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 Page 2 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 3 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 4 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 5 “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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 6 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 7 (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 Page 8 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 9 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 10 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 11 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 12 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 13 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 14 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 15 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). The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 16 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 17 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 18 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 19 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 20 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 21 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). The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 22 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 23 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 24 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). The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 25 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 26 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). The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 27 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 28 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 29 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 30 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 31 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 32 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 33 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 34 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 35 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 36 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 37 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 38 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 39 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 40 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 41 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 42 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 43 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 44 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 45 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 46 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 47 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 48 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 49 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). The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 50 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 51 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 52 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 53 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 54 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 The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 55 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). The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 56 …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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 57 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 58 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. The Ritual process in the Gospel of John by Ryan Boyer Page 59 Bibliography Social Science Resources Deflem, Mathieu. “Ritual, Anti-Structure, and Religion: A Discussion of Victor Turner’s Processual Symbolic Analysis.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 30:1 (1991): 1-25. Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge Classics. London: Taylor & Francis, 2002. Durkheim, Émile. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Thousand Oaks, CA: BN Publishing, 2008. Segal, Robert A. “Victor Turner’s Theory of Ritual.” Zygon 18:3 (September 1983): 327-335. Szakolozai, Arpad. “Liminality and Experience: Structuring transitory situations and transformative events.” International Political Anthropology 2:1 (2009): 141-172. Thomassen, Bjørn. “The Uses and Meanings of Liminality.” International Political Anthropology 2:1 (2009): 5-27. Turner, Edith L. B. “The Genesis of an Idea: Remembering Victor Turner.” Zygon 21:1 (March 1986): 7-8. 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Meeks, Wayne. “The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism.” Journal of Biblical Literature 91:1 (March 1972): 44-72. Miller, David M. “The Meaning of Ioudaios and its Relationship to Other Group Labels in Ancient ‘Judaism.’” Currents in Biblical Research 9:1 (October 2010): 98-126. _______. “Ethnicity Comes of Age: An Overview of Twentieth-Century Terms of Ioudaios.” Currents in Biblical Research 10:2 (February 2012): 293-311. _______. “Ethnicity, Religion and the meaning of Ioudaios in Ancient ‘Judaism.” Currents in Biblical Research 12:2 (February 2014): 216-265. Minear, Paul S. John, the Martyr’s Gospel. New York: Pilgrim, 1984. Oepke, Albrecht. “εἰς,” In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Edited by Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley and Gerhard Freidrich. Vol. 2. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1964. 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