The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel: An Introduction to John

Chapter 4: The Literary Riddles of the Fourth Gospel

67 4 The Literary Riddles of the Fourth Gospel I n addition to theological tensions and historical riddles, a host of literary perplexities confront the reader of the Fourth Gospel. Scholars call these aporias (meaning “impasses” or “puzzlements”), and in seeking to address them, they also look for ways to make sense of the other riddles we have already addressed. From odd transitions to apparent additions to the text, John’s literary perplexities must also be considered before posing an adequate theory of composition and tradition history. While leading theories of Johannine composition will be engaged in following chapters, the bases for those theories will be explored in this chapter outlining the literary riddles of the Fourth Gospel. Like John’s theological and historical riddles, its literary aporias move us from wading pools to deeper waters. The Johannine Prologue: An Original Introduction or a Later Add-On? ■ At the outset we are faced with the question of the relation of the Prologue to the rest of the Gospel. John 1:1-18 introduces the narrative in a personally engaging way; the hearer/reader is welcomed into the family of God by means of responding in faith to the saving/revealing Light, Life, and Word of God made flesh (1:9-14). Uses of the first-person plural, “we,” invite the audience into transformative community, and membership in this grace-filled fellowship transcends the bounds of space and time. Indeed, the Prologue serves as an engaging entrée to the reception of the narrative, but was it composed at the outset as an initial introduction, or was it added later as a corporate response to the message? After all, the form and content of the Prologue are 68 The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel closer to the beginning of the first Johannine epistle than to the rest of the Gospel. Some of its vocabulary and features are also not found in the rest of the Gospel. Box 4.1: Form and Vocabulary Differences between John’s Prologue and Narrative On one hand, form and vocabulary differences exist between the Prologue (1:1-18) and the rest of John’s narrative: The Prologue is poetic and strophic in its form (suggesting a worship setting as its origin), ■ whereas the rest of the narrative is more prosaic. Note also the “we” references in verses 14 and 16, reflecting the experience of a community (these same references appear twentytwo times in the ten verses of 1 John 1). Distinctive terms, such as “Word” ( ■ Logos), “fullness” (ple -roma), “grace” (charis), and “came into being” (egeneto), are present in the Prologue, but these are found with greater prevalence in 1 John (especially 1 John 1:1-4) than in the rest of the Johannine Gospel. Form-critically, the poetic form of the Gospel’s Prologue finds few parallels elsewhere in ■ the narrative. On the other hand, the Johannine Prologue is germane to the rest of the narrative: Within the Prologue, narrative asides mention the ministry of John the Baptist (1:6-8, 15), ■ which is developed more fully in chapters 1 and 3. Such terms as “light” ( ■ pho -s), “darkness” (skotia), “glory” (doxa), and “truth” (ale -theia), however , are rife within the rest of John’s narrative, so these themes both echo and announce the central thrust of the Johannine Gospel. In welcoming into the ■ family of God as children any who believe in Jesus as the Christ, this pivotal thrust of the Prologue matches the announced purpose of the Gospel—that hearers and readers might believe (20:31). The first-person plural language of the Prologue (“we,” 1:14, 16) is also replicated in the final ■ words of the editor in the epilogue (21:24) and found ninety times in the seven chapters of the Johannine Epistles. While the Fourth Gospel must be read and treated as a completed document, understanding something of the history of its development assists the reader in understanding its meaning. If the Prologue marks the first strokes of the narrator’s pen, we have in this narrative a cosmic and eternal story playing itself out on the dusty roads and towns of ancient Palestine. If, however, we have in John 1:1-18 a community’s late-first-century worship response to that story, which has been added as a later introduction, the narrative need not be stripped of its mundane perspectives and historical voice. Especially if there is some connection with the Johannine epistles, we may also infer something...