UNDERSTANDING THE FOURTH GOSPEL This page intentionally left blank UNDERSTANDING THE FOURTH GOSPEL Second Edition John Ashton 1 3 GreatClarendonStreet,Oxfordox26dp OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford. ItfurtherstheUniversity’sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship, andeducationbypublishingworldwidein OxfordNewYork Auckland CapeTown DaresSalaam HongKong Karachi KualaLumpur Madrid Melbourne MexicoCity Nairobi NewDelhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto Withofficesin Argentina Austria Brazil Chile CzechRepublic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore SouthKorea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam OxfordisaregisteredtrademarkofOxfordUniversityPress intheUKandincertainothercountries PublishedintheUnitedStates byOxfordUniversityPressInc.,NewYork (cid:1)JohnAshton1991,2007 Themoralrightsoftheauthorhavebeenasserted DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker) Firstpublished2007 Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced, storedinaretrievalsystem,ortransmitted,inanyformorbyanymeans, withoutthepriorpermissioninwritingofOxfordUniversityPress, orasexpresslypermittedbylaw,orundertermsagreedwiththeappropriate reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment, OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover andyoumustimposethesameconditiononanyacquirer BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData Ashton,John1931– UnderstandingtheFourthGospel. I.Bible.N.T.John—Criticalstudies I.Title 226.506 LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData Ashton,John,1931– UnderstandingtheFourthGospel Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. I.Bible.N.T.John—Criticism,interpretation,etc.I.Title. BS2615.2.A74 1991 226.506—dc20 90-43422 PrintedinGreatBritain onacid-freepaperby BiddlesLtd,King’sLynn,Norfolk ISBN0-19-929761-4 978-0-19-929761-0 13579108642 Tomyfriends attheUniversitiesofLondon, StAndrews,Edinburgh, andOxford Une´tatdangereux:croirecomprendre PaulVale´ry BegeisterungohneVerstand istunnu¨tzundgefa¨hrlich Novalis foreword IrememberwellthefirstconversationIhadwithJohnAshtonthirty years ago. We briefly touched on a topic witch we had both inde- pendently noticed, namely, what he was to term ‘intimations of apocalyptic’ in the Gospel of John. At that time the writing of his justlycelebratedstudyoftheGospelofJohnwasstilltenyearsaway. Its gestation and birth are a testimony to the world before the Research Assessment Exercise when a slower and for that reason morelonglastingcontributiontoknowledgecouldbeachieved. Ashton’s big book is based on the assumption that the key ques- tions regarding the gospel are those tackled by Rudolf Bultmann in his classic commentary of 1941, and throughout the book he is in continuousdialoguewithBultmann’smethodsandconclusions.He departsfromBultmann,however,inviewingtheFourthGospelasa profoundlyJewishdocumentthatcanbeonlyproperlyunderstoodin the light of the struggles that were endemic in the aftermath of the destruction of the Second Temple. His essay on the development of Johannine Christianity from conventional Jewish messianism to a more sophisticated christological presentation is masterly. The bib- lical text comes alive within the hypothetical history of religious traditions,asthestoryoftheJohanninecommunityisimaginatively andcarefullyreconstructed. For me, the climax of John Ashton’s book is his exposition of the theme of revelation, identified by Bultmann as the key idea of the gospel yet here located within a thoroughly Jewish milieu. His original, and substantial, exposition of the gospel in the light of the apocalyptictraditionismasterfulinitseconomyandprofoundinits insight. Curiously,thispartofthestudyhasnotmadetheimpactit shouldhavedone,for,inmyviewithassetthecourseforhistorical thestudyofthisaspectofthegospelinitsJewishmilieuforyearsto come.Whatismore,itpavesthewayforsimilartreatmentsofearly Christianliterature.Hisdescriptionofthegospelasan‘apocalypsein reverse’, so fitting in its enigmatic quality for a text which is itself puzzling the reader with its riddles, so accurately summarizes that viii Foreword avoidanceoftypicalapocalypticterminologywithinthegospelatthe same time as the spirit of apocalyptic remains so characteristic of thegospelasawhole.Curiously,hedoesnotpursuewhatwouldbe the obvious next interpretative step: the elucidation of the relation- ship, whether literary or in terms of a debt to a common world of thought. The apocalyptic literature of Second Temple Judaism has madeasignificant contributionnotonlytotheApocalypsebutalso totheGospelofJohn.Thetwoareverydifferenttexts.Thegospelisa bookofwitnesstotheuniqueanddefinitiveemissaryfromtheworld above, whereas the Apocalypse is a book of prophecy. Both texts, however,offerinnarrativeandvisionaryformwordswhichseekto bring about an epistemological and ethical transformation in readers/hearers in preparation for the eschatological meeting ‘face toface’eitherintheNewJerusalem(Rev22:4)orinheavenwiththe exaltedChrist(John17:24).Theirhopeforthisworldmaybedifferent buttheirtheologicalpresuppositionsareremarkablysimilar. The second area where John Ashton’s remarkable exegetical in- sight could have elucidated the interpretation of this remarkable book is in the area of Wirkungsgeschichte. It is not only in literary texts but also in art, and, of course, music that this text has been interpreted in very different media. I am firmly of the opinion that thisdimensionofhistoricalstudyenhancesthehistoricaldiscussion of the text’s antecedents and immediate historical context. John Ashton’s wide tastes and interest make this an obvious next step forthissensitiveinterpreterwhohadanaturalflairforinterdiscipli- naritylongbeforeitbecameabuzzwordinthehumanities. Despite this, Ashton’s book stands as one of the major contribu- tions to the study of Christian origins and New Testament theology overthelasttwentyyears.Itisaclassic exampleofcarefulanalysis andjudicioususeofageneration’sscholarshipwhichhasledtothe encapsulationandconsolidationofthatgeneration’swisdom. As befits friends and colleagues, we still go on discussing areas whereIwouldhavewishedJohnwouldhavetakenmattersfurther. Forexample,onceonehasfoundtheapocalyptickeytotheGospelof John,thereisthecrucialJohanninequestionabouttherelationship totherevelatorytextintheNewTestament,theApocalypse.Butthis isagreatbook.Itisbeautifullywrittenandistestimonytothevalue ofmaturereflectionratherthanthehurriedrushtopublish. Foreword ix Itissogoodtoseeitwithasecondeditionwiththemoreextended treatments of various issues included in which the significance of whathehasdiscoveredhasbeentakenfurther. ChristopherRowland