[Rezension von: Frey, Jörg, 1962-, Theology and history in the Fourth Gospel : tradition and narration]
We know precious little about the history of the so-called Johannine community or the lines connecting that community back to the earliest followers of Jesus. This state of knowledge is not for any lack of trying. From the earliest days of historical-critical New Testament scholarship, earnest schol...
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| Format: | Electronic Review |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
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| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2020
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| In: |
The journal of theological studies
Year: 2020, Volume: 71, Issue: 2, Pages: 856-859 |
| Review of: | Theology and history in the Fourth Gospel (Waco, Texas : Baylor University Press, 2018) (Smith, Tyler)
Theology and history in the Fourth Gospel (Waco : Baylor University Press, 2018) (Smith, Tyler) |
| Further subjects: | B
Book review
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| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | We know precious little about the history of the so-called Johannine community or the lines connecting that community back to the earliest followers of Jesus. This state of knowledge is not for any lack of trying. From the earliest days of historical-critical New Testament scholarship, earnest scholars have been busily endeavouring to peel back the curtain to reveal historical realities behind the texts. In this quest for historical data, the Fourth Gospel has proved more intractable than its synoptic counterparts Matthew, Mark, and Luke. In 1968, however, the tide seemed to turn, thanks to J. Louis Martyn’s seminal History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (New York: Harper & Row), in which Martyn argued that John could be read as a ‘two-level drama’. On its face (the first level), the gospel was an historical account of Jesus’s ministry, but it was simultaneously (the second level) a symbolic reflection of the Johannine community, a coded account of a social rupture. The key text for Martyn was John 9 (the healing of the man born blind); the key word was ἀποσυνάγωγος (‘expelled from the synagogue’), a Johannine neologism used three times in the gospel (9:22; 12:42; 16:2) that Martyn understood as referring to an expulsion of Johannine Christians from the synagogue. This model gave Johannine scholars a basis from which to spin elaborate histories of the Johannine community. Towards the end of the twentieth century, however, the paradigm was challenged, both in parts and as a whole. Simultaneously, a renewed interest in ‘re-historicizing’ John has taken hold, as evidenced by the Society of Biblical Literature's ‘John, Jesus, and History’ program unit, which convened a wide range of Johannine experts. Jörg Frey participated in those discussions in a sceptical and critical mode, and one way of thinking about the book under review here is as an answer to the ‘rehistoricizing John’ position; for Frey, the best approach to John is Theology and History, not History and Theology. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4607 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of theological studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jts/flaa112 |