What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present and Future of Johannine Studies

9: What’s the Meaning of This?—Relections Upon a Life and Career

163 Probably we have all asked the question, “What’s the meaning of this?,” especially those of us who have spent years teaching and reading student papers we were grading. And who, in the process of interpreting Scripture , hasn’t asked, “What’s the meaning of this text?” For a number of reasons, I have chosen this question as the title of these reflections upon my life and career. I have asked such a question of my whole career, and I suggest that this simple question about meaning lies at the heart of my scholarly, as well as personal, endeavors, although it has become increasingly complicated for me to answer. Moreover, one could track my publications and papers and find that they have all, in some way, reflected a view of “meaning.” Therefore, the theme of these reflections upon my career is simply, “How have I sought to determine what meaning is and what texts mean?” Reflections upon a Career From the vantage point of some seventy years, I now see how important the question of “meaning” became for me very early on. The search for a meaning for life itself was the reason I became involved in the church and decided to undertake a career in the clergy. Not only was the question, Chapter 9 WHAT’S THE MEANING OF THIS? REFLECTIONS UPON A LIFE AND CAREER Robert Kysar 164 ROBERT KYSAR “What’s the meaning of this?” an essential ingredient in my maturation, it was also influential in my college career. With very little premeditation, I decided to major in English literature. In my classes, I met a professor whose life’s work was devoted to asking the question of the meaning of the great English classics. From Prof. Ralph Berringer, I had my first lesson in hermeneutics (although that word was never used) and realized that the whole of human life is a hermeneutical search for meaning. Consequently , my focus became the search for meaning. Looking back upon my career, several other things become clear. First, I have lived and worked in what has been (and still is) an exciting and tumultuous period in New Testament studies. When I ventured into serious biblical scholarship for the first time, form and redaction criticism were sweeping the field. In Johannine Studies in particular, the historical–critical method was leading us into the issues of sources, redaction , stages of composition, and the history of the community we came to call “Johannine.” The towering figure was, of course, Rudolf Bultmann, whose work solicited what at the time seemed to be endless debate over major issues in New Testament interpretation. This has also been an exciting half–century because the community of scholars has expanded in bursts of change. Thankfully, women and persons of different ethnic groups have entered the discussion and have made inestimable contributions to the investigation of biblical texts. Roman Catholic scholars have aligned themselves with a research community that had been dominated by Protestants, and Jewish colleagues likewise took their places around the table. Gradually, our discipline has become more and more pluralistic and global in scope. What an exciting time to undertake scholarship! Still another event (this one more personal) stands out in the early years of my career. I don’t remember the precise date, but sometime in the early 1970s, Raymond Brown, Wayne Meeks, J. Louis Martyn, George MacRae, and others formed a seminar in the Society of Biblical Literature devoted to the Fourth Gospel. Somehow, I—a young, immature, fresh Ph.D. in New Testament—was graciously invited to join the group. At the time, Brown was just finishing his monumental Anchor Bible commentary , Martyn was working on his reconstruction of the history of the Johannine community, and Robert Fortna was developing the implications of his theory of the “Signs Gospel.” Wayne Meeks had published his definitive study Moses Traditions and the Johannine Christology, and in the context of this seminar prepared his groundbreaking essay, “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism.” D. Moody Smith had distinguished himself by explaining Bultmann’s confusing and elaborate theories of sources, redaction, and rearrangement of the Fourth Gospel, and WHAT’S THE MEANING OF THIS? 165 Alan Culpepper had tantalized us with the idea of a “Johannine School.” With weak knees and feverish anxiety, this potato–picking, small–town Idahoan (with his slightly dyslexic and attention–deficient mind) took a seat among these esteemed figures...