AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

BY A H McNEILE
Copyright A H McNeile - first published at the University Press, Oxford 1927.
2nd Edition revised by C S C WILLIAMS 1953.
This Edition prepared for Katapi in Arial Unicode MS by Paul Ingram 2003.

Chapter IX

THE JOHANNINE GOSPEL

HOME | Contents A | Contents B | Relation to the synoptists | composition | authorship | place of origin | date | original language | the historical element | (pages 267-300)

§ I. THE FOURTH GOSPEL

this Gospel has long been one of the chief battlegrounds of New Testament criticism.
To estimate the true inwardness of the Johannine problem it is essential to obtain a grasp of the contents of the Gospel as a whole. Many analyses have been made, but none of them has succeeded in exhausting 'the brooding fullness of thought and the inner unity of religious purpose, which fill the book,' (Moffatt). It is clear that the writer's purpose was religious rather than bio­graphical; and it is from that point that we can go on to study the relation of the Gospel to the Synoptic three, its author­ship, and the historical trustworthiness of its narrative.

Apart from ch.xxi, which has been added as an appendix (see pp.277 f.), the book divides into two sections of unequal length, i-xii, and xiii-xx, which teach respectively that Christ brought Life into the world, and that the Life became fully available only through His self-sacrifice and death.
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A. i-xii. Christ brought Life info the world

(1)

 

i.1-14.

The fact is involved in the eternal Nature of the Logos, and in His Incarnation.

  

 

 

 

15-51. Witnesses to Him.

  

(2)

 

ii.1-iv.42.

The religion of the new Life is spiritual, superseding all others.

  

 

(a)

ii.1-22.

Christ illustrated this by 'signs':

  

 

 

vv. 1-11,

Water turned to Wine, i.e. the New is better than the Old;

 

 

vv. 12-22,

Cleansing of the temple, i.e. the New purges out the Old;

  

 

 

vv. 23-25,

the signs produced apparent belief.

  

 

(b)

iii.1-iv.42.

The same is taught in three discourses:

  

 

 

iii.1-21,

Christ teaches Nicodemus that Christianity is the religion of spiritual regeneration;

  

 

 

vv. 22-36,

the Baptist declares that Christ is superior to himself, for He is from above, and giveth the Spirit without measure;

  

 

 

iv.1-42,

Christ teaches the Samaritan woman that Christianity is a spiritual and therefore universal religion.

  

(3)

 

iv.43-vi.59.

The new Life is health and peace.

  

 

(a)

iv.43-v.18.

Christ illustrated this by 'signs':

  

 

 

iv.46-54,

The healing of the nobleman's son;

  

 

 

v.1-18,

The healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda. (In the latter case the peace which he wins is not only health but freedom from the law of the Sabbath.)

  

 

(b)

v.19-47.

The same is taught in a discourse:

  

 

 

v.19-30,

The Son can give the new Life because of His oneness with the Father in power and function;

  

 

 

v.31-47,

Witness was borne to Him by John (in whom they delighted), Scripture (in which they thought to have eternal life), Moses (in whom they hoped), and, greater still, by the works which His Father had given Him to do, and by the Father Himself.

  

 

(c)

vi.1-21.

Two more signs:

  

 

 

vi.1-15,

The Feeding of the Five Thousand, i.e. the preservation of life;

  

 

 

vi.16-21,

The immediate arrival of the boat when He came to them on the water, i.e. the preservation of peace.

  

 

(d)

vi.22-59.

Discourse on the Bread of Life.

  

(4)

 

vi.60-viii.59.

The offer of the new Life sifts believers from unbelievers.

  

 

(a)

vi.60-vii.13.

The Spirit that giveth Life,

  

 

 

(60)

i.e. Christ's teaching,

  

 

 

(66),

sifted those disciples who deserted Him from the others,

  

 

 

(67-71)

and Judas Iscariot from the rest of the twelve;

  

 

 

(vii.1)

the Jews sought to kill Him;

  

 

 

(2-10)

His brethren did not believe in Him;

  

 

 

(11-13)

and the multitude were divided.

  

 

(b)

vii.14-52;' viii.12-59.

Two discourses on His Nature, in conflict with His opponents.

  

(5)

 

ix, x.

The new Life gives the Light of truth in contrast with the darkness of error.

  

 

(a)

ix.1-7.

Christ illustrated this by a 'sign': the healing of the man born blind.

  

 

(b)

ix.8-34.

The discourse takes the form of the man's dia­logue with the Jews, followed by

  

 

 

ix.35-41.

The Lord's comment to the effect that He does not give light to those who think that they see.

  

 

(c)

x.1-18.

Discourse on the Good Shepherd, leading to

  

 

 

x.19-42.

Renewed division and opposition.

  

 

 

vii.53-iii.11.

(the story of the woman taken in adultery, is a later addition to the Gospel.)

  

(6)

 

xi, xii.

The new Life is reached through Death.

  

 

(a)

xi.1-44.

Christ illustrated this by a 'sign': the raising of Lazarus.

  

 

(b)

xi.45-57.

The Sanhedrin plot to kill Him, i.e. they un­wittingly acted so as to bring about life through death; and

  

 

 

(50)

Caiaphas unwittingly pronounced the truth.

  

 

(c)

xii.1-11.

The anointing at Bethany was an unwitting consecration to death.

  

 

(d)

xii.12-19.

The triumphal Entry was the crowd's un­witting pronouncement of the truth.

  

 

(e)

xii.20-36a.

The same is taught in a discourse.

  

 

 

xii.36b-43.

Epilogue.

 

 

 

xii.44-50.

Summary of Christ's teaching.

  

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B. xiii-xx. The Self-sacrifice and Death which issued in Life

(1)

 

xiii.1-30.

In figure and prediction.

(2)

 

xiii.31-xvii.26.

In discourse.

(3)

 

xviii-xx.

In act.

No account is here taken of the transpositions that have been suggested (see pp.274 ff.).
If they are accepted the analysis will be slightly modified, but the writer's meaning and method as a whole are not affected.
Action, 'sign', and discourse are carefully planned in such a way as to make the whole story of Christ's life and death a working out of a grand thesis. (See H. Windisch, Der Johanneische Erzahlungsstil, Eucharisterion, ii.175-213, cf. W. F. Howard, The Fourth Gospel in Recent Criticism and Interpretation, 2nd ed., '935, pp.109-24.)
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relation to the synoptists.

The Fourth Evangelist is so largely independent that some have doubted whether he even knew the other Gospels; e.g. Windisch (Zeitschr.f. d. mutest. Wiss., 1911, p.174: but later he held that 'John' in­tended, by his 'absolute Gospel', to displace the others.), because
(1) the evangelist says so little in actual words to show that he was consciously correcting them;
(2) the agreements are too few;
(3) to make divergences so wide from writings recognized by the Church would be too bold.

But it would be surprising that none of the Synoptic Gospels should have been known to a writer in Ephesus, or still more in Antioch, at a date at least twenty years after the publication of the earliest of them; and of course the earlier they are dated the more surprising it becomes. In language, and in some ideas and narratives, there is more affinity with Mark and Luke than with Matthew. (See Moffatt, Introd. Lit. N.T., pp.535 f.; Streeter, The Four Gospels, pp.393-426; cf. Jn.i.34 א Syr.' With Lk.ix.35, xxiii.35.)

P. Gardner-Smith (St. John and the Synoptic Gospels, 1938.), however, followed Windisch's earlier views, maintaining that the Fourth Evangelist neither knew nor used any of the Synoptic Gospels. Even the view that he was familiar with Mark and perhaps Luke is set aside on the ground of insufficient evidence. Divergences from the Synop­tic Gospels far outweigh any similarities. Any striking agree­ments are due to common oral tradition. If the Fourth Evangelist wrote independently of the other three, then the terminus a quo hitherto set for the Fourth Gospel by the latest of the Synoptic Gospels, probably Matthew, is removed. The Fourth Gospel may have been written earlier than has been supposed and it may have incorporated traditions older than those found in the other three Gospels. T. Sigge's (Das Johannes-Evangelium und die Synoptiker, 1935.) arguments against Windisch remained, however, unanswered as did also C. H. Dodd's (Expositor, 1921, pp. 286 ff.), when he showed that Jn.vi.1-vii.10 is based on Mk.vi.31-x.1, the Fourth Evangelist knowing the 'doublet' of the journey in Mark and using the latter in written form, not departing from Mark's order of events.
After a most careful examination of the evidence Sir Edwyn C. Hoskyns and F. N. Davey (The Fourth Gospel (one-vol. ed. 1947), pp. 67-85.) concluded that the original readers of the Fourth Gospel knew much about the life and death of Jesus 'and what they knew, they knew roughly at least in the form in which it lies before us in the Marcan Gospel'.
They had some knowledge of Luke and even of Matthew.
The Fourth Evangelist 'presumes this synoptic material to be less before the eyes of his readers than in their hearts'.
If so, one may go farther than R. H. Strachan (The Fourth Gospel, 1941, p.28.) when he finds in the Fourth Gospel sources 'parallel to and cognate with those employed by Mark and Luke'.

A few of the more important divergences of John from Mark and Luke may be noted.
In Mk.i.10 f. the vision of the Dove, with the Voice at the Baptism, is experienced only by Jesus (εἶδεν - eiden);
in Matthew and Luke it is not clear whether others saw it;
but in Jn.i.32 f. it was specially vouchsafed to the Baptist, and a prediction is recorded that he should see it.
In Lk.iii.23 Jesus was 'about thirty years' of age;
but in Jn.viii.57 'Thou art not yet fifty years old' seems to imply that He was a good deal more than thirty.
The Synoptists place the cleansing of the Temple at the end, John at the beginning.
In Matthew and Mark Jesus is not recorded to have visited Judaea between His departure to Galilee after the temptations and the triumphal entry into Jerusalem;
Luke, however, has indications, and (according to the best reading in iv.44) one explicit statement, that He was in Judaea during part of His ministry (see the writer's note on Matt.v.1);
in John He went four times to Jerusalem (ii.13; v.1; vii.10; x.23), and once to Bethany in Judaea (xi.7), before the later visit to Bethany and the entry, and the greater part of the Gospel is concerned with His work at the capital.
According to Jn.iii.22-24 Jesus began His ministry and was baptizing in Judaea while 'John was not yet cast into prison'; but it is as clearly stated in Matt.iv.12; Mk.1, 14, and implied in Lk.iii.18-20, that His ministry began after John's imprisonment.
As against the Syn­optic records of teaching in Galilee the only piece of Galilean teaching in John is in vi.26-59, part of which (? vv.41-59) is placed in the synagogue at Capharnaum, where, however, a con­troversy with 'Jews' (vv.41, 52) is unexpected. In Matthew and Mark, if not in Luke, the Last Supper is the Passover; in John it is held on the day before. In Matthew and Mark there are Resurrection appearances in Galilee; in John, as in Luke, they are confined to Jerusalem and the neighbourhood.
These in­stances will illustrate the way in which the writer dealt with the Synoptic traditions.
On some points he probably had the more trustworthy information;
in other cases alterations and rearrangements were the result of his use of the events as falling into line with the spiritual scheme of thought, which th