Understanding the Fourth Gospel

606 Pages·2007·2.13 MB·English

by  John Ashton

UNDERSTANDING THE
FOURTH GOSPEL
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UNDERSTANDING THE
FOURTH GOSPEL
Second Edition
John Ashton
1
3
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BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
Ashton,John1931–
UnderstandingtheFourthGospel.
I.Bible.N.T.John—Criticalstudies
I.Title
226.506
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Ashton,John,1931–
UnderstandingtheFourthGospel
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
I.Bible.N.T.John—Criticism,interpretation,etc.I.Title.
BS2615.2.A74 1991 226.506—dc20 90-43422
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ISBN0-19-929761-4 978-0-19-929761-0
13579108642
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foreword
IrememberwellthefirstconversationIhadwithJohnAshtonthirty
years ago. We briefly touched on a topic witch we had both inde-
pendently noticed, namely, what he was to term ‘intimations of
apocalyptic’ in the Gospel of John. At that time the writing of his
justlycelebratedstudyoftheGospelofJohnwasstilltenyearsaway.
Its gestation and birth are a testimony to the world before the
Research Assessment Exercise when a slower and for that reason
morelonglastingcontributiontoknowledgecouldbeachieved.
Ashton’s big book is based on the assumption that the key ques-
tions regarding the gospel are those tackled by Rudolf Bultmann in
his classic commentary of 1941, and throughout the book he is in
continuousdialoguewithBultmann’smethodsandconclusions.He
departsfromBultmann,however,inviewingtheFourthGospelasa
profoundlyJewishdocumentthatcanbeonlyproperlyunderstoodin
the light of the struggles that were endemic in the aftermath of the
destruction of the Second Temple. His essay on the development of
Johannine Christianity from conventional Jewish messianism to a
more sophisticated christological presentation is masterly. The bib-
lical text comes alive within the hypothetical history of religious
traditions,asthestoryoftheJohanninecommunityisimaginatively
andcarefullyreconstructed.
For me, the climax of John Ashton’s book is his exposition of the
theme of revelation, identified by Bultmann as the key idea of
the gospel yet here located within a thoroughly Jewish milieu. His
original, and substantial, exposition of the gospel in the light of the
apocalyptictraditionismasterfulinitseconomyandprofoundinits
insight. Curiously,thispartofthestudyhasnotmadetheimpactit
shouldhavedone,for,inmyviewithassetthecourseforhistorical
thestudyofthisaspectofthegospelinitsJewishmilieuforyearsto
come.Whatismore,itpavesthewayforsimilartreatmentsofearly
Christianliterature.Hisdescriptionofthegospelasan‘apocalypsein
reverse’, so fitting in its enigmatic quality for a text which is itself
puzzling the reader with its riddles, so accurately summarizes that
viii Foreword
avoidanceoftypicalapocalypticterminologywithinthegospelatthe
same time as the spirit of apocalyptic remains so characteristic of
thegospelasawhole.Curiously,hedoesnotpursuewhatwouldbe
the obvious next interpretative step: the elucidation of the relation-
ship, whether literary or in terms of a debt to a common world of
thought. The apocalyptic literature of Second Temple Judaism has
madeasignificant contributionnotonlytotheApocalypsebutalso
totheGospelofJohn.Thetwoareverydifferenttexts.Thegospelisa
bookofwitnesstotheuniqueanddefinitiveemissaryfromtheworld
above, whereas the Apocalypse is a book of prophecy. Both texts,
however,offerinnarrativeandvisionaryformwordswhichseekto
bring about an epistemological and ethical transformation in
readers/hearers in preparation for the eschatological meeting ‘face
toface’eitherintheNewJerusalem(Rev22:4)orinheavenwiththe
exaltedChrist(John17:24).Theirhopeforthisworldmaybedifferent
buttheirtheologicalpresuppositionsareremarkablysimilar.
The second area where John Ashton’s remarkable exegetical in-
sight could have elucidated the interpretation of this remarkable
book is in the area of Wirkungsgeschichte. It is not only in literary
texts but also in art, and, of course, music that this text has been
interpreted in very different media. I am firmly of the opinion that
thisdimensionofhistoricalstudyenhancesthehistoricaldiscussion
of the text’s antecedents and immediate historical context. John
Ashton’s wide tastes and interest make this an obvious next step
forthissensitiveinterpreterwhohadanaturalflairforinterdiscipli-
naritylongbeforeitbecameabuzzwordinthehumanities.
Despite this, Ashton’s book stands as one of the major contribu-
tions to the study of Christian origins and New Testament theology
overthelasttwentyyears.Itisaclassic exampleofcarefulanalysis
andjudicioususeofageneration’sscholarshipwhichhasledtothe
encapsulationandconsolidationofthatgeneration’swisdom.
As befits friends and colleagues, we still go on discussing areas
whereIwouldhavewishedJohnwouldhavetakenmattersfurther.
Forexample,onceonehasfoundtheapocalyptickeytotheGospelof
John,thereisthecrucialJohanninequestionabouttherelationship
totherevelatorytextintheNewTestament,theApocalypse.Butthis
isagreatbook.Itisbeautifullywrittenandistestimonytothevalue
ofmaturereflectionratherthanthehurriedrushtopublish.
Foreword ix
Itissogoodtoseeitwithasecondeditionwiththemoreextended
treatments of various issues included in which the significance of
whathehasdiscoveredhasbeentakenfurther.
ChristopherRowland