The Ritual Process in the Gospel of John
by Ryan Boyer
This material was printed in a more complete form on April 18, 2013 as my Master’s thesis for Central
Baptist Theological Seminary in Shawnee, KS. This manuscript is a shortened form that represents a
presentation at Florida College on Tuesday, February 3.
1) Introduction & Methodology
I worship with a congregation that sings a cappella. The lack of instrumental accompaniment
means it is critical for the worship leader to begin a song on the right note. Occasionally, a song
will begin off key. Some correction can be made through congregational adjustment, and while
the words and tune of the song may still be recognizable, if it is started on a wrong note it will
never sound the way its author intended it to sound. It takes an exceptional song leader to stop
the singing, adjust the pitch, and begin anew because once the counterfeit sound has been sown,
even if everybody recognizes it is wrong, it is hard to amend what is already immediate on one’s
mind. Likewise, in order to read the Gospel of John in the way that its author intended for it to
be read, one must start on the right note. If a reader begins off key the tune may still be
discernible, but the melody that the Evangelist intended will be absent. Further, some have read
the Beloved Disciple’s work out of tune for so long that modification is difficult. This paper
seeks to serve as a pitch pipe, and its aim is to offer a note from which to begin reading the
Fourth Gospel. The question at hand is to whom, and for what purpose was the Gospel of John
written?
It is ironic that John managed to consolidate his message into the twenty-one-chapter
Gospel we know today; and yet, there has been enough literature produced in relation to the
Fourth Gospel that the world is on the verge of not being able to contain it all. Not only is the
abundance of material overwhelming, but the exegetical giants associated with these works are,
at the very least, intimidating.1 One wonders if it is even possible for there to be some area of
Johannine studies that has yet to be explored. Indeed, every note, flat and sharp, from A to G has
been blown in an attempt to start the song at the right pitch; but I believe there is work still to be
done. It is precisely because of the notes of those who have paved the way for Johannine studies
that the tools for forward momentum are available.
In this paper, contributions from three areas of study will be synthesized to form a hybrid
methodology that borrows from the best contributions of each. The first area represents the
current dominant state of scholarship within Johannine studies: the so-called Johannine School,
or Community. In 1968 J. Louis Martyn introduced a thoroughly historical-critical approach
towards understanding the Gospel and Epistles of John.2 According to Robert Kysar, Martyn’s
work is “…concerned less with the theology of the Evangelist and his community than with the
situation of the community. J. Louis Martyn has developed the proposition that the Gospel was
written out of and for a community locked in controversy with the synagogue.”3 In like manner,
Raymond Brown set forth what is widely considered to be the cornerstone of Johannine studies.4
Brown argues that five stages of theological conflict and development are recognizable within
the corpus of Johannine literature.
1
A few names associated with landmark works in Johannine studies include C. K. Barrett, George BeasleyMurray, Raymond Brown, Rudolf Bultmann, D. A. Carson, Alan Culpepper, C. H. Dodd, Ernst Käsemann, Craig
Keener, Robert Kysar and Louis Martyn.
2
J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel Revised and expanded (Louisville:
Westminster John Knox Press, 2003).
3
Robert Kysar, “Community and Gospel: Vectors in Fourth Gospel Criticism,” Interpretation 31:4
(October 1977), 362.
4
Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John I-XII: A New Translation with Introduction and
Commentary. Anchor Yale Bible Commentary Series, vol. 29 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995).
Brown’s accomplishments in Johannine studies are also represented in Raymond E. Brown and Francis J. Moloney,
An Introduction to the Gospel of John (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003).
The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer
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Brown’s methodology has been tried and developed many times over. For example,
Urban C. von Wahlde attempts to reconstruct not only the conflict and theological development
of the Johannine community, but also the compositional evolution of the Fourth Gospel.5 He
argues that remnants of previous versions of the Fourth Gospel contained within the present
literature reveal insights concerning the development of the community. According to von
Wahlde, the initial Gospel was written to a thoroughly Jewish group, probably located in Judea,
that was not experiencing any significant tension from their parent Jewish synagogue as a result
of their faith. As time passed, however, the religious authorities, known in John as “the Jews”,
began to give believers a hard time. The second stage of development is represented primarily as
Jewish opposition to believers within John’s Gospel. “The Christology of the second version of
John is the highest in the New Testament.”6 During this stage, “Part of the purpose of the second
version of John’s Gospel may have been to encourage these crypto-disciples to make open
confession of Jesus. The situation of the Johannine community was definitely one of
persecution, estrangement, and alienation.”7 The third stage of development is characterized, not
by external persecution, but by internal disputes within the community of believers centered on
questions of Christology, ethics, pneumatology, soteriology and eschatology. The historic losers
in these debates are characterized as those who, “went out from us” (1 Jn. 2:19), and they are
described as “the Antichrist.”8 Von Wahlde’s efforts are representative of the direction of
Johannine scholarship which traces the conflict and theological development preserved within
Urban C. von Wahlde, “Community in conflict: the history and social context of the Johannine
community,” Interpretation 49:4 (October 1995): 379-389.
5
6
Ibid., 381.
7
Ibid., 382.
8
Ibid., 383.
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the current form of extant literature.9 These efforts represent one area of study from which I will
draw conclusions regarding the audience and purpose of the Fourth Gospel.
Alternatively, this methodology has not gone without severe critique. A second area of
study from which this paper will draw is represented by Richard Bauckham. Bauckham’s 1998
compilation of essays, The Gospels For All Christians, argues that the Gospel authors, “…did
not write for specific churches they knew or knew about, not even for a very large number of
such churches. Rather, drawing on their experience and knowledge of several or many specific
churches, they wrote for any and every church to which their Gospels might circulate.”10
Bauckham argues on the basis of six broad principles that early Christianity should be
understood in terms of a wide-spread movement instead of diverse, independent, local
communities:
1. Mobility and communication in the first-century Roman world were exceptionally high.
2. The evidence of early Christian literature (not least the Gospels) is that the early Christian
movement had a strong sense of itself as a worldwide movement.
3. Most of the Christian leaders of whom we know in the New Testament period moved
around.
4. Another feature of the early Christian movement that we can establish as a continuous
practice from the time of Paul to the mid-second century is the sending of letters from
one church to another.
5. We have concrete evidence for close contact between churches in the period around or
soon after the writing of the Gospels.
9
There are a variety of facets of these types of studies that are worthy of notice. Oscar Cullmann traces the
origin and development of the community in The Johannine Circle, trans. J. Bowden (Philadelphia: The
Westminster Press, 1976). Another important contributor is Alan Culpepper, The Johannine School: An Evaluation
of the Johannine-School Hypothesis Based on an Investigation of the Nature of Ancient Schools (Society of Biblical
Literature Dissertation series, 1975). According to Kysar (1977), “If Cullmann exemplifies one tendency of
Johannine studies regarding the community behind the Fourth Gospel, particularly in terms of its original and
definitive religious roots, Alan Culpepper represents one who has tried to define the nature of that community” (p.
357).
Richard Bauckham, “For Whom Were Gospels Written?” In The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking
the Gospel Audiences. Edited by Richard Bauckham (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 46.
10
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6. The evidence for conflict and diversity in early Christianity supports the picture of the
early Christian movement as a network of communities in constant communication.11
Francis Watson reminds his readers that the interpretational framework of the so-called
Johannine Community is not a matter of indisputable fact even though it is often the starting
point for most modern exegesis, “The assumption that the Gospels were written to meet the
needs of specific communities is, at one level, a straightforward historical hypothesis, and it is
entirely appropriate that it should be criticized on this same level.”12
At this point, it seems interpreters are confronted with polarizing frameworks from which
to begin Johannine interpretation. On one hand, one could assume that the Fourth Gospel was
written to a specific group (or community/school) of people for a specific reason. On the other
hand, one could assume that John was written for any and all who might encounter it for the
general purpose of sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ.13 According to Bauckham, “In the
end, the hermeneutical issue is whether a Gospel should be read as a narrative about Jesus or as a
narrative about a hypothetical Christian community that scholars can reconstruct behind the
Gospel.”14 Both perspectives have merit and fault; and it is for this reason that a hybrid
methodology combining the strengths of both frameworks is entirely appropriate.
Some authors have sought after this compromise. Instead of the notion that the Gospels
were written generally “to the wind”, Richard Burridge introduces the notion of implied readers,
11
Ibid., 32-44.
Francis Watson, “Toward a Literal Reading of the Gospels,” In The Gospels for All Christians:
Rethinking the Gospel Audiences. Edited by Richard Bauckham (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 196.
12
13
An interesting approach that argues John was written to evangelize non-Christians is D. A. Carson, The
Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991). Carson’s emphasis is largely based upon a syntactical
and text-critical evaluation of the purpose statement in Jn. 20:30-31. See D. A. Carson, “The Purpose of the Fourth
Gospel: John 20:31 Reconsidered,” Journal of Biblical Literature 106:4 (1987): 639-651, and “Syntactical and TextCritical Observations on John 20:30-31: One more round on the purpose of the Fourth Gospel,” Journal of Biblical
Literature 124:4 (2005): 693-714.
14
Bauckham, 2.
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“The idea of the ‘implied reader’ of the Gospels is thus more useful than speculations about their
communities.”15 He elucidates,
The Gospels are neither a clear glass window onto the historical Jesus or the early
communities, nor a polished mirror in whose reflection we can see anything we happen to
place before them. They are more like a piece of stained glass through which we can
catch the occasional glimpse of what is behind them and in which we sometimes mistake
our own reflection from in front of them, but upon which the main picture has been
assembled using all the different colors of literary skill - and it is the portrait of a
person.16
Burridge’s methodology represents a compromise. His suggestion that the Gospels were
primarily written about “the portrait of a person”, but by specific people who lived in specific
circumstances in a specific time and place allows for one to garner, if only through stained glass,
a Sitz im Leben. Burridge applies both methodologies, but he clearly gives greater weight to
Bauckham’s perspective. David deSilva suggests a similar compromise, but he places greater
emphasis upon one’s ability to discern the circumstances of the Gospel’s implied readership,
A more balanced assessment, then, might be that the units of Gospel tradition are not
simply transparent windows into the life of Jesus but have been given certain tints and
etchings by the early church as these units were applied and reapplied to the life of the
Christian community. The stories of conflict between Jesus and Pharisees or scribes, for
example, point not only to an aspect of Jesus’ ministry (i.e., conflict with other groups
within Judaism) but also reveal the interests of the early church as they are remembered
and passed on.17
This paper will strive for a note that resembles deSilva’s approach. Bauckham’s
reasoning that early Christianity should be understood in terms of a wide-spread movement
15
Richard A. Burridge, “About People, by People, for People: Gospel Genre and Audiences,” In The
Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences. Edited by Richard Bauckham (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 1998), 143.
16
Ibid., 124.
17
David A. deSilva, An Introduction to the New Testament: Contexts, Methods & Ministry Formation
(Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2004), 156.
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instead of diverse, independent, local communities is convincing. Then again, one can hardly
deny the unique and particular interests and emphases, and occasional contradictory and
conflicting tensions which are evident within each of the four Gospels. This paper will approach
the Fourth Gospel assuming it was written, not to a specific Johannine sectarian community, but
to Christians in general as the author was aware of them. Alternatively, this paper will assume
the Fourth Gospel was written within the context of post-A.D. 70 circumstances; and that John’s
specific interests are discernible in his presentation of Jesus’ life. In other words, according to
this approach, John’s interests are not so much for the purpose of describing the life of Jesus to a
broad and general readership, but rather to address the circumstances common within that broad
readership through a specifically crafted portrayal of Jesus’ life.
2) The Ritual Process
The third area of study is the use of social scientific contributions in the exegesis and
interpretation of the Fourth Gospel. Specifically, the ritual process that accomplishes social
movement and relocation, with special attention given to the means of that social movement (i.e.
rites of passage), will be highlighted and applied to the circumstances of the world to which John
was writing.
This story begins with a rivalry between two French fathers of the social sciences: Émile
Durkheim (1858-1917) and Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957). My first Greek teacher used to
tease the class when someone would say a word incorrectly for the first time. He would say,
“You’re putting your em-PHA-sis on the wrong sy-LA-bol.” The primary difference between
van Gennep and Durkheim is a matter of emphasis regarding the function of rituals within
society. Durkheim was interested in the big picture, which is represented in established
sociological phrases such as “collective consciousness.” He wanted to know what function
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(thus, he was a Functionalist) beliefs and rituals had in terms of societal cohesiveness and
stability. Bjørn Thomassen summarizes Durkheim’s perspective of how rituals function within
society, “Concerning the larger role of rites in society, Durkheim conceptually limited the
transformative effects of rites, as he stressed the way in which rituals served to tie together
individuals in mechanical social solidarity. For Durkheim, rites were simply the vectors by
which individuals became socially determined as acting and thinking beings.”18
Arnold van Gennep, on the other hand, emphasized the individual pieces that compose
the bigger picture. Van Gennep studied individuals, which included their beliefs and practices,
and how they constitute the larger society. Van Gennep drew attention to,
…the way in which they [rituals] may act simultaneously at the individual and collective
levels. Moreover, while neophytes undergo a process of undifferentiation as they are
“annulled” as persons in the separation rituals, ritual passages are clearly also crucial
moments for a process of differentiation, of age groups, of genders, of status groups, and
of personalities.19
He asked what a ritual accomplished in the life of an individual, and only after that could be
answered was he willing to pursue what the ritual meant for the larger collective body. Again,
Thomassen says, “The point of departure for van Gennep’s approach was constituted by real
human experiences, ‘living facts’, and moments of transition, in contrast to Durkheim’s social
facts, which became ‘facts’ exactly to the extent that they were external to the individual.”20
18
Bjørn Thomassen, “The Uses and Meanings of Liminality,” International Political Anthropology 2:1
(2009), 11.
19
Ibid., 11.
20
Ibid., 12. For a brief, but helpful description of the differences between a Functionalist and Symbolist
approach, along with some initial representative New Testament work in each category, see Risto Uro, “Ritual and
Christian Origins,” In Understanding the Social World of the New Testament. Edited by Dietmar Neufeld and
Richard E. DeMaris (New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2010), 220-232.
The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer
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Émile Durkheim’s approach, represented in his classic work, The Elementary Forms of
the Religious Life (1912),21 won the day; and Arnold van Gennep’s theories, represented in The
Rites of Passage (1909),22 were put on the shelf.23 Van Gennep’s work was not printed in
English until 1960, and it was not significantly “rediscovered” until 1967 when Victor Turner
read it and wrote a chapter entitled Betwixt and Between: The Liminal Period in Rites de
Passage.24 Turner’s use of van Gennep’s ritual theory was not given a thorough treatment until
Turner’s 1969 work, The Ritual Process.25 Victor Turner had lived among and studied the
Ndembu tribe in, what was Zambia, as a cultural anthropologist. According to Turner’s wife, her
husband was struggling to express his analysis of Ndembu rituals. He was being pressed by the
political and academic forces of the day,
…for ritual to be regarded as culturally invented, a cognitive and classificatory enactment
designed to condition minds to the correct structures of society—in no way a genetic
endowment of the species. Vic, though, could not see this “social conditioning” as all in
all, for he was throwing off the shackles of social structuralism that argued that all human
behavior derived from one’s structural place in society. Ritual was concerned with more
than that, he knew. What was this complexity within ritual that would not fit into
Marxism, that was nonutilitarian?26
Once Turner accidentally happened upon van Gennep’s ritual theory, he gained the tools to
articulate (after the fact) what he had observed during his stay with the Ndembu. One can see
21
Émile Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (Thousand Oaks, CA: BN Publishing, 2008).
22
Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage Routledge Library Editions: Anthropology and EthnographyReligion, Rites & Ceremonies (New York: Routledge, 2010).
Bjørn Thomassen includes an insightful evaluation of why Durkheim’s theories won the day. He says,
“…van Gennep’s lack of status clearly has to do with academic power politics, and with Durkheim as a central
figure” (p. 7).
23
Victor Turner, “Betwixt and Between,” In The Forest of Symbols (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press,
1967), 93-111.
24
25
Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (New Jersey: Aldine Transaction, 1995).
26
Edith L. B. Turner, “The Genesis of an Idea: Remembering Victor Turner,” Zygon 21:1 (March 1986), 7.
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van Gennep’s influence on Turner in that he emphasized the individual rather than the larger
society. According to Mathiew Deflem, Turner was innovative in that he was introducing a
‘human coefficient’, which showed, “…how the social is not something over and above the
individual, but how principles of social organization both affect and are manipulated by concrete
individuals, i.e., how society and the individual come together.”27
Victor Turner used descriptive analogies to portray what actually happens to individuals
during the ritual process, one of his favorites being the social drama.28 Robert Segal explains it
thus: “As drama, ritual does not merely respond to human experience but depicts it. Ritual
alleviates turmoil not simply by releasing emotions but by presenting them…”29 Turner
described ritual as performative, creative and transformative. For van Gennep and Turner, the
ritual process, or social drama, takes place in three distinct stages: the pre-liminal (separation)
stage, the liminal (marginal) stage, and the post-liminal (aggregation) stage. A classic
illustration of the ritual process is the transformation that takes place during the rite of initiation
when a child becomes an adult.30 There has been, generally, a specific age when a child would
proceed through some type of socially sanctioned ritual. Before the ritual (pre-liminal), they are
clearly identifiable by themselves and society as children. After the ritual (post-liminal), they are
formally recognized as adults. Throughout this paper I will refer to “social structures” or “social
Mathieu Deflem, “Ritual, Anti-Structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner’s Processual
Symbolic Analysis,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30:1 (1991), 19.
27
28
Turner’s mother was an actress, so the concept of acting, or dramatization, is pervasive throughout his
29
Robert A. Segal, “Victor Turner’s Theory of Ritual,” Zygon 18:3 (September 1983), 332.
writing.
30
This example may be a bit nebulous since modern Western culture has largely forsaken formal passage
from one stage to the other; but historically, these rituals have been a cultural norm. Nevertheless, there are some
established cultural boundaries today; and there are still remnants of a ritual process. One is, generally speaking, no
longer a child at age 13, and formally an adult at either age 18 or 21. The teenage years may be considered the
liminal phase of transition wherein one is neither a child, or an adult, and both a child as well as an adult. The ritual
process may be the 13th and 18th/21st birthday parties.
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groups.” In this illustration, both childhood and adulthood are two distinct social structures.
Each structure and re-structure has its own set of expectations and rules; but during the actual
ritual process (the liminal phase), the initiates are neither child nor adult. Thus, Turner’s chapter
that reintroduced van Gennep’s ideas to the world was called, “Betwixt and Between: The
Liminal Period in Rites de Passage.”
Arpad Szakolozai explains the mechanics of what happens and how it happens during the
ritual process in further detail. The first phase is called separation. Both van Gennep and Turner
referred to this phase as a kind of death. “In order to grow up, a child must first go through a
painful separation from his family; he literally must die ‘as’ a child. This suggests that an
experience is only possible if one first leaves something behind.”31 The second phase is
liminality. Sociologists regard this phase as exceptionally dangerous. Szakolozai says, “Being
‘on the limit’ is a genuine Alice-in-Wonderland experience; a situation where almost anything
can happen.”32 Deflum says, “The symbols exhibited express that the ‘liminal personae’ are
neither living nor dead, and both living and dead…they are considered neither male nor female,
deprived of rank, status and property…liminal subjects are neither here nor there; they are
betwixt and between the positions assigned and arrayed by law, custom, convention, and
ceremony.”33 The famed Mary Douglas says, “Danger lies in transitional states, simply because
transition is neither one state nor the next, it is indefinable.”34 The last phase is aggregation,
where an individual enters into a new social structure (e.g. adulthood) with, “…a new role,
31
Arpad Szakolozai, “Liminality and Experience: Structuring transitory situations and transformative
events,” International Political Anthropology 2:1 (2009), 148.
32
Ibid., 148.
33
Deflem, 14.
34
Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo Routledge Classics
(London: Taylor & Francis, 2002), 96.
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stamped by the formative experience. This is a critical passage, but without reintegration
liminality is pure danger.”35 A child cannot remain a child forever, nor can they eternally remain
both/and or neither/nor in the liminal phase. There absolutely must be a conclusion. In this
sense, the liminal phase is literally transformative as Szakolozai notes, “Human attitudes, values,
and identities can only be ‘formed’, without undue force and violence, if the previous certainties
have been at least partially dissolved through a move ‘on the limit.’”36
All of this is important for this study because next I will attempt to demonstrate how each
of these three phases is discernible in the Fourth Gospel. Further, once one reads John’s Gospel
through the lens of Turner’s ritual theory, it appears as if John’s implied readers are persons who
are “stuck” in the dangerous liminal phase. They are neither what they were, nor what the
Evangelist intends for them to be. According to this model, they are metaphorically dead. One
of the goals of this project is to identify what the intended audience is dead to. From where did
they come? Where does the author intend for his readers to arrive? The purpose of the Fourth
Gospel, then, is to instruct and encourage movement through the liminal phase on to aggregation
into a new and definitive social structure. This transformation process is what sets Victor
Turner’s ritual theory apart from the historically accepted Functionalist model. Arpad
Szakolozai explains how the ritual process creates an actual change in identity, which is exactly
what John is attempting to accomplish:
A transformative event, as a technical term for sociological analysis, can be defined as
something that happens in real life, whether for an individual, a group, or an entire
civilization, that suddenly questions and even cancels previously taken-for-granted
certainties, thus forcing people swept away by this storm to reflect upon their
35
Thomassen, 22.
36
Szakolozai, 157.
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experiences, even their entire life, potentially changing not only their conduct of life but
their identity.37
There is another aspect of Turner’s liminal model that needs to be addressed that will be a
key reason for understanding the Gospel of John as written to a broader readership rather than a
specific group or community. Earlier, the ritual process was illustrated with an historically
important rite of initiation—the transition from childhood to adulthood. This is an example of a
life-crisis ritual. Other examples of individual life-crisis rituals include birth, puberty, marriage,
sexual initiation (i.e. a first sexual experience), and death where the rituals mark significant
periods in one’s life. In addition to life-crisis rituals, an individual might find themselves in need
of a ritual of affliction. Different social groups have different rituals to address sickness or other
personal issues such as being afflicted by, or possessed by, a spirit or demon. The liminal model
is not limited to personal life-crises rituals or rituals of affliction. Bjørn Thomassen notes that
liminal experiences can happen to individuals, larger social groups, or entire societies,
populations and even civilizations.38 He also adds a temporal dimension to what is possible.
There can be liminal moments, periods, or even epochs. His chart below illustrates several ways
in which the ritual process might be understood:
37
Ibid., 158.
38
Thomassen, 16.
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Time
Moment
Individual
Sudden event affecting
one’s life (death,
divorce, illness) or
individualized ritual
passage (baptism, ritual
passage to womanhood,
as fx. among Ndembu)
Critical life-stages,
Puberty or teenage
Period
Individuals standing
“outside society”, by
choice or designated.
Monkhood. In some
tribal societies,
Epoch (or life- individuals remain
span duration) “dangerous” because of
a failed ritual passage.
Twins are permanently
liminal in some
societies
Group
Ritual passage to
manhood (almost
always in cohorts);
graduation
ceremonies, etc.
Ritual passage to
manhood, which may
extend into weeks or
months in some
societies; Group
travels.
Religious Fraternities,
Ethnic minorities,
Social minorities,
Transgender,
Immigrant groups
betwixt and between
old and new culture.
Groups that live at the
edge of “normal
structures”, often
perceived as both
dangerous and “holy”
Society
A whole society facing a
sudden event (sudden
invasion, natural disaster, a
plague) where social
distinctions and normal
hierarchy disappear.
Carnivals. Revolutions.
Wars. Revolutionary
periods.
Prolonged wars, enduring
political instability,
prolonged intellectual
confusion; Incorporation
and reproduction of
liminality into “structures.”
Modernity as “permanent
liminality”?39
The liminal model applies to all rituals. Whether personal rites of initiation or times of national
war and uncertainty, and even during a period of plague that shakes an entire civilization, there is
always, according to Turner, a palpable three-stage period of separation, liminality, and
aggregation. These processes may occur over a matter of seconds or minutes, or they may
endure for decades. The key for Turner is that the ritual is the actual moment of transformation
from one status to the next.
A final element that will be important for this study is that ritual processes may vary in
terms of intensity. Thomassen suggests that some ritual processes are more intense than others,
39
Ibid., 16.
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If the dimensions of subject/space/time each have (at least) three basic dimensions, one
could also bring in another variable, namely “scale”, referring to the “degree” to which
liminality is experienced, or, in other words, the intensiveness of the liminal moment or
period. Liminal experiences can (and most often do) take place within a society where
much of what goes on stays “normal.” Sometimes, however, liminal experiences become
intensified as the personal, group, and societal levels converge in liminality, over
extended periods of time, and even within several spatial “coordinates.”40
This scale, or intensity, will play an important role in understanding John’s Gospel. The author
is primarily encouraging individuals to endure a process of separation from their previous social
location, and to pass into a new social location. He is asking them to die to what they were, and
to become alive to what they will be. Essential to this study is that it is impossible for one to be
both/and or either/or indefinitely. The ritual must be completed and the initiate must move. The
matter of scale, however, is important because not only is John addressing individual Christfollowers, but also the author’s world, presumably Mediterranean society around the time of, or
after the destruction of Jerusalem, was in a time of upheaval and transition, which exponentially
intensifies the scale of liminality being experienced by John’s implied readers.
Someone may ask, “Why devote energy towards further study in the Gospel of John?” In
addition to a need for synthesizing the two leading methodologies of Johannine studies
represented by Raymond Brown and Richard Bauckham, a sociological appreciation for Victor
Turner’s liminal model in the ritual process is relatively new to the scene. Arnold van Gennep
introduced the idea in 1909, but his theories were not substantially considered in the social
sciences until Victor Turner’s work with the Ndembu in the 1960s. Since that time, little has
been done to advance Turner’s ideas even though they are generally accepted by the social
scientific community. According to Thomassen, it was not until 2009, a full century after van
Gennep’s initial work, “…that a conference was dedicated entirely to the concept of liminality
40
Thomassen, 17-18. Emphasis added.
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and culture change…”41 Turner’s concepts have only recently been thoroughly treated, which is
to say nothing at all about their application within biblical studies, and specifically, within
Johannine studies!42 There is still work to be done.
3) Identifying Social Structures in the Fourth Gospel
For liminality to exist there must be, minimally, two distinct social structures since
liminality is the transitional phase, or movement, from one group to another, such as childhood
to adulthood or unmarried to married. It may be, however, especially in large-scale shifts, that
the second social structure is only identifiable with the benefit of hindsight. For example, the
earliest Christians were primarily Judean, and they emphasized an apocalyptic worldview that
God was about to break into history. Near the end of the first century and into the early second
century, however, this audience and emphasis gave way to primarily Hellenistic believers who
emphasized a system of orthodoxy rather than focusing upon the immediacy of Jesus’ return.
During the shift from one paradigm to the next, believers within the Jesus movement found
themselves in a transitional liminal phase. They may not have realized it at the time, nor did they
likely understand what was happening; but with the benefit of hindsight one can clearly
demonstrate that movement from one Christian paradigm to the next definitively occurred, even
if over the span of a few decades. The hypothesis of this paper is that the Fourth Gospel
encourages movement through a liminal phase from one social structure to another; but with an
acknowledgment that the second social structure was probably not as clearly defined then as it is
41
Thomassen, 6.
42
A few English exceptions to this general lack of treatment include: Mark McVann, “Reading Mark
Ritually: Honor-Shame and the Ritual of Baptism,” Semeia 67 (1994): 179-198; and a treatment of John’s Gospel in
a dissertation by Edward R. Bolen, “Purity and Pollution in the Fourth Gospel.” PhD diss., Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary, 1993. In ProQuest Dissertations and Theses,
<http://library.cbts.edu:2071/dissertations/docview/304076565/13D1434CFB45EFE0244/1?accountid=144438>
(accessed 27 March 2013).
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now with the benefit of hindsight. In addition to John writing to encourage individual believers
to transition, the scale of liminality is intensified because the entire early Christian institution
was itself betwixt and between.
A. The Judean World
The first indicator of two definitive social structures in John is what I will call the Judean
World. The rival groups in the Fourth Gospel reveal, perhaps more than any other indicator, the
existence of a social structure that was distinct from “Judaism”. The rival groups in John’s
Gospel are described as οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι and “the world,” and this paper will argue that most of the
time both words refer to the same pre-liminal social group. First, I will address the designation,
οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, and then it will be more apparent why “the world” is treated as a synonym.
There is an ongoing debate about how to translate οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι.43 Although this
illustration leaves much to be desired, a similar problem can be found in how a white person
should refer to an African American person when a label other than human being is necessary.
At the time of this writing (Feb. 2013), a news report has just been released that the United States
Census Bureau has decided to remove the word “Negro” from all surveys. A news article on
MSN.com says, “‘For younger African-Americans, the term ‘Negro’ harkens back to the era
when African-Americans were second-class citizens in this country,’ said Matthew Snipp, a
sociology professor at Stanford University, to which literally every decent person in this country
responded with a resounding, ‘Duh.’”44 The label, Negro, is unacceptable because even though
For a thorough survey of this debate see David M. Miller, “The Meaning of Ioudaios and its Relationship
to Other Group Labels in Ancient ‘Judaism,’” Currents in Biblical Research 9.1 (October 2010): 98-126, and two
follow-up articles by the same author: “Ethnicity Comes of Age: An Overview of Twentieth-Century Terms of
Ioudaios,” Currents in Biblical Research 10:2 (February 2012): 293-311; and “Ethnicity, Religion and the Meaning
of Ioudaios in Ancient ‘Judaism,” Currents in Biblical Research 12:2 (February 2014): 216-265.
43
“Census Bureau finally gets around to removing ‘Negro’ from surveys.” On-line
<http://now.msn.com/census-bureau-removes-negro-label-from-surveys> (accessed 6 March 2013).
44
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one might use the word with pure motives it smacks with racist overtones. Readers will note that
the sociologist cited in the MSN.com article referred to this group, not as Negros, but as AfricanAmericans. In another article by the AP, which was actually quoted in the MSN.com piece,
Hope Yen uses the designation black Americans: “After more than a century, the Census Bureau
is dropping its use of the word ‘Negro’ to describe black Americans in surveys…census forms
will use the more modern labels ‘black’ or ‘African-American’.”45 The reader will notice that
she gives a nod to the possibility of “African American,” but she uses the label “black” in her
own writing. Black is a designation that draws attention to race, or the color of one’s skin.
African-American draws attention to ethnicity, heritage and ancestry. The latter designation can
be problematic because “African” is a geo-political term that potentially carries nuances that are
not necessarily true for United States citizens. If only there was a label that was not shrouded in
racism, could accurately and fully describe everything one wanted to convey, and was not
offensive to any, then this dilemma would be solved.
Readers of John face a similar dilemma when trying to understand the common label,
Ἰουδαῖος, which appears 71 times in the Fourth Gospel and 195 times in the New Testament.46
The following chart demonstrates that the vast majority of translators treat the word as “Jew” or
some variation of that label (i.e. Jews, Jewish, Jewess, etc.).47
Hope Yen, “US Stopping Use of Term ‘Negro’ for Census Surveys.” On-line
<http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_CENSUS_NEGROES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=
DEFAULT> (accessed 6 March 2013).
45
46
All statistical data is derived from the 27th edition of Nestle-Aland’s Novum Testamentum Graece,
hereafter referred to as NA27, unless otherwise noted.
47
For a few refreshing exceptions see Jn. 3:22 in the NRSV and NIV’11 and Jn. 11:54 in the NIV’11.
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Version
Jew (or variation) out of 195 occurrences
NRSV
ESV
NASU
NIV’84
NIV’11
KJV
NKJV
191
192
192
192
18948
19549
19449
There are two serious problems with this treatment. The first is a moral problem comparable to
the “Negro” dilemma discussed above. Although the label, Jew, may not imply racist motives, it
has been abused enough in the past that one should at least be conscious of many potential
consequences. Frederick Danker says,
Incalculable harm has been caused by simply glossing Ἰ. [Ἰουδαῖος] with ‘Jew’, for many
readers or auditors of Bible translations do not practice the historical judgment necessary
to distinguish between circumstances and events of an ancient time and contemporary
ethnic-religious-social realities, with the result that anti-Judaism in the modern sense of
the term is needlessly fostered through biblical texts.50
Robert Kysar is mindful of this same potential,
The casting of the Jews as the symbol of unbelief may have been an accident of history,
and a most tragic one at that. However, even if it was the result of an accident of history,
the fact remains that this Gospel may and indeed does nurture anti-Semitism. Those of us
who know better are responsible to tone down this unfortunate feature of the Gospel and
to emphasize, instead, our shared heritage with the Jewish people.51
Technically, there are only 181 occurrences in the NIV’11; but this number is deceptive. There are six
additional occurrences translated as “they” which refer directly back to “Jew” or “Jews”. Additionally, Jn. 9:22 uses
“who”, which refers to “the Jewish leaders”, and Acts 18:14 uses “them” to refer to Gallio’s address, “you Jews.”
48
There are an additional 3 occurrences of Ἰουδαῖος in TR totaling 198 uses. This data is derived from F.
H. A. Scrivener’s 1881 The New Testament in Greek.
49
50
William Arndt, Frederick W. Danker and Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament
and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 478.
Kysar, John: The Maverick Gospel, 83. Philip Esler is another who rejects the use of “Jew” on the basis
of moral grounds, “To overlook the way the cultural features expressing their boundaries with outgroups have
51
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Regardless of whether or not one is writing for a popular or academic audience, or whether or
not one’s motives are entirely pure, the translation of Ἰουδαῖος with “Jew”, as nearly every
reliable English version does, needs to be reconsidered in the same way that the Census Bureau
has rightly reconsidered use of the term Negro.
The second problem associated with translating Ἰουδαῖος as Jew(s) or Jewish, is that for
many modern readers these are religious designations. In a treatment of modern world religions
one will survey Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism. Philip Esler challenges
the traditional translation, “the Jews,” based upon three common misleading presuppositions,
1.
The assumption that the reality confronted by John was a 'religion’ properly called
‘Judaism’;
The almost universal view that the word ‘Jew’ is a proper translation of Ἰουδαῖος
(Iudaeus in Latin) and designates a member of this religion;
The supposition that John is propounding a ‘religion’ that is rival to, yet still a
representative of, the same conceptual category of ‘religion’ of which ‘Judaism’
forms a different member…52
2.
3.
Esler's contention is that in the modern reader's mind, “…religion is a stand-alone phenomenon
that is separable from other arenas of human activity, such as politics and the economy.”53 Steve
Mason has gone even further and argues that, “…there was no category of ‘Judaism’ in the
Graeco-Roman world, no ‘religion’ too, and that the Ioudaioi were understood until late
changed across the centuries also encourages the anti-Semitic notion of ‘the eternal Jew’ who, it is alleged, killed
Christ and is still around, to be persecuted if possible.” In Philip Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social
Setting of Paul’s Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 63.
52
Philip F. Esler, "From IOUDAIOI to Children of God: The Development of a Non-Ethnic Group Identity
in the Gospel of John," In In Other Words: Essays on Social Science Methods & the New Testament in Honor of
Jerome H. Neyrey. Edited by Anselm C. Hagedorn, Zeba A. Crook and Eric Stewart. The Social World of Biblical
Antiquity, Second Series, vol. 1 Edited by Keith W. Whitelam and James G. Crossley (Sheffield, England: Sheffield
Phoenix Press, 2007), 107-108. Esler actually lists four presuppositions, but the last is not relevant to this project.
53
Ibid., 111.
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antiquity as an ethnic group comparable to other ethnic groups, with their distinctive laws,
traditions, customs, and God. They were indeed Judaeans.”54
Mason is obviously not suggesting that there was no such thing as religion, which
includes certain beliefs and practices in relation to the divine—note that God is included in his
list—but that religion, in addition to politics, ancestral traditions, customs, etc. was not a separate
category of life for the ancients as it is today. Today, one is not surprised to find whites, blacks,
Latinos and Asians all living in the same geographical location; and it is likely the only thing
distinguishing them from one another is their physical appearance. It is also possible, however,
that those same groups are distinguishable by their religious beliefs, or by their desire to maintain
elements of their ethnic and ancestral heritage such as their dress, observance of certain special
days or daily customs surrounding mealtimes. Today, it is not uncommon to mix-and-match or
change any part of one’s identity, including physical appearance to some extent. In a discussion
of ancient cultures, however, these options were limited. One’s race, physical characteristics,
geographical location, ethnic heritage, local customs and traditions and religion were an
inseparable unit and not individual options. Thus, rather than using the designation, Jew, which
is interpreted by many modern readers solely as a religious label, many interpreters favor the
label Judean, which is inclusive of much more than beliefs and practices in relation to the divine.
In contrast, Shaye Cohen is not opposed to treating Ἰουδαῖος as “Jew” to refer to the
religious elements inherent within that label.55 He cites 2 Macc. 6:6 and 9:1756 in order to argue
Steve Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,”
Journal for the Study of Judaism 38 (2007), 457.
54
55
Shaye Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1999).
2 Macc. 6:5-6 – “The altar was covered with abominable offerings that were forbidden by the laws.
People could neither keep the Sabbath, nor observe the festivals of their ancestors, nor so much as confess
themselves to be Jews.” This reference clearly calls attention to religious aspects of what it meant to be Judean, but
56
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that there are unquestionably historic occurrences where Ἰουδαῖος is used to specifically call
attention to the religious facet of Judean life. Nevertheless, Cohen argues that first and foremost,
every occurrence of Ἰουδαῖος prior to the Maccabean revolt should be treated as Judaean with
respect to ethnicity and geography. After the Maccabean revolt, the word began to take on the
sense, not so much of ethnicity or geography, but rather a political designation that referred to
the independent Jewish state. In this sense, the word carries the idea of citizenship, but includes
aspects of ethnicity, geography, and religion.
Like the label, Jew, Judean is not without problems. Most modern readers tend to
associate a Judean with a physical location, that is, one who lives in or around the boarders of
Judea. This misunderstanding is further complicated by the present state of the Middle East and
the ongoing struggle for geo-political boundaries between Judeans (or Israelites) and
Palestinians. A major obstacle associated with treating Ἰουδαῖος as Judeans is that many
Ἰουδαῖος were diaspora in the first century. In so far as Judean is a geographic designation it
falls short. Other practical problems come from considering designations used in conjunction
with Jesus and Paul. Jesus was Ἰουδαῖος, but he was also a Galilean (cf. Matt. 26:69; Mk. 14:70)
as well as a Nazarene (Matt. 2:23; Mk. 10:47; 14:67; Lk. 24:19; Jn. 18:5), which refer to both
geography and family heritage. Paul argued that he was by nature Ἰουδαῖος (Gal. 2:15) and not a
Gentile; but Luke records Paul’s political citizenship as both from Tarsus (Acts 21:39) and Rome
(Acts 22:28ff.). It seems as if Ἰουδαῖος was a rather fluid term that could be used in a variety of
ways depending upon the author’s intent.
I’m not sure that Cohen’s citation of 2 Macc. 9 does. This section is descriptive of Antiochus’ efforts to pacify
Judeans in the midst of a building project, “and in addition to all this he also would become a Jew and would visit
every inhabited place to proclaim the power of God. But when his sufferings did not in any way abate, for the
judgment of God had justly come upon him, he gave up all hope for himself and wrote to the Jews the following
letter, in the form of a supplication (2 Macc. 9:17-18; NRSV).
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Philip Esler is on the right track for how this word ought to be treated, although I have
some reservations about his de-emphasis of religious factors. While the modern treatment, Jew,
tends to isolate and emphasize the religious aspects of Ἰουδαῖος, Esler overreacts to correct this
error. In fact, the religious part of what it meant to be Judean, namely dietary restriction,
circumcision, Sabbath observance, etc., was of foremost importance in what it meant to be
Judean even for the diaspora. I like how Esler includes everything that composed Ἰουδαῖος into
a single bundle, even if there is not an all-encompassing word to express it. He cites the work of
sociologists John Hutchinson and Anthony Smith, along with examples from Josephus, in order
to compose a list of six common features that comprise a comprehensive ethnicity,
1) A common proper name to identify the group.
2) A myth of common ancestry (‘myth’ is significant, in that it indicates that the
genealogical accuracy of the claimed descent is immaterial).
3) A shared history or shared memories of a common past that embraces heroes, events
and their commemoration.
4) A common culture, covering customs, language, religion and so on.
5) A link with homeland, either through actual occupation or by symbolic attachment to
the ancestral land, as with diaspora peoples.
6) A sense of communal solidarity.57
Appreciation for the sweeping nature of Ἰουδαῖος, and the reality that neither the label
Jew nor Judean is capable of conveying the complete meaning of the word to modern
interpreters, suggests a sense in which the term expresses fullness and comprehensiveness of
being. To be Ἰουδαῖος indicated the entirety of one’s world. The 2003 comedy, Anger
Management, with Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson illustrates the ambiguity of this sense of
comprehensiveness. Adam Sandler got into trouble at work and was assigned to anger
management therapy by the court. In his first session, the therapist, Jack Nicholson, says, “Dave,
tell us about yourself. Who are you?” Sandler replies, “Well, I’m an executive assistant at a
57
Esler, “From IOUDAIOI To Children of God,” 114.
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major pet products company…” Nicholson interrupts, “Dave, I don’t want you to tell us what
you do, I want you to tell us who you are.” Sandler says, “Alright, um, I’m a pretty good guy. I
like playing tennis on occasion…” Nicholson interrupts, “Also, not your hobbies, Dave, just
simply tell us who you are.” Everybody laughs and Sandler begins to get fidgety. He says, “I’m
a nice easy-going man. I might be a little bit indecisive at times…” Again, Nicholson interrupts,
“Dave, you’re just describing your personality. I want to know who you are.” Sandler explodes
and everybody is taken aback. Most folks can sympathize with the seemingly impossible task of
describing everything that another person needs to know about themselves in order to understand
“who I am”. For a first century Jew/Judean, a lot of one’s essence could be described in an
introductory statement, “I am Ἰουδαῖος.”
Based upon the comprehensive meaning of Ἰουδαῖος, I propose that κόσμος (the world)
be treated synonymously with Ἰουδαῖος in John’s Gospel.58 The word, κόσμος, is troublesome
in the Fourth Gospel because it is not consistently used to describe a single concept. Sometimes
the world is portrayed in a positive light. For example, the most famous passage in John’s
Gospel is Jn. 3:16, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever
believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.”59 Most of the time, however, the world is
portrayed negatively. According to Robert Kysar,
When the Gospel uses kosmos in a negative, dualistic sense, it does not refer to the
physical world in which we live… So, what does the writer mean when she or he uses
this term in a negative way? The world, in these cases, seems to be a symbol
representing the realm of unbelief, the area in which there is total rejection of the truth of
God revealed in Christ…It symbolizes that way of being—that way of living—which is
58
κόσμος is used 78 times in the Fourth Gospel.
59
All Biblical quotations are taken from the New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update, hereafter
abbreviated as NASU.
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opposed to God and the divine plan of salvation for humans. It is a stance in life that
finds relationship with God unnecessary and undesirable.60
It may be practically possible to understand Jesus’ mission on behalf of the world in the Fourth
Gospel to include Gentiles as well as Jews/Judeans. I assert, however, that most of the uses of
κόσμος in John are better taken as synonymous with Ἰουδαῖος and all that is contained within
it.61 This could even be the case in passages where κόσμος is dualistically opposed to “the
heavens.” For example, Jn. 8:23 says, “And he was saying to them, ‘You are from below, I am
from above; you are of this world, I am not of this world.’” Also Jn. 9:5, “While I am in the
world, I am the light of the world.” Certainly these passages (and others like them) are
descriptive of Jesus being “down here” instead of “up there”; but recall that while Jesus was
“down here” he and the folks he interacted with were Ἰουδαῖος— Ἰουδαῖος was their world.
In light of this, the most economical way of treating Ἰουδαῖος, at least in the Fourth
Gospel, is not by deciding between Jew vs. Judean, but by translating both Ἰουδαῖος as well as
κόσμος with a combination that is pregnant with meaning: the Judean World. This treatment
accomplishes two goals. First, it helps the reader to recall that Ἰουδαῖος is much more than mere
religion, geography or ethnicity, and that it contains the fullness of what it means to be Ἰουδαῖος.
Second, it helps the reader to remember that when the author refers to κόσμος he is specifically
addressing an audience that is primarily Judean. To read almost every instance of these words in
light of the Judean World infuses each use with meaning that may not be so readily accessible.
Furthermore, this treatment eliminates a major problem associated with how to treat both of
60
Kysar, John: The Maverick Gospel, 74-75.
61
Many interpreters arrive as this same conclusion, even if by a different methodology. For example,
Urban C. von Wahlde argues that in the second stage of development within the Johannine community “the Jews”
(i.e. the persecuting leadership within the Jewish community) were synonymous with “the world,” “Members of the
Jewish majority were thought of as representatives of the ‘world,’ and the Johannine community regarded itself as
‘in’ the world but not ‘of’ the world” (15:18-19; 17:6, 14-16) (p. 382).
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these words. Many commentators struggle because sometimes Ἰουδαῖος and κόσμος refer to
Johannine rivals, but other times they seem to be used rather neutrally.62 The Judean World is
not inherently evil for John. In fact, many (if not all) of the readers of John’s Gospel were within
the Judean World, and the author himself is from the Judean World. The Judean World is
largely opposed to Jesus and his followers, but Jesus came for them because God so loved them.
In labeling both Ἰουδαῖος and κόσμος as the Judean World we have affirmed the identity and
nature of one of the two social groups in the Fourth Gospel.63
Clearly, Judean-Christian relations were strained early on; but one element that is critical
for this project is that early Christ-followers did not completely reject the Judean World.64 There
were many aspects of liminality in play when the Fourth Gospel was written, but the transitions
involved in the movement from being Christ-followers within the Judean World to what will
later be labeled Christianity is, perhaps, the most pronounced. John was written in a context
before Christians broadly rejected the Judean World, but in a time when early Rabbinic Judaism
was beginning to broadly condemn the Messianic claims of Jesus’ followers. As early as the end
of the first century and beginning of the second century we begin to see a definite Christian
62
Below, I will discuss dualism in the Fourth Gospel, and I have included a chart of opposing dualistic
poles in John’s Gospel created by Robert Kysar. The reader will note that the pole opposing Israel is both “the
Jews” as well as “the world.” Wayne Meeks says, “A major literary problem of John is its combination of
remarkable stylistic unity and thematic coherence with glaringly bad transitions between episodes at many points.”
In “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism,” Journal of Biblical Literature 91:1 (March 1972), 48.
My combination of Ἰουδαῖος and κόσμος into a single Judean World is broad and general. As scholars
have often pointed out, many uses of Ἰουδαῖος appear to specifically refer, not to the Judean World, but rather to a
specific element of Judean leadership within the synagogue who opposed Jesus as Messiah. Even in these cases,
however, I suggest that the larger Judean World is implied. For example, Jn. 1:19 references “the Jews” opposition
to John the Baptist, “This is the testimony of John, when the Jews sent to him priests and Levites from Jerusalem to
ask him, ‘Who are you?” Later, in v. 24 we read, “Now they had been sent from the Pharisees.” The opposition
was headed up by the leadership element within the Judean World, but the inclusion of priests, Levites (who were
from Jerusalem) and Pharisees under the banner of “the Jews” is inclusive of a group more comprehensive than
simply the leadership.
63
64
cf. Acts 10:9-16; 11:2-3; Gal. 2:11-13; Acts 18:18; Acts 21:17-26.
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rejection of the Judean World by some. Ignatius writes, “For if we continue to live in
accordance with Judaism, we admit that we have not received grace” (Magnesians 8:1).65 Later,
he says, “It is utterly absurd to profess Jesus Christ and to practice Judaism. For Christianity did
not believe in Judaism, but Judaism in Christianity…” (10:3). This move to outright rejection
did not happen overnight, but the Fourth Gospel is evidence of the transitional process.
It seems the major point of contention between Christ-followers and their foundational
(Judean World) structure was not necessarily centered on the status of Jesus. Instead, the rift was
an argument over who had the right to interpret the Hebrew Bible. Early Christians did
something far more offensive than rejecting the Hebrew Bible—they redefined it as is evidenced
by the many Old Testament citations in the New Testament. The Epistle of Barnabas, which was
likely written in the early second century, is an example of what this process of redefinition
evolved into. Barnabas says, “For he has made it clear to us through all the prophets that he
needs neither sacrifices nor whole burnt offerings nor general offerings…Therefore he has
abolished these things, in order that the new law of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is free from the
yoke of compulsion, might have its offering, one not made by man” (2:4, 6). The author
reinterprets the Hebrew Bible spiritually and speaks as if many of the imperative aspects of what
it meant to be Jewish/Judean were never really important in the first place. Regarding
circumcision he writes, “But the circumcision in which they have trusted has been abolished, for
he declared that circumcision was not a matter of the flesh” (9:4). Regarding dietary regulations
he writes, “Concerning food, then, Moses received three precepts to this effect and spoke in a
spiritual sense, but because of their fleshly desires the people accepted them as though they
referred to actual food” (10:9). By this time, it is evident that Christians had hijacked the
65
All Apostolic Fathers citations are from Michael W. Holmes, ed. The Apostolic Fathers. 2nd edition,
trans. J. B. Lightfoot and J. R. Harmer (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1989).
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Hebrew Bible for the purpose of condemning the Judean World. Since this paper calls attention
to the transitional nature of early Christianity when John was written, there are indicators of
Barnabas’ method of interpretation in John, but an outright rejection of the Judean World had not
yet been developed.
In his Introduction to the New Testament, David deSilva brings to light many of the ways
in which the Fourth Gospel redefines the Hebrew Bible in the light of Jesus Christ. He says,
For John the Jewish Scriptures had value as a witness to the Word made flesh (Jn. 5:39).
Those who call themselves Moses’ disciples without being also Jesus’ disciples (Jn. 9:2829) are, in John’s view, merely deluding themselves: Moses (the voice of Torah) will
accuse those who reject Jesus (Jn. 5:45-47). Those who reject Jesus do not read the
Scriptures correctly, even drawing a dramatically wrong conclusion from the Torah: “We
have a law, and according to that law he ought to die because he has claimed to be the
Son of God” (Jn 19:7).66
One of the ways in which John redefines the Judean World is that Jesus is portrayed as the new
temple. Among other indicators, “John stages the ‘cleansing of the temple’ at the very outset of
Jesus’ ministry to underscore this theme of replacement.”67 Another example is through Jesus
embodying the purpose and meaning of Judean feasts and festivals, “The proximity of each
particular festival casts a special, interpretative light on Jesus’ actions and words, even as Jesus’
actions and words show that the essence of the festival is captured in his person.”68 DeSilva
convincingly argues that by virtue of John’s placement of Jesus’ speeches and certain events in
proximity to Jewish/Judean festivals within the text, John is redefining Pentecost, Passover,
66
DeSilva, Introduction, 421-422.
67
Ibid., 421.
68
Ibid., 422.
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Succoth and Hanukkah in the light of Jesus.69 For the purposes of this discussion, Jesus
embodying the essence of Pentecost is particularly important.
Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, was celebrated by the Judean World seven full weeks,
or fifty days, after Passover. Agriculturally, the feast marked the end of the grain harvest; but
traditionally, it marked Moses’ arrival at Mt. Sinai after the Israelite’s escape from Egypt.
Whereas Passover reminded Israel of Yahweh’s salvation and provision, Pentecost reminded
them that Yahweh had given them the Law. DeSilva argues that the “feast of the Jews” in Jn.
5:1ff. is a reference to the Feast of the Weeks celebration, and that John intends for his readers to
understand a significant theological message from the intentional placement of this story in his
Gospel,
John makes this feast the setting for a discussion of Jesus’ authority and relationship to
Torah… By healing the man, Jesus demonstrated his authority, and the man understood
Jesus’ authority to override the authority of Torah… The ensuing debate between Jesus
and his critics ends with the declaration that Moses and the Scriptures are Jesus’
witness—indeed, the “Father’s testimony” on behalf of the Son is none other than the
Scriptures themselves.70
Not only does John redefine the Feast of Weeks as personified in the essence of Jesus’ person, to
which the Scriptures themselves testify, but also the significance of this personification is that
69
DeSilva associated Pentecost with “a feast of the Jews” in Jn. 5; Passover is connected with Jn. 6:4, and
“The story that follows must be read in light of this feast…” (p. 422); Succoth, or Booths, is connected with Jn.
7:38; and the Feast of Dedication, or Hanukkah, is connected with Jn. 10:36-38. Craig Blomberg makes a similar
observation about John’s effort to redefine “Judaism”, “Like Matthew, John has often been accused of being antiSemitic (or, more precisely, anti-Jewish), because of his frequent use of ‘the Jews’ as a seemingly blanket term for
condemning all of Jesus’ opponents…But a careful analysis of contexts shows that sometimes Ioudaioi means
merely Judeans (as opposed to Galileans), other times it is shorthand for the Jewish leaders, and frequently it refers
to the general rejection of Jesus by the bulk of the Jewish people. John recognizes as readily as the Synoptics that
Jesus’ first followers were all Jewish, so there is no universal indictment of an ethnic group here. What John does
stress, though, is how Jesus fulfills the purpose of all the major Jewish institutions and rituals, including the
Scriptures themselves. Without ever using the explicit language of Jeremiah’s new covenant prophecies (Jer. 31:3134), John has Jesus inaugurating everything that the new covenant anticipated. The church is now the chosen people
of God.” In Craig L. Blomberg, Jesus and the Gospels (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1997), 167.
70
DeSilva, Introduction, 422.
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Jesus is now connected with the giving of the Law. By redefining Pentecost in light of Jesus,
John is making a statement about Jesus’ authority. In some ways, John is doing something
similar to what Paul does in Gal. 3 when he argues that through faith and baptism one is adopted
into Abraham’s family tree. Neither Paul nor John rejected the Judean World; but rather, they
redefined it, and how to become a part of it, and how to participate within it all in the light of
Jesus Christ and his status as Messiah.
Following the birth of the Christ-movement, claims about Jesus’ messianic status
appeared to be just another one of many sects within the Judean World, which were all founded
upon three pillars: the existence of one God, Israel as the chosen people of that one God, and
Torah as the expression of God’s will. Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, Zealots, Herodians and
Christ-followers were all able to express themselves within the Judean World upon the common
foundation of these three pillars. The Christ-followers, however, began to fiddle with the
foundation. They added a necessary pillar, faith in Jesus; and they reinterpreted the other pillars
in the light of Christ in such a way that drew suspicion. For example, what are the implications
of a single God if one claims that Jesus himself is I Am? Israel may, in fact, be Yahweh’s
chosen people, but Christ-followers redefined what it meant to be a part of that family so that
uncircumcised Gentiles were included. Further, they redefined the nature of Torah to be directed
towards, and even superseded by, Jesus. The process of redefinition, which was initially nothing
more than a difference of opinion among fellow Jews/Judeans, eventually evolved into
Jewish/Judean heresy.
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Before the destruction of Jerusalem, synagogue worship included a prayer called the
Shemoneh Esre’, or the Eighteen Benedictions.71 Michael Holmes, in his introduction to the
Apostolic Fathers, says that following A.D. 70, “The temple as a focal point for the faith was
replaced by the synagogue and an academy at Jamnia (Yavneh), and scholarly rabbis like
Johanan ben Zakkai and Akiba eventually replaced the priests as key leaders of the people.”72
One of the major developments during this time was that, “…the dividing line between Jew and
non-Jew was more sharply defined; for example, the twelfth of the ‘Eighteen Benedictions,’ the
oldest part of the synagogue service, was reworded to exclude sectarians and heretics, including
Christians…”73 Before Christianity was specifically rejected, the initial curse read, “For
apostates let there be no hope, and the dominion of arrogance [Rome] do Thou speedily root out
in our days. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who humblest the arrogant!”74 According to Everett
Ferguson, Rabbi Eliezer (Rabban Gamaliel II) who was active between 80-120, “…introduced
into the Eighteen Benedictions the curse, ‘Let the Nazarenes and the heretics perish as in a
moment, let them be blotted out of the book of the living and let them not be written with the
righteous,’ which effectively excommunicated Christians from the synagogues and formalized
the break between the two faiths.”75 Holmes concludes, “The gradual effect of the reworded
Twelfth Benediction on the church was gradually to close off access to the synagogue on the part
According to deSilva in his Introduction, “The enumeration of eighteen benedictions represents the
expanded form as it existed in the second century. Their form at the turn of the era is believed to have included
eleven petitions…” (p. 81).
71
72
Holmes, 6.
73
Ibid., 6.
74
Everett Ferguson, Backgrounds of Early Christianity, 3rd edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2003), 579.
75
Ibid., 491.
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of Jewish Christians, which increased the distance and sharpened the distinction—and the
hostility—between the synagogue and the church.”76
Christians were not eager to be separated from their Judean roots. Historically, the picture
painted has been one where Judeans became Christians and then presumably forsook their
Judean heritage for the sake of their new-found Christianity. This is, in fact, not a picture
supported by the New Testament. In fact, early Judean believers would have been content to
remain under the social umbrella of the Judean World so long as they were permitted to express
their belief that Jesus was the Messiah.77 While initially permitted by some, this profession,
along with the Christian redefinition of the Hebrew Bible, was eventually forbidden; especially
after the fall of the temple, and even more so after the establishment of Rabbinic Judaism.
Instead of referring to Christ-followers within the Judean World, we begin to see the emergence
of a distinct and independent Christianity.78 Thus, we are introduced to the second of our two
social structures.
B. Dualism
That two distinct social structures are identifiable in the Fourth Gospel is made evident
by the nature of the rival group: The Judean World. A second indicator of the presence of two
groups is John’s extremely dualistic language which lends itself to an either/or view of the
76
Holmes, 7.
A fitting parallel is Martin Luther’s relationship with the Catholic Church. Mark Ellingsen says, “He had
not given up on the Catholic Church; he wanted to reform its theology, not leave it. Luther was kicked out of the
Catholic Church, but it was not his intention to divide it.” In Reclaiming Our Roots: An Inclusive Introduction to
Church History, vol. 2 (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1999), 35.
77
Wayne Meeks says, “The group had to distinguish itself over against the sect of John the Baptist and
even more passionately over against a rather strong Jewish community, with which highly ambivalent relationships
had existed. It suffered defections, conflicts of leadership, and schisms” (p. 49).
78
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universe. The chart below is from Robert Kysar’s John, The Maverick Gospel, and it illustrates
dualism in the Fourth Gospel:
POSITIVE POLE
light
above
spirit
life (eternal)
truth
heaven
God
EXAMPLE
1:5
8:23
3:6
3:36
8:44-47
3:31
13:27
Israel
1:19 and 47; 17:14
NEGATIVE POLE
darkness
below
flesh
death
falsehood (lie)
earth
Satan
“The Jews” (sometimes) the
world (sometimes)79
Kysar says, “The distinction is not basically a moral one between those who live ‘good lives’ and
those who live ‘bad lives.’ The distinction is between two ways of understanding oneself in
relationship to the whole of reality—between two ways in which a person might answer the
question, Who am I?”80 Even though much of the dualism in John is Platonic and cosmic in
nature, Kysar says “The various symbols all mean the same thing. There is no essential
difference between the dualism of light and darkness and the split of the above and the below.”81
Kysar concludes,
It is a way of saying that all the evil of the world is rooted in a misconstrued selfunderstanding. The darkness and falsehood of this world result because persons try to be
other than what they are. That sounds amazingly simple, but it seems to be the Johannine
view of the matter. Why do people act in such evil and hurtful ways? Because humans
are confused as to their identity. How is human evil overcome? By the correction of
human misunderstanding. The two different worlds of John are two different identities!82
79
Kysar, John: The Maverick Gospel, 74.
80
Kysar, John: The Maverick Gospel, 75.
81
Ibid., 79.
Ibid., 79. Similarly, Wayne Meeks says in regard to the descent/ascent motif in John, “Our analysis of
the function of this motif and its related components within the literary structure of the Gospel suggests an
interpretation diametrically opposed: in every instance the motif points to contrast, foreignness, division, judgment.
Only within that dominant structure of estrangement and difference is developed the counterpoint of unity—between
God and Christ, between God, Christ, and the small group of the faithful” (p. 67).
82
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If the Gospel of John is read through the lens of ritual theory in which the author is serving as a
kind of master of ceremonies encouraging and assisting individuals from one social structure
through the liminal phase to another, then Kysar’s statements about dualism in the Fourth Gospel
relating to matters of identity make perfect sense. John’s dualism is entirely about social
placement in the “right” group. Recall an earlier point: Christians might have been content to
remain in the Judean World had they been permitted to confess their faith in Jesus and interpret
the Scriptures in light of him; but since they were not, they needed to go somewhere else and be
someone different.
C. Kinship Groups
A third element in the Fourth Gospel highlighting the distinction between the two social
groups is kinship language. David deSilva calls attention to kinship features in the Fourth
Gospel: Believers share in a common birth, they are referred to as children who share a common
Father and are, consequently, brothers and sisters with one another; and they are encouraged to
love one another.83 It is difficult for modern readers to appreciate the full significance of the
kinship unit in the ancient Mediterranean world. Bruce Malina has devoted a good deal of his
attention towards helping readers appreciate the implications of various first century social
institutions such as honor and shame, the individual and the group and kinship relationships.
Note what he says about the nature of the group in the first century world,
Instead of individualism, what we find in the first-century Mediterranean world is what
might be called collectivism. Persons always considered themselves in terms of the
group(s) in which they experienced themselves as inextricably embedded. We might
describe such a psychological orientation as ‘dyadism’ (from the Greek word meaning a
pair, a twosome), as opposed to ‘individualism.’84
83
DeSilva, Introduction, 436-438.
84
Bruce J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights From Cultural Anthropology, 3rd edition
(Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 62.
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Regarding the kinship group, Malina says,
As is well known, such ruralized societies had two focal social institutions, realized in the
special and architectural arrangements called the house and the city. The first, basic
institution was kinship; the second was politics. Kinship is the symboling of biological
processes of human reproduction and growth in terms of abiding relations, roles, status,
and the like…In ruralized societies, the kinship group was the economic and religious
unit as well…85
David deSilva also emphasizes the importance of the kinship group in the first century world, “A
person’s family of origin is the primary source for his or her status and location in the world and
an essential reference point for the person’s identity. People are not just free-floating individuals
out in the world but are located within the larger constellations of ‘family’ in a very broad sense
(like clan).”86 Ronald Piper points out that in the ancient Mediterranean world there was a
general sense of, “…suspicion expressed towards all outside of family. Again, G.M. Foster
makes the point with regard to peasant society that this suspicion towards groups larger than the
immediate family goes hand in hand with the competition for resources. Those outside the
immediate family represent potential threats…87 In short, the implications of language that
implies leaving one’s kinship group for the purpose of joining another is only matched, if it even
is, by the extremely dualistic language that compares God and Satan or life and death.
There are several factors involved in John’s request for liminal believers to leave the
Judean World and to become a part of the Christian family. To leave the Judean World literally
meant to leave one’s identity. The shame attached to this movement would have been
85
Ibid., 82.
86
David A deSilva, Honor, Patronage, Kinship & Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000), 178.
Ronald A. Piper, “Glory, Honor and Patronage in the Fourth Gospel: Understanding the Doxa Given to
Disciples in Jn. 17,” In Social Scientific Models for Interpreting the Bible: Essays by the Context Group in Honor of
Bruce J. Malina. Edited by John J. Pilch. Biblical Interpretation Series, Edited by R. Alan Culpepper and Rolf
Rendtorff, v.53 (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2001), 305.
87
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unbearable for many. One can only begin to conceive how Jesus’ words would have been
received by John’s audience as they heard, “If you were of the world [i.e. the Judean World], the
world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world,
because of this the world hates you” (Jn. 15:19; cf. 17:6, 14). John’s call in the Gospel is for a
group of displaced members within the Judean World to form a new kinship group with one
another that is founded upon a common love that Jesus demonstrated (cf. Jn. 17:11; 21-23). In
addition to the in-or-out dualistic language, the presence of a new kinship group composed of
believers is indicative of a distinct body of Christians.
D. Antilanguage
A fourth aspect of John’s Gospel that suggests two social structures are the actual words
that John uses. Bruce Malina has written about John from a sociolinguistic perspective, and he
introduces the concepts of antisociety and antilanguage,
…an antisocietal group is a social collectivity that is set up within a larger society as a
conscious alternative to it. The reason why persons might come up with a conscious
alternative to the society in which they are in some way embedded are varied and many,
e.g. being labeled deviant, with active hostility by society at large against such
individuals, lack of social concern for certain individuals, with a resulting passive social
symbiosis, exile or rejection due to negative outcomes to an uprising or revolution, and
the like.88
The group of Christ-followers within the larger Judean World composed an antisociety. They
have been labeled as deviant because of their association with Jesus and are being threatened
with rejection and/or exile. Antilanguage, according to Malina, is developed within an
antisociety. I might illustrate antilanguage with a personal experience. In 2005 I completed the
Bruce J. Malina, “The Gospel of John in Sociolinguistic Perspective,” On-line
<http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/info/john-socioling.html> (accessed 4 April 2011).
88
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Kansas City, MO Police Academy and my first 6 weeks “on the street” were overseen by a Field
Training Officer (FTO). One of my first calls was an alleged assault, but when I arrived the
victim reported, “Dude stow on my greel.” After several attempts, I translated that to mean
“Someone stole my grill.” My FTO allowed me to humiliate myself as I initiated a stealing
report and requested the make and model of the grill along with its monetary value. As the
victim became increasingly impatient with me, my FTO politely asked him to explain that “dude
stole on my grill” means “he punched me in the mouth.” Here are examples of antilanguage.
“Stole” and “grill” are words that carry distinct lexical meanings; but in downtown Kansas City
(a society within another society) certain words that convey one set of meanings to me carry an
entirely different set of meanings to the antisociety. This is not merely a matter of slang or
jargon, but a complete “relexicalization of one's indigenous language.”89
89
See Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John
(Minneapolis, Fortress Press: 1998), 13. Wayne Meeks describes antilanguage in John's Gospel without calling it
by name. He says, “We have not yet learned to let the symbolic language of Johannine literature speak in its own
way” (p. 47). Later, Meeks illustrates this principle in Jn. 3 with Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus. He says, “The
form of the dialogue itself is such that the reader without special prior information would be as puzzled as
Nicodemus. Only a reader who is thoroughly familiar with the whole Fourth Gospel or else acquainted by some
non-literary means with its symbolism and developing themes (perhaps because he belongs to a community in which
such language is constantly used) can possibly understand its double entendre and its abrupt transitions” (p. 57).
Later he says, “The unbiased reader feels quite sympathetic with poor Nicodemus and the ‘believing’ Jews with
whom, it seems, Jesus is playing some kind of language-game whose rules neither they nor we could possibly
know” (p. 68). Another example of the special use of language in John, specifically the Johannine use of the words
love and hate, is found in Fernando F. Segovia, “The Love and Hatred of Jesus and Johannine Sectarianism,”
Catholic Biblical Quarterly 43 (1981), 258-272.
On the other hand, Stephen C. Barton strongly opposes the idea of Johannine language that would have only been
understood by those within the community, “Doubt may also be cast on Meeks's claim that the Fourth Gospel shows
all the signs of being a ‘book for insiders,’ since ‘only a very rare outsider would get past the barrier of its closed
metaphorical system.’ This is surely a tour de force. On this view, it is a wonder that anyone made it into the
Johannine ‘community’ at all! Is it really the case that metaphors like light, bread, water, wine, shepherd, way, vine,
temple, Logos, Son of God, and so on - each of them with deep roots in the biblical and Jewish traditions and not
without a certain currency in the wider Hellenistic milieu either - are as opaque and hermetic as Meeks makes them
out to be? May it not be the case that the metaphorical, parabolic, and symbolic language of the Gospel represents an
invitation to the reader/hearer - outsider as well as insider, non-Johannine as well as Johannine - to explore further
and go deeper, beyond the level of surface appearance? Why should riddling language appeal only to members of
John's own circle? If the function of such language is only to leave someone like Nicodemus floundering in the
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It is sometimes taken for granted that in John’s Gospel words often do not mean what
they are supposed to mean. One who is in the habit of using lexical aids will encounter this
phenomenon on a fairly regular basis. It is not uncommon to encounter special sections within
an entry that are devoted to describing how John uses a word differently from nearly every other
usage.90 For example, the extremely common verb, εἰμί, has immeasurable theological
significance in John’s Gospel. There is a big difference between “I am” and John’s use “I Am!”
Again, ἔρχομαι, which regularly means “movement from one point to another, with focus on
approach from the narrator’s perspective, come” (BDAG) includes a special note that in John, the
idea often refers to Jesus having been sent from heaven to earth. One must never take words for
granted in the Fourth Gospel. Words such as “bread” (6:35), “light” (8:12), “door” (10:9), “life”
(11:25-26), “way” (14:6) and “vine” (15:5) are just a few examples of words that mean
something very different from their regular lexical meaning; and normally there is theological
significance infused in the way that John uses these words.91 The reason I did not understand
what “stole on my grill” meant was because I am not a part of the group that understands the
meanings of those words in that context. The strong presence of antilanguage in John’s Gospel
epistemological dark, is it not surprising that he does not pass permanently from the scene after that first, difficult
encounter? If questions like these have any force at all, then a further crack appears in Meeks's social-functionalist
edifice.” In “Can We Identify the Gospel Audiences?” In The Gospels for All Christians, 192. Further still, Craig
Koester says, “I challenge the idea that Johannine Christianity was an introverted sect whose symbolic language
would have been opaque to the uninitiated. I argue that Johannine symbolism would have been accessible to a
spectrum of readers, helping to foster a sense of Christian identity that was distinct from the world while motivating
the Christian community to a missionary engagement with the world.” In Craig R. Koester, Symbolism in the Fourth
Gospel: Meaning, Mystery, Community 2nd Edition (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2003): xiii. Perhaps a balance
of these competing perspectives is that John uses distinct “Christian” language that can be understood by outsiders,
but only after some initial effort to understand what it means to be an insider. Modern comparable examples might
include words such as redemption and justification.
Meeks says, “The uniqueness of the Fourth Gospel in early Christian literature consists above all in the
special patterns of language which it uses to describe Jesus Christ” (p. 44).
90
One survey of the theological significance of certain words can be found in David W. Wead, “The
Johannine Double Meaning,” Restoration Quarterly 13:2 (1970), 106-120.
91
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indicates the existence of a group (or more accurately, an antisociety) who “spoke that
language.”
There are two words, specifically, in John’s Gospel that should be noted: belief and εἰς
(into). Aside from the fact that they mean something different from regular usage, their
meanings suggest exactly what I am attempting to demonstrate in this paper: That John was
written to a group in order to encourage them to move from one social structure to another. First,
we will inquire about the meaning of the word “believe” in John. Wayne Meeks has extensively
demonstrated that “belief” in John's Gospel is much more than mental conviction in regards to
truth or perceived truth. Rather, Meeks notes that the relexicalization of “belief” is inseparably
tethered to a believer's detachment from the Judean World and subsequent reattachment to the
Johannine community:
Now their becoming detached from the world is, in the Gospel, identical with their being
detached from Judaism. Those figures who want to “believe” in Jesus but to remain
within the Jewish community and the Jewish piety are damned with the most
devastatingly dualistic epithets…coming to faith in Jesus for the Johannine group is a
change in social location. Mere belief without joining the Johannine community, without
making the decisive break with “the world,” particularly the world of Judaism, is a
diabolic “lie”.92
Again, Meeks says, “Faith in Jesus, in the Fourth Gospel, means a removal from ‘the world,’
because it means transfer to a community which has totalistic and exclusive claims.”93 Although
I may not entirely agree with Meeks’ assessment of the so-called Johannine community, his
point is the same—leave the Judean World and become a part of the group where John himself
is.
92
Meeks, 69.
93
Ibid., 70-71.
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After a few illustrations of the Johannine use of “belief” one can see a distinct meaning in
other, less obvious, places. Nicodemus is a premier example of this theme for several reasons.
First, he is labeled a Pharisee and a ruler of “the Jews”. He is a textbook illustration of what it
means to be firmly ingrained within the Judean World. Second, Nicodemus is a recurring figure
in the Fourth Gospel, which, according to Meeks, is “…one of the most striking characteristics of
the evangelist’s literary procedure: the elucidation of themes by progressive repetition.”94 He
came to Jesus and expressed all the right ideas necessary to be a Christ-follower, “Rabbi, we
know that you have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do these signs that you do unless
God is with him” (3:2). Jesus told Nicodemus that he must be born again. In the context of
identity and kinship relationships it seems reasonably clear that Jesus is asking Nicodemus to be
born into a new family (social) group. Nicodemus, then, demonstrates John’s key problem with
the Judean World: he ultimately cannot seem to understand (3:10). Finally, Jesus calls upon
Nicodemus to believe,
“…whoever believes will in him have eternal life… 3:18 “He who believes in Him is not
judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in
the name of the only begotten Son of God… 3:20 For everyone who does evil hates the
Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who
practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been
wrought in God” (3:15, 18-21).
Believing and not believing are juxtaposed in this text with coming to the light and not coming to
the light. I will develop this idea momentarily, but when John uses language like this he is
describing literal movement from one social group to another. Further, the imagery of light and
darkness implies a certain public demonstration versus hiding in the darkness. Nicodemus’
repeated problem was that he wanted to be a Christ-follower, but he did not want to leave the
94
Meeks, 55.
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Judean World in order to become a Christian. Rather, he was content to come to Jesus “at
night.”
Later, we encounter Nicodemus among a group of officers, chief priests and Pharisees
who are upset because their agents who were sent to seize Jesus failed after hearing him speak.
Nicodemus tried to covertly speak on Jesus’ behalf, after which he is chastised, “You are not also
from Galilee, are you?” (7:44-52). The reader is rooting for Nicodemus to do the right thing and
publically confess what we all know he believes; but we also fear for him because we know that
confessing his belief is tantamount to declaring himself a traitor. The text ends without
resolution and the reader experiences a certain degree of disappointment that Nicodemus did not
testify.
The final encounter with Nicodemus is when he assists Joseph of Arimathea with
preparing Jesus’ body. This account is immersed in the recurring theme that some people within
the Judean World are Christ-followers; but their devotion is marred by the author’s reminder that
they are less than wholly devoted,
After these things Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but a secret one for fear
of the Jews, asked Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus; and Pilate granted
permission. So he came and took away His body. Nicodemus, who had first come to Him
by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds
weight (Jn. 19:38-39).
Nicodemus’ status as a believer is ultimately summarized in Jesus statement, “…you do not
accept our testimony” (3:11b). He might have been a Christ-follower, but he was not a believer
according to John’s special use of the word. In John’s Gospel, one does not believe with the
head, one believes with their feet.
A second illustration of John’s special use of “belief” is his account of Thomas.
Following Jesus’ death, the disciples gathered together on the first day of the week, but, “…the
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doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews…” (20:19). Jesus appeared to the
disciples, which ought to be the literary focus of the story. Instead, the reader is surprisingly
drawn to a statement that focuses the attention of the narrative, not on Jesus’ miraculous
appearance, but rather on the fact that Thomas was not there (20:24). The result of his absence is
Thomas’ infamous statement, “Unless I see in his hands the imprint of the nails, and put my
finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe” (20:25).
Later, when Thomas was with the disciples, Jesus appeared again and the result was Thomas’
exclamation, “My Lord and my God!” (20:28). In this account, John intimately connects the
concept of belief with being where one is supposed to be—among the disciples—while a lack of
belief is attributed to not being where one is supposed to be, which is presumably so because of
fear of the Judean World.
The pericope concludes with Jesus’ admonition for every disciple, “Because you have
seen me, have you believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed” (20:29). Most
English Bibles separate vv. 29 and 30 with some kind of indicator that 20:30-31 is the purpose
statement of the Gospel, “Therefore many other signs Jesus also performed in the presence of the
disciples, which are not written in this book; but these have been written so that you may believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” The
belief in these verses is to be understood not only in light of the rest of the Gospel, but
specifically, in light of the Thomas incident: belief in the Gospel of John is when one is where
they are supposed to be. It was for this reason that the Gospel was written—to encourage Christfollowers within the Judean World to move from their present social location into a separate and
distinct social group called Christianity.
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I will have a bit more to say about this momentarily; but first I want to draw attention to a
second indicator of literal social movement, or passage, indicated within the Gospel of John
through the use of antilanguage, specifically John’s usage of εἰς.95 εἰς is a common preposition
whose meaning is unpretentious, at best, most of the time. In Jn. 1:43 it is simply used in a
regular way to describe Jesus’ movement from one place to another, “The next day he planned to
go into Galilee…” On the other hand, when one reads the Gospel of John in light of ritual social
theory, the theme of boundary crossing becomes a major tenant of the Gospel and εἰς begins to
take on increased significance. Albrecht Oepke makes this observation in the first sentence of
his article about εἰς, “Originally spatial, this word takes on theological significance especially in
Paul and John, though also in the Synoptics and Acts.”96 For example, one of the major themes
in the Fourth Gospel is that Jesus, who existed in another form prior to the creation of the
kosmos, entered into this realm in order to dwell among us.97 It is one thing to commonly enter
into Galilee, but it is entirely another matter, permeated with theological significance, when
Jesus crosses the boundary of that which is uncreated into the realm of the created.
Aside from the sheer number of “special” uses of εἰς in the Fourth Gospel, one is
impressed by the ways in which it is used:



The most common usage in John is a call to believe into Jesus (2:11; 4:39; 6:29, 35, 40;
7:31, 38, 39; 8:30; 9:35, 36; 10:42; 11:45, 48; 12:11, 42, 44, 46; 14:1, 12; 16:8-11; 17:20)
Others include a call to believe into Jesus’ name (1:12; 2:23)
Believe into the son (3:36)
95
See Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John pp.
59-61 for a discussion of the significance of εἰς in the broader context of liminality and communitas.
Albrecht Oepke, “εἰς,” In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Edited by Gerhard Kittel,
Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Gerhard Freidrich, Vol. 2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 220.
96
97
cf. Jn. 1:9, 11; 3:19; 6:14; 8:26; 10:36; 11:27; 12:27, 46; 16:28; 18:37.
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



To pass out of judgment and death into life and eternity (5:24, 29; 6:51, 58; 11:25; 12:25,
34; 14:16).98
To enter into the sheepfold (10:28)
To believe into the light (12:36)
Additionally, there are negative examples of not believing into Jesus (6:66; 7:5, 48;
12:37, 42; 16:32), which carries the consequence of being cast “into the fire” (15:6)
There is an abiding theme of spatial movement wherein John calls for a literal transition from
one place, or state, into another. What is astounding about this call is that those who are being
called are already so-called believers. Notice, for example, in John 6 that following the feeding
of the five thousand many came to appreciate who Jesus was, “Therefore when the people saw
the sign which he had performed, they said, ‘This is truly the Prophet who is to come into the
world’” (Jn. 6:14). After Jesus and the disciples secretly left, the crowd followed them to the
other side of the sea (6:24-25) where Jesus explained that his ministry was not all about filling
bellies. Take note that, “These things he said in the synagogue” (i.e. the Judean World) and that
those who were struggling with Jesus’ words were not just “the Jews” (6:41), but also his own
disciples (6:60). John informs the reader that “Jesus knew from the beginning who they were
who did not believe” (6:64); and the manifestation of that unbelief was that, “many of his
disciples withdrew and were not walking with him anymore” (6:66). Like Nicodemus and
Thomas, the problem is not an incomplete knowledge, but a failure to be where one is supposed
to be—into Jesus and his disciples. The spacial use of εἰς in John indicates literal movement
from one place to another, or from a rites-of-passage standpoint, from one social group to
another.
In summary, I propose that the Fourth Gospel portrays two social groups: the Judean
World and Christianity. To be a Christian was not synonymous with anti-Semitic attitudes, but
I am not including εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα (into the ages) in this list because it is a regular idiom throughout the
NT and does not appear to be a “special” use in John. cf. Jn. 8:52; 10:28; 11;26.
98
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rather, it was a redefinition of the nature of the Judean World. Those within the Judean World
did not take kindly to Christ-followers tweaking the foundational precepts upon which their
world was built, namely, that Jesus was somehow on par with the one God of Israel, and that this
Jesus redefined what it meant to be Israel. The Judean World created a hostile environment
wherein one could not simultaneously be both a part of the Judean World and a Christian at the
same time. From the perspective of social theory, then, the Fourth Gospel was written for the
purpose of transitioning so-called Christ-followers within the Judean World into the body of
those who were believers. It was written, “so that you may believe.”
4) The Ritual Process in John
There is one final task for us in this study. According to Arnold van Gennep, and
especially Victor Turner, the key to movement between two social structures was the ritual.
Recall that Turner described ritual as performative, creative and transformative, and that the
ritual process happens in three stages: separation, liminality, and aggregation. The separation
phase is like a kind of death to the participant’s former structure, whether it be childhood or life
in the Judean World. The liminal stage is where the participant is neither/nor and both/and
regarding where they were and where they are going—they are betweixt and between. The
aggregation stage is when the participant is recognized as having passed through the liminal
phase and is formally accepted as a full member of the new group. To this point I have defined
the two social groups: the Judean World and Christianity. Additionally, I have called attention to
the three stage process of transformation. The Evangelist is calling for Christ-followers within
the Judean World to cease their liminality (i.e. stop being neither/nor and both/and), and to be
aggregated into the social group that I am referring to as Christianity. Our final task is to
identify the ritual(s) that accomplishes this transition.
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One key to identifying the ritual(s) in the Fourth Gospel is to understand Turner’s
terminology regarding the ritual process. He says, “The symbol is the smallest unit of ritual
which still retains the specific properties of ritual behavior; it is the ultimate unity of specific
structure in a ritual context.”99 Mathieu Deflem explains Turner’s concept of how symbols serve
as the basic unit of ritual,
Symbols can be objects, activities, words, relationships, events, gestures, or spatial units
(Turner 1967:19). Ritual, religious beliefs, and symbols are in Turner's perspective
essentially related… Rituals are storehouses of meaningful symbols by which
information is revealed and regarded as authoritative, as dealing with the crucial values of
the community (Turner 1968a:2). Not only do symbols reveal crucial social and religious
values; they are also (precisely because of their reference to the supernatural)
transformative for human attitudes and behavior. The handling of symbols in ritual
exposes their powers to act upon and change the persons involved in ritual performance.
In sum, Turner's definition of ritual refers to ritual performances involving manipulation
of symbols that refer to religious beliefs.100
Deflem says there are two kinds of symbols: dominant and instrumental. “Dominant symbols
appear in many different ritual contexts, but their meaning possesses a high degree of autonomy
and consistency throughout the total symbolic system.”101 On the other hand, “Instrumental
symbols are the means of attaining the specific goals of each ritual performance. Instrumental
symbols can be investigated only in terms of the total system of symbols which makes up a
particular ritual, since their meaning can be revealed only in relation to other symbols.”102
These definitions of symbols as the basic units of ritual helps us to refine exactly what we
are looking for in the Gospel of John, whether it be, “objects, activities, words, relationships,
99
Turner, The Forest of Symbols, 19.
100
Deflem, 5.
101
Ibid., 6.
102
Ibid., 6.
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events, gestures, or spatial units.” Since we are attempting to identify a ritual that accomplishes
the social transition from the Judean World to Christianity, we will be looking for instrumental
symbols that “…are the means of attaining the specific goals of each ritual performance.” In
other words, what symbols, if any, within the Gospel of John paint a picture of, or act out in a
performative and dramatic way, the concept of separation from the Judean World and
aggregation into a new social Christian group? If we can get a handle on the symbols that
portray this social movement, then perhaps we will be able to identify a more specific ritual that
formally accomplishes this transition. I propose the presence of two transformative rituals within
the Fourth Gospel: baptism and incipient martyrology.
First, baptism is an important theme within the early Christian motif across the board.
While baptism might not seem to be a prevalent theme in John, clearly water is, and by the time
the Evangelist wrote, the connection between water and baptism would have been taken for
granted. Water is nearly a universal symbol for ritualistic cleaning. Victor Turner says in
relation to Ndembu rituals,
Water is classified by ritual specialists in the category of ‘white’ symbols. As such it has
the generic senses of ‘goodness,’ ‘purity,’ ‘good luck,’ and ‘strength,’ which it shares
with other symbols of this class… But water has additional senses corresponding to its
peculiar properties. In that water is ‘cool’ (atuta) or ‘fresh’ (atontola), it stands for
‘being alive’ (ku-handa), as opposed to the burning heat of fire, which, like fever, means
‘dying’ (ku-fwila), especially dying as the result of witchcraft. Again, water, in the form
of rain and rivers, stands for ‘increase’ or ‘multiplication’ (ku-senguka), for fertility in
general.103
In addition to Victor Turner’s African studies, Edward Bolen says that water, “…carries the
weight of having a significant importance in Jewish, Hellenistic, Egyptian, and Christian
religious histories, it has considerable cultural consequence in the arid climate of the Near East,
103
Turner, The Ritual Process, 66.
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and it has a variety of meanings for the social sciences because of its varied uses in religious
rituals around the world.”104 For Paul, baptism represented death and resurrection; both
separation and aggregation. Let us quickly overview the water theme in the Fourth Gospel.105
In a popular article about water in the Gospel of John, David May says, “For running as a
flowing stream throughout the Gospel, in both subtle and overt situations, water is presented as a
dominant theme.”106 Consider the significance of the cleansing properties of water in John:












John the Baptist baptizing in water (Jn. 1:25-34; 3:23)
Jesus’ disciples baptizing in water (Jn. 3:22, 26; 4:1-2)
Jesus’ first sign turning water into wine (Jn. 2:1-22)
Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus about water and spirit (Jn. 3:1-21; esp. v.5)
The Samaritan woman at the well and living water (Jn. 4:7ff.; esp. vs. 7, 10)
The man who had been sick for 38 years was healed at the pool of Bethesda (Jn. 5:2-4)
Jesus and the sea
o Crossing the sea of Galilee (Jn. 6:1) before feeding the five thousand
o Peter drew out many fish from the sea (Jn. 21:11)
Jesus walking on water (Jn. 6:16-21)
The man born blind healed by washing in the pool of Siloam (Jn. 9:6-7)
Jesus washing His disciples’ feet (Jn. 13:5)
Jesus as the drink that quenches all thirst (Jn. 7:37-39)
The blood and water that came out of Jesus (Jn. 19:34)
When presented in bullet form it is difficult to miss the pervasive theme throughout John’s
Gospel—water initiates, purifies, heals and cleanses. Baptism may not be specifically mentioned
in several (or most) of these accounts, but it does not require a major leap to see the Christian
ritual in these texts. For example, consider the first of Jesus’ signs: changing water into wine at
104
Bolen, 138.
105
Interestingly, Edward Bolen had divided his dissertation into an examination of rituals in the Fourth
Gospel according to three sets of water rituals. Chapter 3 is called, “Water rituals in the early ministry of Jesus;”
chapter 4 is called, “Water rituals from Samaria to Jerusalem;” and chapter 5 is called “Water rituals in the latter
ministry of Jesus.”
David M. May, “Jesus as the Living Water,” Biblical Illustrator (Spring 1993), 63. Molly Marshall
says, “The Gospel of John gurgles.”
106
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the wedding in Cana (Jn. 2). While the story is beautiful and inspiring, John says at the end of
his Gospel that, “…these [signs] have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in his name.” One might be
tempted to think that if John wanted to inspire his readers with only seven signs that he might
have chosen a more convincing one to begin his argument. This evaluation, however, does not
take into account that John’s readers are presumably already convinced of Jesus’ Messiahship.
That is not what John is trying to accomplish. He is trying to convince them to believe with a
heavy emphasis on LEAVE. Edward Bolen reminds us that,
…the larger story of John 2:1-11 is set within the context of the ritual of marriage…
Marriage is a ritual of status transformation which allows two people to move from being
single (and all of the accompanying societal status which this position entails) to being
married. In almost every culture, marriage is one of the most important rituals because it
(generally) incorporates kinship concerns, maturation, and (future) child-bearing.107
Bolen’s notice of ritual transformation (i.e. marriage) which impacts kinship and
maturation is precisely what John wants from his readers. Bolen refers to Raymond Brown’s
commentary on John to expose the meaning of Jesus’ miracle of converting, or replacing, water
with wine,
Brown has accurately noted the pervasiveness of the concept of replacement in John 2:14:54, specifically in the replacement of Jewish institutions and religious views. He states:
“The replacement is a sign of who Jesus is, namely, the one sent by the Father, who is the
only way to the Father. All previous religious institutions, customs and feasts lose
meaning in his presence…Through such symbolism the Cana miracle could have been
understood by the disciples as a sign of the messianic times and the new dispensations,
much in the same manner that they would have understood Jesus’ statement about the
new wine in the Synoptic traditions.108
107
Bolen, 148.
108
Brown, 95 quoted by Bolen, 151-152.
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Further, take note that Jesus replaced water with wine that came from “six waterpots set there for
the Jewish custom of purification…” (2:6). Read in the light of ritual boundary crossing, this
“sign” that was recorded “so that you may believe” is perhaps one of the most revealing of the
Evangelist’s intent. He wants his readers to reinterpret their Judean World through the lens of
Jesus, and to make a social leap that is just as significant as a marriage. He wants them to
transition from water to wine.
Another important account in John is the story of the Samaritan woman. Following on
the heels of Jesus’ interaction with Nicodemus, “a man of the Pharisees…a ruler of the Jews”
(3:1), it is difficult to miss the theme of separation from the Judean World as Jesus
communicates with “a woman of Samaria” (4:7, 9, 27). Also, like Jesus’ first sign in Cana, one
is tempted to see indicators of marriage in this account. What are the implications of Jesus
meeting a woman at Jacob’s well, of all places, asking her to get him some water, and having a
discussion about husbands?109 Further, is there significance that the woman has had six
husbands, which would make Jesus (or Jesus’ church) her seventh, a symbolic number which
would not be out of the question for John? The result of this discussion is Jesus’ statement,
“Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will
give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water
springing up to eternal life” (4:13-14). The account concludes with a discussion about how
neither Jerusalem nor Samaria is where God is worshiped; and as a result of the woman’s efforts,
the people of the city “went out of the city, and were coming to him” (4:30), and “From that city
many of the Samaritans believed in him because of the word of the woman who testified…”
(4:39).
109
cf. the discovery of Isaac’s wife, Rebekah (Gen. 24), and especially, Jacob’s favored wife, Rachel (Gen. 29).
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Before further examination of the ritualistic transitional qualities of water in the Fourth
Gospel, I will introduce the second ritual in John, incipient martyrology. I am referring to the
second ritual as incipient martyrology because, like almost every other aspect of first century
culture up to this point, there was a transition happening within early Christianity. Christian
martyrdom has roots in Jesus himself since he willingly suffered and died for his cause. Certain
incidents such as Stephen’s death at the hands of an angry mob (Acts 7), James’ death at the
hands of Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12), and Paul’s various sufferings (cf. Acts 9:16; 2 Cor. 11:21ff.)
represent isolated instances of individuals who suffered for their faith; but these cases do not
appear to represent individuals who willingly invited torment upon themselves. Luke says the
Apostles, “rejoiced that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for his name” after
having been flogged (Acts 5:40-41), but it is not until Ignatius in the early second century that
we have a record of a fully developed martyrology where he does not even try or want to be
exonerated. Ignatius actually prefers death in order that he might become a true disciple of
Christ. He writes, “For even though I am in chains for the sake of the Name, I have not yet been
perfected in Jesus Christ. For now I am only beginning to be a disciple… (Ephesians 3:1).
Later, in the same letter, he writes, “…let us be eager to be imitators of the Lord, to see who can
be the more wronged, who the more cheated, who the more rejected… (10:3). To the
Magnesians he writes, “For just as there are two coinages, the one of God and the other of the
world, and each of them has its own stamp impressed upon it, so the unbelievers bear the stamp
of this world, but the faithful in love bear the stamp of God the Father through Jesus Christ,
whose life is not in us unless we voluntarily choose to die into his sufferings” (5:2). The
Martyrdom of Polycarp, the oldest Christian martyrology, testifies to this same kind of holiness
that is achieved through voluntary suffering for the sake of Christ.
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The Fourth Gospel represents a transition period in early Christianity between an
apparent lack of martyrological impulses and the later fully developed martyrology of Ignatius
and Polycarp. Initially in Christian history, the μαρτυρ- family of words, from which the word
“martyr” is derived, did not carry the idea of suffering. According to Hermann Strathmann, it
belonged to the legal sphere, “…where it denotes one who can and does speak from personal
experience about actions in which he took part and which happened to him, or about persons and
relations known to him.”110 As the chart below demonstrates, John had a particular affinity for
some of these words. Analysis of the entire Johannine corpus of μαρτυρέω, for example, reveals
that John’s message primarily concerns the nature and person of Jesus. Strathmann says,
“…here the reference is solely to the figure of Jesus as such, to His person and significance…
This is not witness to the factuality of his history, though this is presupposed and even
emphasized… Nor is it witness to certain significant events in the story… The witness is simply
to the nature and significance of His person.111 Of the forty-seven uses of μαρτυρέω, twenty-one
of them are used in conjunction with the preposition περὶ.112 In each of these instances, save
three,113 the testimony is περὶ (concerning, about) Jesus. Given that forty-seven of the seventysix times μαρτυρέω is used in the New Testament, and thirty of the thirty-seven times μαρτυρία
used, it is clear that a prominent thrust of the Johannine message is to give eye-witness, factual,
Hermann Strathmann, “μάρτυς, μαρτυρέω, μαρτυρία, μαρτύριον, ἐπιμαρτυρέω, συμμαρτυρέω,
συνεπιμαρτυρέω, καταμαρτυρέω, μαρτύρομαι, διαμαρτύρομαι, προμαρτύρομαι, ψευδόμαρτυς, ψευδομαρτυρέω,
ψευδομαρτυρία,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament Edited by Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley
and Gerhard Freidrich, Vol. 4 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964), 476. Even when a word did not specifically belong
to the legal sphere, such as μαρτύριον, it still involved the use of witness, proof and fact to persuade an audience.
110
111
Ibid., 497-498.
112
cf. Jn. 1:7, 8, 15; 2:25; 5:31, 32x2, 36, 37, 39; 7:7; 8:13, 14, 18x2; 10:25; 15:26; 18:23; 21:24; 1 Jn. 5:9,
10. Of the 76 occurrences of μαρτυρέω in the NT, it is only used in conjunction with περὶ in John and 1 John.
μαρτυρέω is used 6 times in 1 Jn. and twice it is used in conjunction with περὶ.
113
Jn. 2:25; 7:7; 18:23
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persuasive testimony about Jesus. Because of this the most frequent rendering of these words is
“testify” or “testimony.”
Distribution of the μαρτύρ- family
NA27
Gospel of John
Johannine Lit.
LXX
μαρτυρέω
76
33
47
13
μάρτυς
35
0
5
58
μαρτυρία
37
14
30
13
μαρτύριον
19
0
1
257
The weight of evidence cited above demonstrates that before the fully developed
martyrology of Ignatius and Polycarp, μαρτυρέω was largely limited to “testimony concerning
Jesus” in the Fourth Gospel. On the other hand, Strathmann suggests, “What we find in the
Johannine writings, especially Rev…forms a preliminary step towards the martyrological
concept of the witness which emerged at once in the early Church.”114 Later he says, “In the 2nd
century the impulses found in the NT, especially in the Johannine writings, are carried a stage
further.”115 While the majority of uses of words from the μαρτύρ- family indicate an oral
testimony about Jesus in John, there is a sense in which John elevates those who suffer as true
witnesses. This is precisely Paul Minear’s thesis in, John, the Martyr’s Gospel. He argues that
the author’s purpose was to encourage believers in the light of Jesus’ example to persevere in the
face of Judean persecution: “John thinks of Jesus as a martyr whose martyrdom forced followers
114
Strathmann, 502.
115
Ibid., 503.
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to accept that fate for themselves.”116 Andreas Köstenberger points out that even John’s usage of
the Old Testament is intended to validate Jesus’ suffering at the hands of the Judean World,
“Although the purposes of the formal OT citations in the first half of John’s Gospel are varied, in
the second half of his Gospel the evangelist consistently seeks to emphasize the fulfillment of
Scripture with regard to Jesus’ passion and the obduracy motif associated with it.”117 John’s
message is that God’s will is for believers within the Judean World to suffer through rejection.
Nicodemus, for example, never achieved this status. He came to Jesus by night. Some
interpreters want to understand “night” as Johannine antilanguage, which ultimately means
something like ignorance.118 This word ought to be read literally—He came to Jesus at a time
when he would not be seen by his peers. Later, in John 7 when the leadership of the Judean
World were castigating those who failed to seize Jesus, they reminded them that, “No one of the
rulers or Pharisees has believed in him, has he” (7:48)? We, the readers are thinking, “Yes!
Nicodemus believes!” Here is Nicodemus’ moment to be a witness and to testify. He almost
witnesses, but it seems as if the pressure is too great. Our last record of Nicodemus is also
shrouded in his continuing to be a secret disciple (Jn. 19:38-40). In the Gospel of John,
Nicodemus does not testify to Jesus because he is not willing to accept the consequences of
public exile that accompany one’s witness; so Jesus says, “…you do not accept our testimony”
(3:11).
Paul S. Minear, John, the martyr’s Gospel (New York: Pilgrim, 1984), 112. One difficulty that Minear
faces is that he dates the Gospel before the destruction of Jerusalem. As I have already discussed, it might be
difficult to identify wide-spread Judean persecution before the establishment of Rabbinic Judaism. Nevertheless, I
think he is exactly right to see John as a kind of incipient martyrology.
117
G. K. Beale and D. A. Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand
Rapids: Baker Academic, 2007), 416.
116
See Wead, pp. 117-120, “In addition to the sinister aspects of night, E. Hoskyns suggests the Jewish
desire to discuss the law by night and the solitude. B. Westcott sees the timidity with regard to the Jewish
authorities. While C.K. Barrett may be right in connecting the coming by night with the contrast between light and
darkness at the conclusion of the discourse…” (pp. 119-120).
118
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The classic example of this scenario is John 9 when Jesus healed the man who had been
born blind. The man was brought before the Pharisees and questioned. John says,
The Jews then did not believe it of him, that he had been blind and had received sight,
until they called the parents of the very one who had received his sight, and questioned
them, saying, “Is this your son, who you say was born blind? Then how does he now
see?” His parents answered them and said, “We know that this is our son, and that he
was born blind; but how he now sees, we do not know; or who opened his eyes, we do
not know. Ask him; he is of age, he will speak for himself.” His parents said this
because they were afraid of the Jews; for the Jews had already agreed that if anyone
confessed him to be Christ he was to be put out of the synagogue. For this reason his
parents said, “He is of age; ask him” (Jn. 9:19-23).
After questioning the formerly-blind man again, he witnessed to the miraculous work of Jesus,
and it was this that caused him to be put out of the synagogue. The difference between the man
and his parents is that the man was willing to accept excommunication from the Judean World
which accompanied testifying about Jesus, while his parents, like Nicodemus, were not.119 It is
for this reason that I have referred to this concept in John’s Gospel as incipient martyrology—it
is merely the beginning of what would later be more fully developed; but it does carry with it
more than mere words. One must suffer in the form of public exile in order to be a believer since
a believer, according to John’s vocabulary, is one who has left the Judean World (recall, not of
their own choosing, but as a matter of consequence) in order to join the body of Christians.
The specific details of this ritual process are uncertain. Did believers come in contact
with the cleansing water associated with Jesus (i.e. baptism), and as a result they were exiled
from their community? Or, were they exiled from their community as a result of their confession
of Jesus’ messianic status (separation), and then baptized as a means of incorporation into the
Wayne Meeks says, “One of the primary functions of the book, therefore, must have been to provide
reinforcement for the community's social identity, which appears to have been largely negative. It provided a
symbolic universe which gave religious legitimacy, a theodicy, to the group's actual isolation from the larger
society” (p. 7).
119
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body of believers (aggregation)? I cannot be more specific about the details of the process; but
one could assert with some confidence that both contact with water as well as incipient
martyrdom constituted the elements of the ritual transition. These symbols (i.e. purification,
death, separation, etc.) at least serve as elements within the ritual drama to play out what the
Evangelist is attempting to accomplish with his readership.
There are several important themes that seem to be in close proximity to one another in
John. Over and over we see public discipleship (e.g. light vs. dark), a special camaraderie
among believers (e.g. new kinship relations), water, and suffering in a variety of forms
throughout the Fourth Gospel. The themes of utter humiliation (i.e. suffering), camaraderie
among brethren and water are all connected in Jn. 13:5ff. when Jesus washes his disciple’s feet.
Initially, Peter responded by refusing to allow his Lord to experience such humiliation. Jesus
responded, “If I do not wash you, you have no part with me.” The connection between water and
humiliation is clear, and without them Peter has no part in Jesus. Naturally, the humiliation that
John’s implied readers were faced with was the decision to break ties with their former kinship
group and move to an entirely distinct one. This humiliation was the bonding agent that
provided a sense of cohesiveness among this new body of Christians. Victor Turner called this
communitas.120 Deflum explains,
120
Not only does the communitas experience serve as a kind of bonding agent among those who experience
it, it also serves the greater purpose of forming a new group. Mathieu Deflem explains Turner’s theory, “As such,
communitas refers to one of the three components of the liminal phase in rituals. Yet there is more. In The Ritual
Process, Turner (1969a:96-97) argued that communitas and structure also refer to two modalities of society. Turner
conceived society as involving a dialectic process between communitas, the undifferentiated community of equal
individuals, and structure, the differentiated and often hierarchical system of social positions. This dialectic process
appears in the course of history in a cyclical way: ‘Maximization of communitas provokes maximization of
structure, which in turn produces revolutionary strivings for renewed communitas’ (129). Turner (1969a: 131-140)
distinguished three types of communitas in society: (1) existential or spontaneous communitas, which is free from
all structural demands and is fully spontaneous and immediate; (2) normative communitas, or existential
communitas, which is organized into a social system; and (3) ideological communitas, which refers to Utopian
models of societies based on existential communitas and is also situated within the structural realm. The types of
communitas are phases, not permanent conditions” (p. 15).
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…during the liminal phase in a ritual performance all are treated equally, deprived of all
distinguishing characteristics of social structure, constituting “a community or comity of
comrades and not a structure of hierarchically arrayed positions” (Turner 1967:100). In
The Ritual Process Turner introduced the concept of communitas to denote this feeling of
comradeship among the liminal personae.121
Arpad Szakolozai refers to the effects of communitas as “existential togetherness”: “This case
also shows how Turner’s communitas, (or the sense of togetherness which develops and is
usually kept for life among those who go through such a rite together), can help socio-political
analysis.”122 Through enduring the water and humiliation rituals together, or in like manner to
one another, the unity for which John was striving among believers was acted out in a ritual
drama that used symbols to portray the transition.
The ultimate portrayal of this combination in the Fourth Gospel is when Jesus’ side was
pierced by a soldier and blood and water came out (Jn. 19:33-34). First, like Jesus’ first miracle
in Cana, this event takes place directly in the midst of a cross-culturally emphasized life-crisis
ritual: death.123 Bolen notes, “As we have seen above, the washing of the disciples’ feet not only
foreshadowed the death of Jesus, but it was intended to incorporate them into the fellowship of
his death.”124 One of the more popular ways to handle the outpouring of blood and water today
is to search for a medical explanation for what was happening to Jesus; but “Throughout the
Fourth Gospel, water is almost always used in some form of transformation ritual.”125 Bolen
summarizes the significance of this event, “How, then does water function as a ritual symbol in
121
Deflum, 14.
122
Szakolozai, 160.
123
Bolen, 211.
124
Ibid., 211.
125
Ibid., 213.
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John 19:34? The most simplistic interpretation is that the water serves to represent the
tremendous transformation that takes place in the death of Jesus. Water represents change: the
change necessary to have faith and the change necessary to accomplish the work of God.”126 In
John’s Gospel the change for which John is asking corresponds to a kind of death; and that death
is symbolized and acted out in the ritual process involving both water and suffering. In the case
of Thomas who refused to believe, he needed to physically come into contact with Jesus’
suffering by putting his finger into the hole from which water and blood proceeded before his
belief was consummated. This contact could only take place when Thomas was, in spite of his
fear of the Judean World, where he was supposed to be: among Jesus’ disciples.
5) Conclusion
The earliest form of Christianity was composed of Judeans who lived within the
boundaries of the Judean World, and were content to do so, but who additionally proclaimed that
Jesus was the Messiah. Over the span of several years, even decades, the leadership within the
Judean World resented and rejected the Christ-follower’s attempts to redefine the Hebrew
Scriptures in light of Jesus’ messianic status. Following the destruction of Jerusalem and the
birth of Rabbinic Judaism, Christ-followers across the ancient Mediterranean world were faced
with a decision: remain peacefully within the kinship structure of the Judean World, which
demanded rejecting Jesus and his disciples as heretics, or join the band of Judean pariahs at the
cost of excommunication from the totality of one’s social being. This is the note from which to
begin our song so the harmony which the author had in mind might be played in tune.
As the master of ceremonies over the ritual process, the Evangelist wrote the Fourth
Gospel as a reminder that a believer who does not publicly profess Jesus is, in fact, no believer at
126
Ibid., 213.
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all. John does not veil the Gospel message in terms of health and wealth. In fact, the ritual of
confirmation that both symbolizes and accomplishes a believer’s social transition from the
Judean World into Christianity is the act of suffering. This metaphoric death is symbolized, not
only by the purifying effects of water, but also the literal inevitable separation from one’s
indigenous social home. John wrote so that his readers may believe. He wrote so that they
would move from where they were to where they needed to be—among Jesus’ family of
believers.
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