6. Revelatory Motifs: Knowledge, Vision, Signs

GIVEN JOHN'S PERVASIVE USE of his distinctive theological vocabulary, we cannot pause to comment on various Johannine motifs every time one occurs; indeed, the careful reader familiar with the Fourth Gospel will notice such prominent motifs without a commentary's aid. Because many of these motifs reflect Johns broader milieu, however, the commentary's commitment to provide extrinsic context for readers means that we must address them at least in introductory fashion. Some pervasive Johannine themes presuppose a significant cultural context which cannot be redescribed under each text where one is mentioned. For this reason, a number of the Fourth Gospel's themes and theological perspectives will be traced in the remaining two chapters of this introduction. While in the next chapter we will address Jesus» deity and some other particularly Christian themes primarily in the context of their early Christian and Jewish background, in this chapter we will examine some revelatory themes or motifs which also have a significant context in the ancient Mediterranean world.

If one seeks to locate Johannine Christianity within general trajectories of early Christianity in the final five decades of the first century, one is struck by its distinctive, or better, composite nature. Yet, as noted above, the term «sectarian» applies to it in only a qualified sense, though it certainly applies in the sense in which it applied to early Christianity in genera1. John moves within a predominantly Jewish framework, like Matthew, though he emphasizes the Gentile mission less; his is likely also the Judaism of the Apocalypse, of the seven congregations portrayed as menorahs like the synagogue communities of the ancient Mediterranean world (Rev 1:12–13, 20). The Apostle John was linked with Peter in the Jewish mission (Gal 2:7–9), and it is not surprising that a Gospel associated with John's name initially circulated in such circles.

At the same time, Pauline Christianity had left its mark on Asian churches. John's emphasis on the indwelling of Christ and the Spirit for moral and relational empowerment finds far more parallels in Paul than in other extant early Jewish and first-century Christian sources.¹⁹⁵³ Granted, John does not use Paul's language for salvation or justification;¹⁹⁵⁴ but this is at some points more a stylistic matter than one of substance.¹⁹⁵⁵ Different writers emphasized different points, but when viewed from the broad spectrum of early Judaism and Christianity, John had a great deal in common with Pau1.¹⁹⁵⁶ The common points with various circles of early Christianity, as well as the differences, suggest that this Gospel provides a glimpse into a distinctive (yet not wholly separate) circle of late first-century followers of Jesus. Some of John's distinctive (though not wholly unique) contributions use the language of knowing and seeing God, depicting the intimate relations believers have with Jesus. Because John makes a claim that his opponents would not make, this claim to direct revelatory knowledge also supports the Gospel's apologetic and polemical function,¹⁹⁵⁷ as does its pneumatology, which likewise includes a revelatory component.¹⁹⁵⁸

By claiming that Jesus» «sheep» know him (10:3–4,14–16), John alludes to biblical images of the covenant people in covenant relationship with God. The Fourth Gospel often uses the language of knowledge and vision to define those who are in this covenant relationship. Signs can produce some faith, but ultimately John demands a faith, vision and knowledge that run deeper than any continued dependence on signs, regardless of how faith begins. This chapter will survey John's revelatory motifs and the broader setting in which they would have been most intelligible to a first-century Mediterranean audience.

We begin with John's teaching about «knowing» the Father and Jesus. Because John writes in Greek, his epistemological terminology is necessarily Greek, and we must therefore briefly survey Hellenistic concepts of knowledge.¹⁹⁵⁹ But his understanding of revelation is securely anchored in OT traditions of God's revelation, so we will also examine various particularly Jewish understandings of knowledge of God. In the following discussion, we employ various Greek terms for knowledge interchangeably,¹⁹⁶⁰ as ancient writers often did.¹⁹⁶¹

These motifs relate to an important side of John's pneumatology, namely, the Spirit of revelation. Because we will treat the Paraclete passages extensively later in this commentary, and because we have elsewhere devoted considerable space to a discussion of another aspect of John's pneumatology, we have chosen not to lengthen this introduction further by commenting extensively on his pneumatology.¹⁹⁶² It suffices to mention briefly that John's pneumatology fits his polemical argument: the presence of the eschatological Spirit, not even claimed by most of the synagogue authorities, identifies the true messianic community.¹⁹⁶³

Knowledge about the universe often had ethical implications; thinkers sometimes identified knowledge of self with knowledge of God. But no one perspective on knowledge adequately summarizes the whole range of Greek conceptions.

Given the variety of philosophical schools in Greco-Roman antiquity, it should not surprise us that many perspectives on knowledge existed. In Greek thought, knowledge could refer to knowledge about a field of study, for example, medical knowledge.¹⁹⁶⁴ Stoics defined knowledge as certainty,¹⁹⁶⁵ «what may be termed Scientific Realism»;¹⁹⁶⁶ following them, a famous rhetorician could likewise insist that knowledge be substituted for opinion.¹⁹⁶⁷ Many cited as part of his heuristic method Socrates» claim that he did not know anything.¹⁹⁶⁸ Admissions of ignorance, though usually disdained,¹⁹⁶⁹ were a better starting point for learning truth than a pretense of knowledge;¹⁹⁷⁰ thus, for example, Protagoras¹⁹⁷¹ and Melissus¹⁹⁷² claimed agnosticism with regard to the existence of the gods. Whereas some philosophers believed that one could not know anything with certainty, however,¹⁹⁷³ other philosophers like Epictetus ridiculed them: How could they know that nothing was know-able?¹⁹⁷⁴ In contrast to the sophists (who began with affirmations of what they knew), philosophers probably usually began with an admission of lack of knowledge so that they could pursue knowledge through questioning.¹⁹⁷⁵

Knowledge could involve virtue, a more difficult area of study than learning some other field.¹⁹⁷⁶ Thus a Cynic writer defines wisdom as the ability to «know» (έπιτάσθαι) the good;¹⁹⁷⁷ Stoics defined piety or worship as knowing how to serve the gods;¹⁹⁷⁸ a second-century Stoic emphasized knowing good from evil;¹⁹⁷⁹ a neoplatonist declared that true intellect was fully virtuous and led to perfection.¹⁹⁸⁰ Most writers distinguished the general kind of knowledge from virtue, however; Aristotle differentiated between virtues and knowledge, noting that the latter could be used wrongly as well as rightly.¹⁹⁸¹ Greek writers could also use knowledge as the essence of reality, a sense rare to Hebrew's semantic range and to the interests of Israelite thought before hellenization.¹⁹⁸²

The Delphic maxim «Know yourself» probably originally meant to recognize onés limitations as a human and thus submit to the gods and onés lot in life.¹⁹⁸³ It became one of the most frequently cited sayings of Greek antiquity,¹⁹⁸⁴ many writers regarding it as one of lifés most basic truths.¹⁹⁸⁵ Ancient interpreters applied it in a variety of ways,¹⁹⁸⁶ some still in a manner consistent with its original sense. Plutarch, for example, declares that the flatterer violates the maxim by causing others to deceive themselves.¹⁹⁸⁷ Elsewhere, addressing those who would censure others, he admonishes them to «know themselves,» that is, search themselves first.¹⁹⁸⁸ A Cynic writer explained that self-knowledge included diagnosis of onés soul's diseases, moving one to obtain proper philosophic treatment.¹⁹⁸⁹ One speaker declares that mortals understand who they are only when they study all of nature.¹⁹⁹⁰ A Roman satirist uses the saying to critique those specializing in esoteric knowledge while ignorant of daily matters.¹⁹⁹¹ Aristotle noted that the vain are those who lack self-knowledge.¹⁹⁹² Some of Platós applications retained the basic sense: virtue must come from knowledge, and true self-control is related to proper self-knowledge.¹⁹⁹³

This idea of knowledge as humility was not limited to the statement «Know yourself»; as Epictetus pointed out, «… the man who does not know who he is, and what he is born for, and what sort of world this is that he exists in, and whom he shares it with … such a man, to sum it all up, will go about deaf and blind, thinking that he is somebody, when he really is nobody.»¹⁹⁹⁴

Other applications became more common in time, however. The magical papyri apparently used the saying as an exhortation to secure power over onés daimon by magical formulas, using it for inquiry.¹⁹⁹⁵ It moved even farther from its original sense in the Hermetica, which interpreted it into a summons to divinization.¹⁹⁹⁶ Long before the Hermetica, Cicero interpreted the maxim as declaring that it was godlike (divinum) to know onés own sou1.¹⁹⁹⁷ By Pompey's day an Athenian inscription announced that recognition of onés humanity produced divinity.¹⁹⁹⁸ Neoplatonic self-knowledge included the reality that the real self did not include the body, inviting divine union;¹⁹⁹⁹ many philosophers had linked knowledge of God and participation in divinity.²⁰⁰⁰ This view never supplanted the humbler meaning of self-awareness, however; not long after the time of John, Plutarch interpreted the response to «Know yourself» as recognizing that only the deity was changeless and mortals were not divine.²⁰⁰¹

The Fourth Gospel focuses on knowledge of God, which Greek writers also discussed. As noted above, not all Greek thinkers identified knowledge of self with knowledge of God. The mystery religions and later gnosticism claimed to impart special esoteric knowledge, whereas the philosophers tended to emphasize rational approaches to knowledge.²⁰⁰² To a Cynic writer, true knowledge of God included right understanding of his character, as revealed by creation rather than by mortals» ritua1.²⁰⁰³ To a Stoic writer, knowing what God is like (e.g., that he has all things) will deliver mortals from superstition (e.g., sacrifice).²⁰⁰⁴ By cutting off the dead part of the soul, one could know God (γνώση τόν θεόν, Musonius Rufus 53, 144.24–25). A later neoplatonist emphasized correct understanding about God, which led to correctly approaching him and and to onés mind being conformed to his character.²⁰⁰⁵ To a Pythagorean writer, knowledge of God led to quietness²⁰⁰⁶–presumably the same understanding of onés proper station that correct self-knowledge produced. Yet most philosophers held that knowledge of God was quite rare.²⁰⁰⁷ Many writers echoed Platós view concerning knowledge of God; as Nock put it, «… few sayings echoed in men's minds more than, «To discover the Maker and Father of this universe is a task, and after discovering him it is impossible to tell of him to all men» (Tim. 28C). Posterity evolved the idea of a remote Supreme Being, a deus absconditus, wholly separated from phemonena and not to be described save by the via negativa!»²⁰⁰⁸

The Platonic emphasis on knowledge of God may parallel the Fourth Gospel, but the contrast is most striking in John's actively self-revealing God who fully reveals himself in his appointed messenger, the Word made flesh (see on the sending motif below, and the Logos under John 1:1–18).²⁰⁰⁹

Also relevant to the usage in the Fourth Gospel is experiential knowledge of a deity in Hellenistic interpretations of mystery initiations. Plutarch declares that the goal of the rites of Isis» priests «is the knowledge [γνώσις] of Him who is the First, the Lord … the Ideal One»;²⁰¹⁰ he opines that even her name indicates the goal of knowledge.²⁰¹¹ Perhaps closest to the Johannine concept among Hellenistic perspectives is a third-century portrayal of the first-century «divine man» Apollonius of Tyana, who reportedly knew the gods personally rather than by opinion.²⁰¹² A mortal in another work by the same third-century writer claims that some purported historical events must be true, since his informant, a deceased hero, confirms them.²⁰¹³

But revelatory knowledge or secret knowledge imparted only through initiation is common to many societies.²⁰¹⁴ Mundane as the observation may seem, the experience such language depicts had become a standard part of Jewish lore in terms of the experience of the prophets. If John s readers are Jewish Christians, they might associate most naturally with the prophets of ancient Israel the experience he describes.²⁰¹⁵

Others have proposed that John's emphasis on «knowledge» is one of the clearest links between John and Gnosticism, whether by way of comparison or contrast.²⁰¹⁶ Dodd pointed to the close parallels between John and later hermetic literature on knowledge of God.²⁰¹⁷ Some suggest John's sympathy with a gnostic perspective but view his avoidance of the term γνώσις as intentionally dissociating himself from Gnosticism.²⁰¹⁸ Others more reasonably suggest that John's omission of the term may polemicize against Gnosticism; certainly if John uses gnostic terms at all, it is in an antignostic manner.²⁰¹⁹ The avoidance of the noun may or may not be meant to challenge incipient Gnosticism; as with John's use of «believe» rather than «faith,»²⁰²⁰ his use of «know» rather than «knowledge» could reflect «the Semitic tendency to employ verbs wherever possible in place of the cognate noun.»²⁰²¹ Other early Christian writers also preferred the verb to the noun, although not quite as consistently.²⁰²²

The earliest modern comparative studies on John s theme of divine knowledge sometimes produced parallels from literature much too late and susceptible to Christian influences, such as Manichean²⁰²³ and Mandean²⁰²⁴ literature, but from the beginning gnosticism as we know it emphasized γνώσις (hence the name). Gnostic knowledge included revelation or illumination of essential salvific secrets, knowing the unknowable, and participation indivine existence.²⁰²⁵ Gnosticism's emphasis on knowledge was more specifically oriented toward these goals than most Greek conceptions of knowledge,²⁰²⁶ but some currents of Hellenistic thought were already moving in this direction, as one may witness from Philo (below). But, as we shall argue below, Philo stops short of full mystical absorption into the divine, and John falls short of Philo.²⁰²⁷ John's conception of knowledge and revelation also finds close parallels in Palestinian Judaism.²⁰²⁸ Knowledge and revelation appear in Christian texts dependent on wisdom themes long before gnostic influences (e.g., 1Cor 1:21; 2:2,4–16).

Gnosticism identified knowledge of God with life (cf. John 17:3),²⁰²⁹ but this identification may depend on John, and the concept appears in some sense also in the OT.²⁰³⁰ In contrast to gnostic knowledge, Johannine knowledge is closely identified with and dependent on faith;²⁰³¹ John's language here resembles the OT, which employed «knowledge, faith and love» in related ways.²⁰³²

The key of knowledge is not used for unlocking the various doors of the surrounding heavens so that man may escape from his prison house, nor does John give any indication that he shares the belief that mans wretchedness is due simply to ignorance; it is due rather to sin. Man cannot be saved by the acquisition of cosmological secrets; no such secrets are given in the gospe1. … in John as in Paul the real medium of salvation is faith.²⁰³³

Finally, Johannine knowledge emphasizes intimacy, as often in Christian literature, and Christian texts emphasized this perspective long before gnosticism had become an issue (e.g., Matt 11:27; Luke 10:22; Gal 4:9).²⁰³⁴

As with other elements of the Gospel, in this case John's theme of knowledge fits its immediate Jewish and biblical milieu, although also understandable in many respects in its broader Mediterranean framework. One intersection of biblical and the broader Hellenistic frame of reference is Philo, though his ideas reflect a greater influence of Greek philosophy than is encountered in most early Jewish sources, including the Fourth Gospe1.

Philo provides our largest sampling of data concerning knowledge of God in Hellenistic Judaism. He emphasizes knowledge (έπίγνωσις)²⁰³⁵ and a craving for knowledge (επιστήμη),²⁰³⁶ even replacing manna with heavenly knowledge²⁰³⁷ and indicating that the Logos dwells in knowledge.²⁰³⁸ Knowledge of God makes people his children.²⁰³⁹ Philo combines revelation with intuition; divine revelation can «spring up within the sou1.»²⁰⁴⁰ For Philo, God's reality is attested by nature, but God himself is essentially ineffable, or unknowable, by natural means.²⁰⁴¹ As important as reason is, the highest mysteries are available only through direct experience with God.²⁰⁴²

Despite significant parallels between John and Philo,²⁰⁴³ their views on knowledge are not quite identica1. John's solemn declaration of the incarnation goes beyond any conception of the Philonic Logos. In most passages in Philo, the highest revelation must transcend «the mediating role of the Logos,» but in John, knowledge of God is complete by knowledge of the Logos, Jesus Christ.²⁰⁴⁴ John's usage is far less philosophical than Philós, with a more practical purpose. Thus, while Philo is instructive in suggesting how a Jewish philosopher could apply Jewish concepts of revelation in a Hellenistic milieu, we should also survey other Jewish models to provide a fuller semantic background for Johannine usage.

Hellenism influenced Jewish views of knowledge,²⁰⁴⁵ but the focus of knowledge in Judaism remained the Torah.²⁰⁴⁶ People could know God because he had revealed himself; only rarely did a person such as Abraham attain knowledge of God by reasoning from evidence in nature.²⁰⁴⁷ The primary avenue for knowing God was the Scriptures, especially as illumined by community tradition with the guidance of the Spirit.

Knowledge in the Qumran Scrolls. The purported parallels of Johannine knowledge with gnosticism may be explained more naturally in terms of John's Jewish origins. As Hengel observes, «The apocalyptic-Essene conception of knowledge anticipates many essential features of that in gnosticism.»²⁰⁴⁸ The Dead Sea Scrolls heavily emphasize knowledge of God,²⁰⁴⁹ and many scholars have pointed out that John's understanding of a hidden knowledge shared only by the elect resembles that of the Dead Sea Scrolls.²⁰⁵⁰

Knowledge retains its traditional Hebrew moral associations in the Scrolls, which sometimes associate it with justice.²⁰⁵¹ The most critical knowledge is knowledge of God's will, as Lohse notes:

God, without whose will nothing takes place, teaches all understanding (1QS 11.17f.; 3.15). He reveals what is hidden and makes his mysteries known (lQpHab 11.1; 1QS 5.11; 1QH 4.27; etc.). The will of God is made known to the members of the covenant community in the covenant, that is, the legal statutes given by God (1QS 3.1; 8.9f). This knowledge includes the obligation to do the will of God (1QS 1.5; 9.13; etc.) and to conduct onés life according to the will of God.²⁰⁵²

In the Scrolls, personal knowledge of God is essential and comes by revelation.²⁰⁵³ Thus the author of one Qumran document extols God as the source of knowledge, enlightening the writer to understand God's mysteries.²⁰⁵⁴ For the Qumran sect, knowledge was a gift from the Spirit.²⁰⁵⁵ Knowledge was salvific, and its focus was understanding of the Law, which God had given to the Teacher of Righteousness and those who followed him.²⁰⁵⁶ In the Scrolls,²⁰⁵⁷ as in the OT,²⁰⁵⁸ knowledge will be complete in the eschatological time. For John, that time has arrived.²⁰⁵⁹

Other Jewish Conceptions of Knowing God. The conception of knowledge emphasized in Qumran literature can hardly be limited to Qumran; the common Jewish liturgy preserved in the Eighteen Benedictions portrays knowledge as a divine gift in language similar to that of the Dead Sea Scrolls.²⁰⁶⁰ This general Jewish conception corresponds with only part of the Greek philosophical idea; as Dodd declares, for the Greek, to know God means to contemplate the ultimate reality … in its changeless essence. For the Hebrew, to know God is to acknowledge Him in His works and to respond to His claims. While for the Greek knowledge of God is the most highly abstract form of pure contemplation, for the Hebrew it is essentially intercourse with God; it is to experience His dealings with men in time, and to hear and obey His commands.²⁰⁶¹

As in the Scrolls, so in early Judaism generally, wisdom and knowledge included a strongly ethical component, sometimes including an urging to imitate God,²⁰⁶² which was generally lacking in Greek texts.²⁰⁶³ For pre-Christian sages, knowledge of God included the recognition that he alone is the true God.²⁰⁶⁴ The wicked were those who did not know him²⁰⁶⁵ or his Law,²⁰⁶⁶ and might mock the righteous for claiming to have the knowledge of God (γνώσις θεου).²⁰⁶⁷ R. Meir interpreted Hosea 2'Know the Lord» as those sharing the qualities listed in Hosea 2:21–22 knowing God's wil1.²⁰⁶⁸

In Judaism (Sir 1:19) as in John (1:1–18), knowledge comes from Wisdom. Various writers associated essential knowledge with the Law; in Baruch 3:36, the way of knowledge represents the Law (4:1). The rabbis, who emphasized knowledge specifically of the Law,²⁰⁶⁹ taught that one would know God through learning²⁰⁷⁰ and obeying²⁰⁷¹ his Law; some rabbis believed that one would come to know God truly through studying haggadah.²⁰⁷² Some Jewish scholars see an indication of a mystical experience with God in such study and other activities;²⁰⁷³ where scholars were gathered to study Torah, God's presence was among them.²⁰⁷⁴

In Jewish thought, only Israel possessed the Law and therefore only Israel knew God.²⁰⁷⁵ While John's basis for the covenant community is christological and not ethnic, John also limits knowledge of God to his broader community, that is, those who know Christ (8:55; 10:14–15; 14:9; 15:21; 17:3). Naturally, John's picture of the incarnation goes beyond contemporary Jewish conceptions of divine revelation, although some rabbis emphasized that God communicated to people in human terms they could grasp.²⁰⁷⁶

The Old Testament Basis. Contemporary Jewish perspectives accorded with the ethical emphasis in OT knowing of God (e.g., Jer 22:16). «Knowledge of God» in the OT usually indicated a right relationship with him, one predicated on proper knowledge about him, and expressed in genuine piety (Dentan suggests that the phrase essentially meant genuine religion).²⁰⁷⁷ In relation to God, «knowledge» indicated the covenant relationship.²⁰⁷⁸ Because the ancient Israelites did not compartmentalize human nature as the Greeks and those influenced by them did, they did not understand «knowing God» in purely intellectual terms; it included a strong affective component as well, so that «to know» could mean «to love» or be intimate with (Gen 4:1; Ps 1:6); the passive form could indicate an intimate relationship (Ps 55:13; 88:18).²⁰⁷⁹ Thus while «knowing God» in Hosea includes correct knowledge about God (e.g., 4:6, on the Law),²⁰⁸⁰ true knowledge of God includes a covenant relationship (2:21)²⁰⁸¹ and obedience (4:1; 5:4; 8:2);²⁰⁸² false religion is inadequate (6:6; 8:2; cf. 6:3).

As in subsequent Jewish thought, knowledge of God was always dependent on his prior self-revelation; God often acted in history so that people «might know that I am YHWH» (the phrase appears fifty-four times in Ezekiel alone).²⁰⁸³ Exodus, like John, stresses the role of signs in revealing God's glory (Exod 16:7). Pharaoh did not know YHWH (Exod 5:2), but Egypt would come to know God s supremacy (7:5,17; 8:10, 22; 9:14, 29; 10:2; 14:4,18) and Israel (6:3–8; cf. 16:12) would come to know YHWH as their own God in his redemptive acts.²⁰⁸⁴ As in John, God's identity or character was a primary object of knowing in Isaiah (43:10–11),²⁰⁸⁵ and only God's people were in genuine covenant relationship with him.²⁰⁸⁶ Whereas the Greek approach to knowledge was often metaphysical, the OT emphasis was a relationship which «continually arises from personal encounter.»²⁰⁸⁷

Although many theologically loaded terms recur frequently in the Fourth Gospel (e.g., believe, life, save) the most common by far are the two verbs meaning «know,» γινώσκω and οίδα.²⁰⁸⁸ The theme of intimacy with Jesus and the Father is developed with other language as well, such as «fellowship» (e.g., 1 John 1:3–7), terms for indwelling, other terms of relationship («with,» «sent from»), and especially Spirit-language; but we focus in this section on the terms translated «know.»

Although some have attributed slightly different nuances to Johns two terms for «know,»²⁰⁸⁹ a survey of his usage will show that their semantic ranges overlap and that he uses them basically interchangeably. (That the «new covenant» passage of Jer 31[38LXX; cf. Heb 8:11] employs γινώσκω and οΐδα interchangeably might possibly have influenced John s usage, but probably he would have used both terms for variety anyway.) Both terms signify «recognition»²⁰⁹⁰ and "realization»;²⁰⁹¹ both are directly related to witness;²⁰⁹² and both can be used confessionally.²⁰⁹³ The usage «investigate or find out» occurs only once, hence cannot be figured into the count (7:51, γινώσκω). The following breakdown further confirms that John uses the two terms interchangeably, as well as employing them as part of his polemic against his community's opponents.

Know (knowledge)

γινώσκω: 8(?); 11:57; 12:9

οΐδα: 13:17; 15:15,18

Understanding

γινώσκω: 3:10; 10:6, 38; 13:7, 12; (14:9); 14:20; 17:7–8; 18:18

οΐδα: 3:8; 4:22, 25, 32; 10:4–5; 11:49

Understand Scripture

γινώσκω: 12:16

οΐδα: 20(cf. 2:22)

Pharisaic assertions

γινώσκω: 7(2x), 49; 8:52

οΐδα: (3:2, 8); 6:42; 8:14; ch. 9, passim

Ignorance of Jesus» enemies

γινώσκω: 3(Nic); 7:27,49; 8:27; (8:52); 8:55

οΐδα: (2:9); 3(Nic); (4:22, 32); 6:42; 7:28; 8:14; ch. 9, passim; 11:49; 14:5; 16:30–31

Know origin/destination

γινώσκω: 7:27

οΐδα: 3:8; (6:6?); 6:42; 7:27–28; 8:14; 9:29–30; 12:35; 14:4–5; (18:2)

Relational knowledge

γινώσκω: 1:10*²⁰⁹⁴; 8(?); 10:14; 14:7,9, 17; 17:3, 25

οΐδα: 1:26*; 5:13*; 7(3d use); 8:19; 10:4–5; 14:7; 15:21; 16:3

Jesus knows the Father

γινώσκω: 8:55; 10:15; 17:25²⁰⁹⁵

οΐδα: 5:32; 7:29

What Jesus knows

οίδα: 3:11; 5:32; 8:37; 12:50

Jesus» omniscience concerning humanity²⁰⁹⁶

γινώσκω: 1(?); 2:24–25; (4:1); (5:6); 5:42; 6:15; 16:19

οίδα: 6:61, 64 (Judas); 13(Judas)

Jesus» omniscience concerning his hour

οίδα: 13:1,3; 18:4; 19:28

Jesus» omniscience concerning «all things»

οίδα: 16:30; 21:17

Jesus knows in predestination

γινώσκω: 1:48; 10(?)

οίδα: 13:18

In most cases the varied distribution of the two terms is not statistically significant,²⁰⁹⁷ reflecting if anything location in the book. (John sometimes seems to prefer the term more fresh on his mind at the time, e.g., οίδα in ch. 9 but both terms in ch. 10 where he develops the issue further.) The only exception related to topic and hence difference in semantic range might be John s preference for οίδα with regard to knowledge of origin or destination, and this may have become simply a matter of habit. Even placement in the book usually is not significant:

Placement of terms in a book sometimes simply indicates which terms were fresh on an author's mind; thus before 10.419 the Odyssey often prefers διοτρεφές, «fostered by Zeus,»²⁰⁹⁸ but in books 10 through 14 διογενές, «born from Zeus,» becomes the preferred term, regardless of the speaker.²⁰⁹⁹ The former term prevails again in book 15,²¹⁰⁰ afterward occurring occasionally (22.136; 24.122), whereas the latter term frequently applies to Odysseus.²¹⁰¹ Likewise, the Odyssey employs the adjective λευκώλενος, «white-armed,» more often in books 6 (6.101,186,239,251) and 7 (7.12,233) than previously, though it is a common term in the Iliad. Such random distributions are no more significant as indicators of Johns theology than they are in the Odyssey.²¹⁰²

When each passage is investigated, parallels between passages using different terms become obvious, and it becomes clear that the terms are used interchangeably. Allowing for stronger psychological nuances of one term or the other that never become hard-and-fast rules, and ignoring chapters and artificial conceptual divisions, preponderance of one term or the other in random areas (esp. ch. 9) shows that Johns variation was mostly random and unintentiona1.

Although Hellenistic knowledge could involve virtue, the moral sensibility of knowledge as defined in terms of keeping the commandments is a particularly Jewish concept, and is recurrent in the Johannine literature,²¹⁰³ especially in 1 John. One knows that one knows him because one keeps his commandments (1 John 2:3; 3:6; 5:2, 18), that is, walks in love (3:14; 4:7–8,13; 5:2) rather than hatred (3:15), and adheres to the truth (4:6; 5:13). One lives this way by the indwelling Spirit (3:24; 4:13), and through Johns message (5:13), which his hearers know to be true (3 John 12). Because of the polemical context of the Fourth Gospel, however, the most essential prerequisite for true knowledge is believing the claims of Jesus (e.g., John 14:7,17), which is tantamount to believing the Father (e.g., John 7:28–29; 8:19).

For John, as in the OT and Judaism, God's historical self-revelation is the basis for knowing him, in acts such as his signs (e.g., 2:11) and in his whole self-revelation, especially in the cross (see comments on 1:14). For John, true faith in and knowledge of God cannot be separated from the historical Jesus (cf. 1 John 4:1–6), as the very narrative format he employs suggests.²¹⁰⁴ But those who abide in «the world» responded to, and continue to respond to, the Jesus of history wrongly, because they do not have the Spirit to guide them. Only the person born from above can «see» the kingdom of God (3:3, 5).

Knowledge in the Fourth Gospel includes a covenant relationship ( 10:4,14–15), but this relationship is expressed in intimate communication from the Spirit of truth (see comments on 15:13–15; 16:13–15). This is part of John's polemic: an establishment that prides itself on knowing the Law consistently misinterprets it, but the believers, who do not demonstrate an academic proficiency equal to that of their accusers, nevertheless demonstrate a more direct knowledge of God that none of their opponents even claim for themselves. Thus, Whitacre notes that Jesus» opponents» claim of loyalty to the Law is a claim to knowledge of God; in the same way, John's repudiation of their claim to interpret the Law faithfully contends that they do not know God.²¹⁰⁵ John's community lays claim to an experience which it is difficult to criticize–or even acknowledge–from the standpoint of the more (albeit not totally) rationalistic epistemology common to many ancient elites.²¹⁰⁶

The frequency of false assertions of knowledge by Jesus» opponents in polemical contexts strengthens the view that «knowledge» is a critical theme in the Fourth Gospel and an integral part of Johannine polemic.²¹⁰⁷

A Johannine motif closely related to «knowing God» is «seeing God»; vision functioned as a natural metaphor and analogy for knowing (e.g., Maximus of Tyre Or. 6.1) John follows especially the figurative usage of the prophets, often developing the motif with double en tendres. Scholars have proposed a variety of backgrounds for this motif.

Earlier in the century, Bousset declared that the virtual interchangeability of knowledge and sight in the Fourth Gospel was «rooted in the soil of Hellenistic, Oriental piety,» unfortunately adding, «This no longer needs detailed proof.»²¹⁰⁸ Despite the excessiveness of his optimism, spiritual vision was indeed prominent in Hellenistic sources (e.g., Rhet. Alex. pref.l421a.22–23). Because Stoics believed that the action of a spirit attached to the eye generated vision, many Greeks did not perceive vision as simply passively receiving diffused light.²¹⁰⁹ This may have augmented the analogy of minds seeking divine light.

Plato emphasized the vision of the mind which could see ideal forms;²¹¹⁰ the physical senses were deceitful, so the soul should «trust nothing except itself and its own abstract thought of abstract existence; and to believe that there is no truth in that which it sees by other means … whereas the soul itself sees that which is invisible and apprehended by the mind.»²¹¹¹ In time many writers emphasized the mind's or soul's ability to see; Cicero declared that minds desire to see truth and acquire a vision of heavenly realities,²¹¹² and Marcus Aurelius declared that one of the Rational Soul's properties was its ability to see itself.²¹¹³ Stoics like Epictetus²¹¹⁴ and Marcus Aurelius²¹¹⁵ regarded the ignorant masses as «blind,» unable to see. In the same way, Seneca indicated that only the pure mind can comprehend God.²¹¹⁶

While various sources report the goal of vision in the Mysteries,²¹¹⁷ our most eloquent sources are those of writers (such as Apuleius²¹¹⁸ and especially Plutarch) who could interpret this goal in light of the reigning philosophical paradigms of their day. In Hellenistic mystic philosophy, a deity like Osiris was so «far removed from the earth, un-contaminated and unpolluted and pure from all matter,» that mortals» souls could gain of him at most «a dim vision,» comparable to a dream, through philosophical thought.²¹¹⁹ A wise teacher could view the gods with his mind, though they were remote from his eyes.²¹²⁰ In the mid-second century, the eclectic Platonist orator Maximus of Tyre stressed vision by the intellect (Or. 11.9; 38.3).²¹²¹ He noted that at death those who love God will see him, ideal Beauty and pure Truth (Or. 9.6; 10.3; 11.11).²¹²² In the meantime, one can strip off the layers of sense perception in the world's beauty to see God (Or. 11.11).²¹²³ The soul can recall its prenatal vision of divine beauty only vaguely (Or. 21.7); while such beauty remains perfect in the unchanging heavens, it grows faint in the lower realms of the senses (Or. 21.7–8). The third-century founder of neoplatonism sought such vision: «By a kind of self-hypnotism, induced through meditation upon the infinite, Plotinus … is said to have experienced in a trance actual visions of the transcendent God, «who is without shape of form, established above the understanding and all the intelligible world.»»²¹²⁴ Developing his views according to the Platonic model, Plotinus declared that the soul's vision, a sort of inner sight, contemplated the beauty of the Good in the realm of Ideas.²¹²⁵ Many of his followers, however, retained older popular mythology alongside such views.²¹²⁶

Such views influenced Jewish and Christian perspectives concerning the vision of God. A later, heavily hellenized Christian work notes that the soul of the wise hears²¹²⁷ and sees²¹²⁸ God.

Most of the potential Hellenistic philosophical semantic range for vision is duplicated in Philo, making clear to what extent a Jewish writer schooled in Greek philosophy could echo its language and ideas. Philo stresses true knowledge (επιστήμη), available through seeing what actually is, not dependent on the body and its senses.²¹²⁹ Like other philosophers, he condemned blindness of soul,²¹³⁰ an image played on for centuries even in popular drama.²¹³¹ Wisdom could enable the soul to see; vision, the swiftest of senses, was preferable to hearing, so inspiration was preferable to mere lectures.²¹³²

Because Philo s God is absolutely transcendent, he can be known only through ecstatically experienced mystical vision.²¹³³ Only the pure soul may envision God:²¹³⁴ thus Abraham perceived God not with physical eyes, but with those of the soul;²¹³⁵ the prophets were «seers» because of the active eyes of their souls;²¹³⁶ «Israel» means «the one who sees God.»²¹³⁷ In agreement with the traditional Jewish conception echoed by John, vision depends on God s revelation: «For it were impossible that anyone should by himself apprehend the truly Existent, did not he reveal and manifest Himself.»²¹³⁸

But all vision in the present mortal state is incomplete. The only vision to which mortals can attain is knowledge that God is, not what he is.²¹³⁹ «For this which is better than the good … cannot be discerned by anyone else; to God alone is it permitted to apprehend God.»²¹⁴⁰ The souls eye is overwhelmed by God s glory,²¹⁴¹ yet «though the clear vision of God as He really is is denied to us, we ought not to relinquish the quest. For the very seeking, even without finding, is felicity in itself, just as no one blames the eyes of the body because when unable to see the sun itself they see the emanation of its rays.»²¹⁴² One should progress toward clearer vision; the ultimate vision of God was a reward for attaining perfection.²¹⁴³

As in the OT, God is invisible,²¹⁴⁴ but he sometimes reveals part of his glory. John, less enamored with Greek philosophical ideas of divine transcendence to begin with, clearly differs from both Greek and Greco-Jewish writers in a major respect: the Word became flesh. Philo allows that one can come to the Logos, but warns that God is so transcendent over creation that even here one cannot fully perceive him;²¹⁴⁵ in John, however, one who sees Jesus sees the Father (John 14:9). Whereas for Philo virtue is the prerequisite for vision of God, John often understands purity as resulting from a vision of God (cf. 1 John 3:2–3,6).²¹⁴⁶

Dodd regards the vision of God as Greek, contending that the motif has little importance in the OT and Judaism.²¹⁴⁷ He is partly right: Johns language in this case reflects Greek motifs, albeit especially by way of hellenized Judaism. But on another level, the Greek motif is insufficient by itself to explain Johns usage, expecially given his biblical allusions (e.g., 12:40). John never means abstract contemplation of a metaphysical reality;²¹⁴⁸ if anything, the frequency with which he employs vision on the literal level suggests encounter with the incarnate Jesus of history.²¹⁴⁹ Although John does not draw the vision analogy explicitly, his comparison of Jesus with Moses» serpent in John 3may identify faith in the historical Jesus with God's promise: «Whoever looks will live» (Num 21:8–9).

Further, the motif of spiritual sight and blindness in the Jesus tradition (e.g., Mark 4:12; 8:18; Matt 13:13–16; 15:14; 23:16; cf. Acts 28:27; Eph 4:18) was rooted in the OT images.²¹⁵⁰ The motifs of eschatological vision,²¹⁵¹ spiritual blindness and sight representing straying from or following God's way,²¹⁵² and spiritual sight representing spiritual insight into God's character and mysteries,²¹⁵³ persisted in «intertestamental» Palestinian Judaism.

Most strands of Judaism continued to apply this language,²¹⁵⁴ often even to revelations of God himself. The rabbis had to explain biblical passages referring to Israel seeing God;²¹⁵⁵ they commented on the rare persons who in some sense «beheld» his presence in the present time²¹⁵⁶ but especially focused on the eschatological vision of God.²¹⁵⁷ According to some later rabbis, obedience to the Law produced nearness to, and in some sense vision of, God;²¹⁵⁸ Merkabah literature stressed the mystical vision of God.²¹⁵⁹ John may use the imagery of heavenly ascents (cf. comment on 3:3, 13; cf. Rev 1:10), but usually he uses the term more figuratively: spiritual perception of the true character of Jesus and the realm «above,» insight which enabled an intimate relationship with (not merely a mystical experience of) God. Given John's predominantly realized eschatology, it is also possible that he implies a realization of the eschatological vision of God in Jesus (cf. 3:3, 36; 8:51, 56; 12:41; Heb 11:13; 12:14; 1 John 3:2; Rev 1:7).²¹⁶⁰

John probably uses his vocabulary for vision interchangeably for the sake of variation, as he uses his vocabulary for knowledge.²¹⁶¹ John employs vision terminology theologically in two ways: some see God s glory in Jesus,²¹⁶² whereas others have eyes and see, but do not really see (perceive), misunderstanding the signs and Jesus himself.²¹⁶³ Johns direct sources for the motif are the vision of God in Exod 33–34 (see comment on John 1:14–18) and Isa 6 (see comment on John 12:40). By contrasting the blind leaders of the blind and the prophetic remnant (9:39), John encourages his readers to maintain their faith against an opposition that seems intellectually and religiously superior but lacks the intimate relationship with God available in Christ. For Johannine theology, various backgrounds may offer their contributions for a christological purpose: as Moses was glorified by observing Gods glory (cf. 2Cor 3:7–18; John 1:14–18), so contemplation of the divine character in Jesus transforms believers in him (cf. 1 John 3:2,6). In the Gospel, vision often focuses on more initial stages of faith.

Because the Fourth Gospel's object of seeing and believing, as well as the cause of believing and knowing, is often signs, the next section will examine the function of signs in antiquity and their role in the Fourth Gospe1.

Signs fulfill a specific literary function in the Fourth Gospel, summoning the reader, like the witnesses in the narratives, to either faith or rejection (with emphasis on the former, 20:27–31).²¹⁶⁴ Because signs also fulfilled important functions in the Greco-Roman world and in early Judaism, John's first readers (or more accurately, hearers) would, consciously or unconsciously, have evaluated the Johannine signs by contrast or comparison with other signs-claims of the day. Although readers would have placed those signs most securely in the context of OT prophetic signs and those of the Jesus tradition they had already received, we should give adequate attention also to the broader cultural nuances which will be less familiar to most modern interpreters.

A «sign» (σημεΐον) signified something beyond itself, and functioned as a proof or attestation; thus the term appears in rhetoric as well as in the context in which we employ it.²¹⁶⁵ Events could thus be «signs» in the sense of portents,²¹⁶⁶ but miracles themselves were signs authenticating God's power.²¹⁶⁷ Although John prefers the term «sign» because his narratives and discourses develop the significance of Jesus» miraculous works, the following discussion encompasses miraculous works in general, which were often called «powers» (δυνάμεις, usually translated «miracles» in the NT).²¹⁶⁸

Much has been written concerning a putative «signs source» in John, providing arguments for it²¹⁶⁹ or noting weaknesses with the thesis.²¹⁷⁰ Some have drawn parallels between John's and Mark's signs sources, but they are not particularly persuasive.²¹⁷¹ Scholars have even proposed original contexts for the assembling of such a source,²¹⁷² such as a group similar to Paul's Jewish-Christian opponents in 2Cor 10–13,²¹⁷³ the Johannine community's conflict with disciples of John the Baptist,²¹⁷⁴ or a Galilean community using the Elijah-Elisha cycles to portray Jesus as a northern prophet.²¹⁷⁵ The biggest weakness of the theory is that, despite arguments to the contrary, the text betrays no evidence for it; the Fourth Gospel is a stylistic unity.²¹⁷⁶

The single best argument for supposing the existence of a Johannine signs source is the claim that such documents existed elsewhere in antiquity, for example, as aretalogies. But an aretalogy as broadly defined could include a simple list of praises or boasts by a divinity,²¹⁷⁷ aretalogies were diverse in form,²¹⁷⁸ the proposed connections between aretalogies and «divine men» have been found wanting,²¹⁷⁹ and collections of miracle-workers» deeds appear in the OT as well (e.g., 2 Kgs 5; 20:1–11).²¹⁸⁰ Thus while a collection of miracle stories behind the Fourth Gospel remains reasonable, the Hellenistic divine man concept frequently associated with such a collection is without foundation.²¹⁸¹ Still, John's recounting of signs, whether representing a particular pre-Johannine source or not, functions as aretalogies generally functioned: to authenticate and publicize the power of Jesus to do mighty works, the very works people were seeking.²¹⁸² The question of a specific signs source for the Fourth Gospel therefore should not detain us as we examine literary and milieu questions more available for our investigation.

As in the gospel tradition, so in Mediterranean antiquity in general (and in most societies not influenced by Western Enlightenment rationalism) signs held evidential value. Thus, for example, Jupiter once came disguised in human form, but got the common folk to worship him after he provided a «sign» (signum)²¹⁸³

Form critics have endeavored to identify various forms of miracle stories in the Gospels, seeking parallels to these forms in Mediterranean antiquity.²¹⁸⁴ In contrast to Bultmann's ascription of most Gospel healings to one large group,²¹⁸⁵ Dibelius, for instance, separates «paradigms» from the more fanciful and hellenized «tales.»²¹⁸⁶ Such forms were reshaped for use in cohesive narratives, just as various records of cures in the Epidauros inscriptions were stylized into standard forms for posterity.²¹⁸⁷ The introductory notes present in discrete accounts at Epidauros and in the Talmud would be dropped when miracle stories were incorporated into connected narratives like the Gospels.²¹⁸⁸ «Fantastic tales» and other fictitious elements in works with historical settings grew popular especially beginning in the literary revival of Neros reign.²¹⁸⁹

The most basic format of a miracle story is, as one would expect, a description of (1) the circumstances of the healing, (2) the healing itself, and (3) its confirmation or effects on the audience.²¹⁹⁰ The exact format varies somewhat depending on the situation addressed by a particular collections editors. A sampling of Epidauros inscriptions, for instance, could yield the following steps in description:²¹⁹¹

(1) Statement of the suppliant's original infirmity (sometimes including the infirm person's name and home city, probably for documentation)

(2) The suppliant comes to the sanctuary

(3) (Optional: the suppliant sometimes mocks the cures listed in the inscriptions)

(4) (Usually) the suppliant sleeps in the sanctuary

(5) (Usually) Asclepius appears to the suppliant in a dream

(6) When day arrives, the person emerges cured.

Some features, such as the suppliant coming to the sanctuary and the practice of incubation (sleeping in a deity's sanctuary to receive a dream),²¹⁹² characterize a local healing shrine as distinct from a traveling teacher.²¹⁹³ The occasional record of the suppliant's skepticism about a miracle actually occurring serves to heighten the impact of the miracle and to challenge would-be skeptics, but incidentally contrasts directly with the common emphasis on faith in the Jesus tradition (cf. Mark 6:5–6).

Perhaps more to the point are stories of individual wonder-workers in Greek tradition. One may take, for example, the fictitious account of an Egyptian prophet who performs a resuscitation of someone dead.²¹⁹⁴ Not everyone viewed these wonder-workers positively; magicians were generally feared and usually detested. Although miracle working tended to be public and magic secretive, miracle workers in the Greco-Roman world could easily be understood as sorcerers.²¹⁹⁵ The Pythagorean Empedocles reportedly would «perform magical feats» (γοητεύω)–a term that generally had unpleasant connotations.²¹⁹⁶ Ferguson is probably right that «behind Philostratus are two older views of Apollonius–as a magician and charlatan or a wonder-worker and theosoph»;²¹⁹⁷ the magical character of some of the deeds is still frequently evident in Philostratus,²¹⁹⁸ although he is trying to clear Apollonius of the charge.²¹⁹⁹

Although most pagan parallels to miracle worker stories first appear in third-century literature,²²⁰⁰ after accounts of Jesus» miracles had become widely known, the known powers of Dionysus, Asclepius, and others before their apotheosis refutes in advance any possible suggestion that pagans had no pre-Christian stories of healers. Indeed, given the passage of sufficient time, Greek and Roman tradition often transferred miracles from one character to another,²²⁰¹ and sometimes intensified them.²²⁰² Still, differences must be taken into account; as Kee objects, «to offer Philostratus or the Greek Magical Papyri as historical evidence for events reported by writers of the first century, who were operating within a very different life-world, such as the writers of the Gospels and Acts, is historiographically irresponsible.»²²⁰³ The third century particularly accentuated the ancient longing for direct intervention by the gods, as Kee notes,²²⁰⁴ although that longing was probably more widespread in an earlier period than Keés survey suggests. Healing accounts had already become more detailed and began to appear in literary texts in the imperial period, a period in which magic also began to acquire greater prominence, and empirical medicine began to decline.²²⁰⁵ Certainly stories of the distant past abounded with regular divine interventions in heroes» lives; compare, for instance, the Argonautica of the second-century B.C.E. poet Apollonius of Rhodes.

But third-century miracle narratives are much more complete than early miracle accounts in Herodotus, Livy, or Plutarch, suggesting that later pagan propagandists actually developed their accounts according to the increasingly popular Christian parallels.²²⁰⁶ Thus parallels between first-century Christian stories of Jesus raising the dead and third-century accounts of first-century Apollonius of Tyana doing the same may tell us more about Christian influence on paganism in late antiquity than about the reverse.²²⁰⁷

Perhaps more to the point, some pre-Christian Jewish parallels, especially those in the OT, likewise parallel the miracle forms used in the Gospels.²²⁰⁸ It is intrinsically more likely that even the most hellenized of Gospel writers, Luke, would have looked for his primary model of Jesus» miracles in the LXX, whose contents and style he knew thoroughly, than in inscriptions at a healing shrine or in reports of magicians or polytheistic miracle workers, from whom he would have preferred to dissociate his protagonists (cf. Acts 8:9–24; 13:6–12; 19:13–20).

Jewish people recognized that God was ultimately the healer,²²⁰⁹ and sought his help in prayers.²²¹⁰ Opinions differed on the role that physicians played in healing; a popular ancient sage declared that God's word rather than medicaments heals,²²¹¹ but the school of the second-century R. Ishmael held that God could work through physicians.²²¹² Medical help was normally sought only secondarily,²²¹³ and one who was ill should pray for God's healing.²²¹⁴ Given the mixing of magic with scientific elements in Jewish folk medicine,²²¹⁵ this may have been an especially good idea.

Jewish magicians became common in the Diaspora,²²¹⁶ especially through their supposed access to the secret name of God²²¹⁷ (secret names were considered powerful in magic).²²¹⁸ Although the rabbis were officially opposed to magic,²²¹⁹ magical practices infiltrated even rabbinic circles.²²²⁰ By and large, however, the teachers of the Law who addressed signs emphasized miracles wrought by God for the pious, eschewing what could be considered magic.

According to one third-century Palestinian tradition, Abraham had the gift of healing.²²²¹ Other healers like Hanina ben Dosa appeared closer to the contemporary period, reportedly healing the sons of Johanan ben Zakkai and Gamaliel II.²²²² The Jewish historian Geza Vermes thinks that holy men like Hanina ben Dosa dominated first-century Galilean religious experience more than the priests or scribes; while his portrait may well be overdrawn, it rightly emphasizes the popular nature of charismatic leaders and the degree to which they could become influential in first-century Galilee.²²²³ By contrast, most reports of rabbinic miracles, probably fitting the predominantly halakic character of rabbinic literature, are «rule miracles,» that is, signs to demonstrate the truth of onés legal teaching.²²²⁴

Historical reconstructions operate on the basis of testimony, sometimes artifacts, and frequently critical evaluation based on intrinsic probability and the weighing of evidence. Two problems thus confront a discussion of miracles in the Jesus tradition: the limitations of the evidence, and the long-standing (albeit declining) sentiment against the probability of miracles. We will return to the second problem below, but focus at present on the first.

The former problem is not as serious as it might first appear; although it is difficult to provide evidence for many particular miracles, all ancient sources which comment on the issue agree that Jesus and his early followers performed miracles: Q, Mark, special material in Matthew and Luke, John, Acts, the Epistles, Revelation, and non-Christian testimony from Jewish and pagan sources.²²²⁵ (The non-Christian sources attribute the miraculous works to sorcery, which must represent the earliest anti-Christian explanation for Christian miracles.)²²²⁶ This unanimity is striking given the conversely unanimous silence in Christian, Jewish, and even Mandean tradition concerning any miracles by respected prophetic figures like John the Baptist.²²²⁷

Theissen thinks that many positive miracle stories about Jesus stem from Jewish witnesses outside the ranks of disciples,²²²⁸ but the evidence for this position does not appear strong enough to persuade those disinclined to accept it. Nevertheless, it is virtually certain that others besides his disciples regarded Jesus as a miracle worker. Josephus calls Jesus a sophos anër, a wise man, who also «worked startling deeds» (paradoxa), a term by which Josephus also depicts the miracles worked by the prophet Elisha (Ant. 9.182).²²²⁹

As Filson puts it with reference to Jesus» miracles, «One thing is clear: for the Gospel writers they are an essential part of that ministry.»²²³⁰ Sanders regards it as an «almost indisputable» historical fact that «Jesus was a Galilean who preached and healed.»²²³¹ Using traditional historical-critical tools, Meier finds many of Jesus» miracles authentic.²²³² Raymond Brown notes that «Scholars have come to realize that one cannot dismiss Jesus» miracles simply on modern rationalist grounds, for the oldest traditions show him as a healer.»²²³³ Otto Betz regards it as «certain» that Jesus was a healer, a matter which «can be deduced even from the Jewish polemic which called him a sorcerer.»²²³⁴ The miracles are central to the Gospels, and without them, most of the other data in the Gospels are inexplicable.²²³⁵ For that matter, there are no contemporary accounts which transform Jewish teachers into miracle workers. Morton Smith thus argues that miracle working is the most authentic part of the Jesus tradition.²²³⁶

More problematic is the modern sentiment against the miraculous, but the unanimity of the evidence for Christian miracles (if not the unanimity of the early sources» interpretation of that evidence) may call into question whether the modern sentiment is rooted in evidence, or is actually merely a philosophical presupposition.

Some scholars, pointing to the parallels between early Christian and other ancient miracle accounts, have suggested that both are fabricated. While the conclusion need not follow from the premise–either because both kinds of accounts could often be authentic, or because similar form could reflect cultural options for expression rather than the same activity–the premise is itself open to some question. Parallels are clear, but observers must also take account of the differences among the various kinds of miracle stories, including the Christian miracle stories.²²³⁷

Differences between Early Christian and Pagan Miracle Stories. An analysis of the miracle stories collected by Theissen²²³⁸ shows that some motifs (especially those intrinsic to miracle narrations in any setting) were widespread. At the same time, such an analysis will reveal that some other NT miracle motifs exhibit rare, perhaps only coincidental, parallels. Likewise, some fairly typical (or at least unobjectionable) accounts of pagan miracle workers have few early Christian parallels: Musaeus, Calais, Zetes, Abaris, and a Hyperborean magician in Lucian could fly,²²³⁹ but the only NT parallel (Acts 8:39) specifically borrows OT language (Ezek 8:3; 11:1, 24, where, however, it was visionary; cf. 1 Kgs 18:12). One account reports that Pythagoras taught in two places at the same time;²²⁴⁰ the instant travel of John 6and the sudden disappearance of the postresurrection Lord (Luke 24:31) are the closest parallels one can adduce to this, but represent transcending the limits of location, not of time. Love-magic,²²⁴¹ a continual fast,²²⁴² a fifty-seven-year nap,²²⁴³ magicians» self-transformation into animal forms,²²⁴⁴ and revealing golden thighs²²⁴⁵ are among the sorts of miracles unparalleled in the Gospels, which generally stress healings and exorcisms as benevolent acts of compassion.²²⁴⁶ Some scholars have also pointed to «matter-of-fact restraint» rather than amplification in most miracle stories in the canonical gospels.²²⁴⁷ The diverse accounts show a framework of thought that strikes many modern readers as similar primarily because all of them differ starkly from modern Western prejudice against miracles.

Further, although pagans naturally understood Jesus» works as those of a (possibly malevolent) magician (Mark 5:15–17),²²⁴⁸ Jesus» miracles have little in common with magic, especially the magic elaborately documented for us in the third-century magical papyri.²²⁴⁹ Pagan magicians typically sought to coerce deities or spirits by incantations; Jesus simply commanded as God's authoritative agent.²²⁵⁰ (Pagans themselves understood the difference; thus, for example, magic turned Lucius into an ass, but Isis's transformation of him back into a human is portrayed as counter to magic.²²⁵¹ Jewish rabbis also had to seek to distinguish the two.)²²⁵²

One may also note differences between the kinds of sources claiming the performance of various miracles. After carefully comparing the accounts of Jesus» miracles with those of others, Meier concludes that «the early dating of the literary testimony to Jesus» miracles, that is, the closeness of the dates of the written documents to the alleged miracles of Jesus» life, is almost unparalleled for the period.»²²⁵³

Comparisons of Jesus» Miracles with Those in Jewish Tradition. Comparisons of Jesus» miracles with those attributed to the rabbis are more difficult because of striking differences in genre. Some writers have debased rabbinic miracles as more magical than Jesus»;²²⁵⁴ but despite some activities whose only parallels occur in magic, not all rabbinic miracles were magica1. Morton Smith has contended that the Gospel tradition concerns a miracle worker, in contrast to rabbinic tradition concerning teachers and limited to historical facts about them.²²⁵⁵ This is not quite right; some rabbinic miracle stories are plainly not historical descriptions, but homiletic illustrations. Having said this, however, we may acknowledge Smith's point: the two kinds of accounts describe different kinds of characters and wish to communicate different sorts of facts about these characters. As Smith articulates elsewhere, the differences between the two kinds of accounts are greater than the parallels, because miracle stories are quite «frequent in the Gospels and almost totally lacking» in rabbinic texts.²²⁵⁶

The genre question is critica1. Rabbis generally related accounts of earlier rabbis who wrought miracles to make a homiletic point concerning a teaching; the Gospels recount Jesus» miracles to validate his person and mission rather than just a particular teaching. But behind this contrast of genre lies a corresponding contrast of claim: whereas rabbis claimed to faithfully expound the Law, which was central, Jesus is the central feature of the Gospel accounts, the one whom the church that recounted them worshiped as the risen Lord. Thus, as Dibelius notes, rabbinic accounts extol saintly men; the Gospels narrate the epiphany of God's power through his agent Jesus.²²⁵⁷

Whereas genre affects the focus of miracle stories, however, their content betrays a more specific contrast. Although Jesus wrought other miracles, most also representing benevolent acts directly affecting those in need, the Gospels especially report Jesus» healings and exorcisms. Jewish tales, by contrast, address the procurement of rainfall more often than healing.²²⁵⁸ Later Jewish stories often recognize the particular association of healing miracles with Christians.²²⁵⁹

Indeed, when one surveys Jewish tradition in general, it provides few parallels to the characteristic ways Jesus healed; the closest parallel probably involves Jesus» rare use of saliva.²²⁶⁰ Harvey points out that at least eight of Jesus» reported cures involved the deaf, mute, blind or lame, but that such miracles, though noted at pagan healing shrines, are absent in Jewish accounts.²²⁶¹

Parallels and the Authenticity of Jesus» Miracles. Ancient healing stories in general usually share the same form because they necessarily follow the same course; parallels do not imply the inauthenticity of the Gospel accounts, as some have argued.²²⁶² As the French scholar Benoit argues, «is there any other way of relating a miracle? Do they follow a different method at Lourdes? Nothing is more like the story of a true miracle than the story of a false one. It is not the literary form which distinguishes one from the other; it is the substance, the external authentication, the internal probability.»²²⁶³ As Benoit goes on to point out, the miracle stories of the canonical gospels contrast with some pagan accounts (such as the woman pregnant for five years bearing a five-year old at Epidauros),²²⁶⁴ many Jewish accounts (a reported conversation between God and the angel of the sea) and most accounts in the apocryphal gospels.²²⁶⁵ The sharing of narrative methods would not make the Gospel accounts fictitious even if the parallels were,²²⁶⁶ although we part from Benoit in suspecting that many of the pagan healing reports indicate authentic events as wel1.²²⁶⁷

If miracles did not happen, many of the ancient accounts would still reliably narrate what ancient people thought happened. But the cumulative testimony of ancient and current sources to the reality of supernatural phenomena must also be permitted as a challenge to rationalistic skepticism: the so-called primitive worldviews base their understanding of reality on empirical phenomena, whereas our dismissal of their interpretation of these phenomena rests on a philosophical assertion and not on empirical evidence.

A Skeptical Reading of Ancient Accounts. Given our modern distinctions between miracle and medicine, and between miracle and placebo cures of psychosomatic ailments, we may recognize that much of the ancient evidence is not what we would call miracle (i.e., it can be explained without recourse to supernatural intervention). Many ancient people did not recognize the typical modern line between medicine and supernatural healing. In contrast to Epidauros, at a shrine located on the island of Cos archaeologists have found medical instruments rather than votive tablets, suggesting that the shrinés priests used medical knowledge or worked together with doctors in effecting cures.²²⁶⁸ Some of the practices at Epidauros also correspond to medical procedures of the time.²²⁶⁹ Although a few wealthy people were reported healed by Asclepius at Epidauros, most of the suppliants were poor²²⁷⁰–people who could not afford physicians on their own. The intense need may have created the proper emotive state for psychosomatic healings.²²⁷¹

Finally, the Epidauros inscriptions reported only the successes, not the failures, like some faith healers today; this would allow some people to recover naturally and attribute the recovery to the deity.²²⁷² Some ancient healing accounts, especially at some pagan shrines, can thus be explained on rationalistic terms. If one adds to this the possibility–although it is nothing more than a possibility–that one or a few unscrupulous priests fabricated some of the more extraordinary claims to inspire suppliants» faith, one could explain away most of the miracles. But the modern need to explain away widespread reports of supernatural healings may say more about modern culture s presuppositions than those of antiquity.

This is not to deny that skeptics and skepticism existed in antiquity as well; as noted above, some degree of skepticism accords well with much of the evidence, and questions abounded in antiquity. Such skepticism appears both among characters in fiction and in historical writing. Ovid makes some of his characters more believable by having them doubt the supernatural, while others affirm that deities can do anything,²²⁷³ before they are all changed into bats for disbelieving in Bacchus!²²⁷⁴ Unlike most authors, Hermippus suspected that Pythagoras was a phony.²²⁷⁵ Likewise, Petronius satirizes gullibility as Trimalchio believes a werewolf story.²²⁷⁶ Plutarch sometimes exercises critical discretion and rejects a tale as incredible.²²⁷⁷ Thucydides focuses on nonmythical, nonsupernatural events as a standard of history.²²⁷⁸ Diognetus taught Marcus Aurelius not to believe miracle workers, magicians, and exorcists.²²⁷⁹ Eunapius recounts a barely believable event only with hesitation, noting that none of the supposed eyewitnesses had written anything down.²²⁸⁰ Even Philostratus accommodates some of the skepticism of his day, perhaps to refute associations with magic.²²⁸¹

Such skepticism was not usually wholesale. While Diodorus Siculus accepts some major feats, he often prefers nonsupernatural accounts and «demythologizes» them, depicting how he thinks such accounts were reworked into mythical ones.²²⁸² Arrian notes that the early stories about Dionysus are difficult to believe, but that what would normally be improbable cannot be dismissed when one is dealing with a divine element.²²⁸³ But Arrian was not extremely gullible; he complains that some writers tell of various wonders at the ends of the earth (ants that mine gold for the Indians, and water monsters and griffins in India) only because they can invent entertaining stories about distant matters their readers cannot check.²²⁸⁴ Plutarch cautiously reports various views about the activities of statues, noting the frequency of the reports (Camillus 6.1–4), concluding that one should avoid either believing too much (superstition) or disbelieving too much (irreligion; Camillus 6.4).²²⁸⁵ Even Josephus followed standard Greek historiographie convention²²⁸⁶ in inviting readers to decide for themselves the veracity of miracle accounts he reports from biblical tradition.²²⁸⁷ Finally, one cannot forget John's example of Thomas (20:25). Many ancient thinkers» desire to exercise critical judgment in particular cases (whether their conclusions were usually right or wrong) contrasts with the few ancient thinkers and many modern ones who reject supernatural phenomena wholesale.²²⁸⁸ (We address thoroughgoing modern skepticism in its context in the history of philosophy below.) Although not among the more critical reporters, Pythagoras reportedly observed that thoroughgoing skepticism itself reflected unproved presuppositions: since the gods are powerful, it is imprudent to dismiss marvelous claims where they might be involved (Iamblichus V.P. 28.148; cf. 28.139).

Nature Miracles. Of the various types of miracle accounts by content, those which are least often accepted as reflecting genuine historical tradition tend to be nature miracles, such as those reported in John 6:19–21. The current scholarly consensus accepts that Jesus performed healings and exorcisms but regards his nature miracles as legendary embellishments.²²⁸⁹ These nature miracles do in fact have a number of probably legendary parallels.

In Greek tradition, the Pythagorean Empedocles could stop winds and rain, or cause rains to return.²²⁹⁰ Similar power to work nature miracles was attributed to Orpheus, Abaris, Epimenides, Pythagoras, and others.²²⁹¹ Jewish texts contain many accounts of pious Jewish rainmakers, although again these accounts are significantly later than those they depict and do not reflect the same careful process of traditioning employed for sayings.²²⁹² Apart from such legendary attributions to characters of the distant past, however, paganism generally ascribed nature miracles directly to the gods, especially Zeus.²²⁹³ The astonishment of Jesus» disciples at his nature miracles is therefore understandable (Mark 4:41; 6:51).

Given the few decades that passed between Jesus» earthly activity and the earliest Gospel accounts, the attribution of nature miracles to Jesus is noteworthy, and less easily explained by the development of legend than those accounts attributed to much earlier figures. The modern scholarly consensus may have less to do with formal considerations or differences in the manner of transmission, than with popular academic presuppositions concerning the feasibility of miracles: healings or exorcisms may be psychosomatic, but the same cannot be assumed for nature miracles. While we have no evidence apart from our written sources (the nature of which are not substantially different for nature miracles) to argue either that these miracles happened or did not happen, we infer that they are unlike more acceptable miracles because, barring striking coincidences, they can be explained only in supernatural terms. If the early Christian understanding of Jesus as God's agent was true, why could he not harness the forces of nature? If the non-Christian Jewish and pagan view of Jesus as a powerful sorcerer was true, sorcerers reportedly had access to spirits with power in the material world. The only view on which it is impossible that Jesus performed such miracles is the view which alleges, generally without offereing evidence, that such miracles cannot occur.

Modern Skepticism toward Miracles. Just as we must consider the historical context of the Fourth Gospel (including openness to supernatural events among most of John's contemporaries), we must also consider the historical setting of the presuppositions favored in modern academia, including in most biblical scholarship, which affect our evaluation of the genre and historicity of ancient narratives. It is impossible to examine the historical question of miracles without being explicit concerning presuppositions informing much traditional historiography in the Gospels. If one assumes a priori that neutrality in the historical quest demands that one must not find data that could favor the truth claims of any particular religious movement or movements, one potentially subordinates the objectivity of onés method to desired conclusions. I believe that much traditional NT scholarship has compromised objectivity–in the name of objectivity–on grounds less nuanced than such an attempt at sensitivity to various competing truth claims: an a priori assumption that excludes the supernatural from consideration. In its rightful reaction to medieval dogma, later Enlightenment rationalism itself eventually transgressed the bounds of both reason and empirical data, excluding even the hypothesis of divine intervention from consideration in explaining the data of even the best attested miracle claims. Is there not something culturally elitist about dismissing from the briefest consideration the credibility of traditions stemming from most cultures and eras in history, based on a presupposition for which those who hold it rarely seek to offer evidence? Granted, many individual claims (especially those far removed from the eyewitnesses) are inauthentic, but does critical thinking always favor an all-or-nothing mentality on other matters?

Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century rationalist philosophy rather than any specific evidence is largely responsible for the usual summary dismissal of belief in supernatural phenomena in the modern academy.²²⁹⁴ Spinoza argued that miracles are self-contradictory, because, based on his monistic identification of God with the natural order, he saw «laws of Nature» as identical with God.²²⁹⁵ Schleiermacher, who later popularized this anti-supernaturalism in theology, also uses syllogistic reasoning which follows only if one accepts his naturalistic premise from the start.²²⁹⁶ It was metaphysical presuppositions, not empirical evidence, that drove scientism in an exclusively naturalistic direction.²²⁹⁷

Hegel, with his long-standing influence in German thought, followed by David Strauss and other Hegelians, was particularly effective in changing modern thought, stressing his antithesis «between ancient religion» and nineteenth-century «intellectual sophistication.»²²⁹⁸ This point of view solidified into an uncontested consensus until relatively recent times,²²⁹⁹ without an adequate impartial, massive empirical investigation into diverse miracle claims.²³⁰⁰ Yet the particular arguments once used by Spinoza, Hume, and others to form the modern consensus against miracles made sense only on the presuppositions of their era, not our own.²³⁰¹ As philosopher William Lane Craig contends, «the presupposition of the impossibility of miracles should, contrary to the assumption of nineteenth and for the most part twentieth century biblical criticism, play no role in determining the historicity of any event. … The presupposition against the possibility of miracles survives in theology only as a hangover from an earlier Deist age and ought to be once for all abandoned.»²³⁰² Other scholars have become increasingly uncomfortable with such unproved postulates of the Enlightenment era. As Goppelt remarks, critical reflection must question the proposition that miracles are historically impossible, because «there is no such thing today as a complete and generally accepted philosophical understanding of reality.»²³⁰³ «History» in the sense of «what happened» may be distinguished from «history» in the theoretical sense of «what can be explained by natural causes without recourse to supernatural causes.»²³⁰⁴ As Borg rightly points out,

The primary intellectual objection to it [supernatural activity] flows from a rigid application of the modern worldview's definition of reality. Yet the modern view is but one of a large number of humanly constructed maps of reality. It is historically the most recent and impressive because of the degree of control it has given us; but it is no more an absolute map of reality than any of the previous maps. All are relative, products of particular histories and cultures; the modern one, like its predecessors, will be superceded.²³⁰⁵

If current trends continue, the postmodern worldview may accept supernatural phenomena without moral judgments on its sources²³⁰⁶ (for instance, neither the Christian claim that Jesus» miracles are from God nor the pagan claim that they were works of sorcery will be a priori privileged). Medical anthropology now rejects «medicocentrism,» the ethnocentric view that only current Western views of sickness and healing are authentic and that disputes the many claims to cures outside Western views.²³⁰⁷ Whether or not one likes such cultural trends, the days when supernatural phenomena can be simply dismissed without discussion may be numbered.

On atheistic or deistic premises, supernatural phenomena (at least those attributable to a deity) cannot exist; on the premises of many faiths, they must exist; on the agnostic premises from which critical intellectual inquiry is alleged to begin, one must investigate the evidence to determine whether or not they do exist. Instead, modern theologians like Bultmann have declared that «mature» modern people do not believe in miracles, and that «no one can or does seriously maintain» the NT worldview.²³⁰⁸ Yet as Meier points out, a 1989 Gallup poll showed that 82 percent of people in the U.S. believed in miracles, with only 6 percent categorically rejecting that view.²³⁰⁹ Orthodox Jews, Christians, and Muslims, as well as traditional tribal religions, spiritism, and in fact most worldviews not derived from Western rationalism (including its atheistic Marxist derivatives), affirm the reality of supernatural phenomena;²³¹⁰ Bultmann s position summarily dismisses such worldviews as not part of the modern world.²³¹¹ One wonders if mere dismissal of the supernatural without appeal to satisfying contemporary philosophical arguments or scientific data may not simply reflect the subculture of mid-twentieth-century Western academic elitism.

By simply defining modernity in terms of the mid-twentieth-century academic Western elite, Bultmann affirms an ethnocentric perspective but relinquishes critical investigation. In so doing he betrays his Heideggerian and other presuppositions that are no less thoroughgoing than those he wishes to critique–though the philosophical basis for his conclusions is itself no longer fashionable in the academy.²³¹² Many have argued that Bultmann is obsessed with a now out-of-date worldview, one which Thiselton attributes to his Neo-Kantian roots.²³¹³ Regardless of how fashionable the consensus may remain that genuine supernatural activity by a deity, deities, or spirits may simply be dismissed, it is no longer acceptable for genuinely critical scholars to simply demand adherence to that consensus without empirical analysis of the data; true science should leave hypotheses open to challenge and proceed inductively on the basis of evidence.

As a former atheist who has personally witnessed, occasionally experienced, and is regularly exposed to reliable testimonies of instantaneous supernatural phenomena within circles where such phenomena typically occur (including instantaneous, visible healings in response to prayer), often through my work in Africa or among Pentecostals, I confess my own skepticism toward the prevailing anti-miraculous skepticism of Western culture. My wife, an African with a Ph.D. in history from the University of Paris, also offers a substantial collection of testimonies. Interpreters might seek to suggest plausible alternative, non-supernatural explanations for the thousands of miracle claims in the Two-Thirds World today, but for the most part the academy simply ignores such claims as if no one has offered them. My own eyewitness testimony or collection of others» testimony must be considered anecdotal rather than evidential because of the limited base of data from which we work and the unfortunate dearth of academic works cataloguing such claims; but I suspect that most antisupernaturalists accept antisupernaturalism as a cultural presupposition while contemplating even less evidence.²³¹⁴ My affirmation that arguably supernatural phenomena are possible need not affirm that all supernatural phenomena derive from the same source, nor does it deny fraudulent or psychosomatic claims to miracles, nor that some might provide different interpretations of the same claims (though I might regard them as less plausible); rather it affirms what I consider sufficient empirical evidence in favor of authentic supernatural activity and challenges the objectivity of assertions built on untested assumptions that simply mirror uncritically a recent stage in Western popular thought. Even should volumes of the sort of data with which some of us are familiar firsthand begin to be collected by researchers, the collection could not prove that any specific claims to miracles in the past were true (we have evidence that some claims, in fact, are false); but this evidence would adequately and empirically dispute the claim that such phenomena cannot occur.²³¹⁵

Because diverse types of miracle workers existed in antiquity, scholars grappling with the evidence have produced diverse typologies to categorize them, and disputed even more the question of which category or categories Jesus best fits. One of the more popular views is that Jesus was, or was portrayed by Mark or Mark's opponents as, a θείος άνήρ, a «divine man.»

Many scholars have interpreted the NT accounts of Jesus» miracles in light of a Hellenistic category they call the «divine man.»²³¹⁶ (Some have also linked this divine man with Jesus» title, «son of God,» a title we explore briefly under the heading of Christology.) Yet, as Kingsbury points out, structural similarities between Christian and pagan telling of miracles hardly make the Gospel accounts «bearers of a non-eschatological theology of glory and divine-man christology.»²³¹⁷ This is true for two reasons. First, the applicability of the very category of «divine men» to first-century miracle workers is in serious question. Second, Judaism already had a miracle-working tradition in the Elijah-Elisha cycle which it did not unduly accentuate for Hellenistic apologetic; this diminishes the likelihood that the Gospels, which are less hellenized than some of our other Jewish sources, would have done so.

In the past, many scholars have argued that the divine man was a composite type in antiquity with spécifie characteristics,²³¹⁸ but many scholars now recognize that the various characteristics derive from so many diverse sources and have been unified in a single type only by the creativity of modern scholarship.²³¹⁹ The ancient use of the phrase is too broad to delineate a specific type; it can refer to a «divine man,» an «inspired man,» a man somehow related to deity, and an «extraordinary man.»²³²⁰ The sense in which such a phrase appears in the third-century Life of Apollonius did not yet exist in the first century.²³²¹ Thus Howard Clark Kee, for example, harshly criticizes Bultmann, H. D. Betz, and other advocates of the divine man type, arguing that this type is nonexistent.²³²²

Nor is it clear that Hellenistic Jewish writers accentuated the miraculous for Hellenistic audiences, as some have contended. Against Dieter Georgi and others,²³²³ Jewish sources do not consistently portray Moses as a divine man; he is a miracle worker in Artapanus and a philosopher for Philo and Josephus, but the two ideas are not brought together under a single category.²³²⁴ Some scholars argue that Diaspora Jewish writers like the early third-century B.C.E. Clearchus of Soii,²³²⁵ the third- to second-century B.C.E. Artapanus,²³²⁶ and others were often happy to emphasize the miraculous powers of historic Jewish heroes. While this may be true, these writers do not seem to have heightened miracle-working motifs for Hellenistic consumption; Philo even seems to diminish Moses» miracles, and Artapanus's embellishments of Moses do not focus on miracles.²³²⁷

So different are the Jewish portraits of past heroes from Philostratus's third-century picture of Apollonius of Tyana that one is forced to question «just how attractive the miracle-worker motif was to pagans» in the first and second centuries, a fact that «may explain why this aspect of the Jesus tradition is non-existent in the apostolic fathers,»²³²⁸ and why emphasis on miracle-working decreases as sermons in Acts become more Hellenistic.²³²⁹ Thus the cynical Lucian, a second-century rhetorician, dismisses miracles but attests Jews who practiced them,²³³⁰ and Juvenal, a second-century satirist, complains about Jewesses who tell fortunes in the name of heaven.²³³¹ A scholar who has focused on the divine man question warns, «The preoccupation to focus attention upon the miracles as primarily means of attesting the divinity of the miracle worker, either compared with the rabbinic or the Hellenistic miracle-worker, obscures the more fundamental line of continuity with the OT, and the corollary understanding of miracles in terms of Salvation-history, particularly their eschatological implications.»²³³² In contrast to allusions to the exodus traditions and Elijah-Elisha cycles that recur throughout the Gospel miracles, the expression «divine man» never appears in the LXX or NT and is rare in any Jewish sources.²³³³ (Josephus's single use of the term may be roughly equivalent to «man of God»;²³³⁴ Philos use is closer to a Stoic conception but is unrelated to miracles.)²³³⁵ If anything, hellenization may have «made it for difficult for Jews to conceive of a divine man."²³³⁶ Judaism's miracle-working theme derived naturally enough from the OT: God working in history especially through his spokespersons.²³³⁷

It is not impossible that the crowds in Mark followed Jesus because he was a wonderworker, and that Mark opposes reducing Jesus» ministry to such terms, insisting that the suffering aspect of his ministry must also be taken into account. While Mark is himself charismatic rather than anti-charismatic,²³³⁸ it is possible that he opposes a Christology, or more likely, a pneumatology, that emphasizes Jesus» miracles above his passion. The term θείος άνήρ, however, is too broad to designate such a category helpfully.²³³⁹

A consensus seems to be emerging that Jesus was a charismatic wonder-worker, despite the lack of consensus on precisely what this means. E. P. Sanders summarizes the most significant recent positions: Jesus was «either (with Vermes) a charismatic healer like Hanina ben Dosa and Honi the Circle-Drawer or (with Hengel, Theissen and others) a charismatic prophet.» Sanders himself inclines toward the latter position, and concludes that, on either model, «a charismatic does not set out to take a stance on a series of legal questions, though he may bump up against them now and then.»²³⁴⁰ In my opinion, given the fluidity of the ancient categories,²³⁴¹ a rigid distinction among healers, prophets, and legal teachers need not have applied in every case; in view of the Gospel tradition, I doubt that it applied in Jesus» case, and observers probably approached him in terms of whichever role they needed him to fil1. Having noted this caveat, however, the most popular perception of him was probably that of a charismatic signs-prophet. Some biblical prophets like Elijah and Elisha were particularly healers;²³⁴² some others, like Isaiah, healed occasionally (Isa 38:21);²³⁴³ Judaism continued to link miracles with many of the biblical prophets.²³⁴⁴

Judaism also sometimes continued to link signs with its expectation for contemporary prophets.²³⁴⁵ Although oracular prophets like those in the OT continued in new forms, the most widely popular prophets in first-century Jewish Palestine were the prophets of deliverance, leading messianic movements and modeling their ministries after Moses and Joshua. These were signs-prophets like Theudas, who tried to part the Jordan, and the Egyptian false prophet who expected Jerusalem's walls to collapse before him, both seeking to anticipate eschatological deliverance by working Moses- or Joshua-like miracles.²³⁴⁶ That they envisioned themselves as possible messiahs is a potential though not essential corollary. Josephus, who tells us of them, had good reasons to play down messianic claims, although he does fail to brand them «brigands» like other rebels.²³⁴⁷ But some of their followers undoubtedly understood them in such terms, and they could not help but recognize that their followers did so.²³⁴⁸

Jesus» new exodus miracle, providing bread in the wilderness, may have influenced some subsequent expectations,²³⁴⁹ but itself fitted into a new exodus expectation as old as the biblical prophets²³⁵⁰ and amplified in Jewish themes of a future deliverance modeled after the first Passover (as in the Hallel) and exodus,²³⁵¹ as well as a new Moses.²³⁵² Signs and wonders were often associated with Moses,²³⁵³ who used «wonders and signs» to withstand kings.²³⁵⁴ Israel longed for the day when God would confound the oppressive nations by showing again his «signs and wonders.»²³⁵⁵ The Fourth Gospel explicitly connects some of its signs with a new exodus (see comments on 2:1–11; 6:1–14), and portrays Jesus as one greater than Moses (3:14; 5:45–47; 6:32; 9:28).²³⁵⁶ The earliest tradition suggests that Jesus, like the Baptist before him, was an eschatological prophet.²³⁵⁷

Although some scholars have distinguished «charismatic prophets» from «eschatological prophets,» the distinction in this case appears artificial; prophets offering signs of deliverance would probably be understood as harbingers of eschatological deliverance. Most of Jesus» recorded miracles are healings and exorcisms, fitting better Vermes's «charismatic healer» typology than a typology of a «charismatic prophet»; yet at least some people apparently viewed this miracle worker in an eschatological context (cf., e.g., Mark 8:28),²³⁵⁸ and his disciples eventually unanimously viewed the miracles in a specifically messianic context, followed by the whole movement that quickly became early Jewish Christianity.²³⁵⁹ Indeed, it is intrinsically likely that the enormous crowds following any Jewish teacher who could perform healings and exorcisms would lead some to entertain the possibility of a revolution. The Romans and priestly aristocracy were both uncomfortable with the potential of leaders with large followings.²³⁶⁰

Many Jewish people expected not only significant signs before the final deliverance and special miracles at the end²³⁶¹ but pondered the promised signs of the messianic era offered by Isaiah, Ezekiel, and other biblical prophets. Consistent with such images, later rabbis taught that signs offered by biblical signs-prophets anticipated the signs that would take place in the messianic era.²³⁶² Jesus» reported miracles accord well with the Q citation of Isa 35:5–6 (Matt ll:5/Luke 7:22), which could suggest an eschatological interpretation of his miracles as blessings of the future kingdom in the present.²³⁶³ This is not to say that the eschatological interpretation was the only interpretation or even the most obvious one–Sanders rightly points out that Jesus cured the infirmities most prominent in his day, that contemporary Jewish cures provide few parallels, and that the Greco-Roman parallels and those in the Elijah-Elisha cycle are not eschatologica1.²³⁶⁴ But it was one interpretation quickly placed on Jesus» signs, and one that was consonant with a view of his identity in light of other indicators of his messianic identity.

In keeping with the cultural focus of this commentary, we must ask about the general function of signs in antiquity before turning to the question of their function in John, an issue other commentaries on the Gospel have treated more fully. Ancient signs generally functioned especially to authenticate the miracle worker, his teaching, or the one who authorized him.

Ancient writers and storytellers often used miraculous works to authenticate deities or, more often, persons. Such signs demonstrated that the person indeed possessed numinous authority to justify his (in the vast majority of cases, they were men) or her claims. When applied to deities, as in the case of the healing list at Epidauros, testimonies of miracles were meant to convince people to trust for themselves to be healed;²³⁶⁵ this especially applies to Asclepius's healing of skeptics.²³⁶⁶ Similarly, Mark's reports of healings encourage his hearers to trust their risen Lord to do miracles for them; disciples are reproved if their own faith for miracles is inadequate (4:38–40; 8:14–21; 9:18–29; 11:20–25).²³⁶⁷ (Mark's promises for faith, as in 11:20–25, are substantially greater than those of the Epidauros inscriptions, however; the former virtually made all believers «holy persons» with direct access to God, whereas the latter sought to «cushion disappointments» as well as «increase expectations.»)²³⁶⁸ Indeed, deities like Asclepius and Sarapis reportedly able to provide practical benefits like healings often supplanted more traditional deities in popular devotion.²³⁶⁹ Miracles came to possess such propagandistic value that Romans could employ those of the Isis cult for political propaganda.²³⁷⁰

Ancient writers report the healings attributed to Vespasian before the inauguration of his Flavian dynasty, undoubtedly a form of propaganda meant to authenticate his claim to rule.²³⁷¹ First-century philosophers emphasized the divine wisdom of true sages rather than miraculous authentication; by the second century, writers like Lucian contested the growing popular ideal of such authentication; by the third century, many thinkers had capitulated to the popular ideal, portraying the intellectual heroes of the past as wonderworkers as wel1. This trend increased as astrology, magic, and other customs from the East supplanted some of the traditional reliance on the rational cultus of Roman religion.²³⁷² Greek biographers normally attributed signs only to the divine sages, not to those who were considered merely human.²³⁷³

The OT reported both miracles performed directly by God and those performed through his agents, certain kinds of prophets,²³⁷⁴ and Jewish hopes for both kinds of miracles continued in the period of Christian beginnings. On a popular level, miraculous answers to prayer probably authenticated Hanina ben Dosa,²³⁷⁵ Honi the Circle-Drawer, and other teachers Vermes has called «charismatic rabbis.»²³⁷⁶ Because Honís relationship to God was like that of a special son to a father, Honi could change Gods mind on matters.²³⁷⁷ Honi would draw a circle and refuse to step outside it till God sent rain, so God, honoring Honís confidence and piety, would grant the request.²³⁷⁸ «So great was his reputation that it is said, in an apocryphal Mishnah, «When Haninah ben Dosa died there were no workers of miracles left.»»²³⁷⁹

Later rabbis told a story about the sage Levi ben Sisi, for whose piety God delivered his town; his disciple later prayed the same prayer, and though his hand withered, the town was again delivered; a disciple of the disciple, much weaker in piety, prayed the same, and though his hand was not withered, neither was the town delivered.²³⁸⁰ The moral of the story is apparently that God hears the pious, but does not act on behalf of those who were not so pious. A holy man had power to make things happen, because he was holy.²³⁸¹ But from Honi the Circle-Drawer to Eleazar the exorcist, these holy men were regarded as pietists, not as unique messianic figures; thus many Galileans could acknowledge Jesus» miracles without assuming for him a greater identity.²³⁸²

In similar traditions, signs could attest onés message.²³⁸³ Some halakists like R. Eliezer and R. Joshua also reportedly performed miracles to validate their halakah (although this story is clearly a homiletic one).²³⁸⁴ Most accounts of such miraculous works by past rabbis, while sometimes hagiographie, made a point about piety or impiety; God hears the pious, and punishes those who disregard proper teaching of the Law, especially those who would not believe without miracles.²³⁸⁵

Most later rabbis, however, carefully subordinated miracles,²³⁸⁶ and even the heavenly voice,²³⁸⁷ to tradition in halakic interpretation. Prophets must be attested by signs, some later rabbis insisted, but elders as interpreters of the Law may be accepted without signs.²³⁸⁸ Vermes thinks that charismatics like Hanina sometimes flouted rabbinic law, and, while the rabbis dared not discipline them because of their divine power,²³⁸⁹ they were wary of supernatural proof when formulating legal decisions.²³⁹⁰ These rabbis clearly subordinate the status of miracle workers to that of halakists like themselves.²³⁹¹ Thus later rabbis could complain that even Honís prayers were delayed, and explain that this was because he failed to approach God humbly.²³⁹²

The rabbis» reliance on rule miracles probably diminished further in response to the much greater Christian use of authenticating miracles, as some scholars have argued.²³⁹³ Christian miracles authenticating Jesus were problematic for some of Jesus» more conservative contemporaries,²³⁹⁴ and were no less so for later rabbis. Urbach suggests that this may be why the rabbis stressed that one should depend on the God of Abraham, not on Abraham as a miracle worker himself.²³⁹⁵ From Paul's letters²³⁹⁶ through rabbinic literature,²³⁹⁷ Christians and outsiders alike continued to perceive early Christianity as confirming itself with signs like those of Jesus.

This conflict of views concerning the proper place of signs probably had affected the Johannine community as wel1. The synagogue leaders had the authority, the cultural symbols, and probably broader knowledge of the Law and academic traditions concerning it; the Johannine community appealed to the activity of the Spirit, including personal intimacy with the Spirit sent by the risen Lord, and corroborating signs which could lead to faith or rejection. But the Johannine community's primary appeal is not to the Spirit's witness in signs, but to the Spirit's witness through the testimony of those who had known Jesus in the flesh, and that of their successors who knew him in a dynamic relationship by the Spirit.

Signs perform an authenticating function in Luke-Acts (e.g., Acts 2:22; 8:6; 13:12; 14:3; 15:12) and in second-century Christianity.²³⁹⁸ They perform a more ambiguous function in the Fourth Gospel, which emphasizes the potential hiddenness of God's revelation to those who may not prove to be persevering disciples.

Jesus» signs are some of his «works» in the Fourth Gospel, an appropriate topic for biographies²³⁹⁹ (although John must mention that he cannot include them all–20:30–31; 21:25). While the inadequacy of signs-faith is a motif that climaxes in 20:29, signs-faith still appears as valid faith in the Fourth Gospel (including in that verse, especially given the essentially positive characterization of Thomas in the Gospel).²⁴⁰⁰ In contrast to some commentators, we affirm that signs primarily serve a positive, revelatory function in the Fourth Gospe1.²⁴⁰¹ Although they do not control onés response, and response to the Spirit's testimony in the word is a higher stage of faith, they are among Jesus» works which testify to his identity (10:32, 37–38; 14:10–11; 20:29–31).

Whereas Jesus» signs in the Synoptics especially authenticate his mission,²⁴⁰² the Fourth Gospel analyzes the signs in a christological context, using them and the frequently subsequent discourses to interpret Jesus» identity and to call for faith.²⁴⁰³ John applied the signs symbolically,²⁴⁰⁴ but was not alone in such a practice; Philo and Plutarch similarly read symbolic meaning into signs.²⁴⁰⁵ When the signs» symbolic language is taken into account, John's applications are consistent with Jesus tradition he follows, as Dodd notes: «When the Fourth Evangelist presents the works of healing as «signs» of the coming of »eternal lifé to men, he is rightly interpreting these sayings in our earliest sources.»²⁴⁰⁶

The Synoptics also call Jesus» miracles signs; although the term appears in response to an inappropriate request for validation, Jesus» response indicates that earlier miracles have provided such validation, which will be finally authenticated by the resurrection (Matt 12:38–39; 16:1–4; Mark 8:11–12; Luke 11:16,29–30; cf. John 2:18; 6:30). But John emphasizes the «sign» function of Jesus» miracles: they point to a reality that must be interpreted. He develops his theme of signs especially from the term's use in the biblical exodus narratives.²⁴⁰⁷ Whereas early Judaism did not always associate the Messiah with miracles, the exodus narrative made it impossible not to associate «signs» with Moses. Moses» signs also generated «belief» (Exod 4:30–31), but as with signs-faith in the Fourth Gospel, those who had initially believed Moses turned on him when circumstances grew more difficult (Exod 5:21–23).

Signs serve a christological function, but witness to Jesus» identity so aptly because John's readers are presumably (given John's pneumatology) also a «signs» community, in contrast to most of their opposition in the synagogue leadership (like Jesus» signless opposition in the Fourth Gospel). Thus, as Aune contends, John recounts Jesus» signs in part

because the Johannine community itself was a charismatic community in which the miraculous activity of the risen Lord through the agency of the Spirit-Paraclete was being made manifest. The miraculous activity which characterized the ministry of Paul (Ga1. 3:3, 5; II Cor. 12:11–13; Rom. 15:18–19), and the communities which he founded (1Cor. 12:9f., 28; Ga1. 3:5), and which characterized the early years of the church as recorded in the book of Acts, is also an important element in the experience of the Johannine community.²⁴⁰⁸

This fits the epistemological conflict between the Johannine and local synagogue communities suggested above. Having noted this, however, we must return to our original caveat concerning the function of signs. John explicitly states that the first and last signs of Jesus» earthly ministry in this Gospel reveal his «glory,» forming an inclusio that invests all the signs with christological significance (2:11; 11:40). But Jesus» glory is ultimately revealed in the cross (12:23–25, 28–33);²⁴⁰⁹ by the cross his character is ultimately revealed (see on 1:14), by this he would draw people to himself (12:32–33), and the death-resurrection complex becomes the ultimate sign (2:18–21).²⁴¹⁰

John 20:30–31 provides a clear indication that the «signs» are a focal point in the Fourth Gospel, calling one to faith. (The climactic sign in context is encountering the risen Christ.) Signs-faith is inadequate in the Fourth Gospel, but it is a valid step on the way to full discipleship.

In understanding the relationship between signs and faith one should begin with the handful of texts mentioning both concepts in immediate proximity:

2:11: signs lead to disciples» faith

2:23: signs produce faith of untrustworthy people

4:48: Jesus complains about those who require signs for faith

6:30: crowds demand a sign before faith, although they have already received signs

7:31: many members of the crowds believed Jesus because of his signs

11:47–48: people are believing because of Jesus» signs

12:37: the crowds refused to believe despite Jesus» signs (though even some rulers did believe secretly–12:42)

One should also factor in texts which link Jesus» «works» with faith:

10:25: they refuse to believe despite Jesus» works

10:37–38: they should at least believe his works

14:10–11: believe on account of the Father's works done by Jesus

14:12: those who believe will replicate the same kind of works²⁴¹¹

Various texts are clear that God provided Jesus» signs or works to produce faith (10:37–38; 11:15, 42; 13:19; 14:10–11, 29; cf. 6:40); texts that indicate the obduracy of those disbelieving despite signs (10:25; 12:37) or despite encountering Jesus himself (6:36,64; 8:46) also fall into this category. Faith as a result of signs is not bad (1:50; 2:11, 22; 10:41–42; 11:45; 12:11; 16:30; 17:21; 20:8), but it must proceed to discipleship (8:30–31; 9:35–38), and is by itself inadequate (2:23–24; 3:2–3; 4:48; 9:18). Demands for signs usually presuppose unbelief (6:30; 7:4–5) or inadequate faith (20:25); often faith must precede signs (4:48,50; 11:40). (The inadequacy of «signs-faith» also appears in the Synoptic tradition: Mark 8:11–12; 15:32; Matt 12:38–39; 16:1–4; Luke 11:16, 29.) The ultimate basis of faith is the Spirit-inspired witness to the truth (1:7; 4:39, 41–42; 5:38, 46–47; 15:26–27; 19:35).

Saving faith (e.g., 1:12; 3:15–16, 18, 36; 5:24; 6:35, 40, 47; 7:38–39; 8:24; 11:25–27; 12:36, 46; 16:27) normally goes beyond this. It is persevering faith (6:67–69; 8:30–31, 45; 16:30–33), and suggests integrity of heart–and perhaps an initial stage of faith–as a prerequisite (1:47; 3:19–21; 5:38, 44; 10:26; 12:38–43). One passage explicitly distinguishes two levels of faith (4:50, 53) even though the second only implies discipleship. Likewise, though unbelief in general is the essence of sin (16:9), narratives seem to imply that some levels of unbelief may produce greater measures of hostility than others, when such hostility becomes the only way to maintain the unbelief of others (12:9–11 ). The connection between faith and signs is a theme that climaxes, appropriately, in the climax of the Gospel: blessed are those who believe without seeing (20:29), such as the audience which believes on the basis of the apostolic witness (20:31). God ultimately demands a commitment tht runs deeper than mere acceptance of what should be obvious. (See more detailed discussion of «faith» in ch. 7 of the introduction.)

If the signs at some level summon John's audience to faith, to what sort of faith do they summon it? The Synoptic tradition alone demonstrates that John could have drawn from a much larger collection of signs, yet he limited it to those he presents in his Gospel, about seven (20:30; 21:25). What can we learn about the object of faith from such signs, that those who saw the signs should have learned?

First, that Jesus is greater than Moses. If we are correct that John's audience moved primarily in a Jewish frame of reference, their first association on hearing of a water transformation miracle, Jesus» first sign (2:11), would be Moses» first sign, also a water transformation miracle (Exod 7:20). Jesus» multiplication of food in the wilderness, in view of the following discourse (6:31–58), is an explicit and inevitable reference to Moses. Extant messianic traditions do not provide clear support for the thesis that Jesus» signs would publicly identify him as Messiah; but the briefest acquaintance with the biblical tradition could lead observers to suspect him as a sort of new Moses, which sometimes included messianic implications.

But Jesus is not simply a new Moses; he is one greater than Moses. The healing miracles of 4:50–54; 5:5–9 and 9:6–7 hardly fit Moses» ministry, except by way of allusion to the serpent lifted up in the wilderness (3:14), perhaps alluding to John's motif of vision. But even in the serpent passage, Jesus is not Moses but the more direct agent of healing. Further, Jesus does not simply provide bread as Moses did (6:31)–and that only in a qualified sense (6:32); he is the true manna (6:35). In other words, he is not simply the agent who gives what Moses gave; Jesus is himself the gift of God (1:17; 3:16). The healings might better match the ministries of Elijah and Elisha; after all, if John is not Elijah (1:21), it is reasonable to expect that Jesus subsumes this title under his resume as well as that of Moses.

But the signs are intended to communicate more than such categories can contain. The discourse that interprets Jesus» healing in 5:5–9 subordinates Jesus to the Father but makes him responsible not only for raising up a lame man, but for raising up the dead– the point to which the climactic prepassion miracle of John 11:43–44 more explicitly points ( 11:24–26 on raising the dead in the last day). These signs therefore connect directly with Jesus» own identity in 14(«Because I live, you will also live»), so that his resurrection inaugurates that of his followers (cf. 20with Gen 2:7, breathing the breath of life). While John maintains Jesus» subordination to the Father, he also attributes to him a role normally reserved for God in contemporary Jewish thought.

John retains the sequence of prior tradition in connecting the feeding miracle (6:10–13) with Jesus walking on water (6:16–21), but given John's wholesale adaptation and rearrangement of his sources (e.g., 2:13–20), what he retains is as much Johannine as whatever he might add. Even the Synoptics probably use Jesus» walking on water to hint at his deity in some way (Mark 6:49–50), so it is not surprising that John would do the same with one of Jesus» «I am» statements here (confessions of Jesus» identity which perhaps become most explicit in 8:58). Turning water into something else as Moses did characterizes divine activity in Revelation (8:8; 16:3–6), though it could be delegated to a human agent (11:6). In Exodus, God's people beheld his glory in some signs (Exod 16:7,10), but Moses beheld God's glory most fully when God gave the gift of his word (Exod 33:18–34:7). In the Fourth Gospel, however, Jesus is the gift of the Word, and the disciples become the new Moses in beholding his glory. To paraphrase another early Christian writer, Jesus is greater than Moses in the same way that the builder of a house is greater than the house (Heb 3:2–3; cf. Num 12:7).

Clearly the signs are linked with the responses they intend to evoke: faith or unbelief.²⁴¹² But John also links the signs to «knowing» God. The first, foundational period of signs in the Hebrew Bible occurred in Israel's redemption in the exodus. Repeatedly God announced that the purpose of these signs was so that those who saw them might «know» that he was the Lord. Thus the signs functioned as divine self-revelation. The statement of purpose in 20:30–31 sounds roughly analogous, except that the goal here stops not at information about God on which the wise will act, but full discipleship, mature faith. The Fourth Gospel selects particular signs to unveil Johannine Christology addressing Jesus» identity and mission. (Our next chapter will explore some other elements of John's Christology.)

Like other motifs in the Fourth Gospel, John employs the revelatory motifs surveyed in this chapter to support his divine Christology. The signs suggest that Jesus is one greater than Moses, and Jesus, God's agent, joins God the Father as the supreme object of salvific, revelatory vision and knowledge. Our following chapter examines some more explicit christological motifs among John's titles for Jesus.