John: Interpretation

259 Pages·1988·16.662 MB·English

by  Gerard Sloyan

John
GERARD S. SLOVAN
John
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Bible
for Teaching and Preaching
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John Knox Press
ATLANTA
John
INTERPRETATION
A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching
INTERPRETATION
A BIBLE COMMENTARY FOR TEACHING AND PREACHING
James Luther Mays, Editor
Patrick D. Miller, Jr., Old Testament Editor
Paul J. Achtemeier, New Testament Editor
Scripture quotations are from the Revised Standard Version of the
Holy Bible, copyright, 1946, 1952, and @ 1971, 1973 by the Division
of Christian Education, National Council of the Churches of Christ in
the U.S.A. and used by permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sloyan, Gerard Stephen.
John.
(Interpretation, a Bible commentary for teaching
and preaching)
Bibliography: p.
1. Bible. N.T. John-Commentaries. I. Title.
II. Series.
BS2615.3.S56 1988 226'.507 87-45549
ISBN 0-8042-3125-7
@ copyright John Knox Press 1988
109876543
Printed in the United States of America
John Knox Press
Atlanta, Georgia 30365
SERIES PREFACE
This series of commentaries offers an interpretation of the
books of the Bible. It is designed to meet the need of students,
teachers, ministers, and priests for a contemporary expository
commentary. These volumes will not replace the historical criti
cal commentary or homiletical aids to preaching. The purpose
of this series is rather to provide a third kind of resource, a
commentary which presents the integrated result of historical
and theological work with the biblical text.
An interpretation in the full sense of the term involves a
text, an interpreter, and someone for whom the interpretation
is made. Here, the text is what stands written in the Bible in its
full identity as literature from the time of "the prophets and
apostles," the literature which is read to inform, inspire, and
guide the life of faith. The interpreters are scholars who seek
to create an interpretation which is both faithful to the text and
useful to the church. The series is written for those who teach,
preach, and study the Bible in the community of faith.
The comment generally takes the form of expository es
says. It is planned and written in the light of the needs and
questions which arise in the use of the Bible as Holy Scripture.
The insights and results of contemporary scholarly research are
used for the sake of the exposition. The commentators write as
exegetes and theologians. The task which they undertake is
both to deal with what the texts say and to discern their mean
ing for faith and life. The exposition is the unified work of one
interpreter.
The text on which the comment is based is the Revised
Standard Version of the Bible. The general availability of this
translation makes the printing of a translation unnecessary and
saves the space for comment. The text is divided into sections
appropriate to the particular book; comment deals with pas
sages as a whole, rather than proceeding word by word, or verse
by verse.
Writers have planned their volumes in light of the require-
ments set by the exposition of the book assigned to them. Bibli- v
cal books differ in character, content, and arrangement. They
also differ in the way they have been and are used in the liturgy,
INTERPRETATION
thought, and devotion of the church. The distinctiveness and
use of particular books have been taken into account in deci
sions about the approach, emphasis, and use of space in the
commentaries. The goal has been to allow writers to develop
the format which provides for the best presentation of their
interpretation.
The result, writers and editors hope, is a commentary
which both explains and applies, an interpretation which deals
with both the meaning and the significance of biblical texts.
Each commentary reflects, of course, the writer's own approach
and perception of the church and world. It could and should not
be otherwise. Every interpretation of any kind is individual in
that sense; it is one reading of the text. But all who work at the
interpretation of Scripture in the church need the help and
stimulation of a colleague's reading and understanding of the
text. If these volumes serve and encourage interpretation in
that way, their preparation and publication will realize their
purpose.
The Editors
vi
PREFACE
The commentary on the Fourth Gospel that follows in
these pages lays no claim to novelty or exhaustive treatment. It
is not exegetical except in a general expository sense. That is to
say, it does not presume (or attempt to supply) the knowledge
of Hellenistic or "common" (koine) Greek vocabulary and syn
tax required to follow a philological or grammatical argument
although at times one or another such argument may be alluded
to. Some users of this book may know the Greek text of John
well; others may once have been familiar with it as a student's
exercise. Sufficient numbers, however, will be unfamiliar with
the original language in its nuances or indeed at all that the
insertion of words and phrases in Greek may be an intrusion or
frustration.
Neither will this commentary contain textual study of the
sort in which the case is made for the author's preferred read
ing. Here, again, a layperson's knowledge of the problems of
text transmission will suffice. The settlements opted for in the
twenty-sixth, most recent edition of the Nestle-Aland Novum
Testamentum Graece (1979) are considered satisfactory. Any
departure from those readings will be noted when it seems
important to do so.
The commentary's chief attempt will be to provide or to
invite certain religious insights into matters with which preach
ers and teachers have long been familiar. These will depend
chiefly on the rich scholarship of the Gospel of John which has
become available since the nineteen twenties. To it will be
added certain of the writer's own insights. The body of available
J ohannine scholarship is daunting in its very bulk. Conflicting
positions are taken by those expert in text, word-meaning and
grammar, in the life world and thought world of Hellenist Juda
ism, in the attempted reconstruction of the history of early
Christianity. The last is especially the case as this history reveals
a development into Gnosticism on the one hand and the more
catholic interpretations found in First John, Ignatius, and Irena-
eus on the other. vii
No attempt will be made at a consensus position from
among the modern giants like Bultmann and Barrett, Braun
INTERPRETATION
and Dodd, Brown and Schnackenburg, and Lindars and Morris.
This commentary will not be a homogenized interpretation in
which sharp differences among those authors are eliminated
and major agreements are featured. One must turn to them,
author by author, to see how they interpret various passages in
John, especially the stoppers (cruces interpretum). The task
essayed here will be simpler than any such survey of what is
called "the literature." It will be to hew to a single line on the
meaning of the whole Gospel and various aspects of it which
seem defensible to the writer.
Overall, this book will consider major themes or facets of
the Gospel in preference to chapters or verses (which are re
spectively thirteenth and sixteenth-century divisions in any
case). John is made up of vignettes, discourses, and narrative
pericopes which are both shorter and longer than the tradi
tional chapter divisions. Any analyses of the Gospel which were
to assume the absolute rightness of these divisions would betray
it. At the same time, chapter and verse divisions are those most
familiar to any who know John well. Second in order, surely,
comes the paragraphing courageously attempted by modern
teams (like the editor-translators of RSV, NAB or NIV). A more
recent element still in sense-division is the attempt of the fram
ers of the four lectionaries currently in use--the Catholic, Epis
copal, Lutheran and Common (produced by the Consultation
on Common Texts)-to determine where portions of John cho
sen for public proclamation should begin and end. The four sets
of choices in the three-year cycle will be indicated, normally at
the beginning of a passage's treatment for commentary. In that
scheme, readings from John are inserted into year-long continu
ous readings from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Lectionary prac
tices of this sort are the oldest way in which the Scriptures were
shared with believers at the weekly assembly. The invention of
printing, coupled with the theological principle that the Holy
Spirit's prompting of the preacher should determine the por
tions to be read and preached on, did much to bring the prac
tice into disuse. But some Christians never abandoned it and
many churches in our day are returning to it. Attention is paid
to the practice in the following pages not to promote it but as
a convenience to readers. It should be interesting to all to see
viii which portions ofJohn are proposed for public worship services
and how editors subsequent to those who produced the Roman
Lectionary (1969) think the Johannine sense is better preserved
Preface
both by non-omission and by starting and stopping the reading
at places other than the ones first proposed.
For those who preach from one of the church lectionaries
currently in use, the intermittent use of pericopes from John
may create a problem. As selections from this Gospel are in
terspersed within the three "synoptic years," they seem to be
used to complement the other Gospels rather than to have an
independent existence. This means that developing a sustained
Johannine outlook in the pulpit will not be an easy matter.
Any single development by John is an integral part of his
project. This can mean that congregations who hear good
preaching will have John's few major motifs made clear to them
whatever the pericope in hand. Some people are by tempera
ment already on the Fourth Gospel's wavelength. Others will
never be. By the homilist's careful exposition, all hearers should
be free to decide.
The chapter divisions in the commentary are in some cases
dictated by the inner logic of the Gospel; in others they are the
simple matter of conforming to the choices made when
thirteenth-century Archbishop Stephen Langton of Canter
bury divided it into chapters. Thus, the subject matter of John
18-19 makes those chapters a natural grouping. The case is
similar with 13-17 and 20-21 (although the argument for
treating the latter two separately could be termed as strong or
stronger). John 1:1-18 and 19-51 deal with quite distinct mat
ters, yet they will be commented on together. The same is true
of 4: 1-42 and 43-54.
One familiar division which this commentary will not em
ploy, except to note its popularity, is that between a "Book of
Signs" (1:19-12:50) and a "Book of Glory" (13-20), with chap
ter 21 as an appendix. The reason is that all such editorial helps
for writer and reader--except for the last-named, which is a
clear fact of the Gospel's composition-give the impression that
the author had this distinction in mind. That would be hard to
establish. Jesus' "raising up" in both crucifixion and glorification
is the greatest of the signs in the Gospel, although not so desig
nated by that word, yet it does not appear in a hypothetical
"Book of Signs." Likewise, Jesus' glory with the Father is re
vealed, not merely anticipated, by his words and works in the
first twelve chapters. The clear distinction between the two ix
"books" proves inadequate although undoubtedly a convenient
device.