A Commentary on the Gospel of John

A Commentary on

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

Johannes Beutler, SJ

Translated by

Michael Tait

WILLIAM B. EERDMANS PUBLISHING COMPANY

GRAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

2140 Oak Industrial Drive NE, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49505

www.eerdmans.com

Originally published in German as Das Johannesevangelium: Kommentar

2013 © Verlag Herder GmbH, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany

English translation © 2017 William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

All rights reserved.

Published 2017

26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 171 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

ISBN 978-0-8028-7336-1

eISBN 978-1-4674-4821-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Beutler, Johannes, author.

Title: A commentary on the Gospel of John / Johannes Beutler, SJ ; translated by Michael Tait.

Other titles: Johannesevangelium. English

Description: Grand Rapids : Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017014825 | ISBN 9780802873361 (hardcover : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Bible. John—Commentaries.

Classification: LCC BS2615.53 .B4813 2017 | DDC 226.5/077—dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017014825

Contents

Foreword, by Francis J. Moloney

Preface

Abbreviations

INTRODUCTION

1.Character

2.Structure

3.Aim

4.Unity and Sources

5.History of Religions Background

6.Author, Time, Place

7.Text

8.Canonicity

9.Contemporary Significance

10.The Present Exegesis

THE DIVINE WORD ENTERS THE WORLD (1:1–4:54)

1.Prologue (1:1–18)

2.The Testimony of the Baptist (1:19–34)

3.The Call of the First Disciples (1:35–51)

4.The First Sign of Jesus in Cana (2:1–12)

5.The First Passover: Cleansing of the Temple (2:13–25)

6.The Dialogue with Nicodemus in Jerusalem (3:1–21)

7.Jesus in Judaea: Further Testimony of the Baptist (3:22–36)

8.Jesus in Samaria (4:1–42)

9.Jesus in Galilee (4:43–45)

10.Jesus’s Second Sign in Cana of Galilee (4:46–54)

JESUS REVEALS HIMSELF TO HIS PEOPLE (5:1–10:42)

1.Jesus at the Feast of Weeks (5:1–47)

2.The Passover in Galilee (6:1–71)

3.Jesus at the Feast of Tabernacles (7:1–10:21)

4.Jesus at the Feast of the Dedication of the Temple. His Withdrawal over the Jordan (10:22–39, 40–42)

JESUS ON THE WAY TO HIS PASSION (11:1–12:50)

1.The Raising of Lazarus (11:1–46)

2.The Decision to Kill Jesus (11:47–54)

3.The Last Passover (11:55–57)

4.The Anointing of Jesus in Bethany (12:1–11)

5.Jesus’s Entry into Jerusalem (12:12–19)

6.The Coming of the Greeks (12:20–36)

7.Look Back on the Activity of Jesus and Final Summons to Faith (12:37–50)

JESUS BIDS FAREWELL (13:1–17:26)

1.The Footwashing (13:1–20)

2.The Identification of Judas and His Exit (13:21–30)

3.Transition to the Farewell Discourses (13:31–38)

4.The First Farewell Discourse (14:1–31)

5.The Second Farewell Discourse (15:1–16:4d)

6.The Third Farewell Discourse (16:4e–33)

7.The Prayer of the Departing Jesus (17:1–26)

JESUS’S HOUR: PASSION, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION (18:1–20:31)

1.The Arrest of Jesus and the Jewish Trial (18:1–27)

2.The Roman Trial of Jesus (18:28–19:16b)

3.Crucifixion, Death, and Burial of Jesus (19:16c–42)

4.The Easter Narrative: Jesus’s Appearances to the Disciples (20:1–31)

EPILOGUE: JESUS, PETER, AND THE BELOVED DISCIPLE (21:1–25)

Bibliography

Index of Names

Index of Primary Sources

Foreword

Johannes Beutler has been an important contributor to Johannine studies for almost fifty years. Equally important, he has become a friend and guide to many contemporary European scholars. From Frankfurt am Main and Rome, an impressive Beutler-Schule has emerged. Anyone familiar with the past fifty years of Johannine scholarship knows the significant changes in approach that have shaped the interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Beutler has been a major player in these developments.

Johannine scholars now look back at proposals for radical restructuring and reordering of the text itself, the development of extensive source theories, explorations of influence in the History of Religions, and the application of more literary and reader-response focus upon the drama of the narrative. This commentary presents contemporary interpreters of the Gospel of John a respectful and accurate distillation of all that has emerged across these exciting years. Such contributions are rare. It is not only a quality introduction and commentary to the Gospel of John. A careful reader—devoting attention to the discussions Beutler introduces into his analysis of the text, and the brief and informative accompanying footnotes—will discover a first-hand witness to fifty years of Johannine scholarship.

The concise introductory chapter sets the agenda for the commentary. Beutler devotes most of his attention to matters that impact the interpretation of the text. He also gives attention to the stability of the Johannine text and its acceptance in Scripture. After an overview of speculation about the author, Beutler plausibly suggests that [f]rom the perspective of a literary-critical treatment of John’s Gospel the question of the message is more important than that of its author. Yet, such questions are dealt with adequately, even if summarily, as they should be in a commentary of this nature.

A similar balance can be found in his discussions of the literary structure of the document and its aim. His breadth of awareness of the many possibilities is impressive. Beutler suggests that narrative is structured around a number of journeys, an exegetical decision that situates him with other significant contemporary interpreters in Europe and the USA. Reading the verb to believe in John 20:31 as a present subjunctive, he stresses the importance of the narrative as an account of the life of Jesus that calls already believing Christians to greater faith.

He accepts the canonical text as the object of his analysis. Beutler presents the case for such an interpretation, with respectful recognition of other approaches. For example, he fairly presents the conclusions reached by the History of Religions and speculation about Gnostic background, the possibility of tracing other identifiable Christian and Johannine sources, the identification of a number of editorial activities that eventually produced the Gospel in its current form, and the role of the Synoptic tradition in the formation of the Fourth Gospel. Contemporary English-speaking interpreters of John will be grateful for this even-handed treatment of largely European approaches that have dominated the field.

Beutler’s analysis of the Johannine text is committed to a reading of the Gospel as a whole, largely structured around the theme of journeys. In 1:1–4:54, the divine Word enters the world. Jesus reveals himself to his people in 5:1–10:42, depending upon the use of the Jewish feasts of Pentecost (5:1 [Beutler’s suggestion, as the feast is not named]), Passover (6:4), Tabernacles (7:2), and Dedication (10:22). In 11:1–12:50 Jesus is on the way to his Passion. He bids farewell to his own in 13:1–17:26. In 18:1–20:31 John tells the story of Jesus’s hour: passion, death and resurrection. The original Gospel closed with a statement of its purpose in 20:30–31. John 21:1–25 is regarded as an epilogue, a relecture of earlier texts. In John 21 the Gospel is being updated.

Each section is subdivided into identifiable subunits, an English text is provided, and the commentary follows. The English text claims to be a revision based on the RSV and the NRSV translations. This is an admirable approach. There are many places where important exegetical issues are handled (e.g., singular verbs are rendered plural to be inclusive, and some Christological possibilities are flattened [e.g., the Son of Man sometimes becomes the human one, and I am He becomes It is I]). One respects the worthy desire of the editors of the NRSV to produce an inclusive text, but the RSV remains more faithful to the original Greek.

The exegesis first situates the passage under consideration within its context and its literary genre is determined, in so far as this is possible. The step-by-step exegesis begins with a synchronic analysis, a reading of the passage without any search for possible sources. Once that is in place, Beutler asks questions about the traditions that have been used to generate the text: Jewish, Christian, or pre-Christian. This approach is especially satisfying. Many significant commentary series (e.g., Word Bible Commentary, Anchor Bible Commentary, and Sacra Pagina) ask the reader to wade through pages of historical-critical notes before arriving at any assessment of what the passage means in its Johannine setting. The final step asks questions about the contemporary relevance of texts. Here, Beutler issues a challenge to believe more deeply.

European, and especially German, Johannine scholarship will always dedicate some attention to sources. Beutler is no exception to that rule. Yet, he is unique in the way he envisions and uses them. Looking back a generation, he accepts the claims of Frans Neirynck and the so-called Leuven school that the Gospel of John manifests a level of dependence upon the Synoptic tradition. There are a number of places where this is important, none more so than his exegesis of John 6:1–71. Beutler regards this as a late addition to the Johannine Gospel, inserted under the influence of Mark 6:33–8:33. The fact that the Passover episode is the only report of a Jewish feast not located in Jerusalem indicates the originality of this later addition.

Beutler’s other major interest is to trace passages that can be regarded as a relecture, a practice widely used in contemporary German Johannine scholarship (and significantly by Jean Zumstein). He claims that some passages can be seen as a rereading of passages that had been formed earlier in the tradition. This is an important element in today’s interpretation of the Gospel of John. An older school of thought regarded many similar texts as coming from different traditions. What may have happened, as the story was told and retold, was that earlier texts were reread and rewritten. Relecture is not tradition-focused, but text-focused. There are many examples of this: the first discourse of Jesus in 14:1–31 may reappear in 16:4–33 where it repeats while deepening and developing 14:1–31. Beutler joins Zumstein in regarding John 21:1–25 as a relecture of earlier passages in the Johannine tradition.

No single voice can offer the final solution to every issue. I wonder about the association of John 1:1–18 with 1:19–4:54 as part of the first journey. Whatever the history of the traditions (and the practice of relecture) that formed 13:1–17:26, this long section of the Gospel (one quarter of its length) deserves close attention as a self-contained unit, with an overall unified literary and theological agenda. Not all confessions of faith—so important for Beutler’s reading of the Fourth Gospel as a challenge for the reader of today—can be read on their face value. Context determines meaning. For example, Martha’s words in John 11:27 do not respond to Jesus’s self-revelation in 11:25–26. A few verses later, Martha is complaining that the tomb will have a bad odor, earning herself a rebuke (11:39–40). This needs to be compared with Jesus’s response to Mary’s subsequent actions and the beautiful odor that flows from them in 12:1–8. I like Beutler’s reading of 21:1–25 as an Epilogue (not an addendum), perhaps the result of relecture. However, there is much in the Gospel of John in need of a narrative resolution that can (at least in part) be found in 21:1–25. I like to regard the final chapter as a necessary Epilogue. It is more than an update.

Everyone interested in the Gospel of John—from the student to the pastor to the professional biblical scholar and theologian—has been rendered a great service by the publication of this translation. Uncomplicated, excellently documented, and written with a lightness of touch, Johannes Beutler’s commentary on the Gospel of John will provide a wonderful window for all English-only readers. They can now gaze through it into the exciting world of the best of European Johannine scholarship.

FRANCIS J. MOLONEY, SDB, AM, FAHA

Catholic Theological College

University of Divinity

Melbourne, Victoria,

Australia

Preface

This commentary goes back to my lectures on John’s Gospel at the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome in the years 2000 to 2007 before my return to Germany in the same year. These Rome lectures had their predecessors in various teaching sessions in Frankfurt am Main from 1971 on. Thus, here, my life’s work on John’s Gospel has come together although some of it has already been given expression in various publications. My interest in this Gospel was aroused through my dissertation on the testimony theme in John at the Pontifical Gregorian University in 1972. This appeared in the same year under the title Martyria. At that time, I was supposed to be lecturing on Fundamental Theology with the emphasis on the New Testament. The testimony theme in John seemed a suitable way of answering the question about the grounds for faith in Jesus according to the New Testament. Naturally, my work on John’s Gospel has subsequently come to stand on its own and to be parted from issues of Fundamental Theology.

Characteristic of the work of the following years and also of the present commentary is the effort to understand John against his Old Testament–Jewish background. I have gradually disengaged myself from hypotheses about the sources for the Fourth Gospel. They have come to be replaced by an interest in the Synoptic Gospels whose importance for John’s Gospel I have come to recognize more and more, not least under the influence of the Louvain school of Frans Neirynck. To that should be added what I gained from conversations with Swiss and German colleagues who reckoned the later strata in John’s Gospel to be relecture of the earlier text. This insight led, among other things, to my suggestion that John 6 should be regarded as just such a relecture of its context. Here, among predecessors, we must acknowledge Barnabas Lindars and René Kieffer.

All in all, my work owes a lot to international dialogue, above all in the context of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (SNTS) to which I have belonged since 1975. I have drawn much profit from its seminars and not only in the academic sense.

My thanks goes first and foremost to Herder Publications for accepting my manuscript and looking after it carefully, closely followed by all those who have accompanied me on my academic journey, from my teachers to my colleagues and pupils but also my family, my order, and my personal friends. To them this volume is dedicated with gratitude.

JOHANNES BEUTLER, SJ

Frankfurt am Main, June 5, 2013

Abbrevations

Abbreviations of biblical and extrabiblical Jewish-Christian sources, series, periodicals, and standard works follow The SBL Handbook of Style: For Biblical Studies and Related Disciplines, 2nd ed. (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014).

Commentaries on John’s Gospel are cited with the names of the authors and page numbers.

Introduction

1. Character

The readers of the Gospel of John enter a new world. From the beginning, they hear a new language. Jesus’s announcement of the Kingdom of God gives way to a new conceptual world. The prologue of the Fourth Gospel (John 1:1–18) is already characterized by this change of paradigm. There is talk of the divine Logos that brings light and life, but also of the forces of darkness. There is talk about the truth that Jesus both brings and is, and about the lie that opposes him. In particular, the extended discourses of Jesus in the first half of the Gospel and his controversies with the Jews are characterized by this language. So too are the farewell discourses before his passion thus characterized. Even as late as the dialogue with Pilate, Jesus will confess himself as the king who came to bear witness to the truth. This is a tone previously unheard in the Gospels.

Characteristic of John’s Gospel is, then, its dualistic language and conceptual world. In contrast to the Synoptic Gospels, this dualism is not temporal but spatial. Jesus comes from above, his opponents from below. They are of this world, he is not of this world. Jesus brings life and even is the life. Whoever opposes him walks in the darkness. Jesus brings the truth and even is the truth, and his adversary is the father of lies. The world can be the arena for the mission of the Son, but also the symbol of everything that opposes Jesus and his message. The representatives of this world appear in John’s Gospel as the Jews in a particular sense (specifically, indeed, the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem, but, in a larger sense as well, all adherents of the Jewish religion in so far as they refuse to believe in Jesus).

The multiplicity of Jewish groups we encounter in the Synoptic Gospels has given way to a single group—the Pharisees. This may be due to the relatively late date of the Fourth Gospel’s composition. After the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple in 70 CE, the Sadducees, the Zealots, and the Essenes lost their importance. The only remaining significant group was that of the Pharisees. It is they who are identified in John’s Gospel with the Jews.

The impression that the Fourth Gospel is for this reason anti-Jewish is, nonetheless, mistaken. Hardly any Gospel has been influenced as strongly by Judaism and its institutions as this one. This is already attested by the very structure of the Gospel. As will be shown later on, the Jewish Feasts of Pilgrimage are structurally important. Between the first Passover of John 2:13 and the last of 11:55, there are: the unnamed feast of 5:1, which can probably be interpreted as Pentecost, Tabernacles of 7:2, and the Feast of Dedication in 10:22. Disregarding for the moment the Passover of 6:4, we can see the whole of Jesus’s public life according to John integrated into one annual cycle of Jewish Feasts. Jerusalem and the Temple are the privileged places of Jesus’s teaching and activity. Individual places like the Pools of Siloam or Bethesda are named explicitly.

In John, the sequence of events in the life of Jesus does not always correspond to that in the Synoptic Gospels. The Purification of the Temple takes place already on the occasion of Jesus’s first visit to Jerusalem on the Feast of the Passover (John 2:13–22). In this way, a dramatic tension is created since, from this moment on, there is a dangerous conflict between Jesus and the Jewish authorities (with a certain parallel in Mark 3:6 where we find the Pharisees and Herodians planning to eliminate Jesus after a healing on the Sabbath).

If Mark deliberately selects from the miraculous deeds of Jesus, this tendency is reinforced in John. The fourth evangelist does not report any exorcism or healing of a leper, and the number of Jesus’s miracles is strikingly reduced. The healings that remain are those of the royal officer’s son (John 4:46–54), the paralytic (John 5), a man born blind (John 9), and the raising of Lazarus (John 11:1–44). Moreover, these miracles are refracted through a theological lens as Signs of Jesus’s authority, in part by the extended dialogue scenes and discourses of Jesus that follow the miracle or accompany it. This is also the case in the narrative of the multiplication of the loaves in John 6. The account of the changing of water into wine at the wedding of Cana, which is attested only by John, again calls this miracle a sign (John 2:11), even though an interpretive discourse or dialogue is missing. The miraculous catch of fish in John 21:1–14 does not follow this scheme but is, in turn, characterized by symbolic elements.

The Parables of the Kingdom, so characteristic of the Synoptic Gospels, are missing in John, but the author certainly likes metaphorical language. This language serves to illustrate the identity of Jesus, in particular in the so-called I Am Sayings typical of John, in which Jesus expresses his significance for the believer (I am the bread of life, John 6:35; I am the light of the world, John 8:12). In two passages, we encounter in John a literary genre similar to that of the parable or similitude, the so-called "Bildrede" or extended metaphor: the Bildrede of the Good Shepherd in John 10:1–5 and that of the True Vine in John 15:1–8. In this figure of speech, which is related to allegory, the metaphorical level and the real level penetrate each other.

Mark begins his Gospel with the activity of John the Baptist. Matthew and Luke begin their accounts much earlier and integrate an account of Jesus’s infancy into their Gospels. The fourth evangelist goes a step further and, in his prologue (John 1:1–18), traces Jesus’s origin back to his eternal provenance from the Father. Who Jesus is and where he comes from is illustrated not biographically but theologically, and in the form of a hymn at that.

Already in the prologue, we find the characteristic theology of the fourth evangelist as well as its unique expression. The divine Word, Jesus, not only comes from God but is God; that is to say, he is of divine essence. This affirmation frames the prologue of John (John 1:1, 18). Thomas will resume this statement at the end of the Gospel before the additional ch. 21, and will make it his confession of faith and that of John’s reading community (John 20:28): My Lord and my God. In this way, the confession of Jesus’s divinity also frames the whole of John’s Gospel in its original extent. That Jesus is the Son of God is a key issue in Mark (cf. Mark 1:11; 9:7; 14:61; 15:39), but becomes the leading christological title in John. In addition, Jesus is called the Son, but also the Son of Man, the latter again in harmony with the Synoptic Gospels. The attributes of this Johannine Son of Man correspond to those of the Isaian Servant of God: he will be lifted up and glorified (cf. Isa 52:13 LXX), once his hour has come.

With this, Johannine eschatology comes to the fore. In John, there is no discourse on the coming end of the world and the destruction of Jerusalem as in Mark 13 par. For John the end of time will not come at a given moment or even soon but has begun already (perhaps with a view to Synoptic texts such as Matt 12:28; Luke 11:20). In John, this can mean: The hour is coming and now is, i.e., the hour of the true worshipers in the Spirit in the end time (John 4:23) and, at the same time, the hour in which the dead will hear the voice of the Son of Man and rise for judgement or salvation (John 5:25). In particular, by locating the final judgement and eternal life in the present, John goes beyond the Synoptics. The passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus are the turning point in history. In Johannine language this is formulated as the hour of his lifting up on the cross and to the Father. It is from this perspective that the words of Jesus must be understood. In particular, in the Farewell Discourses of Jesus in John 13–17, we hear the voice of the one who has been lifted up. He is no longer visibly present among his own, but will send his representative, the Paraclete, who will lead his disciples into all truth (John 16:13). Thus, after Easter, the community of the disciples lives in the end time and shares in God’s eschatological promises.

2. Structure

Right up to the present there are varied opinions about the structure of John’s Gospel. Indeed, there has been a doubt, particularly in German-speaking research, whether it would ever be possible to find a convincing structure for this Gospel. This skepticism can be observed in Rudolf Schnackenburg’s voluminous commentary, among other contributions. The reason for this cautious attitude lies, in part, in the fact that authors like him consider John’s Gospel to be the product of a long process of redaction on the basis of various sources, with the consequence that its original shape can hardly be reconstructed any longer.

The great twentieth-century interpreters of John’s Gospel structure the work predominantly from a thematic point of view. Thus, in his commentary, Rudolf Bultmann divides it into two main parts: The revelation of the δόξα to the world (John 2–12) and The revelation of the δόξα to the community (John 13–20). Chapter 1, with the prologue, serves as an introduction, while ch. 21 constitutes an epilogue or supplement. Similarly, C. H. Dodd divides the Gospel into chs. 2–12 The Book of Signs and chs. 13–20 The Book of the Passion. In his commentary, Raymond E. Brown modifies Dodd’s proposal and calls the second part The Book of Glory, which is certainly more appropriate. Brown divides the first half of the Gospel into four sections: The Opening Days of the Revelation of Jesus (John 1:19–51), From Cana to Cana (chs. 2–4), Jesus and the Principal Feasts of the Jews (chs. 5–10) and the section in chs. 11–12 that he recognizes as Jesus moves towards the Hour of Death and Glory. Alongside thematic criteria, topographical, chronological, and liturgical ones are utilized as well.¹

Other authors see a division of the Gospel according to dramatic criteria. For J. Louis Martyn,² the drama of the conflict between Jesus and those Jews who refuse to believe in him determines the narrative of the Fourth Gospel. Since this conflict pervades the whole of the text, this point of view is of limited use for discovering its structure. Dramatic elements are also important for Mark W. G. Stibbe in his various publications³ and for Ludger Schenke in his commentary on John. The latter divides the Gospel after the prologue into two main sections: The activity of Jesus before the disciples as ‘descent from heaven’ (John 1:19–12:36) in eight scenes with a first epilogue in John 12:37–50, and: The activity of Jesus before the disciples as ‘ascent/lifting up to heaven’ in John 13:1–20:29 in three scenes with a second epilogue in John 20:30–31, an appendix in John 21:1–24, and the conclusion in John 21:25.⁴ Here, the influence of Bultmann can still be observed. However, Schenke complements this point of view with the idea that John’s Gospel follows the technique of ancient dramas by being divided into five acts with exposition, repetition and consolidation, climax, peripeteia, and solution.⁵ Like Schenke, Hartwig Thyen also structures John’s Gospel as a kind of drama, following, to a large extent, his Danish predecessor, Gunnar Østenstad.⁶ His proposal to structure the Gospel around acts and scenes appears so strongly influenced by the literary genre of drama that the multiplicity of criteria relevant for the structure of John can no longer be taken into account here. Michael Theobald sees the Fourth Gospel as a dramatic narrative,⁷ even if he also denies that the drama can be retrieved from the plan of the book.⁸

George L. Parsenios, whose study represents a considerable body of more recent literature from the United States,⁹ is equally interested in drama as the design element in the Fourth Gospel. According to Parsenios, it is not ancient drama as such that is helpful for a better understanding of John’s Gospel but the development of drama in the rhetoric of the Roman Empire.¹⁰

Proposals to see the structure of John as determined by chronological and liturgical criteria come closer to the structural signals of the text. Thus, after an inaugural week (John 1:19–2:12), Donatien Mollat recognizes, in his commentary in the Jerusalem Bible, the Jewish Principal and Pilgrimage Feasts as key structural components: the first Passover in Jerusalem that Jesus attends (2:13), the unnamed feast of 5:1 (possibly Pentecost), the Passover in Galilee (6:4), Tabernacles (7:2) with the following feast of the Dedication of the Temple (10:22) and the last Passover (11:55; 12:1; 13:1 to 19:42).¹¹ This proposal is appealing because of its combination of thematic, spatial, and temporal structural elements. We shall return to it later on.

More recently, topographical elements have claimed stronger attention in the search for the structure of John. Mathias Rissi distinguishes three journeys of Jesus before his last journey to Jerusalem.¹² These journeys begin in non-Jewish or pagan territory, pass through Galilee, and finally lead to Jerusalem: 1:19–3:36; 4:1–5:47; 6:1–10:39. Jesus’s final departure for Jerusalem starts at this point (10:40–12:41), followed by Jesus’s farewell 13:1–14:31 (chs. 15–17 have been added) and the Return of the Son to his Father 18:1–20:31 (ch. 21 has been added). At the beginning stands the prologue. This produces a division of John into seven sections, with two three-part sections after the prologue, and the turning point in 10:40.

Jeff Staley takes over from Rissi in particular the proposal that John 10:40 constitutes a turning point (an idea with which Thyen¹³ also agrees), only with the modification that, for him, a new section begins in John 11:1 (so too Thyen).¹⁴ Staley sees the idea of the journey already forecast in the prologue when it describes the descent and ascent of the Logos. We are thus able to observe a structure of four journeys: 1:19–3:36; 4:1–6:71; 7:1–10:42 and 11:1–21:25. Jesus’s journey in the first half of the Gospel (1:19–10:42) brings him from Bethany (on the Jordan) to Bethany (near Jerusalem) (1:28; 11:1, 18). His most important companion is John the Baptist, first named as such in John 1:28 and last mentioned in 10:41. In what follows, he will be replaced by Lazarus whom Jesus loved (11:5) and then by the disciple whom Jesus loved (for Luc Devillers,¹⁵ the three witnesses of Jesus).

Kieffer divides up our Gospel according to Jesus’s four journeys, all of which have a common point of departure, namely the region beside or on the other side of the Jordan (or of the Sea of Gennesareth): John 1:19–51; 3:22–36; 6:1–16 and 10:40–42.¹⁶

In his two contributions, Fernando F. Segovia sees more clearly that Jesus’s journeys lead regularly to Jerusalem.¹⁷ Like Rissi, he recognizes three journeys of Jesus (John 1:19–3:36; 4:1–5:47; 6:1–10:42) before the last and decisive one in 11:1. These journeys allow the reader to share in the hero’s adventures. In the process, however, the importance of the Jewish feasts for Jesus’s journeys and for the structure of John seems to be overlooked.

In recent years, it has become more common to combine various formal and thematic criteria in trying to discover the structure of John. This procedure can be observed in the work of George Mlakuzhyil,¹⁸ who belongs to the school of Ignace de la Potterie of the Pontifical Biblical Institute. According to him, Christology is decisively important for the understanding of John’s Gospel and its structure. After a christological introduction (John 1:1–2:11), the author of the Gospel distinguishes the Book of the Signs of Jesus (2:1–12:50) with the account of the wedding at Cana as a transitional passage, and the Book of the Hour of Jesus (11:1–20:29), with John 11:1–12:50 as another transition (as above for Thyen and others). There follows the christological conclusion in 20:30–31 and an epilogue in 21:1–25. In this proposal, the classification of John 2:1–11 and 11:1–12:50 as transitional passages is attractive. Less convincing is the restriction of the cycle of Jewish feasts to the great controversies of Jesus with the Jews in Jerusalem in John 5:1–10:42.

The proposal of Charles H. Giblin combines formal and thematic criteria for the division of John.¹⁹ The author takes his starting point from spatial and temporal indications in the text as well as from dramatic ones. In John 1:19–4:54, the universal mission of Jesus is described; in 5:1–10:42, one finds hostility against Jesus in the great controversies; from 11:1 until the end, Jesus’s love for his own is of primary importance. The formal transition to the second part comes only in 13:1, so that the classical division of John into two retains its value. Again, the question is whether the spatial and temporal indications in John have received the attention they deserve.

The present exegesis attempts to combine the structural criteria of division that have been tried and tested so far. We shall pay attention, therefore, to topographical, chronological, liturgical, formal and thematic aspects. From Mollat we are adopting the role of the Jewish feasts for the structure of John;²⁰ from Rissi, Staley, Kieffer. and Segovia, the importance of the journeys up to Jesus’s last journey to Jerusalem. Jesus’s journeys to Jerusalem should be taken as pilgrimages to the principal Jewish feasts. A one-year cycle of Jewish feasts probably forms the framework for the narrative part of the Gospel between John 2:13 and 11:55. Jesus sets out for Jerusalem four times: for the first Passover in 2:13, for the unnamed feast of 5:1 (presumably Pentecost), for Tabernacles in 7:2, and for the last Passover in 11:1 (mentioned in 11:55; 12:1; 13:1). For the Passover feast of John 6:4, Jesus does not go to Jerusalem. The whole of ch. 6 could have been added to the text of John under the influence of the Synoptic Gospels.²¹ The Feast of Dedication in John 10:22 fits into this framework and does not require a new pilgrimage to Jerusalem since Jesus is already in the city. From the theological point of view, Jesus is bringing to perfection the sacred times and sacred places of Israel (the temple stands at the beginning and at the end). With good reason, exegetes see at the beginning an Inaugural Week leading into the public life of Jesus in John 1:19–2:12 with its seven-day pattern, and, at the end, the week of Jesus’s departure to the Father that starts with his anointing six days before the Passover in 12:1. The six days of the Lazarus story in John 11 also fit into this scheme.

3. Aim

The question as to the aim or purpose of the composition of the Fourth Gospel has been answered by the majority of scholars until now with reference to the first ending of the Gospel in John 20:30–31: Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name. For the phrase that you may believe, there are two variants in the original Greek text. One, attested by P⁶⁶vid א* B Q 892s l 2211—thus by the oldest Egyptian tradition—reads the present subjunctive ἵνα πιστεύητε; the other is attested by א‎² A C D K L N W Γ Δ Ψ f ¹.¹³ 33 and others. M reads the aorist subjunctive ἵνα πιστεύσητε. In the first case, the Gospel’s aim is to strengthen belief in Jesus; in the second, to lead to faith in Jesus. On the basis of external attestation, it seems reasonable to prefer the first variant, the predominant view in the more recent commentaries.

Older research was interested in the question of the addressees of the Fourth Gospel and, not infrequently, the starting point was the second textual variant just mentioned. A survey of models like this can be found, among others, in the great Johannine commentaries of Schnackenburg²² and Brown.²³ There has also been subsequent development along these lines.²⁴ According to an opinion that is expressed occasionally, John’s Gospel serves the purpose of stirring disciples of John the Baptist to faith in Jesus. Reference is then made to the prologue that expressly records that John the Baptist was not the light but only came to bear witness to the light (John 1:8).²⁵ This then remains the Baptist’s role according to the fourth evangelist (cf. John 1:19, 32, 34; 3:26; 5:33–34). In John 1:20, the Baptist stresses explicitly that he is not the Messiah. This is a plausible scenario, for in Acts 18:24–19:7 in Ephesus, Paul came across some disciples of Jesus who knew only of the baptism of John.

According to another idea, advocated by Karl Bornhäuser, John’s Gospel is a mission document for Israel.²⁶ Alongside the already mentioned first ending of the Gospel, the starting point here is the great controversies between Jesus and the Jews over Jesus’s claim to be the Christ and the Son of God.

As an alternative to this idea, it has been suggested that the Fourth Gospel should be seen as addressed to the Greeks. With Johannine irony, Jesus’s Jewish audience in John 7:35 ask whether Jesus perhaps intends to go to the Greek diaspora to preach. It is Greeks like this who come to see Jesus according to John 12:20. Is the Fourth Gospel out to win to belief Greeks such as these? Or is it rather Jews of the Diaspora who are meant here?²⁷

According to other authors, the Fourth Gospel displays a special interest in the Samaritans.²⁸ Especially relevant here is Jesus’s journey through Samaria with the dialogues and encounters that take place there according to John 4:1–42. The Gospel’s critical standpoint towards the temple, something shared with the Qumran movement and also with the Hellenists in the Acts of the Apostles, could point in this direction.

However, Gnostics and Docetics should also be considered as possible addressees for the Fourth Gospel. This would explain the emphasis on the flesh of Jesus (cf. John 1:14; 6:51–56) and his bloody death on the cross, followed by the piercing of his side from which blood and water flowed (John 19:34).²⁹

Scholars have increasingly come to believe that John’s Gospel is intended first and foremost as a reinforcement of the faith of its Christian readers. This is not just because of the probable preferred reading of John 20:31, but also because of the very construction of the Fourth Gospel. At key moments in the text, prominent disciples formulate the confession to which the whole Gospel leads in John 20:30–31. Thus, after the first falling away of some of Jesus’s disciples in John 6:66, Peter, as spokesman for the Twelve, makes the confession: Lord, to whom should we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know: You are the Holy One of God. Later, in John 11:27, Martha will express the confession of the Johannine community: Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one who is to come into the world. Confessions like this have been prepared for from the first chapter of the Gospel (cf. Andrew in John 1:41 and Nathanael in John 1:49).

John’s Gospel intends, then, to lead to faith in Jesus, the Messiah and Son of God, and to strengthen those who have already come to this faith. According to widespread consensus, especially in German-speaking scholarship, this is also its only aim. The influence of the Reformation could be playing a role here for, according to it, everything culminates with Christ and faith in him. Recently in Anglophone circles it has increasingly been perceived that part of faith in Jesus is confession of that faith.³⁰ Two reasons may be working together here: greater independence from the confessional perspectives of Middle Europe, and the paradigm shift from an author- to a reader-oriented exegesis of the text of the New Testament. In the United States particularly, a more intense text-pragmatic exegesis of the New Testament, working alongside the methods of rhetorical criticism and reader response criticism, has been establishing itself for some time.

An indication of the need to remain in the faith and allow it to be strengthened is found already in the text of John 20:31 itself. The present subjunctive of πιστεύητε means exactly this: that you may persevere in faith. Such faithfulness may be impeded by the situation of the Gospel’s readers. If they want to live an authentic faith, they must also confess it outwardly. Evidently, however, this too is difficult for them. That is why, from its beginning, the Fourth Gospel lays great weight on confessing Jesus, directly or indirectly.³¹ When the Baptist is asked if he is the Messiah, the text says: And he confessed and did not deny it; he confessed: I am not the Messiah (John 1:20). This confession is clear in its emphasis. As John’s Gospel progresses, men come on the scene who seem to want to come to faith in Jesus but do not confess him openly for fear of the Pharisees who had decided to exclude from the synagogue those who confessed Jesus openly (John 12:42). For these disciples of Jesus, the praise of men was more important than the praise of God (cf. John 5:41–44).³² Joseph of Arimathea was another such disciple who nevertheless had the courage later to go with Nicodemus to Pilate to beg the body of Jesus (John 19:38–40).

We come now to those exemplary figures who, in John’s Gospel, set an example of fearless confession. We can mention Nicodemus again here. Being a member of the Jewish Council, in his first appearance he comes to Jesus by night, probably out of fear of being spotted. Nicodemus’s nocturnal visit is not quickly forgotten, since there is an allusion to it in John 19:39. The outcome of his first conversation with Jesus in John 3:1–21 is unknown. He simply disappears from the scene, and the reader does not learn what he took away from this dialogue. When Jesus is later the subject of allegations in the Sanhedrin, it is the same Nicodemus who takes his side and asks that the accused be heard according to the Law (John 7:50–51). By doing this, Nicodemus takes the social risk of being considered one of them (v. 50). At the close of the Gospel, Nicodemus along with Joseph of Arimathea begs Pilate for the body of Jesus. This time it is with the Roman authority that he risks his life.³³ It can be assumed that, with this biography, the fourth evangelist wanted to show his readers how one should confess Jesus without caring for life or position. Like Joseph of Arimathea, Nicodemus was probably one of Jesus’s disciples in secret (John 19:39), but, when the time came, found the courage to stand up for his faith. This is something the readers too have to learn.

Perhaps the most important role model for the Johannine reader is the man born blind in John 9. He not only obtains his eyesight from Jesus; he also comes gradually to faith in him. By contrast with his parents, he dares to make an open confession of his faith despite the decree of the Jews (i.e., the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem) to expel from the synagogue anyone confessing faith in Jesus (John 9:22). Indeed, a little later his confession leads to his being cast out (9:34). Similar expulsions are mentioned also in John 12:42 and 16:2. According to Martyn,³⁴ this is a reflection of the relationships of the time after the destruction of the temple, specifically the decree of the so-called Synod of Jamnia adopting a cursing of heretics in the prayer of the Eighteen Benedictions. Contemporary exegetes think rather of an expulsion of Christians from the synagogue at the local level as the background for these Johannine texts. In any case, the man born blind remains the classic example of those who come to faith in Jesus and confess it without care for the social consequences.³⁵

Further examples of this reader orientation can be cited. For instance there is Thomas who, when Jesus sets out on his last journey to Jerusalem, fully aware of the risk to the other disciples says: Let us go with him, that we may die with him (John 11:16).³⁶ There is Peter, who first denies Jesus three times but then renews his love for him and then hears from Jesus that he will be led where he does not want to go (John 21:18). There is the beloved disciple who, like Jesus’s mother, follows his master as far as the cross (John 19:25–27). There are the women, above all Mary Magdalene, who come to look for and bury the body of Jesus as his true disciples (John 20:1–2). There are also Lazarus and his sisters who continue to entertain Jesus even at the moment of greatest threat (John 12:1–11). The list could be enlarged.

Jesus himself demands from his disciples the readiness to follow him wherever he goes. Where he is, there his disciples are to be also. Like him, they are to be ready to fall into the earth like a grain of wheat and so bring forth fruit (John 12:24–26). Such texts belong to the heart of John’s Gospel, not its periphery.³⁷ They show the reader what he should be prepared for in extreme circumstances.

4. Unity and Sources

Before Johannine research saw the rise of text-linguistic methods, which spring from the text as it stands in its final form, it was the literary-critical model of Bultmann that dominated the discussion, at least in German-speaking study. Bultmann’s model does not emerge directly from his commentary, however, and so D. Moody Smith³⁸ has undertaken the task of presenting it in a systematic way. According to Bultmann, the evangelist draws on three different sources, each of a different kind. Most of the prologue and the bulk of Jesus’s speeches in the Fourth Gospel are ascribed by Bultmann to a sayings source from Gnostic Baptist circles. The Mandean and Manichean texts, which were newly or more easily available from the beginning of the twentieth century, formed the history of religions background together with the Odes of Solomon.³⁹ The evangelist would have reinterpreted this source in the sense of a paradox between the heavenly origin of the Logos and his incarnation and inserted it into his Gospel. In addition, he would have had at his disposal a source of the signs of Jesus and another one with an account of his passion, death, and resurrection. For Bultmann, the distinction between the signs source and the evangelist is particularly important. The former regards Jesus as a divine man on the Hellenistic pattern who leads men to faith in his prophetic and messianic word on the basis of his signs. If the original Gospel was focused wholly on this faith in Jesus and the salvation mediated by him in the present, a later ecclesiastical redaction put greater emphasis on the still pending fulfillment in resurrection and judgement, and the necessity of the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as well as the importance of ministry in the church. Thus this Gospel was able to become acceptable to the great Church and form part of the canon of the Gospels.

According to Bultmann, some of the narrative sections, like that of the call of the first disciples in John 1:35–51, belongs to the signs source. This assumption was then later expanded into a hypothetical "Grundschrift"⁴⁰ or a signs Gospel⁴¹ together with the theory of an ever increasing amount of Johannine redaction. To this redaction, for example, belong all the parts of the later Gospel that deal with the beloved disciple. At the end of this development, there remained scarcely anything of Bultmann’s evangelist. It was precisely this view that led Thyen to be the spokesman of a new way of looking at things, namely, to first describe the final redactor as the evangelist⁴² and then to give up the entire source and strata model completely and come away with the Fourth Gospel as a unitary text that is coherent in itself.⁴³ Since the adoption of text-linguistic methods in Johannine research, this tendency has increasingly become the norm. At the same time, of course, we must distinguish between abstaining from identifying sources and strata and denying their existence. The latter needs its own form of argument, perhaps something like Eugen Ruckstuhl and Peter Dschulnigg have propounded for the area of style criticism.⁴⁴

It still remains disputed how far and in what form John depends on the Synoptic Gospels. Against P. Gardner-Smith’s thesis⁴⁵ that the Fourth Gospel does not directly presume knowledge of the first three, German-speaking scholars since the 1970s have increasingly tended to go for the thesis of the so-called Louvain school of Neirynck, his colleagues and pupils, according to whom John would have known and used the Synoptic Gospels. Certainly, it is not to be imagined that John used the other evangelists in such a way that he becomes a kind of fourth Synoptic. According to the Louvain school, he makes very free use of the Synoptics, and not always to the same extent. John’s points of contact with the first three evangelists occur especially in the Baptist tradition, in some miracles (such as the healing of the son of the royal official in John 4:46–54), in John 6 (with the multiplication of the loaves, the walking on the water, the demand for a sign, the bread discourse, and the split among the disciples before Peter’s confession) and in the account of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. In this commentary, we shall advocate the dependence of the Fourth Gospel on the other three despite the occasional more recent challenging of this opinion especially among Anglo-Saxon scholars.⁴⁶ The assumption of other sources will be rejected in the present work all the more so as, in the Johannine account of the passion, death, and resurrection, it can be shown how even in the details John has creatively developed the Synoptic tradition just as he had done in his reception of the Baptist tradition.

A good introduction to recent discussion on John’s relationship to the Synoptics is given by Michael Labahn and Manfred Lang in their detailed article.⁴⁷ On the one hand, they observe increasing agreement as to the dependence of the Fourth Gospel on the other three; on the other hand, however, they note caution over this among an array of authors, not only those who regard John as early. It remains difficult to explain the relative gap between John and his three predecessors. On the one hand, we have to take account of his literary and theological creativity, which will also be championed in the present commentary; on the other hand, it is possible that the Synoptic tradition reached our evangelist through a process of secondary orality, that is, through a subsequent re-oralizing of the Synoptics. This model is especially advocated by Labahn. However, it is also conceivable that John is quoting the Synoptics from memory very freely. Then one would also have to dispense with the medium of the Johannine community transmitting tradition. One of the strongest arguments for Synoptic influence on John remains the Gospel genre itself that could scarcely have been created in two places at the same time.⁴⁸

There remains the striking similarity between John 6 and the section Mark 6:32–8:33. In addition to this, we can observe some peculiarities in John 6. Thus, Jesus appears not to go to Jerusalem to the Passover feast mentioned in John 6:4. It appears to have been relocated to Galilee. At the same time the only instance in John of the theme of the Eucharist comes up (John 6:27, 51c–58). Additionally, there is mention of a resurrection on the last day (John 6:39–40, 44, 54). Moreover, only here in John do we come across Jews as opponents of Jesus who, at the same time, do not appear to come from Judaea (from v. 41). In this commentary, we shall argue that this chapter comes from a secondary source.⁴⁹ Furthermore, there are other texts that could have been added to the kernel of the Fourth Gospel. In the case of John 21 this is still the view of the majority of scholars, even those who otherwise prefer to read the Fourth Gospel in a synchronic manner.⁵⁰ Similarly, John 15–17 seem to be secondary. The signal for departure in John 14:31 is actually taken up only in 18:1.⁵¹ Finally, there are also reasons to understand the prologue as a kind of foreword that was composed later as a briefing for the reader.⁵² Neither the personal Logos-concept, understood christologically, nor the idea of creation, nor still the incarnation will be taken up again in the course of the Gospel. In the present commentary, the additions to the traditional text of the Fourth Gospel will be understood, in connection with Jean Zumstein, Andreas Dettwiler, and Klaus Scholtissek, as a "relecture" of the earlier text, that is, a new reading in the light of new situations among the readers. By contrast with classical literary criticism, it is a matter not of a series of authors but of texts. The present commentary thus represents a synthesis of synchronic and diachronic readings of the Fourth Gospel. This commentary also takes into account the Old and New Testament tradition in its exegesis.

5. History of Religions Background

The question as to the history of religions background for John’s Gospel cannot be answered for the Gospel as a whole, for the content and forms taken over are too different. It is a good idea, therefore, to distinguish the most important literary genres within John’s Gospel and to pose the question of the history of religions background for the individual genres separately.⁵³ At a basic level we can distinguish between narrative and speech sections in John. To this should be added the prologue as a separate genre with its own history of religions background.

The narrative material exhibits strong links with biblical texts and traditions throughout. This goes both for the Johannine calling and healing stories as well as for the Johannine account of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Of especial interest as far as the history of religions is concerned are the Johannine miracle stories. For their part, as interpreted signs, they display a number of connections with the speech material. In particular, the Johannine miracle healings show a strong relationship with the corresponding Synoptic narratives. One of these stories, that of the healing of the son of the royal officer (John 4:46–54), finds its direct parallel in the corresponding account in Matthew that we generally ascribe to the Q source (Matt 8:5–13; Luke 7:1–10). Two further healing miracles in John illustrate that the blind see, the lame walk (Matt 11:5; Luke 7:22), namely, the healing of the lame man in John 5:1–9b and that of the man born blind in John 9:1–7. Accounts like these are probably intended to show that the eschatological promises of Isa 35:5–6; 29:18 have been fulfilled in Jesus. Here too, the Synoptic tradition’s corresponding healings (Mark 8:22–26 par., 10:46–52 par., 2:1–12 par.) stand between John and the prophetic texts. For the form of such miracles stories, scholars for a long time used to point to Hellenistic and Jewish texts.⁵⁴ In fact, the story of the raising of Lazarus has no direct Synoptic parallel. However, it is in the form of stories of the raising of the dead used by the Synoptics (cf. Mark 5:21–24, 35–43 par.; Luke 7:11–17). Here too, there are Old Testament examples in stories about the prophets of the northern kingdom raising the dead (cf. 1 Kgs 17:17–24 [Elijah]; 2 Kgs 4:18–37 [Elisha]). The sequence of Jesus’s miraculous feeding of the multitude and then walking on water before the disciples has its precedent in the tradition of Mark (cf. Mark 6:30–52 par.) and recalls a similar sequence in the Exodus tradition with Israel’s passage through the Red Sea (Exod 14), the feeding of the people in the desert (Exod 16) and the theophany at Sinai (Exod 19). The feeding miracle in John 6 reminds us of the gift miracles of Elijah (1 Kgs 17:7–16) and Elisha (2 Kgs 4:42–44) in the miracle cycles of the great prophets of the northern kingdom. Here too, mediation through the Synoptic tradition may be taking place.

The account of the changing of water into wine by Jesus at the wedding of Cana in John 2:1–11 may have had its own tradition history. For a long time, scholars were unable to find convincing biblical parallels for this text. Probably, there is influence here of the ancient Dionysius legend,⁵⁵ something made more likely by the fact that this legend appears to have Oriental roots. Dionysius was the son of Semele, a daughter of the king’s son Cadmus, who came to Greece from Tyre or Sidon. Thus, Greek coins from Syria-Palestine contain Dionysian motifs. According to Pliny (Nat. 2.18.74), the city of Skythopolis (today Bet-Shean in Lower Galilee) prided itself on being the birthplace of Dionysius. Because of this and other information collected by Martin Hengel,⁵⁶ an influence of the Dionysius legend on the text of Jesus’s changing the water into wine in John 2:1–11 seems reasonable. Naturally, biblical images of wine as God’s gift and marriage as the symbol of the covenant relationship between God and his people also contribute to this text (cf. for the wine, Gen 49:10–12; Mark 14:25; for the wedding and for the feast as images of eschatological joy, Isa 25:6; Matt 8:11; Luke 13:29; Matt 22:1–10; Luke 14:16–24; Rev 19:9).

The description of Jesus’s miracles as signs (σηµεῖα) is one of the characteristic features of John’s Gospel. It might have a Hellenistic-Jewish origin; at the very least, it goes back to the Septuagint text of the book of Exodus. This is especially true of the signs (σηµεῖα) that Moses works before Pharaoh and that legitimate him as the leader of God’s people (cf. Exod 4:8–9, 28, 30; 7:9; also 10:1–2; 11:9–10) and are meant to lead to faith in his prophetic mission (Exod 4:5, 8–9, 31). This connection between seeing signs and faith appears in John 2:11, 23; 12:37; 20:30–31 (ascribed by some to a pre-Johannine sign source). Moreover, the connection between Jesus’s signs and the manifesting of his glory (δόξα, cf. John 11:4, 40) seems to be prepared for in the Septuagint. Of course, what is happening there (Num 14:10–11, 21–22) has nothing to do with the shining of the glory of the wonder worker (as John 2:11; cf. 11:4).

Characteristic of John’s Gospel is the connection between the miracles of Jesus as signs and his revelation of himself in the revelation discourses and dialogue scenes in the Fourth Gospel. Thus, the bread discourse of John 6 with Jesus’s description of himself as the bread of life (John 6:35, 48, 51) interprets the sign of the miraculous multiplication of the loaves (John 6:1–15). Similarly, Jesus’s saying that he is the light of the world (John 9:5) interprets the sign of the healing of the man born blind (John 9:1–7), and the description of himself as the Resurrection and the Life (John 11:25) interprets the last public sign, that of the raising of Lazarus from the dead (John 11:1–44). This theological evaluation of the Johannine signs may probably be attributed to the evangelist himself.⁵⁷

In the twentieth century, the origin of the speech material in John’s Gospel was readily assumed to be in Gnostic texts or circles. Bultmann reconstructed long, thematically unified revelation speeches as Vorlage of the Fourth Gospel. He then interpreted them in his commentary in the form in which they had been revised by the evangelist. Followed by his pupil Heinz Becker,⁵⁸ Bultmann saw the origin of these speeches in Gnostic circles as they appear to be attested in the texts of the Mandeans and Manicheans, but also in the Odes of Solomon and in the Corpus Hermeticum. A difficulty in this hypothesis lies in the fact that it makes it necessary to split up the Johannine speeches. Moreover, since the basic texts prove to be clearly more recent than John’s Gospel, John’s dependence on them turns out to be difficult. Furthermore, the hypothesis of a Gnostic "Urmensch" myth cannot actually be substantiated.⁵⁹

Still influential was the attempt that had already been made by Becker to discover a basic form of the Johannine revelation discourses that the fourth evangelist had already encountered in their Gnostic Vorlage and adopted. In this form, there stood at the beginning of a shorter revelation discourse, a self-description of the revealer that was then developed in what followed. On the basis of this hypothesis, Eduard Schweizer in his dissertation Ego eimi,⁶⁰ completed under the supervision of Bultmann, developed briefer Johannine revelation sayings introduced by I am with a basic form characteristic of and borrowed from the gnosis tradition, particularly the Mandean variety. Siegfried Schulz took up this proposal and presented an expanded model of the Johannine revelation discourses.⁶¹ According to his proposal, these sayings begin with the self-presentation of the revealer (I am . . .). This is then followed by an invitation and also a promise or a threat respectively. An example would be John 6:35: I am the bread of life (self-presentation). Whoever comes to me (invitation) shall never hunger, and whoever believes in me, shall never thirst (promise). Already, Schweizer had assumed Old Testament and Jewish precedents for the images of self-description that are used. This conjecture