than a substantial
statement concerning John’s interpretive practices.”52
Ancient Greco-Roman Rhetoric

While recognizing the importance of Jewish exegetical practices, some scholars have
suggested that a fuller picture of the FG’s use of Scripture (and indeed all of the New
47
Peder J. Borgen, Bread from Heaven: An Exegetical Study of the Concept of Manna in the Gospel of
John and the Writings of Philo, NovTSup 10 (Leiden: Brill, 1965).
48
Frédéric Manns, “Exégèse Rabbanique et Exégèse Johannique,” RB 92 (1985): 525–38.
49
Alicia D. Myers, Characterizing Jesus: A Rhetorical Analysis of the Fourth Gospel’s Use of Scripture in
Its Presentation of Jesus, LNTS 458 (London: T&T Clark, 2012), 11.
50
A. T. Hanson, “John’s Use of Scripture,” in The Gospels and the Scriptures of Israel, ed. Craig A. Evans
and W. Richard Stegner, JSNTSup 104, SSEJC 3 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1994), 360.
51
Witmer, “Approaches to Scripture,” 313.
52
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9
Testament writings) can be achieved by looking at the role of Greco-Roman rhetoric.53

Dennis Stamps, for example, urges scholars to move toward an appreciation of Greco-
Roman techniques, which would have been well known in antiquity (even Palestine),
in conjunction with Jewish exegetical practices.54 Stamps’s recommendation is not new,
however. In 1949, Daniel Daube demonstrated similarities between Hillel’s middoth
and Greco-Roman rhetorical practices.55 Daube’s observations were later supported by
Saul Liebermann in 1962, who suggested that the Jewish interpretive rules for gezera
shewa and qal-walhomer should be recognized as similar to the Greco-Roman rhetoric
of synkrisis, although patterned to fit a Jewish context.56
Building on Philip Alexander’s work, which demonstrates that Jewish hermeneutics
were influenced by Greco-Roman rhetoric, Myers provides perhaps the most thorough
application of ancient Greco-Roman rhetoric to the FG’s use of Scripture.57 For Myers,
since Jewish writers functioned in a Greco-Roman environment, they can be assumed
to be affected by the practices of this milieu. As she states, “Learning more about
Greco-Roman rhetoric can help us not only in understanding more about Jewish
interpretation practices in general, but also provide insight into their rhetorical goals
and possible effects on their audiences.”58 Myers calls her approach “literary-rhetorical
criticism”59 and relies heavily on George Kennedy’s insights into rhetorical theory
in antiquity.60 Kennedy’s theory proves to be especially popular among Johannine
scholars due to the Gospel’s frequent speeches.61
The richness of this approach unsurprisingly produces nuances. For example,
C. Clifton Black argues that rhetorical criticism can be applied to Jesus’s lengthy
discourses but not to the narratives or to the FE’s use of Scripture.62 Myers’s study
53
Issues of influence overlap with the well-traversed discussion of the FG’s paradoxical treatment of
the Jews.
54
Dennis L. Stamps, “Use of the Old Testament in the New Testament as a Rhetorical Device: A
Methodological Proposal,” in Hearing the Old Testament in the New Testament, ed. Stanley E. Porter
(Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 26–33.
55
David Daube, “Rabbinic Methods of Interpretation and Hellenistic Rhetoric,” HUCA 22
(1949): 251, 259.
56
Saul Liebermann, Hellenism in Jewish Palestine: Studies in the Literary Transmission, Beliefs and
Manners of Palestine in the I Century B.C.E.—IV Century C.E., TS 18 (New York: Jewish Theological
Seminary of America, 1962), 59–61.
57
Myers, Characterizing Jesus. Her use of “rhetorical criticism,” which focuses on Greco-Roman
rhetoric, should not be confused with rhetorical criticism that is practiced within the literary critical
realm of narratology.
58
Ibid., 15.
59
Ibid., 2.
60
George A. Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation through Rhetorical Criticism, Studies in Religion
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1984).
61
For example, Harold W. Attridge, “Argumentation in John 5,” in Rhetorical Argumentation in
Biblical Texts: Essays from the Lund 2000 Conference, ed. Anders Eriksson, Thomas H. Olbricht,
and Walter Übelacker, ESEC 8 (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 2002), 188–99; George
L. Parsenios, Rhetoric and Drama in the Johannine Lawsuit Motif, WUNT 258 (Tübingen: Mohr
Siebeck, 2010).
62
See Myers, Characterizing Jesus, 4–5; C. Clifton Black, “‘The Words That You Gave Me I Have
Given to Them:’ The Grandeur of Johannine Rhetoric,” in Exploring the Gospel of John: In Honor
of D. Moody Smith, ed. R. Alan Culpepper and C. Clifton Black (Louisville, KY: Westminster John
Knox Press, 1996), 220; Kennedy, New Testament Interpretation, 108–9.
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10
counters this claim and demonstrates how the FG’s use of Scripture shares properties
with Greco-Roman rhetoric.63 Following Jerome Neyrey, Myers argues that “classical
handbooks and progymnasmata provide a number of examples of quoting and alluding
to existing material in ways meant to increase the persuasiveness of one’s work.”64
Within this framework, the FG’s use of Scripture functions to characterize Jesus in
ways that are reminiscent of these classical handbooks and progymnasmata.
Though most scholars cite Jewish interpretive practices as the prime mode for the
evangelist’s own interpretive use of Scripture, the Greco-Roman milieu can no longer
be ignored.65 Rhetorical critics have demonstrated that the unique Christocentric
hermeneutic that the FE evinces makes comparisons with other Jewish interpretive
techniques, such as those found at Qumran, of limited value.66
Sociohistorical Approaches
Jaime Clark-Soles presents the most thorough treatment of the FG’s use of Scripture
for sociohistorical purposes, which provides a bridge between historical-critical
approaches and literary ones.67 Clark-Soles’s aim is not only to reconstruct the
sociohistorical setting within which the Johannine community found itself but also
to understand how the scriptural quotations functioned rhetorically within the
broader narrative. Building on J. Louis Martyn’s “two-level drama” and Wayne Meeks’s
hypothesis of the ascending/descending redeemer “myth,” Clark-Soles explores how
the FE’s use of Scripture reveals that the Johannine community was a “break-away”
group.68 Clark-Soles concludes that the use of Scripture mirrors other sectarian
communities, such as the one at Qumran. In so doing, the FE employs Scripture as an
authoritative voice to reinforce the community’s elect status after its expulsion from,
and conflict with, the “parent” Jewish group.
Ruth Sheridan raises literary concerns with Clark-Soles’s historical analysis,
particularly her methodological move from a literary phenomenon (i.e., scriptural
citation and allusion) to a sociohistorical situation (i.e., a sectarian community
experiencing expulsion).69 For Sheridan, Clark-Soles is too confident in reading literary
artifices as analogues of the community’s situation since the FG’s “story of Jesus—with
all its literary artifice—is heavily cloaked in what could be called ‘mythical’ language.”70
63
Myers, Characterizing Jesus, 5.
64
Myers, “Abiding Words,” 13. See also Jerome H. Neyrey, “Encomium versus Vituperation: Contrasting
Portraits of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel,” JBL 126 (2007): 529–52.
65
Schuchard, “Conclusion,” 240. As he summarizes, the FG’s “interpretive techniques and rhetorical
strategies are similarly both Jewish and Greco-Roman.”
66
Ibid., 240.
67
Jaime Clark-Soles, Scripture Cannot Be Broken: The Social Function of the Use of Scripture in the
Fourth Gospel (Leiden: Brill, 2003).
68
Ibid., 4–5, 7–8, 13, 209, 316. J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel
(Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1979), 29. The “two-level drama” points to the Johannine community
wrestling with its recent expulsion from the synagogue. Wayne A. Meeks, “The Man from Heaven in
Johannine Sectarianism,” JBL 91 (1972): 44–72. Meeks argues that the myth was intentionally meant
to exclude outsiders from understanding its message.
69
Sheridan, Retelling Scripture, 34.
70
Ibid.
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11
Clark-Soles assumes this mythical language can be translated into sociological realities.
Sheridan counters that not only is it possible that such a mythical worldview existed
prior to the split with “the Jews,” and therefore not reflective of it, it is also possible that
the FG’s mythical elements “obscure rather than reveal the historical situation of the
community.”71
For Sheridan, the sociohistorical mimetic function assumed of texts by Clark-
Soles is directly undermined by post-structural approaches, such as intertextuality,
where texts refer to a web of other texts.72 For this reason, Sheridan is less optimistic
about reconstructing the world behind the text and instead prefers the world of the
text. Nonetheless, Sheridan praises Clark-Soles’s rhetorical analysis of how Scripture
functions to characterize “the Jews” but marginalizes historical concerns in favor of
literary ones.73
2. Literary Perspectives
As a generalization, whereas historical-critical approaches attempt to ascertain

meaning behind the text, for example, in reconstructions of authorial intention,
sources, and the community, literary approaches move toward examining the
final form of the narrative.74 As such, meaning inhabits the final form of the text
(as received), which is assumed to be unified and whole. This reduces or, for some,
eliminates the need to atomize the FG as historical critics have done. Two key areas
of literary studies that have been applied to the use of Scripture in the FG (and the
New Testament) include rhetorical analysis, which is closely connected to narrative
criticism, and intertextuality.
Narrative and Rhetorical Criticism

R. Alan Culpepper’s groundbreaking Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel introduced
Johannine scholars to the merits of applying a formalist literary theory to the FG,
which highlighted the mutually beneficial value of narrative and rhetorical criticisms.75
The connection between narrative and rhetoric criticisms is somewhat seamless since
71
Ibid., 35, n. 180.
72
Ibid.
73
Ibid., 36–37.
74
John Ashton, Studying John: Approaches to the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1991), 142–43,
disparages narrative-critical readings of the Gospels for being “easier” and “smoother” than the
“rough” alternative of historical criticism. For Ashton, narrative critics incorrectly assume the
Gospel text to be a “smooth,” unified composition, but redaction-critical analysis has exposed
the fact that the Gospels were not composed in a single “sitting.” Sheridan disagrees, arguing that,
despite their composite nature, it must be said that the Gospels can still be read as a unified piece of
writing (Sheridan, Retelling Scripture, 58, n. 35).
75
R. Alan Culpepper, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel: A Study in Literary Design (Philadelphia,
PA: Fortress Press, 1983). For a recent survey, see Tom Thatcher, “Anatomies of the Fourth
Gospel: Past, Present and Future Probes,” in Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present
and Future of the Fourth Gospel as Literature, ed. Tom Thatcher and Stephen D. Moore (Atlanta,
GA: SBL, 2008), 1–34.
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12
a narrative is a form of rhetoric.76 Many who have been unsatisfied with the varied
results of historical-critical approaches follow Culpepper in investigating the FG’s
plot and its rhetorical characterization of Jesus.77 Such studies emphasize how the FG
narrative persuades the implied reader/audience of a particular characterization of
Jesus. But as Myers notes, this rhetorical approach has not been aptly applied to the
FG’s use of Scripture.78
Judith Lieu notes this void in scholarship as well and attempts to fill it by
investigating how the narrator, Jesus, and his opponents employ Scripture. In so doing,
she finds that the FG is more subtle in its appeals to Scripture than the Synoptics.79 In
her analysis of how Jesus is characterized, she notes how Scripture is used to reinforce
Jesus’s omniscience in a manner that is discernable to the narrator and the Gospel
audience rather than to the characters within the story.80
Myers adopts Lieu’s initial investigation but suggests that there is much more
potential in play, especially in relation to the use of Scripture by the characters in the
story. Where Lieu is broader in her approach, Myers focuses on the characterization
of Jesus; and where Culpepper uses modern categories of characterization, Myers uses
ancient practices of rhetoric to understand the FG’s persuasion via the characterization
of Jesus.81 Still, there is considerable agreement among these rhetorical/narrative
practitioners since they are all interested in showing how the reader is impacted by
characterization.82
Andreas Obermann fills an important gap by addressing the rhetorical function of
Scripture at the level of the narrative.83 Building on Faure’s significant observation that
76
Sheridan, Retelling Scripture, 52. As Sheridan argues, “Narratives are intrinsically rhetorical: they
seek to persuade readers to accept a particular ideological position.”
77
See Jeffrey Lloyd Staley, The Print’s First Kiss: A Rhetorical Investigation of the Implied Reader in
the Fourth Gospel, SBLDS 82 (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 1988), 47–48; Norman R. Peterson, The Gospel of
John and the Sociology of Light: Language and Characterization in the Fourth Gospel (Valley Forge,
PA: Trinity Press International, 1993); Mark W. G. Stibbe, John as Storyteller: Narrative Criticism
and the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Colleen M. Conway, Men
and Women in the Fourth Gospel: Gender and Johannine Characterization, SBLDS 167 (Atlanta,
GA: Scholars, 1999); Myers, Characterizing Jesus; Sheridan, Retelling Scripture.
78
Myers, Characterizing Jesus, 7–8.
79
Judith Lieu, “Narrative Analysis and Scripture in John,” in The Old Testament in the New
Testament: Essays in Honor of J. L. North, ed. Steve Moyise, JSNTSup 189 (Sheffield: Sheffield
Academic, 2000), 144–63.
80
See Myers, Characterizing Jesus, 8; Lieu, “Narrative Analysis,” 161–62.
81
Although Myers’s approach is rhetorical in that she is interested in how Scripture functions to
persuade audiences/readers, her application differs from rhetorical criticism as employed within
literary approaches. “Rhetorical criticism is one branch of narratology and is often referred to as
the ‘New Rhetoric,’ distinguishing it from the ‘classical’ model of rhetoric prevalent in the ancient
Greco-Roman world” (Sheridan, Retelling Scripture, 51). New Rhetoric can be traced to the work of
Chaim Perelman and Lucie Olbrechts-Tyteca, The New Rhetoric: A Treatise on Argumentation, trans.
John Wilkinson and Purcell Weaver (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1969).
82
Sheridan, Retelling Scripture, 51, n. 1. See also Judith Lieu, “Us or You? Persuasion and Identity in
1 John,” JBL 127, no. 4 (2008): 807, where she remarks that, contrary to Myers, the “New Rhetoric”
when applied to early Christian texts cannot be considered “anachronistic.”
83
Andreas Obermann, Die christologische Erfüllung der Schrift im Johannesevangelium: Eine
Untersuchung zur johanneseichen Hermeneutik anhand der Schriftzitate, WUNT 2/83 (Tübingen:
Mohr Siebeck, 1996). See Myers’ helpful summary of Obermann and Sheridan’s work as well as her
own in “Abiding Words,” 16–17; see also Sheridan, Retelling Scripture, 27–32.
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13
the FE uses two distinct formulae (one form in 1:1–12:38 and the second in 13:1–19:42),
Obermann argues that the two formulae reveal two distinct rhetorical conceptions of
Scripture held by the FE.84 Where Faure argues that the FG is based on two distinct
sources, Obermann, who assumes a cohesive narrative, focuses on their function
within the world of the text itself.85 Obermann argues that the formula in the first half
(1:1–12:38), which is about Jesus’s public ministry, is used to show how Scripture is
a witnesses to Jesus.86 Whereas the formula in the second half (13:1–19:42), which is
about Jesus’s death and departure, is used to show how Scripture is explicitly fulfilled
in Jesus.87 Indicative of this observation is the construction of Jesus’s last word(s): “It is
finished (τετέλεσται).” The deeper dual meaning of this statement is that both Jesus’s
work is fulfilled and that Scripture is now complete.88 Accordingly, for Obermann,
the FE is a “Scripture-Theologian” (Schriftteologe) whose narrative portrayal of Jesus
and his understanding of Jesus’s personal and theological significance is unreservedly
rooted in the Jewish Scriptures.89 Obermann even goes as far to say that the FE is
consciously writing a neuer heiliger Schrift—a new holy Scripture—of his own and that
the Johannine community reads it as such.90
Sheridan expands on Obermann’s work by applying a more literary critical
perspective, but only to the first half of the Gospel’s use of Scripture, concentrating
on how “the Jews” are characterized. In so doing, she focuses on the FG’s paradoxical
anti- and pro-Jewish ethos from the ideal reader’s perspective. Whereas Obermann
observes that the first half of the FG presents Scripture as speaking directly to “the
Jews,” as though they are the primary audience of the narrative, Sheridan focuses on the
rhetorical function that calls attention to the FG’s polemic against “the Jews” and the
way Scripture is employed for its ideal reader.91 She concludes that “The ideal reader—
who is always more ‘informed’ than ‘the Jews’ in the story—succeeds in coming to
faith in Jesus through a process of ‘othering’ ‘the Jews’ by constructing them as negative
characters in the context of the OT citations.”92
Audience Criticism
A rhetorical approach also extends into the conceptual world in front of the text
with analyses of audiences.93 In an audience-critical approach, the locus of meaning
shifts from historical contexts or authorial intention to the reader(s). While this does
84
Obermannm, Die christologische Erfüllung der Schrift, 80–81.
85
Ibid., 78, 80, 333–34, and 345–48.
86
Ibid., 78–89, 325–50.
87
Ibid., 80.
88
Ibid., 355–56. See also Francis J. Moloney, “The Gospel of John as Scripture,” CBQ 67 (2005): 456.
89
Obermann, Die christologische Erfüllung der Schrift, 430.
90
Ibid., 420–21.
91
Sheridan, Retelling Scripture, 30–31, 235.
92
Ibid., 235. Earlier she explains, “I begin by considering how narratives work to persuade readers
to accept certain ideological positions, in other words, by discussing the intrinsically rhetorical
dimension of all narrative. This is important because the reader of the Fourth Gospel is persuaded
to take up the Christological meaning of the Scripture’s witness to Jesus even as ‘the Jews’ reject it,
and in so doing, to ‘other’ ‘the Jews’ in the process of reading” (50).
93
Ibid., 51–57; see also Myers, Characterizing Jesus, 17–20.
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14
not deny the existence of an actual author, it focuses on the “implied author” as the
voice of a “second self ” that is distinguished from a historically situated author. The
point is that an actual author cannot be perfectly reflected in the authorial voice of a
narrative.94 Likewise, an ideal reader, which is an inference constructed from the text,
is not to be confused with the actual, historically situated reader.95 For Sheridan, this
distinction between actual and ideal author(s)/reader(s) is theoretically necessary to
avoid anchoring meaning to speculative historical reconstructions.96
Like Sheridan, Myers builds on Peter Rabbinowitz’s theory of four different types
of audiences that are present when a text is read or heard: the actual audience, the
authorial audience, the narrative audience, and the ideal narrative audience.97 Sheridan
prioritizes the fourth audience, but Myers wishes to bridge the actual audience with the
ideal audience so as to avoid, in Rabbinowitz’s own words, “perverse” interpretations of
texts. Therefore, as Myers reasons, “one needs both synchronic analyses that follow the
argument of a text in its final form and diachronic research concerning the historical
and social context of a written work in order to comprehend it.”98 Where Sheridan
avoids historical reconstructions,99 Myers engages the historical context as a means
of deducing more plausible authorial audiences.100 In this way, Myers distinguishes
her approach from previous studies that have attempted to reconstruct the Johannine
community.101
94
Wayne Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, 2nd ed. (London: Penguin, 1991), 131. See also Sheridan,
Retelling Scripture, 52–53. As Geert Hallback explains, an “implied author” is the “omniscient
consciousness responsible for the story as a whole.” See Geert Hallback, “The Gospel of John
as Literature: Literary Readings of the Fourth Gospel,” in New Readings in John: Literary and
Theological Perspectives. Essays from the Scandinavian Conference on the Fourth Gospel, Arhus,
1997, ed. Johannes Nissen and Sigfred Petersen (London: T&T Clark, 2004), 35. Contrast Hallback
with the recent criticism of “omniscience” in narrative criticism offered by Jonathan Culler,
“Omniscience,” in The Literary in Theory (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), 183–204.
95
Hallback, “The Gospel of John as Literature,” 35.
96
Sheridan, Retelling Scripture, 58–59.
97
Peter J. Rabbinowitz, “Truth in Fiction: A Reexamination of Audiences,” Critical Inquiry 4
(1977): 126–29. For Rabbinowitz, since all these audiences are present, it is possible to encounter
a text from different vantage points. See Myers, Characterizing Jesus, 17. Myers also builds on the
works of H. R. Jauss and Gian Biagio Conte. See H. R. Jauss, Aesthetic Experience and Literary
Hermeneutics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1982); Gian Biagio Conte, The Rhetoric
of Imitation: Genre and Poetic Memory in Virgil and Other Latin Poets, ed. Charles Segal (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1986).
98
Myers, Characterizing Jesus, 18.
99
Although it should be noted that she does not entirely avoid historical concerns. She admits, “It must
nevertheless be acknowledged that the Gospel’s negative rhetorical portrayal of ‘the Jews’ was born
out of a particular historical situation, and that this rhetoric had what could be called a ‘positive’ value
for the Johannine community—the Scripture’s Christological witness evidently confirmed them in
their decision to follow Jesus in the face of possible persecution from some factions of the religious
leadership … An ‘ideal reader’ of the Gospel in the first century would therefore possibly not have
been perturbed by the anti-Jewish rhetoric of the text; the biblical tale is recast and reappropriated
in Jesus for the sake of the believing community” (Retelling Scripture, 243).
100
Myers (Characterizing Jesus, 19) follows Charles H. Talbert, Reading Luke-Acts in Its Mediterranean
Milieu, NovTSup 107 (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 16–17. For Myers, this approach is not a means to
an original meaning; rather, it is about discovering more plausible meanings based on generally
known and accepted historical and cultural facts from Mediterranean antiquity (p. 18).
101
For example, Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist Press,
1979); J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology of the Fourth Gospel, 3rd ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003).
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Intertextuality
The focus that rhetorical critical approaches have on both the world of the text and
the world in front of the text is also a characteristic shared by those who appeal to
intertextuality, which is a term that has received considerable attention. For some, the
term is used to refer to meaning that is found in the world in front of the text, whereas
for others it assumes that meaning is found in the world behind the text as well.
Since Richard Hays’s seminal work on Paul’s use of Scripture, intertextuality has
had a substantial impact on New Testament studies and shows no signs of abating.102
Though many New Testament scholars do not integrate the theory that gave rise
to intertextuality as a term and concept, its use has nevertheless found a home for
inquiries into the use of Scripture in the New Testament in general and the FG in
particular.103
The concept of intertextuality at its most basic level is that “every text is written
and read in relation to that which is already written and read.”104 Thus, intertextuality
moves away from “traditional notions of agency” and fixed points of meaning.105 Texts
are perceived not as islands. That is, they cannot be understood in isolation.106 Moyise
shows how an intertextual approach to the use of Scripture in the New Testament can
be distinguished from more conventional historical-critical approaches, noting that
two primary paths have been taken by historical critics. Some have argued that the
embedded Scripture texts generally retain their original meanings, though, on occasion,
they extend their meanings so that they can be applicable in their new host context
in the New Testament.107 Most, however, have acknowledged the differences between
the original meanings in the Jewish Scriptures and their newly acquired meanings in
102
Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
1989); Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2016).
103
For example, Susan Hylen, Allusion and Meaning in John 6, BZNW 137 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2005);
Catrin H. Williams, “Isaiah in John’s Gospel,” in Isaiah in the New Testament, ed. Steve Moyise
and Maarten J. J. Menken (London: T&T Clark, 2007); Catrin H. Williams, “‘He Saw His Glory
and Spoke of Him’: The Testimony of Isaiah and Johannine Christology,” in Honouring the Past
and Shaping the Future: Religious and Biblical Studies in Wales. Essays in Honour of Gareth Lloyd
Jones, ed. Robert Pope (Leominster: Gracewing, 2003); Gary T. Manning, Echoes of a Prophet: The
Use of Ezekiel in the Gospel of John and in the Literature of the Second Temple Period, JSNTSup
270 (London: T&T Clark, 2004); Andrew C. Brunson, Psalm 118 in the Gospel of John, WUNT
2/158 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003); Margaret Daly-Denton, David in the Fourth Gospel: The
Johannine Reception of the Psalms, AGJU 47 (Leiden: Brill, 2000); Diana M. Swancutt, “Hungers
Assuaged by the Bread of Heaven: ‘Eating Jesus’ as Isaian Call to Belief: The Confluence of Isaiah
55 and Psalm 78(77) in John 6.22–71,” in Early Christian Interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel, ed.
Craig A. Evans and James A. Sanders, JSNTSup 148, SSEJC 5 (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997),
218–51; Robert L. Brawley, “An Absent Complement and Intertextuality in John 19:28–29,” JBL 112
(1993): 427–43.
104
Stefan Alkier, “Intertextuality and the Semiotics of Biblical Texts,” in Reading the Bible Intertextually,
ed. Richard B. Hays, Stefan Alkier, and Leroy A. Huizenga (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press,
2008), 4.
105
Steve Moyise, “Intertextuality and Historical Approaches to the Use of Scripture in the New
Testament,” in Reading the Bible Intertextually, ed. Richard B. Hays, Stefan Alkier, and Leroy A.
Huizenga (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), 23.
106
Ibid. As Steve Moyise notes, a text “can only be understood as part of a web or matrix of other texts,
themselves only to be understood in the light of other texts.”
107
A radical example is Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., “The Single Intent of Scripture,” in The Right Doctrine
from the Wrong Text? ed. G. K. Beale (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1994), 55–69.
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the New Testament.108 Moyise observes that despite the apparent differences in these
two positions, they actually share an assumption that texts have a single meaning.109
Intertextuality, properly understood within its initial post-structuralist milieu, severely
problematizes the notion of a text’s singular meaning since it approaches the formation
of meanings from the perspective of the reader. Intertextuality, as Julia Kristeva
envisions, is less a bridge to understanding the meaning of texts as it is a canyon
distancing them.110
In this light, as Moyise urges, intertextuality “is not a method but a theory (or
group of theories) concerning the production of meaning,” which presupposes that
the meaning of texts is always in flux, “open to revision as new texts come along and
reposition it.”111 Accordingly, this post-structuralist environment involves conceptions
of power. Texts compete with one another, regardless of authorial intentions or
motivations to do so. Every text is inevitably intertextual and so every text decenters
as well as pluralizes the meanings of any previous texts at the level of the reader or the
interpreter. Stefan Alkier calls this ongoing process of intertextuality a “hermeneutical
consequence.”112 However, this hermeneutical consequence appears to be mostly
ignored and Moyise’s observation that conventional historical-critical approaches
assume a single, fixed meaning appears to persist, even if it is brought in through the
backdoor and at times hard to detect.
There are two ways intertextuality is applied to the FG’s use of Scripture. Whereas
some apply it in a restricted sense reminiscent of source or redaction-critical
approaches,113 others are more cognizant of its post-structuralist theoretical context
and consequences. Gary Manning and Richard Hays provide good examples of the
former, while Margaret Daly-Denton exemplifies the latter.
108
Lindars, New Testament Apologetic. The aim here is to understand the motivations for ascribing
these new meanings in light of similar practices in the ancient world, especially at Qumran and
among other Jewish groups.
109
Moyise, “Intertextuality and Historical Approaches,” 24.
110
Julia Kristeva, “Word, Dialogue, and Novel,” in The Kristeva Reader, ed. Toril Moi, trans. Léon S.
Roudiez and Seán Hand (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 35–36.
111
Moyise, “Intertextuality and Historical Approaches,” 23.
112
Alkier, “Intertextuality and the Semiotics,” 3.
113
Thomas Hatina cautions that a restricted use of intertextuality has been separated from its
post-structural environment and has been used for pragmatic reasons for source-critical aims.
See Thomas R. Hatina, “Intertextuality and Historical Criticism in New Testament Studies: Is
There a Relationship?” BibInt 7 (1999): 28–42; Thomas R. Hatina and Michael Kozowski,
“Introduction: Complexity of Contexts and the Study of Luke’s Use of Scripture,” in Biblical
Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels. Volume 3: The Gospel of Luke, ed. Thomas R. Hatina,
Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity 16, LNTS 376 (London: T&T Clark, 2010),
10–11. This criticism echoes Kristeva’s own criticism of a more limited and methodologically
pragmatic use of intertextuality, even going as far as forfeiting her original term in exchange for
clarifying her theory’s position, stating, “The term inter-textuality denotes this transposition of one
(or several) sign system(s) into another; but since this term has often been understood in the banal
sense of ‘study of sources,’ we prefer the term transposition, because it specifies that the passage
from one signifying system to another demands a new articulation … If one grants that every
signifying practice is a field of transpositions of various signifying systems (an inter-textuality), one
then understands that its ‘place’ of enunciation and its denoted ‘object’ are never single, complete,
and identical to themselves, but always plural, shattered, capable of being tabulated” (Julia Kristeva,
Revolution in Poetic Language, trans. Margaret Waller [New York: Columbia University Press,
1984], 59–60).
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Manning’s study, Echoes of a Prophet, looks at the use of Ezekiel in the FG and in the
wider context of the Second Temple period.114 Following Hays, Manning’s definition
of intertextuality is difficult to distinguish from that of source criticism. Citing Hays,
Manning understands intertextuality as discerning “how a New Testament author
understood his Old Testament source and adapted material from the older text for
use in his own work.”115 Evident here is Manning’s focus on the author, as opposed
to what one might expect in an intertextual approach (namely the reader). Although
Manning claims that his approach is “a new formulation of the historical-critical study
of literary parallels,”116 it is nonetheless indistinguishable from previous source- or
redaction-critical studies.117 Moreover, he assumes that intertextuality only considers
“the congruence” between two literary contexts, which is inconsistent with the
poststructuralist notion that intertextuality reveals the indeterminate role of readers.
In Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, Hays provides an additional example of the
type of intertextual study that ignores and restricts post-structuralist insights.118
Using Erich Auerbach’s notion of “figural interpretation,” Hays proposes reading
backward beginning with the evangelists. Thus, though it is not explicitly noted by
Hays, the author/evangelist is privileged. Although for Hays, the context of the
previous (Old Testament) authors is of no concern, which may allow for his overall
(biblical) theological coherence.119 Regarding the FG’s use of Scripture, Hays notes that
the number of explicit citations in the FG, along with allusions and echoes, pales in
comparison with the Synoptics.120 Hays surmises that the evangelist engages Scripture
as a “source of symbols” and explains that the “intertextual references tend to focus
on vivid visual images that evoke the scriptural background rather than upon the
citation and exposition of chains of words.”121 Thus, “John reads the entirety of the Old
Testament as a web of symbols that must be understood as figural signifiers for Jesus
and the life that he offers.”122 It might appear as though Hays simply selects from any
Jewish Scripture to act as an intertext, but he has previously provided seven criteria for
what constitutes a legitimate or plausible textual echo in order to curb such rampant
subjectivism.123
114
Manning, Echoes of a Prophet.
115
Ibid., 5. Redaction critical aims come to the surface again as he explains that “the study of
intertextuality” only begins “when a possible parallel in earlier literature is discovered.” He
continues, “From there, the student of intertextuality seeks to learn how the later author interacts
with the source document, transforms it, and uses it to advance the later work.”
116
Ibid.
117
Ibid., 4. Also, for Manning, scriptural echoes that he discovers are assumed to be recognizable by
the FG’s actual audience. In this way, he is sitting in for the actual audience. This is done despite
citing Samuel Sandmel, “Parallelomania,” JBL 81 (1962): 1–13.
118
See Hatina, “Intertextuality and Historical Criticism,” 36–37.
119
Hays, Scripture in the Gospels, 2–3.
120
Ibid., 284. Hays estimates approximately 70 in Mark, 124 in Matthew, 109 in Luke, and 27 in John.
121
Ibid., 343–44. The notion that a scriptural quotation reflects a wider context rather than just a
“chain of words” has been axiomatic within historical-critical studies since the work of Dodd (see
Moyise, “Intertextuality and Historical Approaches,” 31). This is not a conception inaugurated by
proposing intertextuality.
122
Hays, Scripture in the Gospels, 344. See also his Reading Backwards: Figural Christology and the
Fourfold Gospel Witness (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2014), 92.
123
Hays, Letters of Paul, 29–33. Hays offers these seven “tests”: the availability of the intertext; its
volume; recurrence; thematic coherence; the historical plausibility of the interpretation; its
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It is difficult to determine if Hays’s approach is literary or theological since

similarities between the two seem to be assumed, but what Hays seeks to make clear
is that he does not consider his approach to be historical in the conventional sense.124
However, despite Hays’ claim, his aim appears to be ascertaining the ways in which
the authors “reread Israel’s Scripture.”125 In other words, the same methodological aim
that drives conventional historical-critical approaches—namely that of ascertaining
the single (fixed) meaning of the author—appears to be in play for Hays’s “intertextual
close reading.”126 For this reason, Thomas R. Hatina’s critique of Hays’s earlier work still
applies.127 Perhaps a clearer explanation is needed for how “reading backwards” is all
that distinct from other historical-critical readings (or from a theological approach).128
Furthermore, Hays’s use of intertextuality assumes that the (ancient) reader is as
competent in his textual awareness as he is and vice versa.129 Sheridan interacts
with Hays’s view of intertextuality and insightfully notes Hays’s “hermeneutical
presupposition” of a competent reader. Acknowledging that readers obviously vary
in competence, she asks a poignant question that ought to be inescapable for anyone
employing intertextuality: “Does the reader/critic extract allusive echoes that are
plainly ‘there,’ present in the text, or does she create them, fabricating them out of her
own existing network of intertextual knowledge?”130
Margaret Daly-Denton exemplifies an approach that engages with the post-
structuralist insights of intertextuality. Her work is predominantly synchronic and
argues that the FG’s depiction of Jesus is meant to echo David via the Gospel audience’s
reception of the Psalms.131 Daly-Denton wrestles with the hermeneutical consequences
of intertextuality and thus does not argue for one meaning acquired by the reader of
the FG.132 Unlike previous studies that show the (obvious) “Prophet-like-Moses” traits
of the Gospel, she adds complexity showing that Jesus is also echoed as a “new/ideal
connection to the history of interpretation; and the satisfaction rendered by the interpretation.
Hays acknowledges that these tests only offer “shades of certainty” in demonstrating what the
author was intending.
124
Hays, Scripture in the Gospels, 3–8.
125
Ibid., 7.
126
Ibid.
127
Hatina, “Intertextuality and Historical Criticism,” 36–37. Hatina proposes that Hays dispense with
the term intertextuality since his use of the term has less to do with what Kristeva calls transposition
and more to do with “influence,” which is indistinguishable from a study of sources.
128
See Ruth Sheridan, “The Testimony of Two Witnesses: John 8:17,” in Abiding Words: The Use of
Scripture in the Gospel of John, ed. Alicia D. Myers and Bruce G. Schuchard, RBS 81 (Atlanta,
GA: SBL, 2015), 168–69, where she states, “Nevertheless, as we read through Hays’s work, it is
possible to observe that the creative and radical poetics of metaleptic intertextuality advanced
by Hollander (which Hays initially espouses) give way ever so slightly to an author-centered
hermeneutic. We could be excused for thinking that, here, Hays makes a concession to historically
minded critics of the New Testament who would rather be assured that allusive echoes to the Old
Testament are ‘scientifically’ verifiable” (168).
129
See Hays, Letters of Paul, 19, 21–22, 24–25.
130
Sheridan, “Testimony of Two Witnesses,” 168.
131
Daly-Denton, David in the Fourth Gospel, 1–2, 12. She has in mind H. R. Jauss’s concept of “a
synchronic cross-section of a moment in the process of reception.” Cf. Brunson, Gospel of John,
8–16. Brunson also wrestles with the post-structural implications of intertextuality and explains
his narrow (and tenable) use of the term.
132
Daly-Denton, David in the Fourth Gospel, 1–2.
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David figure.”133 Daly-Denton rightly understands the plurality of meaning involved

in intertextuality and the dissonance in meaning from one intertext to another. Unlike
Hays, she approaches intertextuality as an act of reception by the reading community
rather than the author.134 In other words, where Hays understands intertextuality to
be a reading backward, retrospectively, Daly-Denton understands it as a reading in
both directions, noting, “The reception of the quotation as part of the later work will
therefore depend on factors far more complex than the reader’s mere awareness of
the original source.”135 Daly-Denton is clearly interested in how the past meaning is
discontinuous and therefore transformed by its new context, whereby “the past is
altered by the present, as much as the present is directed by the past.”136 Thus, for Daly-
Denton, meaning in the “existing ‘work’ of David, the Psalter, once re-read in a new
work, the Fourth Gospel, is thus irrevocably altered.”137
3. Media Perspectives
Like certain uses of intertextuality, recent uses of media criticism have often left behind
the comfort zone of historical questions in the pursuit of interpretive mechanisms at
work within the FG, which as Catrin Williams observes is steeped in scriptural concepts
and motifs.138 Media criticism likewise complicates the relationship between past
texts and their use in new settings. But unlike intertextuality, media criticism extends
beyond the literary relationship between texts and engages more fully the media
environment out of which the FG emerged. This media environment is characterized
by an interplay between textuality, orality, and memory. While media criticism is a
burgeoning field in Johannine studies, it has not as yet been extensively applied to
the use of embedded Scripture texts, though a few scholars are testing the waters as is
noted below. One of the most important collection of essays to date that introduces the
interpretive potential of media criticism to Johannine scholarship is found in Anthony
Le Donne and Tom Thatcher’s The Fourth Gospel in First-Century Media Culture.139
133
Ibid., 8. As opposed to saying instead of Moses.
134
Ibid. See also Alkier’s classifications of different types of approaches to intertextuality: production,
reception, and experimental as a means of classifying different uses of intertextuality (“Intertextuality
and the Semiotics,” 9–11).
135
Daly-Denton, David in the Fourth Gospel, 1–2. She quotes Jonathan Culler’s explanation of
intertextuality, where he corrects the misunderstanding that it is “less a name for a work’s relation
to particular prior texts than a designation of its participation in the discursive space of a culture”
(Jonathan Culler, The Pursuit of Signs: Semiotics, Literature, Deconstruction [London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1981], 103). She also engages with Roland Barthes’s works, especially his concept of
déjà lu, which is the unconscious presuppositions that readers bring to a text. See “The Theory of the
Text,” in Untying the Text: A Post-Structuralist Reader, ed. Robert Young (Boston, MA: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1981), 39.
136
Daly-Denton, David in the Fourth Gospel, 8.
137
Ibid., 8.
138
Catrin H. Williams, “Patriarchs and Prophets Remembered: Framing Israel’s Past in the Gospel of
John,” in Abiding Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John, ed. Alicia D. Myers and Bruce G.
Schuchard, RBS 81 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2015), 187.
139
Anthony Le Donne and Tom Thatcher, “Introduction,” in The Fourth Gospel in First-Century
Media Culture, ed. Anthony Le Donne and Tom Thatcher, ESCO, LNTS 426 (London: T&T Clark,
2011), 1.
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Orality, which characterizes ancient Mediterranean cultures, was present residually

even in (written) text production.140 Texts of the period were vocalized and read
out loud, especially when the writings underwent oral performance. As aphorized,
“Texts were crafted to catch the ear rather than the eye.”141 An appeal to orality reveals
aspects of culture that are generally not perceived in conventional literary- and source/
redaction-critical approaches. Rather than describe the compositional process of
writing, revising, and/or copying fixed texts, an awareness of oral processes helps us
to better understand the “complex matrix of communicative influences upon multiple
trajectories of recollections of the past.”142
As the process of orality is gaining acceptance, particularly as an essential
characteristic of the first-century Mediterranean world, it is beginning to be applied
to the FG in two distinct ways. First, some approach the FG as an oral performance,
much like rhetorical critics have done, but they treat the text as a spoken performance.
Second, others have attempted to ascertain how memory works in appropriating the
past in the FE’s identity constructions within his present.
Performance Criticism
Beginning with the former, oral performance criticism emphasizes the cultural impact
of public recitations and audience responses in the composition of texts.143 As Anthony
Le Donne and Tom Thatcher summarize, “The oral performer or orally performing
text (a text written to be read aloud to a listening audience) must conform to the
expectations, demands, presuppositions, prejudices, attitudes and direct interactions
of a live audience.”144 Examples of scholars applying this approach to the FG’s use of
Scripture are limited. The only two that I am aware of are Michael Labahn and Jeffrey
Brickle.145 Labahn takes a narrative-critical approach, seeing Scripture “as a character
that acts orally and that is interrelated with other characters by the narrator.”146 By
focusing on passages in the FG where “Scripture is portrayed as a speaking character,”
Labahn attempts “to explain how Scripture functions as a ‘witness’ to Jesus in the
Fourth Gospel and … how these written Scriptures act as a character that speaks to
audiences within and beyond the narrative.”147
140
See the brief introduction to orality studies for Johannine scholarship: Le Donne and Thatcher,
“Introduction,” 2–4. See also the seminal study of Werner H. Kelber, The Oral and the Written
Gospel: The Hermeneutics of Speaking and Writing in the Synoptic Tradition, Mark, Paul, and Q
(Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1983).
141
Sheridan, Retelling Scripture, 25.
142
Le Donne and Thatcher, “Introduction,” 2.
143
Ibid., 5.
144
Ibid. They add, “Obviously, this communications environment differs quite significantly from that
of modern authors whose readers are never present at the moment of composition.”
145
Michael Labahn, “Scripture Talks Because Jesus Talks: The Narrative Rhetoric of Persuading and
Creativity in John’s Use of Scripture,” in The Fourth Gospel in First-Century Media Culture, ed.
Anthony Le Donne and Tom Thatcher, ESCO, LNTS 426 (London: T&T Clark, 2011), 133–54;
Jeffrey E. Brickle, “Sympathetic Resonance: John as Intertextual Memory Artisan,” in Abiding
Words: The Use of Scripture in the Gospel of John, ed. Alicia D. Myers and Bruce G. Schuchard, RBS
81 (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2015), 213–36.
146
Labahn, “Scripture Talks,” 134.
147
Ibid.
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Brickle follows Whitney Shiner’s approach of applying memory arts to the Gospel
of Mark. The organizing model Shiner employs is that of a temple front, similar to
that of the Parthenon, by which the structure of Mark’s Gospel could be strategically
plotted on the memory of its hearers.148 Brickle applies this approach to the FG and
sees any one of the prominent sites in Ephesus (e.g., port baths, gymnasium, theater,
state agora, or the temple of Artemis) as “an effective memory scheme” that could
be used to plot “representative images from the Fourth Gospel’s narrative framework
upon such sites.”149 Brickle, then, conceives the evangelist to be a practitioner of ancient
memory arts, whereby the Gospel text functions as a “memory palace” that takes the
reader on a “mnemonic journey” that turns sites into “a rhetorical discourse.”150
As Brickle’s title indicates, he applies the aural or acoustic theory of sympathetic
resonance, which is similar to Hays’s understanding of intertextuality. Brickle’s use of
the theory “suggests that one narrative sets a second in motion—causing the second
to ‘vibrate’ in a harmonic relationship to the first.”151 Based on this, he proposes that
by “keying” Gen 1:1 (LXX) in the opening phrase of the prologue, “John triggers the
entire sweep of the Old Testament narrative soundscape, which flows as an underlying
subtext, an undercurrent of vibrating, meaningful sound, beneath John’s gospel.”152
Brickle’s use of performance criticism raises many interesting avenues for further
research. However, there are some shortcomings. First, he claims that the past, as
represented by the LXX, shapes the FG’s narrative as it shapes all of Second Temple
Judaism.153 Thus, the view that the echo of LXX Gen 1:1 would have pointed to the
entire narrative of the Scriptures for the audience is likely a stretch (e.g., does the FE
also intend the story of Job or Ruth to be in mind?). Second, Brickle misunderstands
memory as only a reliable medium, accurately preserving the past in the present
from one generation to the next. This narrow understanding of the relationship
148
Brickle, “Sympathetic Resonance,” 221. See Whitney T. Shiner, “Memory Technology and the
Composition of Mark,” in Performing the Gospel: Orality, Memory, and Mark, ed. Richard A.
Horsley, Jonathan A. Draper, and John M. Foley (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2006), 147–65.
149
Brickle, “Sympathetic Resonance,” 222. Brickle notes some drawbacks to his approach, admitting
(1) that it runs the risk of being “too static” to account for the “complexities inherent” in the FG’s
use of Scripture, and (2) that it is open to criticism of imposing an outside organization, such as the
non-scriptural sphere of Ephesus as opposed to “an internal textual matrix comprising the literary
canon of Israel.” Brickle is also not clear about his selection of metaphors for discussing the act of
remembering (namely, a theater, hypertext, images, and a film or motion picture) and his choice of
using a metaphor of sympathetic resonance and mnemonic journey.
150
Ibid., 231–32. Brickle explains further: “Journeying through the text in this highly suggestive
fashion—paying close attention to the narrative’s sequencing of ‘rooms’ or spaces in relationship
to the Old Testament’s—helps us see how John has conceptually arranged the lower and upper
floors (corresponding to the Old Testament and his Gospel, respectively) of his two-level memory
‘palace.’ We should thus envision the Gospel of John not merely as a story here and there evoking
critical connections to Old Testament texts, but rather as a story embarking on a virtual tour of an
all-encompassing, masterfully designed mnemonic edifice” (234).
151
Ibid., 226.
152
Ibid.
153
As mentioned previously, the pluriformity of Scripture makes it difficult to assume that the canon
we now call the Old Testament was the same canon of Scripture the FG audience held. Perhaps not
all citations in the FG were deemed Scripture (e.g., John 7:38). Moreover, the reworking of LXX
passages (e.g., John 1:23 as a reworking of Isa 40:3) also suggests a divergence from the LXX, not
harmony.
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between the past and present does not account for the insights generated by social
memory theory (a theory he claims to be using).154 Third, Brickle is only interested
in demonstrating reliability. Though Brickle claims he does not “wish to enter into a
prolonged discussion of memory’s trustworthiness,” he still does so by claiming that
New Testament authors “were certainly aware of natural memory’s shortcomings, and
intentionally devised means to compensate.”155 He continues arguing that within early
Christian culture’s “unique” situation, “too much was at stake to relinquish cherished
traditions to the frailties and instability of natural memory alone.”156 For this reason,
Brickle portrays the evangelists as memory artists who both memorized all of Scripture
and communicated their Gospels in a manner that also incited audiences to memorize
them. For Brickle, this results in a “harmonic relationship” between the FG and its
use of Scripture. This is not necessarily typical of how performance criticism operates,
however. Significantly, most scholars using performance criticism also “emphasize the
notion of multiple originals” that “every performance context that includes a teller
and an audience is a unique social interaction that produces a unique text.”157 A staple
within performance criticism is the fluidity of meaning and its being hostage to the
needs and circumstances of the present (especially within oral cultures). This is also
the case in the field of social memory theory.158
Social Memory Theory

Building on the work of Maurice Halbwachs, who was a student of Émile Durkheim,
social memory theorists have argued that memory is not a passive act of recall but
rather a complex constructive process whereby the past is reconstructed in light of the
present needs and circumstances of the group.159 Since the process of memory is a social
phenomenon, Halbwachs postulated, “No memory is possible outside frameworks
used by people living in society to determine and retrieve their recollections.”160 He
154
The main tenet of social memory theory, which is missed, is that the past is reconstructed for the
needs and purposes of the present. See the discussion below on social memory theory.
155
Brickle, “Sympathetic Resonance,” 219.
156
Ibid. A problem here is his privileging a Christian past over other cultures’ pasts. All groups take
measures to preserve their pasts, obviously more so with salient events or figures. But the study
of memory, especially within an oral culture, demonstrates fluidity and plurality in meaning
and content, not uniformity or features that would depict the sort of harmony and continuity
Brickle seeks.
157
158
See Thomas R. Hatina, “The Provenance of Jesus’ Quotations of Scripture: From Form Criticism
to Social Memory Theory,” in The Earliest Perceptions of Jesus in Context: Essays in Honor of
John Nolland, ed. Aaron W. White, David Wenham, and Craig A. Evans (London: T&T Clark,
2018), 59–76.
159
Maurice Halbwachs, “The Social Frameworks of Memory,” in On Collective Memory, ed. and trans.
L. A. Coser (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 35–189.
160
Ibid., 43. For discussions on the differences between “social memory” and “collective memory,” as
Halbwachs understood them, and how they are inconsistently used today, see Sandra Huebenthal,
“Social and Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis: The Quest for an Adequate Application,” in
Cultural Memory in Biblical Exegesis, ed. P. Carstens et al., PHSC 17 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias,
2012), 191–216.
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insisted that memories are always recalled from, and thus structured by, the social
demands of the present.161
The past provides valuable resources for defining identity in the present. “We are
what we remember,” the saying goes. But the past is not simply what happened, it is
what has become commemorated and communicated repeatedly in the present. As Jan
Assmann explains, “The truth of memory lies in the identity that it shapes. This truth is
subject to time so that it changes with every new identity and every new present. It lies
in the story, not as it happened but as it lives on and unfolds in collective memory.”162
Groups construct continuity with the past because the past is both formative and
normative; formative in that it tells the individual who they are as distinct from others,
and normative in that it guides the individual how to live and behave so as to belong
to the group.163
Social memory theory is a hermeneutic that conceives of texts as snapshots in
time and as such aligns well with synchronic methods, such as narrative criticism.164
In addition, one of its main functions is identity formation in a given present,
which likewise aligns well with the study of character formation in stories. In order
for memories to be communicated, they are often narrativized through a process
of selection, organization, and transposition of recollections into stories with
linear sequences, settings, climaxes, and resolutions.165 Consequently, “narrative
presentations of the past are typically stamped with the values and power relations that
drive a group’s patterns of socialization and domination.”166
As Le Donne and Thatcher note, this point calls into question the historical value
of collective memories. Though this is a current issue for many Gospel scholars
appropriating memory, “most social memory theorists are less concerned with the
content of collective memory and its potential historical value than with the ways that
specific artifacts of memory (such as the Johannine writings) reflect the structure,
values and identity of the groups that produced them.”167 As Hatina concludes the
matter, “instead of being guided by a hermeneutic that tries to determine a fixed past
reality, social memory theory is guided by a cultural web of significance that shapes
meaning at the level of the text for the present.”168
161
Halbwachs, “Social Frameworks of Memory,” 39–40.
162
Jan Assmann, Moses the Egyptian: The Memory of Egypt in Western Monotheism (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 14.
163
Jan Assmann calls these sorts of memories “connective memory,” borrowing Nietzsche’s concept of
“bonding memory.” See Jan Assmann, Religion and Cultural Memory: Ten Studies, trans. Rodney
Livingstone (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006).
164
See the discussion of the integration of memory, myth-making, and narrative in Thomas R. Hatina,
“Intertextual Transformations of Jesus: John as Mnemo-myth,” in The Gospels and Ancient Literary
Criticism: Continuing the Debates on Gospel Genre(s), ed. David P. Moessner, Tobias Nicklas, and
Robert Matthew Calhoun (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, forthcoming 2019).
165
166
Ibid. Assmann explains that one has “a life-story, an inner narrative—whose continuity, whose
sense, is one’s life. The same concept of a narrative organization of memory and self-construction
applies to the collective level” (Assmann, Moses the Egyptian, 15).
167
168
Hatina, “Intertextual Transformations of Jesus.”
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Since the publication of Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher’s Memory, Tradition, and
Text in 2005, which launched broader interest in the subject among New Testament
scholars, the vast majority of appropriations of social memory theory have focused
on historical Jesus research.169 While social memory theory is being increasingly
appropriated in broader Gospels research and Pauline research, there is still a large
void when it comes to its potential benefit for understanding the function of Scripture
in the FG. Apart from a handful of studies, such as the work of Catrin Williams, the
paucity is partly addressed in three essays included in this volume.170
Williams builds on Barry Schwartz’s conception of commemorative “keying,”
which “involves the mapping of present events and figures onto those belonging to the
past.”171 In this model, the experiences and situations of the present are “paired with
archetypal images or symbolically significant patterns from the past.”172 Thus, the past
acts as a frame for the present through which present experiences are interpreted and
meaning is accessed. This frame, though, is not naturally formed. The past is received
in an unstructured series of events, and human memory transforms it into a coherent
historical narrative.173
Within this model, Williams sets out to examine the normative and rhetorical
function of Moses, Abraham, and Isaiah in the FG’s commemorative narrative, guided
by the question, “How is their memory reconfigured in the light of present realities
(model of society), and to what extent do they function as orienting symbols or templates
for Johannine beliefs and commitments in the present (model for society)?”174 Noting
that Moses, Abraham, and Isaiah are sometimes connected to direct quotations (i.e.,
1:23; 6:32; 12:38–40), she also notes that they are echoed in isolation from identifiable
verses or longer scriptural passages. For Williams, in these cases, it is more likely
that the FG is drawing on the collective memory of these foundational characters
and evoking wider commemorative frameworks associated with them.175 Williams
concludes that the FE evokes the memory of these three salient characters and
169
Alan Kirk and Tom Thatcher (eds.), Memory, Tradition, and Text: Uses of the Past in Early
Christianity, SemeiaSt 52 (Atlanta, GA: SBL, 2005).
170
Williams, “Patriarchs and Prophets Remembered.” Outside of the FG, social memory theory is
beginning to be applied to use of Scripture in New Testament studies. For example, Tom Thatcher,
“Cain and Abel in Early Christian Memory: A Case Study in ‘The Use of the Old Testament in
the New,’ ” CBQ 72 (2010): 732–51; Sandra Huebenthal, “Luke 24.13–35, Collective Memory,
and Cultural Frames,” in Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels. Volume 3: The Gospel
of Luke, ed. Thomas R. Hatina, Studies in Scripture in Early Judaism and Christianity 16, LNTS
376 (London: T&T Clark, 2010), 86–87; Rafael Rodríguez, “‘According to the Scriptures:’ Suffering
and the Psalms in the Speeches in Acts,” in Memory and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Early
Christianity. A Conversation with Barry Schwartz, ed. Tom Thatcher (Atlanta, GA: SBL Press, 2014),
241–62; Thomas R. Hatina, “Social Memory Theory and Competing Identity Constructions: The
Function of Genesis 15:6 in Romans and James,” in 500 Jahre der Reformation in der Slowakei, ed.
Maroš Nicák and Martin Tamcke (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2019), 35–56.
171
Williams, “Patriarchs and Prophets Remembered,” 190. Barry Schwartz, Abraham Lincoln and the
Forge of National Memory (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 18–20; Barry Schwartz,
“Frame Image: Towards a Semiotics of Collective Memory,” Semiotica 121 (1998): 1–4.
172
Williams, “Patriarchs and Prophets Remembered,” 190.
173
Ibid., 191. Williams relies on Eviatar Zerubavel, Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape
of the Past (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2003), 13.
174
Williams, “Patriarchs and Prophets Remembered,” 192.
175
Ibid., 188. She clarifies that “this is not to deny that written texts were often the basis for such
memories,” yet, as she quotes Tom Thatcher, “it is the memories themselves, not the texts on
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25
recasts them as witnesses to Jesus’s identity.176 For Williams, this “alignment certainly
establishes continuity with the past, but from a Johannine perspective it also marks
new ‘beginnings,’ because whatever preceded those beginnings must be absorbed into
a new mnemonic framework held together by belief in Jesus.”177
Williams demonstrates well the potential of social memory theory in understanding
the FG’s use of Scripture. It is a versatile approach, allowing a synchronic (or literary/
narrative/rhetorical) emphasis to be paired with sociohistorical framework and
purposes. In this way, the ideal audience is bridged with the actual audience, albeit in
a limited fashion as the actual audience is isolated to a specific present moment within
a reconstructed historical setting, characterized by ancient orality.
4. Conclusion of the Survey
Jesus encourages his opponents in John 5:39 to “search the scriptures” (ἐραυνᾶτε
τὰς γραφάς) because they “testify about me” (μαρτυροῦσαι περὶ ἐμοῦ). The FG’s
Christocentric hermeneutic is plainly displayed in this verse. But as this overview has
shown, the FG’s encouragement is heeded as much by modern ears as it was meant
to be by ancient ones. Scholars remain ever-interested in examining the purpose and
function of the FG’s use of Scripture. Generally speaking, there are some areas of
consensus such as the FE’s use of Greek source material and the incorporation of that
material through predominately Jewish interpretive methods. Intertextuality, though
still not adequately understood by some, still provides the theoretical basis for at least
a consensus that the FE is aware of wider scriptural contexts than the ones explicitly
cited. Thus, the notion that the FE is also intentionally pointing to such contexts in the
wider narrative framework is also recognized and selectively appropriated by some
scholars using social memory theory. However, many differences persist among the
perspectives presented here. Various approaches are divided, for instance, largely in
their epistemic assumptions. Some are much more confident that what the FG narrates
mirrors reality, whereas others are less optimistic. This leads to different foci and
different presumptions about where the locus of meaning resides (e.g., in the reader, or
in the author, or in the historically reconstructed setting). Regardless of the differences,
ongoing research has both refined previous approaches and pioneered new ones,
producing divergent conclusions from previously established ones.
5. Moving Forward: A Summary of the Studies in

this Volume
This volume aims to move the conversation of the FG’s use of Scripture forward in
a way that is accessible to advanced students in Gospels research, methodology, and
which they are based, that are ‘cited’ for the audience’s consideration” (p. 189). See Thatcher, “Early
Christian Memory,” 750.
176
Thus for Williams, Moses is not a lawgiver, Abraham is not an ethnic father, and Isaiah is not a
prophet who saw Israel’s glory, but they are all witnesses who foresaw Jesus’s glory.
177
Ibid., 212.
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hermeneutics. As with the differences in perspectives and approaches that are surveyed
above, the essays that follow are likewise varied by design so as to draw attention to
the breadth of scholarship on the function of scripture in the FG. The following essays
are organized into four sections: historical, rhetorical and linguistic, literary, and
social memory perspectives. Each includes variegated methods. Despite the attempt
to organize the structure of the volume, some of the essays can be placed into more
than one of these categories. In such cases, we have attempted to categorize them in
accordance with the author’s dominant approach.
Historical Perspectives
Craig Evans explores how the use of Scripture and its exegetical traditions played a
role in the development of John 1:1–5. Reexamining the compositional development
of the prologue, Evans follows Martinus de Boer’s assertion that John 1:1–5 functioned
in a liturgical context as a separate unit apart from the narrative of the FG. It was
eventually added to v. 6, which at one point comprised the beginning of the Johannine
narrative. Evans shows how the addition of the first five verses affected the theological
perspective of the Gospel.
Warren Carter explores the intertextuality between John 10 and Ezek 34 within
the Johannine sociopolitical context. Where previous historical-critical approaches
focus the authorial meaning of John 10, as well as more restricted applications of
intertextuality, Carter instead implements a more “unlimited” notion of intertextuality,
which is interested in recognizing how an audience received and located the text
within its larger cultural matrix. Carter is not interested so much in the influence of
prior texts on John 10 but rather its participation in the discursive space of its culture.
Thus, Carter posits a reading of John 10 and Ezek 34 that is sociopolitical, read along
an axis of power rather than an axis of religious identity that is based on confessional
(Christological) claims.
Paul Anderson provides a (compositional) historical and literary analysis of the
FG’s treatment of Scripture as fulfilment. Where previous studies focus on how
accurately a source text is quoted or whether that source text is the LXX or something
else, Anderson proposes a polyvalent approach that considers the FG’s presentation
of fulfilled Scripture as highly dialogical. Moving diachronically from later to earlier
phases in the Johannine tradition’s history, he shows how both direct and indirect
references to Jewish Scripture function as the fulfilled word in order to serve the
stated purpose of the Gospel, namely belief in Jesus as the Christ, which leads to life
in his name.
Archie Spencer presents an exegetical analysis of Scripture in John 12:36b–43,
particularly the “glory of God,” in relation to the Johannine narrative and its later
reception. Beginning with the reception of Isaiah’s Servant Song in John 12, Spencer
then offers a reception-historical reading using Origen and Rudolf Bultmann as
examples. Although there are varying degrees of hermeneutical developments in these
receptions, Spencer argues that the opacity of the revelation of God’s glory in Jesus
Christ remains a central theme throughout its transmission and reception.
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Rhetorical and Linguistic Perspectives

Jiří Lukeš examines the rhetorical use of Gen 29:1–14 in Jesus’s dialogue with the
Samaritan woman in John 4:1–42. Utilizing ancient rhetorical conventions, Lukeš
focuses on the evangelist’s rhetorical strategy using irony. Lukeš concludes that both
the Jewish Scriptures and Greco-Roman rhetorical sources and practices influence the
evangelist, and that he was likely a Hellenistic Jew who had a gymnasium education.
Stanley Porter investigates the linguistic form that the citations take throughout the
FG. Focusing on the formulaic quotations, Porter analyses them at the micro level (in
its immediate context) and at the macro level (the wider Gospel context) and provides
an evaluation of their linguistic function. Porter critiques previous studies for missing
the impact that verbal features have on the function of these quotations. He argues
that such features, like verbal aspect, can help us to better understand how the author
structured his Gospel.
Literary Perspectives
R. Alan Culpepper examines the function of Scripture in Jesus’s triumphal entry in
John 12 from a narrative-critical perspective. By closely considering the selection,
editing, and the context of the quotations, Culpepper proposes that Scripture plays
a significant role in shaping the story and molding the characterization of Jesus,
especially in relation to kingship.
Susanne Luther employs a literary approach addressing how the Scripture quotations
function to authenticate the Johannine narrative. Focusing on the function of Scripture
quotations in Jesus’s crucifixion scene (John 19), Luther shifts her attention away from
the “truth” behind the text to the “truth” in the text. In so doing, she replaces conventional
questions about the FG’s historicity with questions about its “literalization,” which she
uses to denote what is authentic as opposed to what is real. Distinguishing between
mimesis and direct quotations, Luther notes that the direct quotations in John 19
generate a perception of authenticity for the audience, thus establishing the credibility
of Jesus’s crucifixion as supported by the authority of Scripture.
Jan Roskovec delves into the FG’s appropriation of Moses and its Christological
function within the narrative. Leaving behind questions about the possible traditions
and developments behind the evangelist’s motives for employing Moses, Roskovec
demonstrates that Moses’s relationship to Jesus is not one of typology. That is, Jesus
is not presented as a “new Moses,” as is the case in the Gospel of Matthew. Instead,
Roskovec reveals how the evangelist, through explicit scriptural references, presents
Moses as witness to Jesus.
Social Memory Perspectives

Sandra Huebenthal investigates the double quote from John 12:37–44 from a social
memory perspective. Viewing the FG as an artifact of collective memory, Huebenthal
also engages intertextuality and demonstrates its relatedness to social memory theory.
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28
She points out that intertextuality informed by a social memory hermeneutic goes
beyond searching for quotations, their provenance, and their accuracy. Rather, she
shows how experiences are inscribed into the intertextual references and consequently
provide new cultural frames for future identity constructions.
Rafael Rodríguez addresses the FG’s fall from historical grace as compared to the
Synoptic Gospels by also applying social memory theory. Beginning with the axiom
that “the absolutely new is inconceivable,” Rodríguez engages the tradition of the
Temple incident in John 2:14–25 as “performances,” rather than “fossilizations.” He
explores how the Johannine narrator actualizes the potential of the Jesus tradition
while also navigating the constraints of that received tradition. Rodríguez further
distinguishes between a tradition and its expression in performance similar to the
linguistic distinction between langue and parole. Rodríguez demonstrates that the
traditions of both the Temple incident and of Pss 69, which were merged, are what
enable the evangelist to convey a particular parole/performance.
Finally, Thomas Hatina pushes the conversation forward on the FG’s use of
Scripture methodologically by proposing a conception of text production that
is rooted in social memory theory. As such, Hatina contends that by viewing texts
hermeneutically within the theoretical bounds of social memory theory, the exegete is
inevitably steered toward synchronic methods, especially narrative criticism. However,
for Hatina this move toward synchronic methods should be done not at the exclusion
of diachronic inquiry.
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Part I
Historical Perspectives
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30
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“Of Whom Moses Wrote”: Torah Themes

in John’s Prologue
Craig A. Evans
The most distinctive passage in the Fourth Gospel (FG) is its prologue, in modern
times identified as John 1:1–18. It was a popular passage in antiquity. All or parts of it
were quoted by early Christians, in amulets and in other contexts, rarely with textual
variations so well it was known and so stable was its text. Contemporary scholarship
remains keenly interested in this part of the FG.1
1. On the Extent of the Prologue
In a recent study, Martinus de Boer has made a good case for viewing the original
prologue as comprising only of the first five verses.2 He argues plausibly that this much
briefer prologue was added as part of the final redaction of the FG. He believes that
this brief prologue was produced by the Johannine community and may have served
a liturgical purpose and may have been sung or chanted as a hymn.3 De Boer’s study
brings to mind John Robinson’s suggestion more than fifty years ago that before the
1
Wilson Paroschi, Incarnation and Covenant in the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel (John 1:1–18),
European University Studies 820 (Berlin: Peter Lang, 2006); Peter M. Phillips, The Prologue of the
Fourth Gospel: A Sequential Reading, LNTS 294 (London: T&T Clark International, 2006); Günter
Kruck (ed.), Der Johannesprolog (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2009); Jan G. van
der Watt, R. Alan Culpepper, and Udo Schnelle (ed.), The Prologue of the Gospel of John: Its Literary,
Theological, and Philosophical Contexts. Papers Read at the Colloquium Ioanneum 2013, WUNT 359
(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016).
2
Martinus C. de Boer, “The Original Prologue to the Gospel of John,” NTS 61 (2015): 448–67. See also
John Ashton, “Really a Prologue?” in The Prologue of the Gospel of John: Its Literary, Theological, and
Philosophical Contexts. Papers Read at the Colloquium Ioanneum 2013, ed. Jan G. van der Watt, R.
Alan Culpepper, and Udo Schnelle, WUNT 359 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 27–44. The notion
that the prologue = John 1:1–18 is modern, not ancient.
3
So also, Johannes Beutler, who believes the prologue was originally a hymn used in worship, which the
Fourth Evangelist has used as a prologue. See Johannes Beutler, “Der Johannes-Prolog—Ouvertüre
des Johannesevangeliums,” in Der Johannesprolog, ed. Günter Kruck (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 2009), 77–106; repr. in Johannes Beutler, Neue Studien zu den johanneischen
Schriften: New Studies on the Johannine Writings, BBB 167 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
2012), 215–38.
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addition of vv. 1–5 the FG may have begun at v. 6.4 If so, the narrative beginning of
John roughly approximates the narrative beginnings of the Synoptic Gospels:
John 1:6 ἐγένετο ἄνθρωπος … ὄνομα αὐτῷ Ἰωάννης

Mark 1:4 ἐγένετο Ἰωάννης ὁ βαπτίζων
Luke 1:5 ἐγένετο … ἱερεύς τις ὀνόματι Ζαχαρίας
Luke 3:2 ἐγένετο ῥῆμα θεοῦ ἐπὶ Ἰωάννην
Robinson surmises that the pre-prologue beginning of the FG may have run something
like this:
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for testimony, to
bear witness to the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light,
but came to bear witness to the light. The true light that enlightens every man was
coming into the world. John bore witness to him, and cried, “This was he of whom
I said, ‘He who comes after me ranks before me, for he was before me.’ ” And this
is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to
ask him, “Who are you?”5 (vv. 6–9, 15, and 19)
De Boer believes that the original, much briefer prologue is found in vv. 1, 3–5 and is
made up of three strophes. (He regards v. 2 as a secondary explanatory gloss, which
seems correct.) De Boer reconstructs the prologue as follows, arranging the three
strophes in the form of “staircase parallelism”:6
Strophe 1 (v. 1)
ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος,
καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν,
καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.
Strophe 2 (vv. 3–4a)
πάντα δι᾿ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο,
καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν.
ὃ γέγονεν 4 ἐν αὐτῷ ζωὴ ἦν,
Strophe 3 (vv. 4b–5)
καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων·
καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει,
καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν.
In English, with the overlapping words presented in italics, the three strophes read:
4
John A. T. Robinson, “The Relation of the Prologue to the Gospel of St John,” NTS 9 (1962–
1963): 120–29; repr. in John A. T. Robinson, Twelve More New Testament Studies (London: SCM
Press, 1984), 65–76.
5
Robinson, “Relation of the Prologue,” 73–74.
6
de Boer, “The Original Prologue,” 450; cf. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols.,
AB 29 and 29A (Garden City : Doubleday, 1966–1970), 1:6.
9780567684158_pi-264.indd 32 05-Dec-19 13:59:27

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Hannes painoi kiiltävän sormuksen tytön nimettömään. Tytön
täytyi painaa päänsä piiloon pojan olkapäähän.
Runsaat suortuvat hivelivät pojan kasvoja ja tytön käsi hieman

epävarmana kiertyi hänen kaulaansa. Tyttö värähteli siinä hänen
sylissään. Miten sillä olikin raikkaan pehmeät huulet.
— Mutta minulla ei ole… virkkoi tyttö hiljaa katsellen sormustaan.
— Minullapas on.
Ja Hannes otti toisen samanlaisen esille.
— Anna kun minä panen sen sinun sormeesi, pyysi tyttö

hätäisesti.
He katselivat vain vaieten toisiaan.
— Ja sitten elonkorjuun jälkeen on meidän häämme, sanoi

Hannes. Vai tahtoisitko ehkä myöhemmin.
— Milloin sinä vain tahdot.
*****
Hannes seisoi ikkunassa ja katseli ulos. Liisa oli jo mennyt

nukkumaan.
Oo, miten ruumiissa tuntui pidätetty voima pursuvan.
Olisi ihanata antaa se perinnöksi tulevalle polvelle. Pieni

herttainen Liisa oli koskematon kuin tuomen kukka salolla. Hänkin
antaisi terveen sukuelämän perinnöksi lapsilleen.
XVII.
Keskikesän henki liikkui kartanolla, täyteläisessä ruispellossa ja

pienen puutarhan kukkaismaassa. Hakalassa oli piha niitetty ja
kuivuva heinä tuoksui voimakkaasti.
Pieni poika koetti astuksia heinäluokojen yli, mutta tupsahti

suulleen heiniin ja kirkaisi ilosta. Äiti istui tuvan portaan alimmalla
astuimella ja katseli hymyillen pienokaisensa puuhia.
— Missä äidin poju!
Pienokainen tallusteli ja kutsun kuultuaan lähti juoksemaan. Jalka

tarttui heiniin ja nenä sattui kovaan hiekkaan. Äyväyväy!
Isä koppasi pojan syliinsä ja antoi äidille.
Se oli heidän ensimäinen lapsensa, onnen ja raikkaan ilon

täyskypsä hedelmä.
Liisasta oli tullut herttainen, hyvä emäntä. Täyteläisenä, iloa

ympärilleen jakavana liikkui hän askareissaan aamusta iltaan. Yksi
piirre hänessä oli vain ilmaantunut, joka oli outoa Hannekselle. Liisa
oli alkanut salaa seurailla miehensä liikkeitä, peläten häntä
palvelijoihinsa.
Tämän oli Hannes huomannut ja pitänyt sitä ensin leikkinä ja

ainakin pienenä mustasukkaisuutena. Vaikka eihän oikea rakkaus
tällaiselle tilaa antanut kuin joko kehittymättömien tai sitten
ajattelemattomien ihmisten keskuudessa.
Vaikka Liisa oli kansan lapsi niinkuin hänkin, ei hän olisi ollut
taipuvainen mitään tällaista uskomaan.
Mutta näytti sittenkin siltä, että olisi uskottava.
Toinenkin seikka oli ehken synnyttänyt Liisassa harha-ajatuksia.

Hannes oli viime aikoina ja heti avioliittoon mentyään alkanut lueksia
kaikkina joutohetkinään. Hän seuraili etupäässä avioliittoa ja
sukukysymystä käsittelevää kirjallisuutta. Ja tämä kirjallisuus oli
saanut hänet vakuutetuksi, että avioliitossakin oli ainakin henkisesti
edullista elää säännöllisesti ja kohtuullisen pidättyvästi.
Liisa oli voimakas luonne ja pohjaltaan melkoisen tulinen. Kun

Hannes aikoi panna käytäntöön saamiaan vaikutelmia heidän
yhteiselämässään ja puhui tästä Liisalle, arveli tämä kiivaasti:
— Sinä et siis rakasta minua.
Hannes koetti selittää, ettei raakuus ole rakkautta ja jos he kovin

pian kuluttaisivat tulensa, tulisi heidän keski-ikänsä varmasti
kylmäksi.
Liisa ei vain tuntunut tätä käsittävän. Se vahvisti hänen orastavia

epäluulojaan.
Mutta Hannes ei voinut aavistaa, että tässä oli myöskin
sukuperintö kysymyksessä. Liisan äiti oli ollut luulosairas ja hänen
äitinsä samoin. Liisan isoäiti oli lopettanut elämänsä väkivaltaisesti
sairautensa takia ja Liisan äiti sairasti sukuvikaa synkkyyteen
saakka, tehden miehensäkin elämän synkäksi ja ilottomaksi.
Mistäpä Hannes tätä osasi aavistaakaan. Sen vähemmän hän voi

sitä ottaa vakavasti, kun se oli vasta selvennyt hänelle. Eihän Liisa
vielä ollut koskaan mitään sanonut. Silmissä vain oli ollut
epäluuloinen välähdys.
Mutta pian oli taistelu alkava tästäkin sukuperinnöstä, joka heidän

onneansa uhkasi.
XVIII.
Kesäinen iltapäivä. Helteisenä paahtoi aurinko ja Hakalahti talon alla

lepäsi rantojaan kuvastellen.
Hannes katseli järvelle pihamaan laidassa aitaan nojaten. Pitäisipä

käydä laskemassa verkot. Ei ollut aamullisella uimakäynnillään
muistanutkaan. Nyt sieltä saisi suuria särkiä ja ahvenia. Saattoivatpa
hauetkin paistatella kaislikossa.
— Käyn laskemassa verkot, tulkoon Mari toveriksi, sanoi Hannes

vaimolleen, joka kulki hänen ohitseen.
Hannes astui jo muutaman askelen rantatielle.
— Mari ei tule nyt verkonlaskuun, kuuli hän vaimonsa kylmästi

sanovan.
Hannes kääntyi.
— Ja miks'ei? Joutaahan se…
— Kyllä sen puolesta, mutta muuten. Enköhän minäkin kelpaisi

joskus toveriksi?
Nyt oli Liisan äänessä jo pistävä sointi. Hannes hätkähti. Joko
taaskin. Tuliko se tästäpuolin jokapäivä tuo Liisan luulonpuuska?
Sillä muutakaan se ei saattanut olla. Liisa oli eilenkin väittänyt: —
Sinä et välitä minusta enää, muuten ottaisit joskus mukaasi
työpaikoille.
— Tule sitten pian, luikkasi Hannes mennessään Liisalle. Rantaan

oli vain muutama kivenheitto ja Hannes kiirehti jo verkkoja
puikkaroimaan. Tottapahan sieltä Liisa tulisi.
Hannes sai jo verkot veneeseen ja istui kivelle odottamaan. Miksei

se jo tule? Ahvenet hyppivät niin että ruohikko meni yhtenä
pohkeena. Olisi pitänytkin mennä nuotalle.
Hannes käveli pihaan hakemaan Liisaa. Liisa oli porstuakamarissa

nyyhkimässä.
— Mitä on tapahtunut?
Hannes istui nolona sängynlaidalla. Tähän saakka hän oli tuntenut

vain onnea kotielämässä, nyt tuntui kuin joku olisi haparoinut ilkeillä
niljaisilla sormillaan hänen kohtalonsa lankoja: pitää sinun saada
tuntea hieman toistakin puolta.
Tuntui kuin kukkaset kamarin ikkunalla olisivat surkastuneet ja

päivä ulkona lakannut paistamasta.
Ei, jotain tässä olisi tehtävä. Liisan tunteista ja mielialasta olisi

päästävä selvyyteen.
Miten tässä oikein aloittaisi?

— Liisa, oma hyvä toverini, selitä minulle surusi syyt. Sinä olet jo
usein sanonut, että minä en pitäisi sinusta. Olen sen käsittänyt
pieneksi tuskitteluksi tytöltäni siitä, että en haluaisi uhrata
lakkaamatta elämän voimaa syystä, että siten vanhuus tulee ennen
keski-ikää. Mutta äsken sinä sanoit sellaista, jota en sinun
sanomanasi ymmärrä. Jos kävisi päinsä, pitäisin sinut aina
mukanani. Mutta vaikka et olekaan aina luonani ja mukanani,
ajattelen minä sinua silti melkein aina, ehkä liiankin paljon. Pitäisihän
minun jakaa ajatuksiani niin kovin moneen muuhunkin asiaan, mutta
sinäpä niistä aina viet suurimman osan. Mitä varten siis tällaista…
minä en ymmärrä… Sinä kannat meidän toista lastamme ja sinun
pitäisi olla rauhallinen. Ethän luule, että muista pitäisin kuin sinusta?
Hannes oli puhunut viihdytellen kuin lapselle.
Liisa kietasi kätensä hänen kaulaansa.
— Minä taidan olla paha välistä sinulle… anna anteeksi typerälle

vaimollesi, mutta minä tosiaankin pelkään, että sinä välittäisit muista
etkä minusta.
— Voi sitä omaa pientä hupakkoani. Et saa enää milloinkaan

ajatella niin… Tule pian rantaan.
— Vietkös minut joskus mukanasi metsäänkin?
Liisa seisoi siinä sinisissä silmissään vielä kyynelten jälkiä, hiukset

auenneina, valkoiset käsivarret paljaina.
Miten somalle hän näyttikään siristäessään vielä silmiään ja

poskille hymykuoppien kuin väkivalloin ilmestyessä.
Hannes koppasi hänet syliinsä.

— Johan toki vienkin oman tyttöni. Pistän taskuuni kuin omenan.
Mennään pian verkonlaskuun.
Varjot olivat taas hävinneet. Mutta Hannes oli varma siitä, että
ne ilmestyisivät uudelleen. Hän olisi tahtonut vielä puhua asiasta
Liisalle, muttei kehdannut tällä kertaa. Saisipahan toiste sanoa, että
Liisa tällä tavoin särki pala palalta kodin onnea ja rauhallisuutta.
Liisa oli virkeä ja iloinen. Kun verkot oli saatu lasketuksi, ehdotti
hän, että jäätäisi uimaan. Lahden vastaisella rannalla pulisi lapsia ja
aikuisia vedessä mekastaen ja hoilaten.
Oli hiestävää ja Hannes riisuutui nopeasti pulahtaen järveen.

Pohja oli matalalla ja Hannes ohjaili venhettä Liisaa odotellen.
— Miten sinä oletkin kaunis, Liisa. En koskaan olisi sitä osannut

ajatella. Tuntuu kuin ihmeeltä että sinä olet vaimoni.
— Miten niin?
— Minähän rikoin niin paljon nuoruudessani, enkä olisi ollut

oikeutettu sellaiseen kuin sinä… Miten ihmeen tavalla sitä voikin.
Nuorukaisena en olisi voinut tällä tavoin katsella alastomuutta. Nyt
se on minulle pyhää, niin kuin kuuntelisin kaunista musiikkia.
— Kaikki eivät voi niin katsella.
— Eivät voikaan, mutta heillehän on lapsesta pitäen opetettu että

ihmisen ruumis on syntipesä ja että alastomuus on jotain hyvin
häpeällistä ja saastaista, ja se on johtanut ja johtaa yhä edelleen
nuorisoa väärään. Uskopas tyttö, kerran tulee vielä aika, jolloin
alastomuutta katsellaan vain kauneuden kannalta, pidetään sitä
pyhänä.
— Mutta silloin ei saa ihmisillä olla rumia ajatuksia.
— Ei saakaan. Ihmiskunnan täytyy tulla uudeksi ja se tulee siksi

vielä kerran.
— Miten luulet sen siksi tulevan?
— Kasvatuksen kautta. Luonto ja työ karkaisee ja muuttaa huonon

hyväksi. Minä en olisi ennen näin voinut sinua siinä katsella.
— Enhän minä olisi ollut sinun katseltavanasikaan, nauroi Liisa

vettä pärskytellen.
— Kun näin vähänkin alastomuutta, värisin himosta.
— Miten opit sitten toisin katselemaan?
— Minä opin sen siellä tehtaassa. No, älä naura! Tämä on vakava
asia.
Väkivasarain jyskeessä minä aloin kasvattaa itseäni uudeksi
ihmiseksi.
Työ ja luonto minua paransi.
— Sinä puhut niin kauniisti.
— Jos sen kaikki oppisivat samalla tavalla, niin miten voimakas ja

raitis nuoriso meille kasvaisikaan.
He meloivat rantaan. Liisa istui venheen kokassa kuin veden neito.

Ihmeellinen mies tuo Hannes, mietti hän. On täynnä aina niin
ihmeellisiä ajatuksia ja puhuu niin kauniisti. Sanoo työn opettaneen
itseään kaikessa. Olisiko todellakin työ semmoinen koulu, jossa niin
paljon oppii. Kun minä vain voisin kaikessa pysyä hänen rinnallaan.
Pitääköhän hän todellakin minusta enemmän kuin kenestäkään
muusta? Olenhan minä tosin kaunis, ajatteli hän lopuksi katsellen
itseään. Ettei hän vain rakastuisi milloinkaan johonkin toiseen. Taitaa
olla typerää ajatella sellaista.
Liisa oli mennyt pihaan ja Hannes jäänyt pellolle, jossa

rakennettiin uutta riihtä. Miehet hikoilivat helteessä. Pihka hikosi
veistetyistä petäjistä ja tuoksui voimakkaasti. Miehet istuivat
levähtämään hirsikasalle. Heillä näytti olevan jotain erikoista
mielessä, se selveni liikkeistä, joilla piippuja rassailtiin ja täytettiin.
Kohta aloittikin yksi miehistä.
— Ei tässä pysy leivissä… lisäpalkkaa on saatava. Johan minä

sen sanoin jo alussa…
Hannes odotti.
— Ja kyllähän tämä isäntä maksaakin… jatkoi toinen. Sopuisa

mies…
Vai viitattiin siihen. Hän oli tosin rakennuttanut mökkeihin, joiden

asukkaita nämä olivat, uudet tilavat asunnot ja perkkauttanut
palstoja. Siihen ei olisi tarvinnut vedota. Siitä ei näyttänyt paljonkaan
hyötyä koituneen, ainakaan muutamien suhteen.
— Onhan isännällä varoja, jos maksaa kohtupalkatkin, jurahti

kolmas imien piippuaan.
Hannesta hieman sapetti miesten kyyräily. Tämä ei ollut sitä

suoraa, rehellistä työainesta, jollaiseksi hän oli kerran kuvitellut talon
alustalaiset kasvattavansa. Mutta olihan se ymmärrettävääkin. Vihaa
ja kiukkua oli kylvettykin tämän polven työväen vereen. Kuinkapa
moni tahtoi ja kehtasi rakkaudella rakentaa hyvää sopua.
— Miksi ette sanoneet aikanaan, että palkka on pieni? Ja onhan

teillä leipä talosta itsellenne ja perheellenne, eikä sitä grammoilla
mitata. Paljonko teidän pitäisi saada?
Miehet sanoivat summan.
— Tällä kertaa minä sen maksan, mutta periaatettani vastaan.

Minä tahtoisin kasvattaa teistä kunnon työmiehiä ja siksi…
— Kasvattaa, kivahti vanhin mies joukosta, Mutkan Tuomas,

keskeyttäen
Hanneksen puheen… Mikä sinä olet, poikaloppi, vanhojen
kasvattajaksi!
— Voi p—le! kivahti toinenkin. Siitä on paisunut aika pohto. Vie

sun…
Mies mutisi puoliääneen toisille, mutta Hannes kuuli sen hyvin.
— Te käsitätte väärin. Minä rakennutin teille uudet asunnot ja

paransin olojanne…
— No, siitä ei kannata ylpeillä, keskeytti tulistunut Tuomas. Jos se

on isännälle niin suuri asia, niin ottaa vain pois mökin. Niinhän ne
suurporvarit tekevät aina.
Hannes tulistui.
— Enkö minä lähtenyt tästä talosta tyhjempänä kuin yksikään

teistä ja eikö ole työllä ansaittua kaikki mitä olen saanut? Minä olen
antanut teille osan työllä kokoomastani ja toivonut, että voisimme
työskennellä yhdessä kuin veljet. Teidän pitäisi hävetä!
Miehet olivat käyneet noloiksi. Hannes taisi olla oikeassa.

Työllähän hän oli saanut riippumattoman aseman. Taisi tulla suotta
kuvailluksi.
Ei puhuttu enää sanaakaan ja Hannes lähti pihaan alakuloisena.
Huonoja hedelmiä kantoivat hänen hyvät työnsä. Eivät osanneet

arvostella asioita paikalleen. Se oli tavallaan yhteiskunnankin syy,
joka oli antanut työväen kasvaa sosialistiagitaattorien varassa. Koko
työväenliike maassa oli saanut asettua väärälle pohjalle. Seuraukset
siitä varmasti pian tulisivat näkyviin.
Kun nyt jo täälläkin, hänen hiljaisessa ympäristössään, hymähti

Hannes.
Ei voinut kieltää, että tuntui kuin joten kuten ilkeältä.
Olihan hyväkin, että sattui aina jotain, joka ei ollut myötäsukaista.

Siten ei päässyt pensistymään eikä raukeamaan yhtämittaiseen
onneensa.
XIX.
Talon koko työväki oli lähdössä takamaalle kaskenkaatoon.

Heinänkorjuu oli saatu lopetetuksi ja kun peltotöiltä jäi kaskenkaato
juhannuksen jälkeen, oli se nyt suoritettava.
Varusteltiin eväskontteja ja piimäleilejä ja kaksi talon nuorta

palvelijatarta, Mari ja Maikki, odotteli jo vesurit kädessä pihamaalla.
Liisa tuli portaille.
— Minutko te aiotte kotiin jättää? sanoi hän palvelijoille.
— Niin, emännän tietysti, virkkoivat ja nauraa tirskuttelivat omille

vähäpätöisille asioilleen.
Se nauru kirpaisi Liisan mieltä, joka oli taas kipeytynyt. Heillä on

varmasti jotain mielessä. Olisikohan Hannes sanonut, ettei emäntää
oteta mukaan? Olisihan siellä piikojen mukava kiemailla
Hannekselle, kun hänen tarkka silmänsä ei olisi vartioimassa.
Hannes tuli pirtistä täysinäinen eväskontti selässä.
— Minä lähden kaskeen. Mari saa jäädä kotiin, sanoi Liisa hänelle.
En minä suostu aina jäämään…
— Mutta eihän se käy… talo jäisi moneksi päiväksi vieraaseen
varaan, esteli Hannes. Ja muutenkin tulisi hankalaksi sinulle.
Voinhan minä käydä kotona joka yö.
Mutta Liisa ei tahtonut kuulla puhuttavankaan kotiin jäämisestä.

Hän neuvoi jo töitä Marille.
Miehet olivat jo kujasilla menossa ja tytöt olivat loitonneet

pihamaan toiselle puolelle.
— Jos minä jään, niin Mari jää myöskin, sinkosi Liisa tiukasti.
Sinne kuhertelemaan…
— Mitä, mitä sinä sanot, kivahti Hannes. Kuhertelemaan… minäkö

piikojen kanssa…
— Kaipa minun pitää niin uskoa, kun sinä et milloinkaan laskisi

minua mukaan.
Minä en nyt tiedä mitä ajatella, sanoi Hannes synkästi.

Tapahtukoon siis sinun tahtosi tällä kertaa, jatkoi hän kylmästi. Mari
saa jäädä sinun kanssasi.
Hannes lähti astumaan miesten jälkeen.
Liisa jäi portaille.
— Nyt minä tiedän, minkälainen sinä olet, huusi hän Hanneksen

jälkeen, mutta tämä ei enää kääntynyt.
Hannes polki kuin vihoissaan kumahtelevaa kangaspolkua. Kaunis

sopu, joka oli kestänyt useita päiviä, oli taaskin särkynyt. Liisa oli
heittänyt hänelle solvaavia sanoja. Liisa, hänen oma vaimonsa.
Mikä oli oikein vaikuttamassa Liisan luulomieltä? Hän ei
kertaakaan ollut aiheuttanut sitä millään muotoa. Talon naispalvelijat
tiesivät velvollisuutensa ja puhuivat vain välttämättömistä asioista
hänen kanssaan. Hän oli kyllä ystävällinen heille, mutta sitähän hän
oli kaikille, jotka kunnollisesti suorittivat tehtävänsä. Maikki oli
hiljainen ja erillään pysyvä kaikista, Mari oli kyllä iloinen hälläkkä,
mutta mitään ei ollut sattunut hänenkään kanssaan, joka
vähimmässäkään määrässä olisi aiheuttanut Liisan naurettavaa
epäluuloa.
Mistä se sitten johtui?
Selvyyttä tähän ei saanut miettimälläkään. Liisa oli hellä ja hyvä

hänelle. Joskus vain purkautui esiin tällaista, joka sanomattomasti
painoi häntä. Jos hän olisi vähemmän välittänyt Liisasta, ei hänen
mielenpurkauksensa olisi tuntunut niin tuskallisilta.
Merkillistä, mietti Hannes. Minä sain murskatuksi sukukiroukseni,

tulin kuin onnen potkusta saaneeksi kotikonnun itselleni. Kaikki
menestyy. Pellot lupaavat runsaita satoja ja kaikki on kuin
voittokulkua, mutta kaikista kallein ja rakkain on menossa murskaksi
minulta.
Ennemmin muuta vastoinkäymistä kuin tätä. Ennemmin joku

karjasta kuolleeksi aholle, viljapelloista joku lohko raesateen
ruhjottavaksi, ennemmin mitä tahansa, kuin oma vaimo epäilemään
olemattomista.
Tie kulki kiemurrellen Hakalan takamaahongikon läpi. Vahvat

petäjät ojentelivat suorana runkojaan korkeuteen. Oli kuin ihmeen
kaupalla jäänyt ukolta tämä lohko myymättä.
Hänen edellään kulkeva vanha Tuomas virkkoi puita katsellen:
— On siinä aika älliköitä… Saat sinä Hannes niistä tuhansia

monioita.
Hannes käveli allapäin. Suuri omaisuus ei antanut onnea. Hän oli

tottunut aina vain luottamaan työhön. Hän olisi luovuttanut kernaasti
tämän metsäpalstansa, jos olisi sillä saanut korjatuksi sen mitä oli
vinossa. Taisi olla köyhä mökin mies, sellainen kuin tuo Tuomas
tuossa, kaikista onnellisin. Terve ruumis ja hyvä työhalu. Ei huolta
suurista tuloista eikä menoista. Oma turve antoi ja hankkimalla sai
lisää.
Olisi pitänyt kysyä Tuomaalta, oliko hän täysin tyytyväinen ja

onnellinen. Tuomas olisi varmaan merkitsevästi hymähtänyt. Heidän
taannoisen riitansa jälkeen oli Tuomaasta tullut mitä mukavin mies.
Teki aina työnsä hyvin eikä pyrkinyt napisemaan. Ehkä hän oli
tyytyväinen elämäänsä.
Toiset olivat menneet edellä ja Hannes pysähtyi Tuomaan kanssa

lepäämään.
— Sanohan Tuomas, olisitko mieluummin talon- kuin

mökinmiehenä? kysyi
Hannes.
Tuomas vilkaisi kysyjään ja mietittyään virkkoi
— Enpä tahtoisi talonmieheksi. On niin vapaata olla

mökinmiehenä. Mitä varten sitä kysyt?
— Muuten vain. Olin halukas tietämään, oletko tyytyväinen

elämääsi.
— Mikäpäs siinä… kun vain olisi terveyttä, että jaksaisi tehdä
työtä.
Se oli mökinmiehen elämänfilosofiaa. Tyyntä ja tervettä. Jaksaisi

tehdä työtä, olisi terveyttä… Ei olisi kai tuokaan tuossa vaihtanut
mökkiään ja pientä perkkiötään mihinkään maailmassa.
Kaskimaa oli päivärinteessä. Ei tuulen henkäyskään vilvoittanut

hikisiä raatajia. Puut kaatuivat parahdellen ja ennen päivällistä oli jo
iso aukio kaadettuna. Kun oli lämmintä ja aurinkoa, niin oli iloa
myöskin. Rupatellen ja naureksien syötiin tuoksuvassa
koivurykelmässä.
Hannes ei voinut tällä kertaa ottaa juttuihin osaa. Liisa oli jäänyt
sinne alakuloisena, ehken vihaisenakin. Oli saattanut itkeäkin. Taisi
tulla liian jyrkästi hänelle sanotuksi. Vaikka sanoihan hänkin. Olisi
kumminkin mukaan saanut tulla ja niinhän hän oli jo aikonutkin,
mutta kun katkerat, solvaavat sanansa sanoi, niin tuli niinkuin
äkäpäissä lähdetyksi.
Kuinkahan tässä vielä viimein käy? Eikö millään saa Liisaa

vakuutetuksi, että luulonsa ovat aiheettomia?
Miehet kuorsailivat ruokauntaan lehdesvuoteillaan ja naiset

taittelivat vastoja. Hannes istui erillään muista koivun rungolla
ajatuksiin vaipuneena.
Käki lensi koivuun, joka oli sille kasken keskellä lepopuuksi jätetty,
ja alkoi kukkua. Miehet heräsivät siihen ja lähtivät työhönsä.
— Hyvää halmeonnea kukkuu, sanoi joku miehistä.
— Onnen vuosiapa se minulle helkyttää, tiesi iloinen Mari.

Hannes nousi ja sanoi miehille kotiin lähtevänsä ja aamulla
tulevansa takaisin.
Ei jaksanut olla, vaikka vasta illalla oli luvannut kotiutua. Liisa voisi
siellä taas tuhertaa kauniit silmänsä punaisiksi.
— Kovinpa pian sille tuli eukkoaan ikävä, jurahti joku mies

Hanneksen mentyä.
XX.
Liisa seisoi vielä hetkisen portailla Hanneksen mentyä. Sitten hän

kuin juosten meni kamariinsa ja alkoi nyyhkiä. Pikku Pentti nukkui
kehdossaan sinikellokimppu pääaluksella. Hannes oli ennen
lähtöään jättänyt sen siihen. Ikkuna oli auki ja tuulenhenkäykset
toivat sisään ruispellon tuoksua. Pelto kartanon alla lainehti
lupaavana.
Liisa koetti rauhoittua, mutta ei voinut. Miksi Hannes ei ottanut

häntä mukaansa, vaikka hän pyysi? Miksi hän on joskus niin kovin
jyrkkä päätöksissään? Ja onko sittenkin niin, että hän saattoi välittää
muistakin, ei vain yksin hänestä.
Liisa koetti miettiä ja päästä selvyyteen.
Jos Hannes ei olisi kertonut hänelle nuoruudestaan, ei hän ehkä

olisi mitään epäillytkään. Hannes syytti nuoruudenhairioistaan
sukuperintöä, mutta oliko hän sen jo kokonaan voittanut? Hän kyllä
vakuutti niin, mutta saattoihan siltikin… Ja Mari on viehättävä tyttö,
ehkä kauniimpi kuin minä, jatkoi Liisa tuskallisia ajatuksiaan.
Voisiko Hannes pitää kahdesta yhtaikaa?

Tuntui pahalta ajatella sitä ja että ehkä luuloillaan loukkasi
syyttömästi miestään, joka oli aina hyvä hänelle, vaikka joskus oli
tinkimätön päätöksissään.
Liisa ajatteli äitiään, joka hänen mielestään oli saanut kärsiä

samanlaisesta… Isä oli ollut uskoton hänelle, niin äiti oli ainakin
sanonut. — Uskottomalle miehelle ei voi mitään, oli äiti aina
päätellyt, ja hänen vanhempiensa elämä oli ollut alituista riitaa,
aamusta iltaan.
Sellaiseksiko heidänkin kaunis elämänsä oli muuttuva? Tuntui

tuskalliselta ajatella sitä.
Liisa oli tuntenut syvää kiitollisuutta miestään kohtaan aina.

Kaikesta huolimatta Hannes olisi saanut ison talon isäntänä
vaimokseen kenet vain olisi ottanut. Hän, köyhä mökin tyttö, oli tullut
hänen valitukseen. Eikä Hannes ollut vielä kertaakaan sanonut
moitteen sanaa mistään. Ja oli aina vakuuttanut rakastavansa vain
häntä ja houkutellut kuin pientä lasta silloin, kun hänelle sattui omat
omituiset mielenpurkauksensa.
Hannes oli kovin hyvä. Hän saattoikin olla lapsellisen typerä

luulotellessaan kaikkea sellaista.
Liisa oli rauhoittunut ja katseli nukkuvaa lasta. Isän

hellyydenosoitus, sinikellokimppu pieluksella, liikutti häntä. Tuntui
niinkuin joku näkymätön olisi sanonut: Niin, hän on hyvä, mutta
miten sinun laitasi on? Ansaitsetko sinä rehellisen ja uskollisen
miehen hyvyyttä? — Olenhan minä hyvä ja hellä hänelle ja hoidan
hyvin tehtäväni. — Se ei riitä, jyrisi tuntematon. Sinun on jätettävä
turhat ajatuksesi, kasvatettava itseäsi niinkuin hänkin. Sinun on

Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels Volume 4 The Gospel of John Thomas R Hatina Full Chapter

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Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels Volume 4 The Gospel of John Thomas R Hatina Full Chapter

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Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian

Gospels: Volume 4: The Gospel of John

9780567684158_pi-264.indd i 05-Dec-19 13:59:24

9780567684158_pi-264.indd ii 05-Dec-19 13:59:26

Biblical Interpretation in Early

9780567684158_pi-264.indd iii 05-Dec-19 13:59:26

First published in Great Britain 2020

Copyright © Thomas R. Hatina and Contributors, 2020

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019956115

ISBN: HB: 978-0-5676-8415-8

Series: Library of New Testament Studies, volume 613

Typeset by Newgen Knowledgeworks Pvt. Ltd., Chennai, India

9780567684158_pi-264.indd iv 05-Dec-19 13:59:26

Series Preface vii

1 Search the Scriptures: A Survey of Approaches to the Use of Scripture in

Part I Historical Perspectives 29

2 “Of Whom Moses Wrote”: Torah Themes in

3 Jesus the Good Shepherd: An Intertextual Approach to Ezekiel 34 and

4 The Fulfilled Word in the Gospel of John: A Polyvalent Analysis Paul

5 Rumors of Glory: A Narrative, Exegetical, and Reception-Historical

Part II Rhetorical and Linguistic Perspectives 101

6 Jesus’s Dialogues with Those Who Do Not Understand: A Rhetorical

7 The Linguistic Function of Biblical Citations in John’s Gospel Stanley

Part III Literary Perspectives 137

8 Quotation as Commentary: The Good News of a King on a Donkey

9 The Authentication of the Narrative: The Function of Scripture

9780567684158_pi-264.indd v 05-Dec-19 13:59:26

10 Jesus and Moses in John Jan Roskovec 167

Part IV Social Memory Perspectives 181

11 Proclamation Rejected, Truth Confirmed. Reading John 12:37–44 in a

12 Zeal That Consumed: Memory of Jerusalem’s Temple and Jesus’s Body in

13 Memory and Method: Theorizing John’s Mnemonic Use of

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9780567684158_pi-264.indd vii 05-Dec-19 13:59:26

AARAS American Academy of Religion Academy Series

9780567684158_pi-264.indd viii 05-Dec-19 13:59:26

IDBSup Supplement to Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible

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RA Revue d’assyriologie et d’archéologie orientale

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Paul N. Anderson Visiting Professor

9780567684158_pi-264.indd xi 05-Dec-19 13:59:26

9780567684158_pi-264.indd xii 05-Dec-19 13:59:26

Search the Scriptures: A Survey of Approaches to

9780567684158_pi-264.indd 1 05-Dec-19 13:59:26

2 Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels

Sources and Their Use by the FE

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Search the Scriptures 3

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4 Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels

9780567684158_pi-264.indd 4 05-Dec-19 13:59:26

Search the Scriptures 5

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6 Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels

The FE’s Interpretative Method

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Search the Scriptures 7

Jewish Exegetical Models

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8 Biblical Interpretation in Early Christian Gospels

Ancient Greco-Roman Rhetoric