Craig S. Keener

Источник

Preliminary Introduction

BEFORE APPROACHING THE PROLOGUE PROPER, we must address scholarly questions surrounding it, such as redaction, hymnic structure, and most importantly, the background of the Logos language.

An Original Part of the Gospel

Since Harnack, some scholars have urged that the prologue was not part of the original Gospe1.2837 The personal Logos that dominates the prologue does not at first sight reappear in the Gospel; even if its presence is occasionally debatable (17:17), it nowhere attains the prominence it carries in the opening verses of the current Fourth Gospe1.2838 It is not adequate to reply that Paul, like John, does not develop his Logos Christology,2839 since Paul does not present his in a literary prologue; the analogy of Hebrews 1 is much more adequate.2840

Yet if one excises the prologue, one might expect a more formal introduction than 1:19; even Mark, who also begins abruptly with John the Baptist, begins with a statement of his subject matter;2841 Luke begins with a formal historical prologue.2842 Stylistically, John s prologue is most naturally read as from the same hand that produced the rest of the Gospe1.2843

Further, the prologue functions as a presupposition for the rest of the Gospel,2844 perhaps a «début des thèmes généraux.»2845 (Ancient writers commonly introduced the main themes or outline of topics to be covered at the beginning of their work.)2846 The Logos theme actually does pervade the Fourth Gospel, if it is understood as portraying Jesus as the embodiment of Torah (as we argue below), a theme presented in a variety of images throughout the Gospe1. The application of this term to Jesus summarizes related motifs in the succinct manner required of a prologue.2847 The prologués plot of descending and returning Wisdom informs the entire Gospe1.2848 The prologue likewise fits well into the following narrative, which picks up its comments about John the Baptist and climaxes with Jesus» revelation2849 (although the prologués comments about John may have been added to an earlier hymn to connect the prologue more adequately to the Gospel). If the «almost unanimous» consensus of «Johannine criticism» favoring the unity of prologue with Gospel early in the twentieth century2850 was premature, it nevertheless foreshadowed the dominant modern view, fortified by contemporary literary criticism, that the current Gospel functions best as a unity.2851

Yet this does not mean that the prologue was the first passage of the Gospel written. More likely, John added it only after completing his first draft of the Gospel, making it the «fruit of meditation» on the Gospe1.2852

A Redacted Hymn?

Even if, as we believe, the prologue circulated as part of the earliest published form of the Gospel, many scholars also believe that this prologue may incorporate and redact an earlier hymn familiar to the Johannine communities.2853 Ancient writers were not shy about incorporating poetry, familiar to their audience, that could make a useful point (e.g., Menander Rhetor 2.4, 393.9–12). Thus many scholars note that most of the prologue is rhythmic.2854 Given the purported frequency of other christological hymns in the earliest Christian literature,2855 it is more reasonable to attribute this proposed hymn to Christian2856 rather than non-Christian sources.2857 (The early analysis of J. Rendel Harris rightly points to abundant connections between John s Logos and Jewish Wisdom texts, but Harris's reconstruction of a pre-Christian hymn to Sophia2858 is a purely speculative interpretation of those correspondences and exceeds the evidence.)2859 Given the variety of hymns that must have circulated in early Christianity, it should not surprise us if allusions to this hymn were limited (they might appear in 1 John 1 and Rev 19). If John uses an earlier hymn, he adapts it to fit the rest of his Gospel better, especially adding the lines about John the Baptist.2860

Proposals to reconstruct the hymn are as varied as the proponents, and our list of proposals is not intended as complete.2861 Among earlier scholars, Cecil Cryer reasonably suspected a hymn with a symmetry of tristiches and distiches, though he had to omit material to make his pattern work (besides the standard omission of 1:6–8,15, he regarded 1as a marginal gloss).2862 Burrows suggests an Aramaic source, retaining all the lines, although he is sensitive to variations in the metrical pattern.2863

Humphrey Green adds 1:2, 14e to the lines Bernard had excluded in his Aramaic reconstruction, to produce two parallel strophes (each consisting of tristich, distich, tetrastich, and a closing epistrophe of one distich).2864 J. C. ÓNeill envisions a Greek source of three strophes, each of ninety-two syllables; to make the syllable count fit, however, he has to omit substantial material, sometimes without textual support (parts or all of 1:6–9,12d, 13b, 14a, 15,16,17).2865 Rudolf Schnackenburg suggests four original strophes (1:1,3; 1:4,9; 1:10, 11; 1:14, 16),2866 although he finds three sections of the completed prologue (1:1–5; 1:6–13; 1:14–16 or 18).2867 Coloe finds two sections with three strophes each, reflecting the structure of Genesis 1.2868 Mathias Rissi sees eight parallel lines in four strophes in 1:1–13, but suggests that 1:14–18 represents a poem of a completely different structure.2869 Boismard's inclusio (the Word as God in 1:1,18) is very likely,2870 but his chiasmus is forced (especially making 1re-creation, and 1:4–5 a «gift»); it produces uneven symmetry in line counts and subordinates more prominent elements of meaning to those which can fit the parallels he seeks.2871

Unfortunately, these are not the most speculative proposals. Teeple believes that the original Jewish hymn's Logos was accidentally identified with Jesus as the hymn was reworked by a gnostic redactor.2872 W. Bindemann thinks that the verses about John the Baptist were added at the hymn's incorporation into the Gospel (not unreasonable by itself), and that it was originally a Jewish wisdom hymn expanded by Hellenistic Jewish gnosticizing and transformed into a Christian hymn by adding land l:17bc.2873 David Deeks finds two sources for John's prologue: a Christian gnostic myth2874 and a source from John's church.2875 He contends that a scribe added 1:7c, requiring the addition of material in 1:8–9 to explain 1:7c;2876 1is either from the gnostic source or is a later addition; 1was added by pro-Baptist scribes;2877 l:14e, 16b-17 were probably added by a Paulinist redactor after publication, and these conclusions allow us to trace the history of the Gospel after its publication.2878 In contrast to most scholars (who merely subtract from the prologue), Paul Trudinger revives the view that the prologue originally included 3:13–21, 31–36 (but not 1:6–8, 15;3:22–30).2879

The greater onés speculative forays from concrete evidence, the less the probability of onés hypothesis being historically accurate. The common problem with the most speculative of the above positions is the surgery required on the text to make the lines fit.2880 It is not surprising that a recent commentator can observe that «no hymn has emerged, at least not one on which scholars agree.»2881 A scholar who has focused considerable attention on the prologue doubts the presence of a hymn and warns that if one does exist, «it is clearly impossible to reconstruct it with any confidence, to say nothing of the fact that this impossibility renders the hypothesis itself nearly meaningless.»2882

Simpler solutions–those which may find less symmetry but also require less adjustment of the text to make it fit the solution–should be preferred. For instance, after parenthesizing sections describing the Baptist, Tenney observes that most strophes are three lines each, a few containing a fourth line attached by a coordinating conjunction.2883 After experimenting with a number of possible chiastic and rhythmic structures, the only cautious line structure of my own that I would add–and this without assurance that it is correct–is a three-stanza structure omitting the Baptist verses (1:6–8, 15). Each stanza is exactly twelve lines, the first stanza consisting of two sets of six lines (each in thoughts of four lines followed by two lines); the second in sets of five and seven lines (three plus two and three plus four); and the third again in five and seven lines (five together or three plus two, and two plus two plus three). I do not extend symmetry beyond the lengths and general topics of the stanzas:2884

We cannot be certain, however, that the prologues rhythm indicates a hymnic source. Michaels contends that «the chainlike word repetitions that give the first part of the prologue its stylistic flavor run through the first so-called prose section (w. 6–8) as well as through the supposed poetry.»2885 In Greek rhetoric, even prose was expected to be rhythmic, though not metrical;2886 some suggested examples of early Christian poetic language (e.g., 1Cor 13) may actually be exalted prose.2887 Some rhetors considered the ornamental style of Plato and some other philosophers rhythmic even though it lacked verse.2888 This would not make the content a hymn, however, since it does not fit the metrical criteria of Greek verse.2889 Without clearer indications of specifically hymnic elements (such as the explicit iambic trimeter in the Sibylline Oracles or Hebrew parallelism in the Psalms), we cannot be certain where a writer depends on a hymn or simply lapses into the exalted prose characteristic of the grand style appropriate for discussing the divine (see comments on style under John and the Synoptics in chapter 1 of the introduction, esp. p. 48).2890

More striking than proposals for a specific poetic structure is Boismard's observation of parallels with the overarching structure of wisdom hymns. Wisdom texts often describe personified Wisdoms relation with God, her préexistence, her role in creation, her being sent to dwell among God's people on earth, and finally her benefits to those who seek her.2891 Since this is the chronology we would expect, however, what makes the parallel striking is not the chronology but the content. We will examine Wisdom parallels to the Logos below.

Purpose of the Prologue

In Greek rhetoric, the introduction (prooimion) and statement of facts (diēgēma) must come first in a speech.2892 Quintilian notes that the title proem (which he prefers to the less descriptive Latin exordium) signifies not simply a beginning, but an introduction to the subject of the speech or work at hand.2893 In the introduction to a forensic speech, one should state facts concisely so the jury will understand them, including arguments which anticipate the main arguments of the speech.2894 Yet such an introduction does not expound the main points; it merely introduces them;2895 its «sole purpose» is to dispose the audience favorably to the rest of the speech or work.2896 A prologue could not expound at any length, since it was to be kept short.2897 As a formal preface, Johns prologue is thus «likely to reveal something of the author's purpose, intentions and interest.»2898

Like speeches of praise, Greco-Roman biography might mention among virtues, when relevant, ones noble family background.2899 Greco-Roman biographies frequently opened with accounts of ancestry, birth, or predictions of greatness,2900 though such details were not essential to all biographies.2901 Whereas these features appear in the Matthean and Lukan infancy narratives, John goes back farther, emphasizing Christs preexistent glory with the Father. Käsemann is thus certainly wrong to declare the hymn's concern «unequivocally and exclusively soteriological,» regarding its exalted Christology as merely mythological language subservient to the soteriological plot.2902 In contrast to a gnostic portrayal of the Logos as «the subject of esoteric knowledge,» John's Logos acts in history.2903 The prologue is especially Christology, as expressed by the inclusio of 1:1, 18,2904 by the dominance of christological titles, especially the Logos, and finally by the climactic pronouncements of Christ's role in salvation history (esp. 1:14). The prologue reflects the exalted Christology characteristic of the Gospel as a whole.

The Gnostic Logos

Because John wrote in Greek to Greek-speaking (mainly) Jewish Christians in a specific milieu, John bound himself to use language his hearers could understand. One cannot investigate lexical possibilities or the nuances of other terms John employs without asking the sense in which he employed «Logos,» given the many potential meanings of the term. We may thus ignore for the moment the dismissals of background offered by those who claim John simply received the term by revelation (e.g., in a vision,2905 or by the Spirits revelation of Christ's glory2906). Whether the term came from the author or elsewhere, whoever applied it to this text did so to communicate something within a specific cultural framework. Similarly, while it is true that Jesus» incarnation distinguishes the meaning of his Logos from contemporary usages,2907 it does not explain why John should prefer this particular term to describe him. The proposal that he alludes to the apostolic proclamation that reveals Christ2908 (which logos sometimes means in the Fourth Gospel) is inadequate except as one important nuance of a much more substantive use of the term in the prologue. The semantic range of this term is so broad, however, that only a detailed investigation of the term's function in the prologue and the closest parallels to this usage in relevant ancient texts can enable us to determine its sense.

Some scholars have proposed that gnosticism provided the background for John's Logos.2909 Thus Bultmann declared, «The Johannine Prologue, or its source, speaks in the language of gnostic mythology, and its Λόγος is the intermediary, the figure that is of both cosmological and soteriological significance.»2910 Bultmann built on the work of his predecessor Reitzenstein, who identified the Logos with Mandaism's primal man.2911 As shown in the introduction above, however, all evidence for Mandean belief is late, and the sources of Mandaic tradition were almost certainly dependent on some Johannine motifs.2912 Hoskyns and Davey rightly critique this position:

The original Mandaean book cannot have been written before the rise of Mohammedanism. Yet, in spite of the fact that the Mandaean Baptist community had been considerably influenced by Eastern Christianity–if indeed it was not a strange offshoot from the church– Professor Bultmann assumes, first, that a gnostic Baptist community existed at the beginning of the second century; secondly, that the surviving Mandaean literature rests upon tradition reaching back to that time or upon documents originating then; thirdly, that the founders of the gnostic sect possessed a document containing the substance of the prologue to the Fourth Gospel, but applied to John; and lastly, that this document was sufficiently accessible for the author of the Fourth Gospel to have procured it and edited it for his own purposes.2913

Like Reitzenstein, Bultmanns student Conzelmann also cites Hermetic evidence,2914 but this evidence again is probably dependent on Christian motifs.2915 In the early decades of the twentieth century, scholars were already contesting the value of Reitzenstein's hermetic parallels to John's prologue because of the later date of the Hermetica2916 or a possible common dependence on Greek philosophy.2917

Given the alternatives available (see below), the later date of developed gnosticism (see introduction), and the relative lack of prominence in gnostic texts themselves (where it does occur it may depend on John's Logos), a background in gnosticism is not probable. Parallels between the Johannine prologue and gnostic texts like the Trimorphic Protennoia (46:6–47:27) probably point to a common reservoir of language at a «gnosticizing» stage on the Wisdom trajectory, language which is hardly limited to John and gnosticism.2918 The meaning John assigns to Logos has little in common with the gnostic idea of «a cosmic Logos answering to that contained in» the human sou1.2919 As in the case of later orthodox writers like Justin Martyr, it is sometimes difficult to tell whether the Logos theme in gnostic texts depends on John, on Hellenistic Jewish texts like Philo, or directly on Stoic and related Greek philosophy.

Some scholars have suggested that a gnostic hymn provided the hymnic background for the prologue (see discussion on the prologue hymn above). The general differences between most gnostic and the earliest Christian hymns may be helpful in determining the likelihood of this proposal: (1) Purported early Christian hymns are briefer and more poetic; (2) Christian hymns stressed the deity of the God-man Jesus; (3) Christian hymns in context stress the cross for redemption (gnosticism stresses self-knowledge instead); (4) The incarnation is the only divesting in Christian hymns; (5) The goal of redemption is exaltation or resurrection, «not restoration to a previous state of only being one of a chain of beings (the Pleroma).»2920 Schnackenburg observes that at least the finished form of this «hymn to the Logos is, in the main, much closer to Jewish and primitive Christian thinking than to Gnosticism.»2921

Many customary differences between gnostic and early Christian hymns are not addressed by John, so other considerations also come into play. First, the Gospel as a whole does not conform to gnostic theology, nor (against many scholars) does it respond primarily to gnostic issues. As discussed in the introduction, the Gospel as a whole makes more sense against a non-gnostic Jewish context. Second, the Logos also makes more sense against a non-gnostic Jewish context (see below). Third, the prologués other motifs and images (treated individually in the commentary below) fit other contexts better than gnosticism. Given the chronological problem of dating developed gnosticism before John (without using John to accomplish this task), and the Jewish issues to which the Gospel as a whole and the prologue in particular respond, the assumption of a gnostic background to the prologue may be anachronistic and is clearly unnecessary. Thus already by the mid-1970s, Kysar, after surveying various major positions, observes that the «clear direction» of published research «has found more reason to locate the author of the prologue in a Jewish-rabbinic setting than any other.»2922 As the majority of scholars today concur, a gnostic background for the prologue is very unlikely.2923

The Logos of Hellenistic Philosophy

The questions of temporal priority which plague any comparison of Johannine and gnostic texts do not affect a comparison of Johns Logos with that of Stoic thought. Earlier2924 and even some contemporary2925 scholars have thus suggested John s dependence on Greek philosophy here, or at least that the Greek origins of the idea should affect our reading of the term in John 1.2926

The sixth-century B.C.E. Greek philosopher Heraclitus reportedly spoke of «Thought» as guiding and ordering the universe,2927 and six of the surviving 130 fragments of his work refer to the Logos, four in the technical sense of being eternal, omnipresent, the divine cause, and so forth.2928 Nor was Heraclitus alone in classical Greek thought; in Cleanthes» Hymn to Zeus God rules all things and his Logos is present in them; moreover, the hymn apparently identifies this Logos with «the universal law.»2929

The Stoics developed Heraclituss doctrine.2930 Zeno, founder of the school, identified Socrates» logos, or rational principle, with that of Heraclitus.2931 Zeno reportedly urged people to live according to nature, following «the common law,» that is, the law common to all, which he identifies as the pervasive Logos and Zeus.2932 (This «natural law» also existed in other philosophical circles outside Stoicism.)2933 Stoics held that the passive principle in the universe was matter; the active principle, Logos, which is in practice identical to God, acts upon matter.2934 This universal reason or mind was expressed by way of example in human minds.2935 Cynic literature likewise praises Logos, or reason, as the soul's guide.2936

The concept of the Logos naturally spread beyond Stoicism. Amid Plutarch's philosophical demythologization of Isis and Osiris he declares that «the Divine Word (ό θείος λόγος) has no need of a voice.»2937 Likewise, Plutarch could appeal to classical poets to prove that law was written in human hearts, which law he identifies with ensouled Logos, or reason.2938 middle Platonists or neoplatonists ultimately merged Platós Demiurge and World Soul into the Stoic Logos, adopting the doctrine as their own.2939 Thus one later writer praises a deity as the divine Mind (νους) pervading the heavens (Menander Rhetor 2.17, 438.13–15) as well as the creator (δημιουργός) or second power (438.16–17). The idea of natural, universal law became so widespread that some Roman legal codes began by distinguishing laws particular to given states from the law of nature (ius naturale),2940 the law due to natural reason (naturalis ratio).2941

Because the Logos doctrine became pervasive and influenced Jewish formulations (not only in Diaspora philosophers like Philo, where its effects are most noticeable, but probably also ultimately in Palestinian expositors of Scripture), it had at least an indirect influence on the relevance of John's Logos language in the prologue. It is not, however, the most direct background for the prologue; its sense is in fact quite different.

The concept of a universally present Logos naturally enough gave way to pantheism both in Heraclitus2942 and in Stoic thought2943–a concept intolerably alien to the spheres of thought in which our evangelist moved. Whereas the Stoic Logos permeates the «world,» the Johannine Logos is opposed by the world (1:10).2944 John s Logos is also personal, in contrast to the abstract principle of Greek philosophy.2945 As Manson points out, Johns interest is christological, not metaphysica1.2946 Thus E. L. Miller, after noting parallels between the Logos of Heraclitus and the Logos of John's prologue,2947 points to even closer parallels with Jewish wisdom themes and concludes, «Despite superficial similarities, this Logos of Heraclitus stands in no direct connection with that of the Fourth Gospe1.»2948

Some writers have recognized the Jewishness of Johannine thought but suggested that John employed Greek philosophical terminology to express it.2949 Such a suggestion must be carefully nuanced to be valuable. That John wrote in Greek very few have disputed; that some potential readers in the late first century might have construed his language in terms of popular philosophy is also reasonable.2950 But, as we contend below, the semantic range of Logos easily encompassed the Jewish senses in a Jewish milieu, and it is the message which John directs to his intended audience (the «implied audience» of his text) that we seek to ascertain. A reading of the prologue merely on the terms of Hellenistic philosophy would be a reading counter to John's purpose, expressed in the allusions and development of his text.

Philós Logos

The Logos constitutes one of the most prominent concepts in Philo, and its very prominence provides a diverse array of Philonic material for examination.2951 In the early centuries of the church some readers of the Fourth Gospel saw Philós Logos as a forerunner for that of the Christians.2952 Thus some scholars, especially in the first half of the twentieth century, opined that John probably derived his Logos doctrine from Philo, who connected Stoic, Platonic, and Jewish ideas into a new framework.2953 Garvie, for instance, declared, «The dependence of the Prologue on Philo is so evident as not to need discussion,» although he believes that the editor adapted it to the Johannine theology of the Gospe1.2954

Other writers were more cautious, some suggesting that Philonic conceptions were mediated to John indirectly through other sources,2955 or that he depended on Philo solely for the term.2956 While stressing the latter, Middleton thinks that Philos Logos bridges the gap between Greek philosophy and rabbinic traditions.2957 Some think that Philo himself drew the image primarily from Judaism. After citing a rabbinic saying and the targumic Memra, Klausner urged that Philo «only broadened and deepened this Jewish conception and gave it a Heraclitean-Platonic-Stoic coloring.»2958 Bernard likewise suggests that Paul and John on the one hand and Philo on the other «represent two different streams of thought, the common origin of which was the Jewish doctrine of the Memra!"2959 (This suggested connection with the Memra would be mistaken even if the possibly later dating of this targumic tradition were not an issue.)2960

Dodd summarizes numerous aspects of Philós Logos that may be compared with Johannine usage; some of the parallels appear significant.2961 Argylés many close parallels seem to support his contention that Johns Logos doctrine is closer to Philos than to anything else, although even in 1952 he concedes that this no longer represents the most popular opinion.2962 Given both Philos attested prominence in the Alexandrian Jewish community in the first half of the first century (with the likelihood that Diaspora Jewish apologists elsewhere used his voluminous writings) and long-standing Alexandrian Jewish influence in the Jewish-Christian community of Ephesus (the probable center of Johannine thought in this decade [Acts 18:24–28]), the logic of seeking parallels here is initially sensible:

It is possible, nay, more than probable, that St. John was acquainted with the writings of Philo, or at least with the general tenor of his teaching, and may have discovered in his language a suitable vehicle for the utterance of his own beliefs, all the more welcome because intelligible to those who were familiar with Alexandrian modes of thought.2963

Philós Logos is both personal–bridging the gulf between God and human reason–and suprapersonal, like God himself in Philonic thought;2964 the nature of both God and Logos is inscrutable.2965 As in Stoicism, his Logos is the divine Mind (νους),2966 and in Philo is often the «divine» (θείος) Logos.2967

In Philós scheme, the Logos is directly below God and directly above the powers through which God rules creation;2968 the powers appear as angels when related to OT imagery, but Philo elsewhere identifies them with Platonic Ideas.2969 The Logos, as God's archangel2970 and eldest offspring,2971 functions as ambassador to humanity and separates «the creature from the Creator»;2972 as such it is a mediator of God's activity in the world and of revelation.2973 The Logos is God's image, through whom the universe was formed.2974 In Platonic thought the sensory world is merely a copy of the real world of ideas, of eternal forms. The Stoics, by contrast, saw the Logos as immanent in the world of matter. Philo combines these strands of thought,2975 following the syncretistic lead of middle Platonism in his day.2976

Philós Logos blends naturally into divine Wisdom and universal Law. Philo also utilizes the image of divine Wisdom, which he identifies with the Logos.2977 Mixing Greek and Jewish antecedents, he adopts for Wisdom epithets that Greek writers ascribed to Athena as wisdom's personification.2978 Philo may normally prefer Logos because Wisdom was a feminine figure in Jewish and Greek thought.2979 Philo clearly had a problem with the feminine gender of Wisdom. Emphasizing that the powers are male, Philo concedes that Wisdom is God's daughter only long enough to argue that she is masculine and is a «father, sowing and begetting in souls aptness to learn.»2980 Like Cicero, he adopts the Stoic image of universal law of nature, which is essentially identical with reason;2981 his Logos governs creation as a law would rule a city.2982 Moses can even be identified with the Logos at times.2983

Other Jewish texts in Greek employ Hellenistic philosophical terminology, although generally in a less self-conscious manner than Philo.2984 Hengel finds the Platonic idea of the «world-soul» (later adapted by Stoicism) in the LXX of Prov 8:22–31.2985 The Letter of Aristeas invokes «the natural reason» (τόν φυσικόν λόγον) to explain biblical law, which he considers a manifestation of reason;2986 the second chapter of 4 Maccabees identifies the law with reason (λογισμός).2987 Earlier Hellenistic Jewish writers also attributed creative activity and the light at creation to Wisdom.2988 At least some Diaspora Jews on a popular level personified the Law, entreating its power alongside God's.2989

The prevalence of the Logos concept in Hellenistic thought suggests the likelihood that other Hellenistic Jewish thinkers besides Philo would have exploited the concept, although Philo is our primary sample of Hellenistic Jewish philosophy. The same prevalence indicates that Philo may be used to illustrate one position on the spectrum of Logos's semantic range, without postulating dependence. Most scholars today deny direct dependence, although some will nevertheless argue for a close relationship based on a common stream of thought.2990 Thus, for example, Albright and Goodenough feel that John's Logos conception is «more primitive» than Philós and attribute both to a common source.2991 The value of Philós witness to the term's usage should not be rejected a priori;2992 certainly no one today would reject the value of Philo by asserting that a Palestinian Jew like John would not be open to foreign thought, as a writer in 1850 contended!2993

How closely does Philós use of Logos approach John's on the term's semantic range? Merely dismissing his relevance because his Logos is «impersonal» is unhelpful and not entirely accurate;2994 as noted above, his Logos is often enough personified, and possibly viewed as no less personal than the God for whom he mediates. Like Palestinian Judaism, Hellenistic Judaism did have a personified Logos or Wisdom tradition.2995 While John's Logos as a historical person certainly differentiates John from Philo,2996 it also differentiates him from every other extant non-Christian source of Mediterranean antiquity.

Another serious difference from John has to do with Philós philosophical usage and audience; as one writer puts it, «Philós dominating interest is metaphysical,» addressing mediation to the created world; John's interest is the mediation of eternal life to an alienated humanity.2997 Further, Philo emphasizes the «reason» nuances of the term Logos, whereas John emphasizes the «word» aspect.2998

Although Philós use helps expand our conception of nuances Diaspora readers could attach to the term, Philo is among the Hellenistic Jewish writers most influenced by Greek philosophy. He sought to commend Judaism to the Greek intelligensia of Alexandria, while raising his own community's level of Hellenistic education.2999 But John was not seeking to advance his community's societal status; he wrote to a community alienated from the broader society, though in need of argumentative validation (cf. John 15–16). Philo employs much middle Platonic language, which was probably foreign to both John and his first audience.3000 John articulates Christology, not a doctrine of a transcendent God respectable to Greek philosophy yet immanent enough through intermediaries to remain relevant in creation and ecstatic experience. Philo thus illustrates some significant nuances attaching to the Logos concept, but we must examine other usages along the term's semantic range as well to determine if the nuances generally inhere in the term's usage, or to what points along the continuum they are limited.

Commenting on Argylés extensive parallels, Wilson observes, «It would seem indeed more accurate to say that the works of Philo illustrate the methods and usage of the evangelist than that John is directly indebted to the Alexandrian scholar.»3001 Other Christian writers outside Alexandria employed a Logos doctrine, without any clear trace of dependence on Philo himself; Philo may provide us merely an extant window into a common «reservoir» of language and ideas. For many scholars, the Dead Sea Scrolls have pulled the reservoir in general more in the direction of Palestinian Judaism.3002

Palestinian Sources besides Wisdom and Torah

Personifications and even hypostatizations of Wisdom and the Word existed on Israelite soil before hellenization.3003 Not all leads are of equal value. The «Word» may have been worshiped as a deity at Ebla ca. 2500 B.C.E.,3004 though we do not yet know to what extent this may correspond to the Jewish tradition of personifying Wisdom.3005 The Mesopotamian goddess of Wisdom provides little direct background for the Stoic Logos.3006 That it is possible to cast the comparative net too widely, to commit the transgression Sandmel called «parallelomania,» may be illustrated by potential parallels to Johannine language in cultures probably genetically unconnected to Mediterranean culture, such as an African Pygmy hymn:

In the beginning was God,

Today is God,

Tomorrow will be God.…

He is as a word which comes out of your mouth.

That word! It is no more,

It is past, and still it lives!

So is God.3007

Yet relatively close specific ancient Near Eastern parallels to the OT tradition exist before the Hellenistic period.

1. Antecedents

Pre-Hellenistic parallels seem to lie behind the earliest Hebrew personifications of Wisdom in Proverbs. Albright located many Canaanite words and expressions in Prov 8–9, which he suggested sprang from Phoenician roots.3008 Landes likewise finds common Canaanite-Phoenician traditions behind both Genesis 1 and Proverbs 8.3009

Ringgren finds hypostases in ancient Egyptian,3010 Sumero-Accadian,3011 West Semitic,3012 and even pre-Islamic Arabian tradition,3013 and of these the most persuasive (as well as geographically and chronologically suggestive) are the Egyptian. One may compare even «The Theology of Memphis,» in which the god Ptah plans the universe in his heart and then speaks it into being.3014 The Aramaic Ahiqar seems to personify Wisdom.3015 Egyptian texts personify Magic in the third millennium B.C.E., «authoritative utterance» and «understanding» in the third and throughout the second millennium B.C.E., «sight-and-hearing» by ca. 1320 B.C.E. (also at Ugarit), the fourteen kds of Re as qualities, and so forth.3016 As Bright aptly summarizes,

Personified Wisdom has nothing essentially Hellenic about it, but stems ultimately from Canaanite-Aramean paganism, being attested in the Proverbs of Ahiqar (about the sixth century). The text of Prov., chs. 8; 9, must go back to a Canaanite original of about the seventh century with roots in still earlier Canaanite lore; personified Wisdom has taken the place of what was originally a goddess of wisdom.3017

But Greek influence would have strengthened the development of the personified Wisdom tradition in Proverbs, which becomes more notable in subsequent literature.3018 A variety of elements undoubtedly converged. Boismard opines that three streams of Jewish thought provide historical context for Johns thought: «Jewish speculations on the Law … ; the speculations of the Alexandrian Jews on Wisdom,» and «the final developments of the Old Testament on the Word of God.»3019

2. The Memra

The Targumim frequently employ the expression Memra, which some interpreters have regarded as the primary or an important background to John's Logos.3020 The case for this is questionable, however. To what extent does the Memra represent a personified concept3021 or, still more relevant, a hypostatization,3022 and to what extent is the Memra merely a figurative expression, a verbal buffer, not distinct from God?3023

Abelson regards it as more anthropomorphic than Shekinah and other expressions of divine immanence;3024 its usual function, however, seems to be to buffer God's name from being connected with apparent anthropomorphism.3025 Ringgren contends that some instances of Memra in the Targumim must reflect an intermediary being rather than simply a circumlocution,3026 but also observes that rabbinic literature outside the Targumim does not use Memra, although it employs Shekinah.3027

Hayward suggests that in Targum Neofiti Memra functions not as the tetragram YHWH, but as ΉΥΗ, God's name for himself in Exod 3;3028 he also finds covenantal connections in the usage of Memra.3029 In Neofiti, the Memra indicates God's revelatory activity as ΉΥΗ; in later Targum texts, however, it comes to function indiscriminately as a substitution for the divine name YHWH, neither personification nor hypostasis.3030

Arguing that the Memra is normally neither merely hypostasis nor circumlocution,3031 he nevertheless contends that it is probably part of the Logos background, while not all of it.3032 Suggesting that Johns Logos functions like Neofitís Memra in his reading, «the Word was God,» refers not «to any secondary entity in the Deity, nor to a mediating hypostasis between God and creation, but to an exegesis of God's own Name, His I WILL BE THERE, which at the time of creation is with Him.»3033 McNamara also believes that the synagogue usage he finds represented in the Targumim may simply represent the name of God, but may have influenced John nonetheless: «For John, too, "the Word was God» (John 1:1).»3034 Bruce Chilton has produced a thorough examination of Memra3035 in the Targumim and argued that it may stand behind Johns Logos.3036

Despite those careful scholarly arguments, we may question whether Memra, which appears as a personal being (either metaphorically or, less likely, literally) in at most a few targumic texts but nowhere else, represents a broad Jewish tradition that would have been understood by both John and his hearers. Despite protestations that the Memra must be an early component of Aramaic targumic tradition,3037 all our extant targumic evidence is too late to allow us to be certain that Memra was used in a particular manner in the first century. It is further too isolated to suggest that the language was used widely in early Judaism. Probably the few probable hypostatic or personified uses of Memra merely provide one example of Jewish imagery in this period, of which Wisdom is a far better representative. Apart from its illustrative value of a larger context in these cases, then, Barrett's remark is apropos: "Memra is a blind alley in the study of John's logos doctrine.»3038

Wisdom, Word, Torah

If the Memra is at worst a blind alley and at best a small indicator of a broader tendency to occasionally personify divine buffer-words, other Jewish concepts are much closer to the Johannine Logos. Word, Wisdom, and Torah were all personified in Jewish circles and coalesced in popular and academic thought. Although popular thought emphasized Wisdom more than the other two, the circles which emphasized exposition, application, and development of Torah preserve more evidence for the application of general Wisdom language to the Torah-Word of God in particular.

1. Personification of the Word

Although the extant literature of some Jewish groups (e.g., the Essenes) employed hypostasis or personification less than others,3039 hypostatization or personification occurs frequently enough in Jewish texts to provide a context for interpreting Johns use of Logos in his prologue.3040

While OT depictions of the Word by themselves probably do not constitute an adequate explanation of the Johannine prologue,3041 OT personifications (usually not hypostatizations) of the Word or expressions of its activity in creation are significant.3042 Although we will return to this issue in our comment on John 1:3, it is important to note that ancient Israelite texts could easily be understood as identifying the divine word in creation with the divine word of Scripture (Ps 33:4,6, 9, ll).3043

The Word may also be personified in second-century B.C.E. 1 Enoch, a work of Palestinian provenance.3044 The Wisdom of Solomon is clearer: God's all-powerful Logos came down from heaven to slay the first-born immediately before the exodus.3045 Rabbinic texts sometimes personified the Word3046 (דכוד). The rabbinic mystic work 3 Enoch objectifies the Word of God as Dibburiel, one of Metatron's seventy names.3047 The «progressive hypostatization of the Word in Judaism»3048 may well include the Memra concept of the Targumim as one illustration.

The Logos title for Jesus became prominent in ante-Nicene Christianity, probably mainly through John's usage, though Philo also influenced writers» perspectives and vocabulary once they had the term.3049 «Logos» often appears for the Son in Trinitarian formulas from the second century.3050 Ignatius depicts Jesus as God's «eternal Word»;3051 the Epistle to DiognetuSy possibly from the mid-second century C.E., also calls him the Logos.3052 Tatian describes the Logos as the Father's first-begotten, as the beginning and creator of the world.3053

A title so rich in theological and cosmological antecedents naturally lent itself to apologetic exploitation by early Christian philosophers. Justin Martyr (mid-second century) contends for Jewish hearers that the divine Word is personal, not inanimate,3054 and finds them agreeable.3055 He argues for Greeks that the Logos who condemned false gods through Socrates later came as Jesus Christ.3056 Although Justins source has been disputed3057–he rarely depends on the Fourth Gospel–the Christian Logos tradition in which he stands is probably either related to or derived from the Fourth Gospe1.3058 In the next generation Tertullian explicitly cites the Logos of Zeno and Cleanthes as identical with Christ.3059

For John, a background in the Word may also reflect to a degree the most familiar early Christian use of the word as the proclaimed message of Christ (e.g., 5:24; 8:31,37,43, 51; 17:20; Acts 6:2,4,7; Rom 10:17; 1Cor 1:18), which in Johannine theology actually mediated Jesus» presence (John 16:7–15). Thus this Gospel already appears to load Jesus» «word» with christological significance (cf. 12:48; 17:17).3060

Because the Word and Wisdom were identified, this option naturally coalesces with divine Wisdom and we should not read them as exclusive alternatives for the prologués background.

2. Wisdom

Observers have long noted that virtually everything John says about the Logos–apart from its incarnation as a particular historical person–Jewish literature said about divine Wisdom.3061 This background for the prologués Logos probably represents the majority consensus for the latter half of the twentieth century.3062 What makes this suggested background so appealing is that we have clear evidence that texts in which Wisdom is personified or functions hypostatically circulated widely before John wrote, and John and his readers would naturally have shared a common understanding of this background.

Wisdom usually functions as mere personification (e.g., Sir 15:2),3063 but in some texts may be hypostatic, especially in Wisdom of Solomon (Wis 9:4) and Ben Sira (Sir 1; 24),3064 texts to which early Christians, many of whom would have used recensions of the LXX containing these works, had ready access.3065 Wisdom was not only a feminine term grammatically, but a distinctly feminine image (Sir 15:2; Wis 8:2–3),3066 perhaps one factor in inviting John to replace σοφία with λόγος3067 (though not, as we will suggest below, the primary one). Bauckham argues that Wisdom and Word personify and hypostatize divine aspects, hence are within God's identity, allowing distinctions within God's identity.3068 To the extent that this was true, it would further provide John a bridge to articulate his Christology.3069

Wisdom matches not only the prologue but other images of Jesus in the Gospe1.3070 One pre-Christian work implies that Wisdom descended from heaven (Bar 3:29–30).3071 Wisdom is a special object of God's love (αγάπη, Wis 8:3), and sits by his throne (Wis 9:4; cf. Rev 3:21; 5:6). Wisdom's descent from heaven and return3072 provide a basic plot-line for not only the prologue but the Gospel (see fuller comment on 3:13).3073

John was hardly the first Christian writer to develop a Wisdom Christology.3074 Paul clearly does the same, for example, in 1Cor 1:24,30; 8:6; 2Cor 4:4; Col 1:15,3075 some of these instances very likely representing pre-Pauline tradition.3076 As early as his letter-essay's proem, the writer of Hebrews likewise evidences «a Logos Christology in all but the name.»3077 In the early twentieth century Rendel Harris pointed out that the first generation of Christians regarded Jesus as Wisdom, and this idea may have been in Jesus» mind as well,3078 as others have argued in greater detai1.3079 This identification also appears in later Christian texts.3080

Wisdom could be identified with the Word; she came from Gods mouth (Sir 24:3; cf. Wis 9:1–2). It is possible that John prefers Logos to Sophia for the same reason that Philo did:3081 a masculine noun was more suitable (especially in the case of the Word incarnate in a male). But it is more likely that John prefers Logos because «Word» had broader OT connotations more apt to conjure up the image of Tor ah without excluding the common nuances his readers would have associated with Wisdom. It is Torah that John needs to make his point (1:17).

3. Wisdom's Identification with Torah

Scholars have long acknowledged that Judaism identified divine Wisdom with Torah,3082 observing also that «all the statements made in the Prologue regarding the Logos (except, of course, "the Word was made flesh») can be paralleled with statements made in Jewish sources about Wisdom, or the Torah.»3083 John's Logos comes close to the form of Wisdom motif identified with Torah.3084

Early Wisdom literature like Ben Sira acknowledged the Torah as the source of Wisdom (Sir, prologue;3085 Sir 15:1; 19:20; 39:1); some passages also seem to identify the two (24:23;3086 34:8;3087 39:l).3088 The same identification appears in Bar 3:29–4and, under more influence from Hellenistic philosophic language, in some Hellenistic Jewish literature (e.g., 4 Macc 1:16–17). This identification apparently grew in the Pharisaic movement,3089 flowering in rabbinic literature.3090 Tannaitic literature occasionally,3091 and Amoraic literature regularly,3092 apply the depiction of personified Wisdom in Prov 8 to the Torah; the identification of the two became common in rabbinic texts.3093

Eldon Jay Epp has meticulously documented the coalescing of the attributes of Torah and Wisdom in Jewish literature;3094 although his sources on Torah are primarily later and rabbinic, the earlier sources indicate the antiquity of the general tendency of thought, and rabbinic sources naturally appear most prominently because they provide the best mine of texts on this particular subject. Wisdom3095 and Torah3096 are both préexistent; both Wisdom3097 and Torah3098 are related to God in a unique way; both Wisdom3099 and Torah3100 played a significant role in creation; both Wisdom3101 and Torah3102 are eternal; both Wisdom3103 and Torah3104 are related to life, light, and salvation; both Wisdom3105 and Torah3106 appear in the world or among people; both Wisdom (Prov 8:6–8) and Torah3107 are associated with truth; and both Wisdom3108 and Torah3109 are associated with glory. The cumulative force of such parallels, while not coercive, suggests that Wisdom and Torah were assimilated in popular thought, especially in the circles of the sages.

4. The Role of Torah in Judaism

Jewish people studied Torah not only to learn how to live, but as an act of devotion toward God;3110 its prescriptions were no more viewed as a burden than our modern traffic codes are for us.3111 Although Torah could be said to consist of commandments,3112 its sense with the sense of the law.3113 The Essenes certainly regarded their laws as equivalent to Scripture.3114

The centrality of Torah for early Judaism cannot be overstated.3115 Jewish people scrupulously taught Torah to their children,3116 and were thus regarded among pagans as a particularly educated people.3117 The relatively popular Pharisees and their successors were particularly known for their study of the Law.3118 Tannaim emphasized lifelong study of Torah;3119 a Torah scroll could be said to be «beyond price.»3120 Some declared study of Torah the Biblés point in saying «serve the Lord with all onés heart and soul»;3121 other Tannaitic texts attribute the exile to neglect of Torah,3122 or declare it better never to have been born than to be unable to recite words of Torah,3123 or declare one who does not study worthy of death;3124 or declare that Torah study is a greater role than priesthood or kingship.3125 Amoraim tend to be even more graphic: God himself keeps Torah;3126 the entire world represents less than a thousandth of Torah.3127 Amoraim elaborated the Tannaitic tradition that the world is sustained by Torah: the world would not continue without it.3128 And whereas the Holy One may be lenient in judging idolatry, sexual immorality, murder, or even apostasy, he would not be lenient in neglect of Torah.3129

But Torah's importance was hardly limited to the Pharisees and later rabbis, although most people did not have the time for academic pursuits in which rabbis reveled. The Qumran sectarians, practicing virtual monasticism so as to devote themselves fully to Torah study, apparently emphasized devotion to Torah more heavily than their other is broader than code or custom, denoting instruction and revelation.3130 God's law is like an «answer,» that is, an oracle, from God (Sir 36:3).

We may safely leave aside discussion of the concept of «oral law» here. Although rabbinic traditions eventually came to be identified with the law itself as a sort of «oral law,»3131 and viewed oral tradition as greater than written Torah3132 (because oral law encompassed and explained written law),3133 it is debated how widely spread this development was in the Johannine period.3134 (Proposed early attestation in Philo probably simply attests a Greek idea which may or may not prove relevant to the study of Jewish oral law.)3135 Like the Samaritans,3136 many non-Pharisaic Jews regarded the written Torah as sufficient, while filling in its gaps, which they did not explicitly admit existed. The early image of the fence around Torah,3137 however, reflects the importance of Torah observance; the «fence» of traditional interpretations that grew up around the law, assumed to be correct,3138 was undoubtedly in practice identified contemporaries.3139 The Laws centrality appears in Greek-speaking Jewish texts as well as documents in Hebrew or Aramaic: for instance, the Law was eternal (Bar 4:1) and constituted God's holy words (Let. Arts. 177).3140

Josephus claims that the law was central to the life of all Palestinian Jews (Ag. Ap. 1.60), and undoubtedly reflects accurately the norm (even if he glosses over exceptions). He further claims that Jewish observance of the law everywhere (Ag. Ap. 2.282) causes their law to be in all the world just as God himself is everywhere (Ag. Ap. 2.284). Further, because the limited legal autonomy granted Jewish communities in the Diaspora permitted them to judge members of their communities on the basis of Jewish law, study and exegesis of biblical laws was a civil as well as religious issue.3141 In short, «To be a Jew may … be reduced to the single, pervasive symbol of Judaism: Torah. To be a Jew meant to live the life of Torah, in one of the many ways in which the masters of Torah taught.»3142

5. The Renewal of Torah in Judaism

God had promised that the law would go forth again, only this time from Zion rather than from Sinai (Isa 2:2–4).3143 In the context of a new exodus, God would inaugurate a new covenant, writing his laws on the hearts of his people so they would break them no longer (Jer 31:31–34; Ezek 36:27).

Some have gone so far as to suggest that Judaism anticipated a new Torah or the abolition of the old Torah in the messianic time.3144 The evidence for this, however, is sparse and late.3145 To the contrary, early Amoraim insisted that, whereas some parts of the Bible might be annulled, the law of Moses would not be.3146 Instead, the Torah could be fulfilled more completely once the temple was restored,3147 the messianic kingdom was established,3148 and the law was written in onés heart in accordance with Jer 31:31–34.3149 In other words, the law would be intensified in the eschatological time.3150 One possible exception to the lateness of texts about a new law is unclear, but may suggest the temple scroll or another pseudepigraphic law document rejected by the Jerusalem priesthood.3151 Early Jewish Christians may have expected a renewal of Torah.3152

6. The Personification of Torah in Judaism

Often in later Jewish texts the Torah is betrothed to Israel, God's daughter to his son,3153 and sometimes the law-giving at Sinai is portrayed as a wedding.3154 In another kind of parable, Torah is God's bride and queen, interceding for Israe1.3155 Thus Torah laughs at men,3156 exclaims,3157 talks with the Shekinah,3158 and so forth. When God says, «Let us make humanity,» the plural refers to God and his Torah.3159 The Sabbath is sometimes personified in a similar way.3160 Most of these texts are Amoraic; Amoraic documents were far more likely to engage in cosmological speculation and had further developed haggadic parables.3161 Early connections between Wisdom and Torah, however, suggest that the personification of Torah is as early as the coalescing of these images.

Ringgren observes that personified Torah replaces personified Wisdom in rabbinic tradition.3162 If rabbinic descriptions are pressed literally, the rabbis viewed Torah hypostatically; but because most rabbinic descriptions personifying Torah cannot be taken literally, the personification is largely figurative and the degree of hypostatic character is difficult to evaluate. Torah's personification may function no differently from the personification of God's attributes, for example, the attribute of justice.3163

One need not decide whether God's Torah was hypostatized or merely personified to understand the background of John's prologue.3164 The use of an image with which Jewish readers would be at least somewhat familiar–an image whose nuances included those of Wisdom, the Word, and Torah–allows John to communicate his conception of the divine, eternal revelation of the Father, but it is ultimately Jesus» identity as a human being (John 1:14) that concretizes the abstract personification as a person in history.3165

John's Logos as Torah

Playing on the link between Torah and Wisdom, the Fourth Gospel presents the Logos of its prologue as Torah.3166 Given the centrality of Torah, charges that a sect undermined Torah would be serious in Jewish circles, and such charges were probably leveled against Christians (as against the minim mentioned above; John may respond to such charges in, e.g., 5:16–17). Appeals to defending the law against Jews who would betray it aroused nationalism,3167 and charges of infidelity to the law regularly characterized intra-Jewish polemic.3168 John's response is consequently pointed: Jesus himself embodies the Torah and is its fullest revelation, and the apostolic witnesses thus deliver a revelation of greater authority than that of Moses (1:14–18; cf. 2Cor. 3). It is rejecting Jesus, rather than obeying him, that constitutes rejection of Torah (cf. 1:11–13).

Rodney Whitacrés dissertation on Johannine polemic demonstrates the significance of Torah in the debate between John's community and their opponents. Jesus» opponents in the Fourth Gospel repeatedly claim loyalty to Moses and Torah;3169 «Thus, every explicit dispute in John makes reference to Moses and/or the Law.»3170 John demonstrates that Jesus» opponents do not keep the law, however;3171 reversing their accusations, Jesus, by contrast, does keep the law.3172 And whereas Scripture attests to the opponents» unbelief,3173 it testifies to Jesus» identity.3174 John has a very high view of Scripture; «It is his opponents» use of it in their rejection of Jesus that he finds completely unacceptable.»3175 By its identification with Torah, the Wisdom myth portrayed Wisdom as greater than Moses, the mediator of Torah; Jesus in turn appears as Wisdom or (by virtue of his full deity and eternal préexistence implied in 1:1–2) greater than Wisdom.3176

In the Hebrew Bible, Torah was God's Word; Torah and Wisdom naturally coalesced in popular wisdom thought, including that of the sort of sages who carried the identification into the emerging rabbinic movement for whose views we have ample extant data.3177 John's praise of the Word is ultimately a contrast with the limitations of the Mosaic law (John 1:17): Jesus is the embodiment of all God's character revealed in the Mosaic law, but is more accessible to humanity (see comment on 1:14–18). Such a rhetorical and theological move is extraordinary: «This personification of Torah in Christ goes beyond anything which we have found in the Jewish sources: there is no premonition of a Messiah becoming in himself the Torah.»3178

Most important for viewing Torah as an essential element of John's use of λόγος is his clear contrast in the prologue. In 1:17–18, at the climax of John's praise to the Logos, he is contrasting the Logos made flesh–Jesus–with Torah, which the OT and Judaism called God's «Word.»3179 The grace and truth present in the law were more fully revealed in Jesus (see comment on 1:17); the restrained glory revealed in the law was now fully unveiled in Jesus of Nazareth (see comment on 1:18). Some other commentators have also noted that John's point in the prologue is ultimately a direct comparison with Torah.3180 Verse 17 is not unnaturally abrupt, any more than the mention of Torah in Ben Sira 24:23, precisely because the identification of Torah with Wisdom and the Word could be assumed.3181 Christ functions in the rest of the Gospel as Torah did in contemporary Judaism.3182 The contrast does not simply mean that God has broken his prophetic silence and spoken again;3183 it means that all that God had already spoken was contained in Jesus, the ultimate embodiment of all God's Word.

This raises the question, «Why does John call Jesus the Logos rather than calling him the Nomos, that is, Torah?» A few suggestions may be offered. One, the image of divine Wisdom was almost certainly more widespread than the personification of Torah in John's day; the former was available to all readers of the LXX and their pupils, whereas the latter seems to have flourished particularly in Pharisaic circles. A neutral term like Logos could draw on associations with personified Wisdom already offered in Hellenistic Judaism, without compromising its bridge to the Torah, which was also recognized as Gods Word.3184 Further, while the semantic range of the Hebrew Torah and the Greek nomos overlap, they are hardly identical;3185 John may have regarded the narrower nuances of nomos as too potentially misleading to his readers to employ thoughout his prologue.

Plenty of Christian tradition already existed which could help John's readers grasp his point; early Wisdom Christologies could easily provide a Torah Christology when refracted through the more general encompassing term Logos (which had imported nuances of its own). John also had available a rich tradition of imagery surrounding a new revelation of Torah in Jesus.3186 Matthew represents one strand of this tradition, for instance, when he portrays Jesus» teachings as midrash on Torah that bring out its implicit meaning, only in a manner more authoritative than the earliest rabbis would have claimed for themselves.3187 While the phrase «new Torah» may be too strong,3188 Matthew's Jesus is both the perfect expositor of Torah and the one whose life fulfills its teachings. The close identification of Jesus with divine Wisdom (Matt. 11:25–30; 23:30–36, including Q material) and statements identifying him with the Shekinah (Matt. 18:20) suggest that Matthew would not have objected to John's Torah Christology, either.3189

Later Christians could have grasped John's point if it were put to them plainly; Jewish Christianity linked law with Logos,3190 and some Christians in the mid-second century identified Christ with divine law.3191 But nomos Christology was never developed very far;3192 one suspects that the rich associations of Logos in the Hellenistic world quickly overshadowed it, and many Palestinian Jewish Christians, becoming marginalized from both sides in that debate, did not develop the apologetic technique as well as they could have.

Conclusion

Johns choice of the Logos (embracing also Wisdom and Torah) to articulate his Christology was brilliant: no concept better articulated an entity that was both divine yet distinct from the Father. By this term, some Diaspora Jewish writers had already connected Jewish conceptions of Wisdom and Torah with Hellenistic conceptions of a divine and universal power. Finally, by using this term John could present Jesus as the epitome of what his community's opponents claimed to value: God's word revealed through Moses. Jesus was thus the supreme revelation of God; the Torah had gone forth from Zion.

* * *

2837

Cf. Collins, «Commentary,» who views the prologue as inspired commentary on the Gospe1.

2838

Even if the Logos is «the most characteristic single doctrine» in Johannine literature (Stevens, Theology, 75), it is inadequate to carry the weight of Johannine Christology alone (see Filson, «Life,» 111–12; Robinson, «Destination,» 122). It is unlikely, however, that a redactor transformed a «light» hymn into a «word» hymn through unfamiliarity with the Fourth Gospel's themes (so Freed, «Influences,» esp. 148–60).

2839

M'Gillivray, «Prologue,» 282.

2840

Ibid.

2841

See Robbins, Jesus, 201; Kingsbury, Christology, 56. Some consider this a title (Kelber, Story, 15), but contrast Pryke, Style, 35; Aune, Environment, 17.

2842

Aune, Environment, 89–90, 120–21; Palmer, «Monograph,» 21–26. Cf. Robbins, «Prefaces»; Burridge, Gospels, 195, for a comparison with biographical prefaces. Cf. Alexander, «Preface,» for a comparison with prefaces of ancient scientific treatises, but the parallels probably simply reflect the broader spectrum of preface-writing.

2843

Including the epilogue (John 21); see Robinson, «Prologue,» 120. Smith, John, 21–22, allows that «its language, style, and theology are … «Johannine,»» whatever their original source.

2844

E.g., Sloyan, John, 20–22; Reinhartz, Word, 18–25.

2845

Braun, Jean, 3.

2846

E.g., Virgil Aen. 1.1–6; Josephus War 1.17–30; Polybius 3.1.3–3.5.9, esp. 3.1.7; 11.1.1–2; for a particularly thorough example, see Aulus Gellius pref.25. One might also compare introductory exordia (e.g., in 4 Macc 1:1–12 and Luke 1:1–4, cf. Klauck, «Rhetorik»). In the absence of rhetorically polished prologues, introductory summaries could be employed (Polybius 11.1.3–5, for each book after the first six).

2847

Smalley, John, 93 (especially concerning the recurrence of life and light themes); cf. Falconer, «Prologue,» 223: «Its leading conceptions occur in the body of the Gospe1.»

2848

See Culpepper, «Plot.» Wisdom Christology underlies numerous other passages as well (e.g., 5:37–38; 14:7–9).

2849

Schnackenburg, John, 1:224.

2850

Scott, Gospel, 155, against the earlier view of Harnack.

2851

See Culpepper, Anatomy, 87, who finds clues to the plot in the prologue, esp. in 1:11–12.

2852

Robinson, «Prologue,» 128; cf. idem, Trust, 83.

2853

E.g., Schnackenburg, John, 1:225–26; Jeremias, Message, 72–73; Schmithals, «Prolog»; Cholin, «Prologue»; Tobin, «Speculation.» Kraeling and Mowry, «Music,» 309 (cited in Porter, «Creeds and Hymns,» 234), found both Greek and Jewish musical elements here.

2854

E.g., Lightfoot, Gospel, 78; Epp, «Wisdom,» 129, both comparing Semitic poetry; Ryan, «Hymn.» If it is not a hymn, which is certainly possible, it is «at least a passage of lyrical prose» (Brown, «Prologue,» 429–30).

2855

See, e.g., the pattern in Sanders, Hymns, 24–25; Hunter, Paul, 37–38; Hengel, Jesus and Paul, 78–96; Porter, «Creeds and Hymns.»

2856

Meeks, Prophet-King, 12 (against Bultmann, Käsemann, and Haenchen); cf. Ashton, «Wisdom.»

2857

Teeple, Origin, 135–36, sees an original non-Christian Jewish poem in 1:1, 3–5, 11; cf. Painter, «Christology,» 52 (who adds that Hellenistic Christians before John added 1:16–18); Martens, «Prologue.» Contrast Hamerton-Kelly, Pre-existence, 200.

2858

Harris, «Origin»; idem, «Athena»; idem, Prologue. Despite the tenuousness of his reconstruction («Origin,» 425–26), his detailed parallels are invaluable.

2859

For one critique, see Hadidian, «Philonism,» 217–18.

2860

Koester, Introduction, 2:188, also suggesting 1:17. Painter, «Christology,» thinks that the Baptist material constitutes Johannine additions (p. 51) to the earlier prologue (47).

2861

Cf., e.g., the more detailed analysis of Brown, lohn, 1:18–23, which Barrett, lohn and Judaism, 33, critiques as unconvincing because of the irregularity of the strophes and the presentation of 1:17–18 as prose.

2862

Cryer, «Prologue.»

2863

Burrows, «Prologue.»

2864

Green, «Prologue,» 292.

2865

ÓNeill, «Prologue,» 48–49.

2866

Schnackenburg, John, 1:226.

2867

Ibid., 227. Cf. Falconer, «Prologue,» 227, who divides the text into 1:1–4 (préexistent Son); 1:5–13 (Messiah); and 1:14–18 (incarnation).

2868

Coloe, «Structure»; unlike some other proposals, this one has an objective background behind it.

2869

Rissi, «Word,» 395. Rissi derives both hymns from Jewish-Christian circles, with John's comments in 1:6–9,12c, 13, 15, and 18 («Logoslieder»).

2870

Boismard, Prologue, 76–77. The confessions of Jesus» deity framing the Gospel (minus the epilogue) in 1and 20likewise constitute an inclusio (see Cullmann, Christology, 308).

2871

Boismard, Prologue, 80; cf. similarly Culpepper, «Pivot»; Vellanickal, Sonship, 132–33. Talbert, John, 66 is better despite the asymmetry.

2872

Teeple, Origin, 140.

2873

Bindemann, «Johannesprolog.»

2874

Deeks, «Prologue,» 67.

2875

Ibid., 69.

2876

Ibid., 73.

2877

Ibid., 73–74.

2878

Ibid., 75.

2879

Trudinger, «Prologue,» following H. T. Andrews; he offers no textual or other evidence.

2880

For a comparison of various views, see Brown, John, 1:122; Haenchen, John, 1:122. Other structures employ strophes of widely divergent–hence unusually assymetrical–lengths (e.g., Pollard, «Poems,» 109–10).

2881

Brodie, Gospel, 134.

2882

Miller, Salvation-History, 7. He does, however, think that 1:1–5 contains hymnic material (pp. 7–10).

2883

Tenney, John, 61–62.

2884

Keener, «Knowledge,» 46.

2885

Michaels, John, 2–3. Cf. Burrows, «Prologue,» 62, 68–69, who finds the whole prologue metrical as reconstructed in Aramaic.

2886

Aristotle Rhet. 3.8.1, 1408b; Cicero Or. Brut. 50.168–69.231; cf. Rowe, «Style,» 154; balanced clauses in Anderson, Glossary, 90–91. Mythical language would fit poetry (Menander Rhetor 1.1, 333.31–334.5; cf., e.g., Isa 51:9) but does not require it (cf., e.g., Rev 12:1–9).

2887

E.g., some older twentieth-century commentators regarded 1Cor 13 as a poem (Ramsay, Teaching, 330; Kennedy, Epistles, 23; Klausner, Paul, 560–61; Héring, 1Corinthians, 135).

2888

See Cicero Or. Brut. 20.67 (though complaining that poetry can emphasize euphony over intelligible content, 20.68).

2889

Ridderbos, John, 21.

2890

Even very careful syllabic structures may represent prose rhetoric rather than poetry per se; e.g., the parallelism characteristic of isocolon and homoeoteleuton; see Rhet. Alex. 27.1435b.39–40; 1436a.1–4; Rowe, «Style,» 137 (citing Isocrates Paneg. 4.39; Cicero Mur. 9; Gorgias He1. 7); Porter, «Paul and Letters,» 580; Anderson, Glossary, 90–91 (citing, e.g., Rhet. ad Herenn. 4.27–28; Demetrius 25).

2891

Boismard, Prologue, 74–76, citing Sir 24:5–27; Wis 9:9–12; Prov 8:22–25.

2892

Theon Progymn. 34.

2893

Quintilian 4.1.1; Dionysius of Halicarnassus Lysias 17; Thucyd. 10–12.

2894

Dionysius of Halicarnassus Lysias 24. Rhetorical handbooks already insisted that the introduction should summarize the arguments the speech would use (Dionysius of Halicarnassus Thucyd. 19; LCL 1:512–513 n. 1 cites Rhet. Alex. 29), though there were some exceptions in spoken rhetoric (Seneca Dial, 1.pref.21).

2895

Quintilian 4.1.35.

2896

Quintilian 4.1.5; cf. Dionysius of Halicarnassus Lysias 17; Cicero Or. Brut. 40.137; also Heath, «Invention,» 103.

2897

Artemidorus Onir. 1.pref.; 2Macc 2(at the end of a long prologue). This is not to deny the possibility of long introductory sections after various sorts of prologues (e.g., Polybius 1–2; cf. 2.71.7; Luke 1:5–4:30; Matt 1:18–2:23; probably John 1:1–51).

2898

Epp, «Wisdom,» 128–29.

2899

E.g., Xenophon Agesilaus 1.2; Plutarch Themistocles 1.1; Cornelius Nepos 7 (Alcibiades), 1.2; but this was not necessary (Philostratus Vit. soph, pref.480). Noble ancestry (especially from deities) helped define a person's heroic power (Homer II. 20.215–241); it did not, however, guarantee positive outcome in the end (Sallust Cati1. 5.1).

2900

Aune, Environment, 32.

2901

Burridge, Gospels, 178.

2902

Käsemann, Questions, 164; cf. comments on the Logos's mythical language in Kümmel, Theology, 282.

2903

Boice, Witness, 162.

2904

An inclusio surrounding a proem appears in a widely read Greek classic, Homer Od. 1.1–10, where 1.1–2 and 1.10 invoke the Muse to tell the story while 1.2–9 summarizes the whole book's plot, inclusio is frequent (e.g., Catullus 52.1,4; 57.1,10). Cf. also repetition of a refrain in narratives (Judg 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25); or especially poetry: the wedding invocation to Hymen in Catullus 61.4–5, 39–40, 49–50, 59–60; 62.4–5, 10, 19, 25,31,38, 48,66 (with to added, 61.117–118, 137–138, 142–143, 147–148, 152–153, 157–158, 162–163, 167–168, 172–173, 177–178, 182–183); the bridal summons (Catullus 61.96,106,113); invocation to the Fates (Catullus 64.327, in briefer form thereafter in 333, 337, 342, 347, 352, 356, 361, 365, 371, 375, 381); or a summons to love (Perv. Ven. 1, 8, 27, 36, 48, 57–58, 68, 75, 80, 93).

2905

Bligh, «Logos,» 401–2.

2906

M'Gillivray, «Prologue,» 282.

2907

Boice, Witness, 162; Morris, John, 122; Ladd, Theology, 241.

2908

Minear, «Audience,» 353–54; Barrett, John, 154, sees this as partial background.

2909

Cf. Clark, Logos, 18–19, who suspects an anti-pagan polemical use of the Logos (emphasizing the distinctiveness of the incarnation, 28).

2910

Bultmann, John, 28.

2911

Reitzenstein, Religions, 52.

2912

See chapter 4 of our introduction, esp. pp. 161–69.

2913

Hoskyns, Gospel, 144–145.

2914

Conzelmann, Theology, 335. For a description of the theme in Poimandres and other Hermetica, see Lee, Thought, 84–85, though he contrasts Johns «ethical interest» with the Poimandres» «magical» outlook.

2915

See chapter 4 of our introduction, pp. 165, 168–69.

2916

Vos, «Range,» 389–92, esp. 391–92.

2917

Lyman, «Religion,» 270, suggested a common dependence on the Logos of Heraclitus, John via Philo, the Hermetica via the Stoics.

2918

See Evans, «Prologue,» 395–401, esp. 399.

2919

Smalley, John, 48.

2920

Helmbold, «Hymns,» 78.

2921

Schnackenburg, John, 1:493.

2922

Kysar, Evangelist, 111.

2923

Cf., e.g., Janssens, «Source gnostique»; Ridderbos, John, 27–31.

2924

Moore, «Life,» 249; cf. MacGregor, John, xxxiv-xxxvi.

2925

Duncan, «Logos»; Tenney, John, 62; Hunter, John, 16, citing also Jewish background.

2926

Read explores the value of the Hellenistic Logos in «Logos.» Many modern attempts to employ John's Logos in interreligious dialogue, however, rest on a misapprehension of his semantic horizon (cf. Lukito, «Christology»).

2927

Diogenes Laertius 9.1.1. Diogenes Laertius provides ancient sources on Heraclitus in 9.1 (LCL 2:409–425).

2928

Lee, Thought, 79; cf. summaries in Allen, Philosophy, 10; Bury, Logos-Doctrine, 1–2; Barclay, «Themes,» 80.

2929

In Stobaeus Eel 1.1.12 (Grant, Religions, 152–54). One may compare Orphic Hymns 64: nomos is what arranges the stars and the whole cosmos; Pindar frg. 169a (in P.Oxy. 2450).

2930

Long, Philosophy, 131,145. Glasson, «Logos Doctrine,» noting that Heraclitus's extant sayings on the subject are few (p. 234), wrongly suspects that the Stoics created them; see the critique in Miller, «Updating.»

2931

Bruce, History, 44; compare Heraclitus frg. 20 with Zeno frg. 98 (the latter available in Barrett, Background, 62).

2932

Diogenes Laertius 7.1.88. On divine law meaning living according to nature, see also Epictetus Diatr. 2.16.28; on one law and Logos in the universe, see Marcus Aurelius 7.9. For a full discussion of natural law in Stoicism, see Watson, «Natural Law.» For the connotative difference between logos and physis (nature), see Long, Philosophy, 120, 148–49.

2933

In Plato, e.g., see Diogenes Laertius 3.86; cf. Cicero in Frank, Aspects, 109; Maximus of Tyre Or. 6.5; 11.12 (comparing mind and law; in 27.8 he regards God as pure Mind); even Lucan C.W. 7.1; Sib. Or. 3.757. Cf. in Palestinian Judaism 1 En. 72:2; 73:1; 74:1; 76:14; 78:10; 79:1–2; 1QM 10.12–13.

2934

Diogenes Laertius 7.1.134. Anaxagoras (500–428 B.C.E.) reportedly made «Mind» (νους) the moving principle of matter (Diogenes Laertius 2.8; Hippolytus Haer. 1.7).

2935

Cicero Nat. d. 2.6–8.18–20; cf. further 2.8.21–13.32; Iamblichus Myst. 1.15; cf. Long, Philosophy, 108; Murray, Stages, 167 (citing Chrysippus frg. 913 in Arnim); Bultmann, Christianity, 142. Seneca Nat. 1.pref.14 contends that the human soul is divine, but God is entirely soul and «reason.»

2936

Crates Ep. 31, to Hipparchia (Cyn. Ep. 80–81).

2937

Plutarch Isis 75, Mor. 381B (LCL 5:172–175). Bousset, Kyrios Christos, 189, notes the identification of Osiris with the Logos in a source of Plutarch but wrongly locates a source of the Logos doctrine in the Mysteries (p. 229). For cosmic imagery applied to deities in Greek thought in the second century C.E. and later, see Grant, Gods, 114–23; Col 1:15–20 may anticipate such popular yearnings.

2938

Plutarch Uned. R. 3, Mor. 780C; cf. Stoic Cont. I, Mor. 1033B, where «Philosophy's Logos,» or doctrine, is a law by which people will choose to live.

2939

Dillon, Platonists, 80–83, citing Antiochus of Ascalon; cf. Dodd, «Background,» 337, on Plotinus and for the suggestion that the process of assimilation may have begun as early as Posidonius. Gamble, «Philosophy,» 50–59, esp. 56–58, found the background of the Gospel especially in Platonism.

2940

Justinian Inst. 1.2.1–2 (tr., 36–37), a later compilation of earlier laws.

2941

Gaius Inst. 1.1 (tr., 19–20). In the Hellenistic period, Rhet. Alex. pref. 1420a.26–28 defined law as reason (λόγος) specified by common agreement, a sort of social contract.

2942

The idea is suggested in Heraclitus frg. 50 (in Allen, Philosophy, 41).

2943

Cf. Cicero Nat. d. 2.7.19–20 (cf. 2.8.21–14.39). Epicureans ridiculed this position (see Cicero Nat. d. 1.10.24; cf. 1.13.34)

2944

Schnackenburg, John, 1:482.

2945

Shedd, «Meanings,» 253. The incarnation also provides a ground for distinction (Smalley, John, 44), but this does not fit any view contemporary with John.

2946

Manson, Paul and John, 139; cf. also Miller, «Updating,» 176. Manson's other major objection, that Stoics employed Logos as just another name for God, bears less force because of the prominence of the Logos in Stoicism and the lack of its prominence in the Fourth Gospel beyond the prologue.

2947

Their (1) eternity (frg. 1); (2) divinity (frg. 30; cf. frg. 67; called Zeus, frg. 32; possibly identified with divine law, frg. 114); (3) relation to light (fire, frg. 30; sun, frg. 16; lightning, frg. 64); (4) role as mediators in creation (frg. 1); (5) universal presence (frg. 2; cf. frg. 16); (6) the necessity that they be followed (frg. 2); humanity misapprehends the Logos (frg. 1) (Miller, «Updating,» 174–75).

2948

Ibid., 176; cf. also the distinctions between Johannine use and that of Stoics and neoplatonists in Gericke, «Logos-Philosophy.»

2949

Gilbert, «Notes,» 43; cf. MacGregor, John, xxxiv-xxxvi.

2950

LaMarche, «Prologue,» 47–48, thinks 1:1–9 addresses a Gentile audience whereas 1:14–18 addresses John's fellow Jews, but such a neatly divided audience is unlikely.

2951

See Wolfson, Philo, ch. 4, «God, the World of Ideas, and the Logos» (1:200–94, esp. 226–94); cf. also 325–32. This is Philós primary image (Dey, World, 11).

2952

Foakes-Jackson and Lake, «Dispersion,» 155.

2953

Scott, Gospel, 146,154; Barclay, «Themes,» 80; Hadidian, «Philonism,» 220–21 (Hadidian arguing that the evangelist exploited Philós increasingly popular language, but denying that this constitutes «dependence»); Bury, Logos-Doctrine, 6–11. Fenton, John, 34, thinks Hellenistic Judaism «the most likely suggestion.»

2954

Garvie, «Prologue,» 164.

2955

Howard, Gospel, 160 (as early as Apollos, Colossians, and Hebrews).

2956

Sylvia Mary, Mysticism, 64.

2957

Middleton, «Logos,» 101–3; cf. Lee, Thought, 87–88; Barrett, John, 153; Simon, Sects, 119.

2958

Klausner, Paul, 186.

2959

Bernard, John, l:cxl; cf. similarly Westcott, John, xvii.

2960

See Hayward, Name, 139 (concluding his survey of material); cf. Goodenough, Philo, 76.

2961

Dodd, Interpretation, 276–77.

2962

Argyle, «Philo.»

2963

Alexander, «Logos,» 398.

2964

Argyle, «Logos.»

2965

Ibid., 14, citing Philo Unchangeable 55,62; Planting 18–19; Names 10.

2966

SeeWolfson, Philo, 1:230–31.

2967

E.g., Philo Flight 5; Abraham 244. Lee, Thought, 88, cites QG 4.180 as affirming the Logos as a second God; cf. Argyle, «Philo,» 386, on the Logos as divine yet subordinate to God (frg. 2.625, «answering to» QG 2.62).

2968

Goodenough, Philo, 102–6; see the chart on p. 105. See further Dillon, Platonists, 161–66.

2969

Haenchen, John, 1:139.

2970

Philo Heir 205; cf. as the angel who met Hagar in Gen 16 in Flight 5; the angel who met Jacob in Names 87.

2971

Philo Heir 205. As «the beginning» and «eldest born,» see Confusion 146–147 (Argyle, «Philo,» 385; Lee, Thought, 87).

2972

Philo Heir 205 (LCL 4:384–385).

2973

Hagner, «Vision,» 84, also cites Philo Heir 205–206; here the Logos acts as suppliant for creation and ambassador for the creator (Heir 205). Wolfson, Philo, 1:282–89, doubts that «intermediary» is accurate language for the Logos or the powers, arguing that the sense of mediation has more to do with revelation than with metaphysics (p. 289); but Urbach, Sages, 1:39–40, rightly compares neo-Pythagorean and neoplatonic mediation and cites material in Let. Aris. and Wis. Cf. Argyle, «Philo,» 386, citing Confusion 146–147; Unchangeable 30–32; Heir 205.

2974

Philo Spec. Laws (1–4) 1.81 (literally, through whom the world was «demiurged»). Argyle, «Philo,» 385, points out that the Logos was Gods instrument (όργανον) in creation (Cherubim 127; Sacrifices 8). Because nothing was with God before creation (Alleg. Interp. 2.2) and there was no assistant there (Creation 25), Argyle suspects that «the Logos … in these passages must be taken as included in the Godhead» (ibid.); but Philós imagery may simply deconstruct here.

2975

Dodd, Interpretation, 65–66.

2976

Cf. Dillon, Platonists, 80–83; Dodd, «Background,» 337 (cited above).

2977

See Wolfson, Philo, 1:97, 253–61, esp. 254–55.

2978

Grant, Gods, 102. For allegorization of Zeus or Athena as mind or wisdom, see esp. Maximus of Tyre Or. 4.8 and sources cited in the notes in Trapp, Maximus, 39.

2979

Knox, Gentiles, 84–85. On Philós prevailing negative use of feminine imagery, see Baer, Categories.

2980

Philo Flight 51–52 (LCL 5:36–37).

2981

See Horsley, «Law of Nature»; cf. Wolfson, Philo, 1:332–47.

2982

Myre, «Loi.» Stoics also emphasized God's rule of the universe as a state (Cicero Fin. 3.19.64).

2983

Goodenough, Philo, 150.

2984

Isaacs, Spirit, 23–24, on Wis (cf. άθάνατος in 1:15; 3:1–4; 4:7; 5:15–16; 8:13; 15:3), suggesting that such philosophical language had become «part of common parlance.»

2985

Hengel, Judaism, 1:162–63.

2986

        Let. Aris. 143.

2987

Esp. in 2:9–10; cf. 1:1, whose usage is similar to that of Stoicism. For the function of biblical law in 4 Macc in view of its Hellenistic literary conventions, see Redditt, «Nomos."

2988

Grant, Gods, 101, citing Aristobulus, second century B.C.E. Vos, «Range,» 407–19, proposing that the Odes of Solomon may be Jewish with gnostic interpolations, sees them as a more advanced stage on the wisdom trajectory than John.

2989

Cf. CIJ 1:519, §719, from Argos in Greece.

2990

E.g., Goppelt, Theology, 2:299; Ferguson, Backgrounds, 383; Kilpatrick, «Background,» 37; in the early twentieth century, cf. Sanday, Criticism, 197.

2991

Albright, «Discoveries,» 161.

2992

See Hadidian, «Philonism,» 213–17.

2993

Stuart, «Examination,» 29–30.

2994

Cf. Kümmel, Introduction, 218; Dodd, «Background,» 341; idem, Interpretation, 73; Hagner, «Vision,» 85. Cf. Vos, «Range,» 394, who equates the Logos with «the world as ideally present to the mind of God» and asserts that Philós Logos, in contrast to John's, is «not-God» (n. 52); neither contention is adequately nuanced.

2995

Jeremias, «Logos-Problem.»

2996

Hadidian, «Philonism,» 220.

2997

Howard, Gospel, 161; cf. similarly Falconer, «Prologue,» 226–27.

2998

Westcott, John, xvi.

2999

Cf. the similar point in Goppelt, Theology, 2:299.

3000

Borgen, «Hellenism,» 99.

3001

Wilson, «Philo,» 47.

3002

Wilson, «Thought,» 226; cf. Schnackenburg, John, 1:487.

3003

Cf. Hengel, Judaism, 1:154–55 (who lists Egyptian, Aramaic, and other hypostatizations, especially Egyptian); contrast Goppelt, Theology, 2(who dates Prov 8:22–36 to the third century due to supposed Hellenistic influence). Many see the background of John's concept either in Judaism rather than Greek thought (Falconer, «Prologue,» 227; Richardson, Theology, 161; cf. Westcott, John, xviii; Cross, Qumran, 215–16) or in a combination of the two (Barclay, «Themes,» 80, leaning toward Hellenistic; Brown, John, 1:524, leaning toward Jewish).

3004

Dahood, «Ebla,» on «Temple of the Word» (provided this points to an actual temple devoted to the worship of the personified Word; much Ebla material is still debatable).

3005

Words sometimes carried magical efficacy in ancient Near Eastern thought (e.g., Moriarty, «Word»), as in some other non-Western cultures (cf. Prince, «Psychiatry,» 99).

3006

Albright, «Logos,» 143–51, esp. 150. This is not to say that preexilic Mesopotamian ideas could not be transmitted over time (a giant is apparently called «Gilgamesh» in 4Q531 frg. 1, line 12; 4Q530 2.1; cf. also Reeves, «Utnapishtim»), but that the burden of proof remains on one asserting direct connections to demonstrate the media of transmission.

3007

Mbiti, Religions, 44.

3008

Albright, «Wisdom,» 7 (although he sees more in Prov 9 than in Prov 8 [p. 8]).

3009

Landes, «Tradition,» esp. 291.

3010

Ringgren, Word, 9–52; cf. Vos, «Range,» 388–89.

3011

Ringgren, Word, 53–73.

3012

Ibid., 74–88.

3013

Ibid., 172–93. The Persian prototypes that some have suggested (hypostatic Amesha Spentas in the Gathas, mentioned by Vos, «Range,» 387, as known by the first century) may be of more dubious relevance.

3014

Trans. J. A. Wilson, 4–6 in ANET. This account is much closer to the method of creation in Gen 1 than the oft cited Enuma Elish.

3015

Co1. 7, line 95 (if the context is correctly reconstructed) (ANET428).

3016

Kitchen, «Background,» 4–6 (following Oesterley, Proverbs, xiii, xxvi).

3017

Bright, History, 448.

3018

Cf. Wolfson, Philo, 1:255, for Greek mythology's personification of wisdom; many recognize Greek influence on Jewish thought (Bury, Logos-Doctrine, 5; Sanders, John, 69). Non-Jewish personifications of wisdom include Plutarch Fort. Rom. 1, Mor. 316D (probable; it is compared with Fate; Law, νόμος, is personified in Pindar frg. 169a in P.Oxy. 2450); likewise, Latin personifications (as a rhetorical device, e.g., Rhet. ad Herenn. 4.53.66; Cicero Nat. d. 2.23.60–62), also include Wisdom (e.g., Cicero Resp. 3.8.12; Acad. 2.9.27; Fin. 4.13.34; similarly, Philosophia in Seneca Ep. Luci1. 95.10; Virtue in Ep. Luci1. 66.27, though Ep. Luci1. 113 mocks a more literalistic personification of the Virtues).

3019

Boismard, Prologue, 96; Boismard adds John's personal contact with the incarnate Word.

3020

Burney, Origin, 38; J. A. Robinson, Historical Character, 104–5; Hayward, «Name»; Brown-lee, «Whence,» 179; Barclay, «Themes,» 79–80; cf. Westcott, John, xvi. Tg. Neof. 1 on Gen. 1does associate the Memra with Wisdom.

3021

Middleton, «Logos,» 113.

3022

Box, «Intermediation» (answering Moore); Stuart, «Examination,» 20–22 (occasionally); cf. Middleton, «Logos,» 129. Middleton, «Logos,» argues that Shekinah (pp. 113–23) and Yekara (128) are also used as circumlocutions.

3023

Moore, «Intermediaries»; idem, Judaism, 1:414–42 (esp. 418–19); Albright, Stone Age, 286; Schnackenburg, John, 1:485; Bowman, Gospel, 86.

3024

Abelson, Immanence, 150–73.

3025

Bonsirven, Judaism, 6, 26.

3026

He cites Gen 11in Tg. Yer. 1; Exod 19in Tg. Onq., Tg. Yer. 2; Exod 13in Tg. Yer. 1; Exod 13in Tg. Yer. 2; Deut 34in Tg. Yer. 1; Deut 4in Tg. Yer. 1; Deut 33in Tg. Yer. 2 (pp. 160–63); but I find only Deut 34in Tg. Yer. 1 convincing.

3027

Ringgren, Word, 163.

3028

Hayward, Name, 24,147.

3029

Ibid., 57–94.

3030

Hayward, «Memra in Neofiti.»

3031

Hayward, «Name,» 19. Hayward, «Memra and Shekhina,» 210, contends that Moorés refutation of the hypostasis view is «convincing.» After Moore, scholars generally read Memra as a circumlocution only, until Codex Neofiti 1, where it is hypostatic in some sense (Munoz), forced a reopening of the case (Hayward, Name, 5–6).

3032

Hayward, «Name,» 31–32; idem, Name, 135.

3033

Hayward, Name, 134.

3034

Martin McNamara, Targum, 102–3; idem, «Logos,» 115; cf. idem, Judaism, 235–39.

3035

Chilton, Approaches, 271–304.

3036

Ibid., 177–200, citing more recent work on the Targumim (pp. 185–86). This was one of my few objections to this work (Keener, «Review of Chilton,» 150).

3037

E.g., Hayward, Name, 53 (suggesting that the traditions antedate a rabbinic tradition because the Memra does not appear there); Brownlee, «Whence,» 179.

3038

Barrett, John, 153; cf. Lee, Thought, 97.

3039

See Flusser and Safrai, «Hypostasis.»

3040

Some suggestions are, however, too tenuous, e.g., the view that God's hypostatic expression as an archangel supplies background for the hymns in Phil 2:6–11 and Col 1:15–20 (Stroumsa, «Form[s]»), for which the evidence tends to be too sparse and late.

3041

Goppelt, Theology, 2:296; cf. Boice, Witness, 159–60. Many authors appeal to the OT as at least one source, e.g., Manson, Paul and John, 144–49 (the main source); Pereira, «Word,» 183; Stevens, Theology, 76,88; cf. Burkitt, Gnosis, 94 (regarding 1έν αρχή as decisive for an allusion to God's creative speech in Gen 1); Boismard, Prologue, 99–100.

3042

Stuart, «Examination,» 19, and Moore, Judaism, 1:415, are probably correct that most Jews would have regarded God's word as personified rather than hypostatic–i.e., they would not have taken this literally.

3043

Logos could be used for other traditions» sacred writings as well, e.g., Isis's writings in onés soul (Plutarch Isis 2, Mor. 35IF).

3044

        1 En. 14(cf. both Knibb, 100, and Isaac, 21); but cf. 15:1, which may suggest that the author merely represents God's word, like his voice, as a part of him.

3045

Wis 18.15.

3046

Ringgren, Word, 163–64, cites Song Rab. 1.2.2; 5.16.3; b. Hag. 14a. Justin's Jewish hearers assent to his argument that the divine Word is personal in Dia1. 130 (cf. 128); but while Justin's hearers probably do not assent merely for the sake of argument, his portrayal of Jewish positions is not correct throughout.

3047

Ringgren Word, 164, following Odeberg, 3 Enoch, 172–73. Cf. Abrams, «Boundaries»; Fauth, «Metatron.»

3048

Sanders, Hymns, 56.

3049

Barnard, «Logos Theology,» 137, thinks Philo directly influenced Alexandrians like Clement and Barn, but did not significantly influence Justin, who probably borrowed the term from Stoicism (p. 140).

3050

The Christian interpolation in Sib. Or. 7.69–70 is probably second century; cf. also Acts John 94:1–2; cf. the patristic comments later included in late Vulgate and Erasmus's Greek text for 1 John 5:7.

3051

Ign. Magn. 8.2.

3052

        Diogn. 7.2.

3053

Tatian 5.

3054

Justin Dia1. 128. Although his language is «capable of an Arian interpretation … Justin believed in the full Divinity of the Son» (Barnard, Justin, 100).

3055

Justin Dia1. 130. Chadwick, «Defence,» 295, observes that Justin is dependent on his philosophic Logos even when presenting Christ to nonphilosophers.

3056

Justin 1 Apo1. 5. Justin believed, however, that philosophic revelation had to be complemented by God s truths revealed by Israel's prophets, from which he believed the philosophers derived some of their revelation (Holte, «Logos,» 165).

3057

Bauer, Orthodoxy, 206. Barnard, «Study,» 160, doubts that Justin takes the Logos directly from John or Philo.

3058

Although not moving in the Greek philosophic tradition in which the term would be relevant, Shepherd of Hermas reveals a similar Christology (Herrn. Sim. 9.12). Contrast Theophilus 2.10, where the Word through whom God created is his Spirit.

3059

See Tertullian Apo1. 21.10. In second-century Christianity in general, see Rainbow, «Christology,» 666.

3060

Miller, «Origins,» 450, thinks that the prologue presents the idea at a fuller stage of development. Because we accept the prologue as part of the complete Gospel, we see it casting its shadow over the other uses in the Gospe1.

3061

Harris, Prologue, 43; Dodd, «Background,» 335; May, «Logos,» 438–47; ÓNeill, «Prologue,» 49; Brown, John 1:520,523; Weder, «Raum»; cf. Tobin, «Prologue.» See especially the list in Dodd, Interpretation, 274–75.

3062

See Kysar, Evangelist, 107–11; cf. Stevens, Theology, 78–81; Lee, Thought, 97–100; Martens, «Prologue,» 268; Bruce, «Myth and History,» 94; Epp, «Wisdom,» 130–32; Ladd, Theology, 240; Gaston, Stone, 209; Kreitzer, John, 28–30; Perkins, «John,» 944; Wainwright, «Sophia.»

3063

Wisdom may be personified, as in Prov, also in 4Q381, frg. 1, line 1; 11Q5 28.10. In Wis, even the literary device of personification «is not consistently employed» (Isaacs, Spirit, 54). But Stuart, «Examination,» 26–28, may go too far in seeing Wisdom as only an attribute and not a hypostasis.

3064

This is often recognized, e.g., by May, «Logos,» 447, especially in Wis, where it is clearer (Vos, «Range,» 399; Urbach, Sages, 1:40; DeSilva, «Wisdom of Solomon,» 1271–72). Ringgren, Word, 104, even regards Prov 8"s portrayal of Wisdom as hypostatic.

3065

Cf. this point in Moeller, «Motifs,» 98. Stuart, «Examination,» 26–28, is certainly mistaken to think John probably unacquainted with apocryphal literature.

3066

Cf. Muraoka, «Hymn,» 173 (who suggests that it portrays Wisdom and its seeker like «a man and his chaste, youthful, and attractive woman»); Schroer, «Grenzüberschreitungen.»

3067

ÓDay, «John,» 519. Cf. Valentinian use of Sophia (Hippolytus Haer. 6.29). By contrast, Scott, Sophia, 250–51, relates the feminine image of Wisdom to the positive role of women in John's community; but this seems unlikely precisely because John does not use the feminine term here.

3068

Bauckham, God Crucified, 20–22 (contrasted with Metatron and other intermediaries, 17–20).

3069

Ibid., 26, 39–40. Early Judaism seems not to have systematized its view quite so distinctly, however, in that Wisdom was viewed as created, a point that John needs to modify (see comment on 1:1–2).

3070

For Wisdom Christology in John, see more fully Witherington, Sage, 368–80; also Dunn, «John,» 314–16; Ringe, Wisdom's Friends.

3071

The Similitudes of Enoch (1 En. 42:1–3) also point out that Wisdom found no place to dwell on earth and so was given a place in heaven among the angels.

3072

This can also reflect the imagery of Greek mythology (cf., e.g., Apollonius of Rhodes 4.640–641).

3073

Cf. Reinhartz, Word, 17–25.

3074

See, e.g., Witherington, Sage, 249–94.

3075

E.g., Harris, «Origin,» 170, 314; Kysar, «Contributions,» 349; Gibbs, Creation, 59–92; Longenecker, Christology, 145; Lee, Thought, 74–75; see also above, on Christology. Gibbs, Creation, 34–58, also finds it in Rom 5 and 8.

3076

For pre-Pauline conceptions of préexistence, cf. Witherington, Christology, 53; Hamerton-Kelly, Pre-existence, 192–94. Kim, Origin, 135, thinks Paul the first to develop a Wisdom Christology, based on his Damascus road encounter; but Paul's traditional language (e.g., in 1Cor 8:6) suggests that the formula existed prior to his adoption of it.

3077

Longenecker, Christology, 144.

3078

Harris, Prologue, 62; see 57–62.

3079

See, e.g., Witherington, Sage, 201–8.

3080

        Greek Anthology 1.28 includes a prayer to «Christ, Wisdom of God.» In Shepherd of Hermas, God's Wisdom and Word created the universe (1.1.10; on the creation of the church, cf. also 1.2.4); Wisdom is author of Scripture in 1 Clem. 57.

3081

See n. 143 above.

3082

E.g., Urbach, Sages, 1:198–99,287; Longenecker, Christology, 146.

3083

Dodd, «Background,» 335. The attempt of Dix, «Wisdom,» 2, to distinguish Wisdom and the Logos in Jewish sources and Rev 12 is unconvincing.

3084

        Pace Ashton, Studying, 16, though 1 En. 42, to which he prefers to appeal, can also provide useful context.

3085

Here the Torah is joined by the prophets and other ancestral books (i.e., the Bible, and perhaps also subsequent traditions of sages). Cf. further Wis 6:17–18.

3086

«All these things» refers to the Book of the Covenant, and the context is a monologue by Wisdom about herself. Sheppard, «Wisdom,» contends that Ben Sira develops the identification of Wisdom and Torah offered in Deut 4 and 32 (see esp. p. 174; cf. also Davids, James, 52).

3087

31in some versions.

3088

Cf. Busto Saiz, «Sabiduria.» Boccaccini, Judaism, 81,88–90,94–96, argues that Ben Sira does not fully identify them but frequently links them.

3089

See Hengel, Judaism, 1:169–70.

3090

Ibid., 1:171; see also Hruby, «Torah.»

3091

E.g., Sipre Deut. 37.1.3.

3092

        Lev. Rab. 19:1. Rabbis also assume it in other passages (e.g., R. Simeon ben Yohai [Ecc1. Rab. 1.4, §4] purportedly assumes it in Prov 3:18).

3093

E.g., Gen. Rab. 17:5; 31:5; 44:17; Lev. Rab. 11:3; Pesiq. Rab. 20:1.

3094

Epp, «Wisdom,» 133–36. While some sources are late, the early sources indicate the antiquity of this general tendency of thought.

3095

He lists Prov 8:22–30; Sir 24:9; Wis 7:21; 8:5–6; 9:1–2,9.

3096

He lists b. Zebah. 116a; cf. Šabb. 88b; Sipre Deut. 11:10, §37 (76ab); b. Pesah. 54a; Ned. 39b; Gen. Rab. 1:2; 8:2; Pesiq. Rab. 46:1; Midr. Pss. 90, §12; 72, §6; 93, §3.

3097

He lists Wis 8:3; 9:4; cf. Prov 8:27–30; Bar 3:29; Wis 7:25; 9:9–10.

3098

He lists "Abot R. Nat. 31 (8b); Midr. Pss. 90, §12; Exod. Rab. 33 (94a); Lev. Rab. 20(120a); Sanh. 101a, bar.

3099

He lists Prov 3:19; 8:27–30; Wis 7:21; 8:4–6; 9:1–2, 9; "Abot R. Nat. 31 (8b).

3100

He lists m. "Abot 3:15; Tanhuma Berešit §l (6b); Gen. Rab. 1:1.

3102

He lists Ps 119:152, 160; 1 En. 99:2; Bar 4:1; Philo Moses 2.14; Josephus Ag. Ap. 2.277; Gen. Rab. 1:1; Matt 5:18; Luke 16:17; cf. Tob 1:6.

3103

He lists Prov 3:16–18, 22; 8:35; Sir 24:27, 32; Bar 3:14; 4:1–2; Wis 7:10, 26, 27, 29; 8:13, 17; 9:18; 10:7.

3104

He lists Ps 19:8; 119:93,105,107–8; Prov 6:23; Sir 17:11; Wis 18:4; 4 Ezra 14:30; 2 Bar. 59:2; 77:16; T. Levi 14:4; m. «Abot 2:7; b. »Abot 6:7, bar.; Mek. on Exod 15:26; Sipre on Num. 6:25, §4b (on Prov 6:23); b. Ketub. 111b; Sanh. 88b, 91b; Num. Rab. 11 (163d); Deut. Rab. 7(204a); Pesiq. Rab. 36:1; Midr. Pss. 1, §19.

3105

He lists Sir 24:7–12; Bar 3:36–37; Wis 9:10; cf. Wis 9:17–18; 10:1–21; 1 En. 42:2.

3106

Here he lists only the giving of Torah at Sinai rehearsed in various bodies of literature.

3107

LXX Ps 118(119:89); 119:142, 151, 160; Neh 9:13; cf. Mal 2:6; 4 Macc 5:18; Midr. Pss. 25, §11.

3108

Wis 7:25; 9:10–11.

3109

Exod 33:18–23; 34:29–35; Num. Rab. 11 (on 6:22); Midr. Pss. 105, §1; Pesiq. Rab. 20:4.

3110

See, e.g., Safrai, «Education,» 945.

3111

        T. Ber. 6:24–25; see Sanders, Jesus and Judaism, 191; cf. Koester, Introduction, 1:242. The Law's purpose had been gracious from the start (e.g., Deut 6:20–25).

3112

E.g., Exod. Rab. 33(Amoraic).

3113

Cf. Sanders, Jesus to Mishnah, 127. One may compare the unconscious assumption of the biblical reliability of information gleaned from Scofield's reference notes on the part of many earlyto mid-twentieth-century North American fundamentalists.

3114

Ibid., 126–27, especially on 11QT (though the DSS can warn against adding or subtracting measures regarding sacrifices, Oxford Geniza Text co1. D, lines 17–19). But Essenes frequently wrote their halakah, in contrast to that of the Pharisees (cf. Baumgarten, «Unwritten Law,» 7–29).

3115

Cf., e.g., Moore, Judaism, 1:235–50; Schechter, Aspects, 116–69; Grossfeld, «Torah.»

3116

Cf. Lichtenberger, «Lebenskraft.»

3117

See, e.g., Stern, Authors, 8–11.

3118

See Sanders, Jesus to Mishnah, 236.

3119

        "Abot R. Nat. 3 A (R. Ishmael and R. Akiba).

3120

        T. B. Mesica 3(trans. Neusner, 4:92), R. Judah. On its worth, see also, e.g., m. Qidd. 4:14; Gen. Rab. 16(using Ps 19:1); such comparisons with wealth derive especially from the wisdom tradition in Proverbs (cf. Prov 2:3–4; 3:13–15; 8:10, 19; 16:16; 20:15; 25:12).

3121

        Sipre Deut. 41.6.1.

3122

        "Abot R. Nat. 5, §18 B.

3123

        T.Hag. 1:2.

3124

Hillel in m. "Abot 1:13.

3125

        B. "Abot 6:5, bar.

3126

P. Roš Haš 1:3, §24 (R. Eleazar; 57b); b. Ber. 7a; Pesiq. Rab. 14:6. Harvey, «Torah,» 1239, cites b. cAbod. Zar. 3b to show that God studies it daily, to which we may add Tg. Neof. 1 on Deut. 32:4; cf. Marmorstein, Anthropomorphism, 66–68.

3127

        Β. cErub. 21a and p. Péah 1:1,15d, cited in Harvey, «Torah,» 1239.

3128

See m. Abot 1:2; b. Pesah. 68b; Ned. 32a, cited in Harvey, «Torah,» 1239.

3129

        Pesiq. Rab Kah. 15:5; Lam. Rab. proem 2; cf. P. Hag. 1:7, §3. To those familiar with rabbinic literature, the language is obviously hyperbolic here, meant to underline the point; further, one must obey as well as study Torah (e.g., b. cAbod. Zar. 17b). Many may have literally agreed, however, with the Tannaitic tradition that a person would first give account in the judgment for Torah study (b. Sanh. 7a). The importance of Torah study appears in many other Amoraic texts (e.g., b. Menah. 110a; Roš Haš. 4a; Šabb. 83b; Exod. Rab. 41:7; see further references in Patte, Hermeneutic, 25–26).

3130

Sandmel, Genius, 47. Translations regularly speak of the «revelation» at Sinai (e.g., in Sipra Sav pq. 18.97.1.4; Sipra Taz. par. 1.121.1.6; b. Hag. 6a, in purported discussion of the Schools of Shammai and Hillel; Gen. Rab. 34:9; Exod. Rab. 28:5; Num. Rab. 7:1; Deut. Rab. 2:31; 7:8); see Ross, «Revelation,» 119.

3131

        «Abot R. Nat. 15 A (reportedly of Shammai and Hillel); »Abot R. Nat. 29, §§61–62 B; Sipra Behuq. pq. 8.269.2.14 (citing also Akiba); Sipre Deut. 306.25.1; 351.1.2, 3 (the latter citing R. Gamaliel II); Pesiq. Rab Kah. 4:7; 10:5; 15:5; Num. Rab. 13:15–16; Song Rab. 1:2, §5; 1:3, §2; cf. "Abot R. Nat. 3 A; Sipra Behuq. par. 2.264.1.1; Sipre Deut. 115.1.1–2; 161.1.3; Pesiq. Rab. 3:1; probably also Sipre Deut. 335.1.1 (the «threads» probably represent what is actually written, and the «mountains» the meanings drawn from them by the sages); Boring et a1., Commentary, 102 cites Seder Eliahu Zuta 2. Thus not only later Scripture (e.g., Esther in p. Meg. 1:5, §3) was revealed on Sinai, but also the correct rabbinic interpretations implicit in Torah (b. Ber. 5a; Meg. 19b; cf. Urbach, Sages, 1:304). On oral Torah, cf., e.g., Ehrlich, «Tora.»

3132

P. Ber. 1:3; Péah 2:6, §3; Sanh. 11:4, §1; cAbod. Zar. 2:7, §3; Hor. 3:5, §3; b. cAbod. Zar. 35a; cErub. 21b; Num. Rab. 14:4; Song Rab. 1:2, §2; Pesiq. Rab. 3:2; cf. b. Menah. 29b. Transgression of sages» teachings was «a mortal offense» CAbot R. Nat. 2 A, tr., 26; cf. b. cErub. 21b), and a person could be fined for transgressing the words of a Tanna, e.g., R. Akiba ("Abot R. Nat. 3 A). The words of the scribes were nearly always on a lower level than the words of Torah in the earliest rabbinic sources, however (Sanders, Jesus to Mishnah, 115–25; Sipre Deut. 154.2.1).

3133

Later amplification was understood to have been implicit in the Sinai Torah from the very beginning (Sipre Deut. 313.2.4); cf. Urbach, Sages, 1:305, 376.

3134

See Sanders, Jesus to Mishnah, 97–130; on the varying value of tradition among early Tannaim, cf. Landman, «Traditions,» 111–28. Chernick, «Responses,» 393–406, suggests that this emphasis reflects a polemical response to Jewish Christians and gnosticism (cf. similarly Montefiore and Loewe, Anthology, 159). This observation contrasts with the assumptions of much earlier scholarship, e.g., Sandmel, Judaism, 183; Köhler, Theology, 355; Simon, Sects, 34; Bonsirven, Judaism, 85 (although the last notes that the term is rare in the early period, «traditions» being preferred).

3135

Cf. Martens, «Law.» On the Greek idea of natural law, see above, pp. 341–42.

3136

See Bowman, Documents, v-vi.

3137

E.g., m. "Abot 1:1; 3:14; Sipre Deut. 48.1.5; echoed in the Amoraim (e.g., Ruth Rab. 2:2; for the principle, cf., e.g., m. Ber. 1:1; Sanh. 11:4; Ishmael's tradition in b. Šabb. 12b and Akibás in b. cErub. 7a); cf. CD 5.20–21 (cf. 5.9–11 for an example of intensification); 20.25. The use of the image in Let. Arts. 139,142, may be somewhat different, but the principle of not even approaching genuine transgression was not solely Jewish (Plutarch Compliancy 6, Mor. 531D).

3138

Pharisees were known for their unwritten ancestral traditions of interpretation (Josephus Ant. 13.297; 13.408); cf. the collection in m. "Abot 1–2, whose «primary purpose … is to demonstrate the continuity and hence the weight of tradition» (Strack, Introduction, 53).

3139

For the emphasis in the DSS, cf. Braun, «Beobachtungen»; LaSor, Scrolls, 116–20. For mystical Judaism, see Urbach, Sages, 1:177.

3140

Jewish people, unlike Romans, did not distinguish divinely inspired ritual prescriptions from merely humanly ordained civil laws (Cohen, Law, 28–29). Jewish tombs as distant from the Holy Land as Rome were decorated with Torah shrines (Goodenough, Symbols, 2:6,22; for an extensive treatment of these shrines, see 4:99–144; cf. 12:83–86).

3141

See Meeks, Moral World, 64.

3142

Neusner, Beginning, 13.

3143

The connection of Sinai and Zion in Jub. 4may allude to this promise; Gaster, Scriptures, 425, finds the second giving of Torah in «The Rout of Belial: Scriptural Predictions» (on Hos 5:8).

3144

Davies, Paul, 72, thinking the tradition must be earlier than the sources; Davies, Sermon, 54, finds it in Lev. Rab. 13(which he dates to ca. 300). But in Lev. Rab. 13the sages object to a view precisely because it suggests a change, and a fourth-century commentator adds that the ruling is merely temporary. Davies» most thorough analysis of relevant texts in Torah, 70–74, details only late and/or irrelevant evidence (e.g., Tg. Isa. 12:3; Midr. Qoh. 2:1; 12:1; Tg. Song 5:10; Ya1. Isa. 26). (On Yal Isa. see Abrahams, Studies, 2n. 2.) If «eschatology formed the only regulative force by which the omnipotence of the torah … could possibly be limited» (Hengel, Judaism, 1:312), then little existed which could limit it!

3145

Schäfer, «Torah»; Urbach, Sages, 1:297–302, 309; Barth, «Law,» 154–56; Sandmel, Genius, 40–41. Harvey, «Torah,» 1244, allows for some changes in the messianic era in rabbinic texts (Gen. Rab. 98:9; Lev. Rab. 9:7) but stresses its eternality (e.g., Ecc1. Rab. 2:1; cf. Sir 24:9; Jub. 33:16). In context, the changes envisioned in t. Sanh. 4are the changes in script at the time of exile and of Ezra); Gen. Rab. 98may simply refer to the Messiah's rabbinic-style interpretation of what was «implicit» in Torah, and an enforcement of more commandments on the Gentiles; Lev. Rab. 27(reportedly third/fourth century) may declare the abolition of other sacrifices only to heighten the significance of the thank-offering by contrast.

3146

P. Meg. 1:5, §4; cf. b. Šabb. 104a: prophets reinstituted Moses» forgotten laws (cf. 4 Ezra 14:44–46), but even a prophet could make no innovations after Moses. Cf. Sipre Deut. 11:17, cited in Bonsirven, Judaism, 219: the law would not be altered.

3147

        Pesiq. Rab Kah. Sup. 5:3.

3148

Cf. p. Hag. 2:2, §2 (as commentary on houses-disputes, this may be second century).

3149

Ecd. Rab. 2:1, §1 (late); 11:8, §1.

3150

See Davies, Torah, 47, 66–78; cf. Moore, Judaism, 1:271; Teeple, Prophet, 14–27.

3151

See 4Q176, frg. 1, 4, 14, 24, 31 and line 14, as assembled in Wise, Scrolls, 237 (it is unlikely that the «second» law book is Exod or Deut here).

3152

See Allison, Moses, 323.

3153

        Sipre Deut. 345.2.2; Pesiq. Rab Kah. 26:9; Exod. Rab. 29:4; Song Rab. 8:11, §2; Pesiq. Rab. 20:2. For Torah as God's daughter cf. also b. Sanh. 101a; Exod. Rab. 33:1; Num. Rab. 12:4; Song Rab. 3:10, §2; Pesiq. Rab. 20:1. Hengel regards this personification of Torah as God's daughter as equivalent to Philós identification of Logos as God's son (Judaism, 1:171). Although this is the usual image in rabbinic sources, Jewish people used imagery flexibly; in a much rarer variant, Torah is the bride and the ark is the bridegroom (p. Tacan. 2:1, §6), or (more often) Israel is God's daughter rather than his son (e.g., b. Pesah. 56a; Song Rab. 8:9, §2); one may also compare the personification of repentance as God's daughter in Jos. Asen. 15:7.

3154

        Pesiq. Rab Kah. 12:11; 26:9.

3155

        Song Rab. 8:14, §1, attributing the parable to R. Levi, early-third-century Palestine. For Torah as intercessor, cf. also Exod. Rab. 29:4.

3156

        Gen. Rab. 85:9, third-century Palestine.

3157

        Exod. Rab. 30:3; on the Holy Spirit's analogous exclamations, cf., e.g., Exod. Rab. 27:9.

3158

        B. Šabb. 87a.

3159

        Tanhuma Pekudei 3, as cited in Harvey, «Torah,» 1239.

3160

        B. Šabb. 119a (bride); Pesiq. Rab. 23(married to Israel at Sinai); 46:2.

3161

Martens, «Prologue,» 179, finds no pre-Christian data for «an independent Torah theology» with personalization or hypostatization.

3162

Ringgren, Word, 123.

3163

E.g., b. Sanh. 94a.

3164

Kümmel, Theology, 280, unfortunately uses the lack of «personification» of Torah in Palestinian Judaism to indicate that Torah is inadequate background for the prologue. Dodd and Bultmann (especially the latter) both show lack of firsthand familiarity with rabbinic sources relevant to the prologue; see Kysar, «Background,» 254.

3165

Cf. similarly Ladd, Theology, 241; Morris, John, 122; Boice, Witness, 162.

3166

Cf., e.g., Epp, «Wisdom»; Schoneveld, «Thora»; idem, «Torah»; Casselli, «Torah»; Keener, «Pneumatology,» 240–54; idem, «Knowledge,» 44–71.

3167

E.g., Josephus Life 135, referring to collaboration with the Romans.

3168

Overman, Gospel and Judaism, 16–23; cf. McKnight, «Critic»; Johnson, «Slander.»

3169

Whitacre, Polemic, 26–33.

3170

Ibid., 29. The Law, Moses, and the Scriptures appear repeatedly in the Fourth Gospel; see 1:17, 45; 2:22; 5:39, 45–47; 6:32; 7:19, 22–28; 8:17; 9:28–29; 10:34–35; 12:34; 13:18; 15:25; 17:12; 19:24, 28, 36–37; 20:9; cf. 3:14; 7:38,42, 51; 12:14; and perhaps 8:5.

3171

Whitacre, Polemic, 33–35.

3172

Ibid., 35–39. On this point, see especially the thrust of the whole volume of Pancaro, Law.

3173

Whitacre, Polemic, 39–43.

3174

Ibid., 43–63.

3175

Ibid., 68.

3176

See Petersen, Sociology, 6,123,131. Ancient writers could adapt terms» usage even in shocking directions (cf., e.g., κατάχρησις in Anderson, Glossary 66), so Jesus» superiority to Wisdom does not violate semantic plausibility.

3177

This is true whether or not the prologue is directly dependent on a source that identified Wisdom, Torah, and Word (Painter, John, 25).

3178

Davies, Torah, 93. Longenecker, Christology, 39 n. 57, cites Chamberlain, «Functions,» concerning a Qumran perspective on the Messiah as Torah in lQIs(a) 26.8; 51.4, 7; but Davies is probably correct.

3179

Noted by others, e.g., Kittel, «λέγω, λόγος,» 134–35, although (following Strack-Billerbeck) he sees Jesus as a new Torah ruling out the old, whereas we see Jesus as embodying Torah. The terms for word(s) (nearly always logos in the singular, rhēmata in the plural) in the Fourth Gospel apply to the message offered by Jesus (2:22; 4:41; 5:24; 6:63, 69; 8:31, 37, 43, 47, 51–52; 12:47–48) or the Father (8:55; 17:17), or his followers» testimony (4:39), but also to Torah (5:47; 10:35; cf. 5:38) and the prophets (12:38). In some cases, Jesus» words fulfill the function of Torah (cf. 5:47; 6:63; 8:51; 12:47–48; 17:17; compare 5with 8:37).

3180

Hoskyns, Gospel, 159 (he surveys backgrounds, 154–63); Glasson, Moses, 26; Harrison, «John 1:14,» 35; Epp, «Wisdom,» 141; Longenecker, Christology, 40; cf. Kysar, «Contributions,» 358–59; Richardson, Theology, 162–63; Culpepper, Anatomy, 188; Lee, Thought, 101–2 (as one source among many).

3181

Epp, "Wisdom,» 136.

3182

Ibid., 141–45; cf. Glasson, Moses, 86–94; Titus, Message, 202; in early Christian belief in general, Bonsirven, Judaism, 80.

3183

Jeremias, Message, 90.

3184

E.g., Deut 17:11; Ps 119:9, 11, 16–17, 67, 89, 101, 105, 133, 140, 148, 158, 169, 172; Isa 2:3; Mark 7:13; Tg. Isa. on 1:2. A connection with Ps 119, however, is probably too specific (cf. Suggit, «LOGOS»).

3185

Cf. Bruce, Books, 159; idem, Documents, 41; Sandmel, Judaism, 259; Dodd, Bible, 25–26. This need not imply that nomos represented a misunderstanding of Torah (an idea that may be implied in some scholars» differentiations, e.g., Dodd, Bible, 33; critiqued by Segal, «Torah»); further, John employs nomos in the range of meanings found in Torah, as in the LXX (also Dodd, Interpretation, 76).

3186

Longenecker, Paul, 188, is among many who include Jesus» teachings in a «law of Christ» (Gal 6:2; 1Cor 9:21), but the debate over the meaning of the phrase is less significant here than that early Christians like Paul could use the phrase.

3187

For fuller discussion and documentation, see Keener, Marries, 113–20, with notes, 202–9; cf. 12–22 (notes on 138–45). Unlike Justin, however (Dia1. 11,19,23; cf. Dia1. 18,20–22; cf. Efroymson, «Connection,» 105; Osborn, Justin, 5, 40, 158–61; Stylianopoulos, Justin, 51–52, 89), Matthew emphasizes fulfillment rather than discontinuity with the law (5:17–20).

3188

Davies, Torah, 88,92, finds a new Torah in both Matthew 5–7 and John's prologue. Sebastian Münster (1489–1552), a Hebraist Christian scholar, saw Matthew as a «new Torah» (Lapide, Hebrew, 55). Various scholars have viewed Matthew's five discourse sections on the analogy of the Pentateuch (mainly in the past but some recently, e.g., Ellis, Matthew, 10), as probably similarly the five divisions of Psalms, Proverbs, 1 Enoch, and the original Pirke Aboth.

3189

On Jesus as Wisdom in Matthew, see Hamerton-Kelly, Pre-existence, 67–83. Cf. the development suggested in Freed, «Prelude,» 267: early Christians recognized Jesus as having wisdom, then as being Wisdom (e.g., Colossians; Hebrews), and finally as being the Word.

3190

Daniélou, Theology, 163–66.

3191

Herm. Sim. 8.3.2; Justin Dia1. 11.

3192

Cf. Copeland, «Nomos.»


Источник: The Gospel of John : a commentary : Volumes 1-2 / Craig S. Keener – Massachusetts : Baker Academic, 2003. – 1636 pages.

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