John - Jesus - History

A program unit of the Society of Biblical Literature

Recently Published and Forthcoming Books
related to topics involving
the Fourth Gospel and the Historical Jesus

Core Books of the John-Jesus-History Project:

Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, S.J., and Tom Thatcher, eds. John, Jesus, and History, Volume 1: Critical Appraisals of Critical Views. SBL Symposium Series. Atlanta: SBL, 2007.

The essays in this book, reflecting the ongoing deliberations of an international group of Johannine and Jesus scholars, critically assess two primary assumptions of the prevalent view: the de-historicization of John and the de-Johannification of Jesus.  In addition to offering state-of-the-art reviews of Johannine studies and Jesus studies, this volume draws together an emerging consensus that sees the Gospel of John as an autonomous tradition with its own perspective, in dialogue with other traditions. Through this challenging of critical and traditional assumptions alike, new approaches to John’s age-old riddles emerge, and the ground is cleared for new and creative ways forward. - Order this volume through Amazon.com

Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, S.J., and Tom Thatcher, eds. John, Jesus, and History, Volume 2: Aspects of Historicity in the Fourth Gospel. Early Christianity and Its Literature. Atlanta: SBL, 2009.

This groundbreaking volume draws together an international group of leading biblical scholars to consider one of the most controversial religious topics in the modern era: Is the Gospel of John the most theological and distinctive among the four canonical Gospels historical or not? If not, why does John alone among the Gospels claim eyewitness connections to Jesus? If so, why is so much of John's material unique to John? Using various methodologies and addressing key historical issues in John, these essays advance the critical inquiry into Gospel historiography and John's place within it, leading to an impressive consensus and convergences along the way. - Order this volume through Amazon.com

Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, S.J., and Tom Thatcher, eds. John, Jesus, and History, Volume 3: Glimpses of Jesus through the Johannine Lens. Early Christianity and Its Literature. Atlanta: SBL, 2016.

A critical analysis of the historicity of the Gospel of John. Since it began in 2002, the John, Jesus, and History Project has assessed critically the modern disparaging of John's historicity and has found this bias wanting. In this third volume, an international group of experts demonstrate over two dozen ways in which John contributes to an enhanced historical understanding of Jesus and his ministry. - Order this volume through Amazon.com

Mary L. Coloe and Tom Thatcher, eds. John, Qumran, and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Sixty Years of Discovery and Debate. SBL: Early Judaism and Its Literature. Atlanta: SBL; Leiden: Brill, 2011.

The Dead Sea Scrolls reveal a Palestinian form of Second Temple Judaism in which the seeds of Johannine Christianity may have first sprouted. Although many texts from the Judean Desert are now widely available, the Scrolls have had little part in discussions of the Johannine literature over the past several decades. The essays in this book, ranging from focused studies of key passages in the Fourth Gospel to its broader social world, consider the past and potential impact of the Scrolls on Johannine studies in the context of a growing interest in the historical roots of the Johannine tradition and the origins and nature of the Johannine community and its relationship to mainstream Judaism. Future scholarship will be interested in connections between the Gospel of John and the Scrolls and also in Qumran Judaism and Johannine Christianity as parallel religious movements. The contributors are Mary L. Coloe, Tom Thatcher, Eileen Schuller, Paul N. Anderson, John Ashton, George J. Brooke, Brian J. Capper, Hannah K. Harrington, Loren T. Stuckenbruck, and James H. Charlesworth. - Order this book through Amazon.com

Tom Thatcher and Catrin Williams. eds. Engaging with C. H. Dodd on the Gospel of John: Sixty Years of Tradition and Interpretation. ‎ Cambridge University Press, 2013.

C. H. Dodd's Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel, published in 1963, marked a milestone in New Testament research and has become a standard resource for the study of John. Historically biblical scholars have concentrated on the Synoptic Gospels: Matthew, Mark and Luke. However, Dodd's book encouraged scholars to take John seriously as a source for the life of Jesus. This volume both reflects upon and looks beyond Dodd's writings to address the implications, limitations and potential of his groundbreaking research and its programmatic approach to charting a course for future research on the Gospel of John. Leading biblical scholars demonstrate the recent surge of interest in John's distinctive witness to Jesus, and also in Dodd's work as the harbinger of advancements in the study of the Fourth Gospel. This volume will be invaluable to all those studying the New Testament, Johannine theology and the history of the early Church. - Order this book through Amazon.com

R. Alan Culpepper and Paul N. Anderson, eds. Communities in Dispute: Current Scholarship on the Johannine Epistles. SBL: Early Christianity and Its Literature. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014.

In this state-of-the-art collection of essays on the Johannine Epistles, such issues as the relation between the Johannine Epistles and the Gospel of John are addressed. Raymond E. Brown’s view of the history of the Johannine situation is is evaluated and constructively engaged—yielding compelling alternative proposals. Authors include R. Alan Culpepper, Urban C. von Wahlde, Paul N. Anderson, Judith M. Lieu, Peter Rhea Jones, Andreas J. Köstenberger, Gary M. Burge, Craig R. Koester, Jan G. van der Watt, William R. G. Loader, and David K. Rensberger. - Order this book through Amazon.com

R. Alan Culpepper and Paul N. Anderson, eds. John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context. Resources for Biblical Study, 87. SBL Press, 2017.

Written during the period of the emergence of Christianity and its separation from Judaism, the Gospel of John bears witness to their contested relationship. This volume contains cutting-edge essays written by an international group of scholars who interpret for students and general readers what John tells us about first-century Judaism, the separation of the church from Judaism, and how John's anti-Jewish references are interpreted today. - Order this book through Amazon.com

Craig Koester, ed. Portraits of Jesus in the Gospel of John. The Library of New Testament Studies, 589. T&T Clark, 2020.

John's Gospel is best known for its presentation of Jesus as the Word of God made flesh. But as the narrative unfolds, readers discover that the identity of Jesus is surprisingly complex. He is depicted as a teacher, a healer, a prophet, and Messiah. He is Jewish and Galilean, a human being who is Son of Man and Son of God. Portraits of Jesus in the Gospel of John considers each of these roles in detail, showing how each makes a distinctive contribution to the Gospel's rich mosaic of images for Jesus.

John's multifaceted portrait of Jesus draws on a broad spectrum of early Christian traditions, and the contributors to this collection of essays explore the ways in which these traditions are both preserved and transformed in the Fourth Gospel. The writers draw us more deeply into the questions of the way in which traditions about Jesus developed in the early church and how the Gospel of John might contribute to our understanding of that dynamic process. - Order this book through Amazon.com

Paul N. Anderson, ed. Archaeology and the Fourth Gospel. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2022. (forthcoming)

Forthcoming.

 

Related Publications by Members of the JJH Steering Committees:

(listed here in reverse chronological order)

Jaime Clark-Soles. Reading John for Dear Life: A Spiritual Walk with the Fourth Gospel. Westminster John Knox, 2016.

Clark-Soles takes readers on a dynamic journey deep into the heart of John in this lively reading of the Fourth Gospel. This book is not simply a commentary but is a spiritual companion to be read alongside the Bible. Clark-Soles provides important historical and literary insights while illuminating the dramatic characters in John and emphasizing the Gospel's unique themes and symbols. Her engaging writing style will generate enthusiasm and investment in John's message. Readers will also appreciate the addition of prayers as well as questions for individual study and/or group discussion. This excellent guide will enrich our spiritual journeys while opening ourselves up to Jesus through the words, stories, questions, symbols, and characters we encounter in John's Gospel.

Dwight Moody Smith. The Composition and Order of the Fourth Gospel: Bultmann's Literary Theory. Johannine Monograph Series. Wipf and Stock, 2015.

In this book, Moody Smith engages the masterful commentary on John by Rudolf Bultmann, evaluating critically his views of John's sources, order, redaction, and meaning. Every bit as helpful for understanding Bultmann's work as the work itself, this book is now made accessible in paperback form fifty years after its original publication. Introduced admirably with a new foreword by the author's former doctoral student, R. Alan Culpepper, this monograph makes for essential reading in Johannine studies and New Testament studies overall.

Paul N. Anderson. From Crisis to Christ: A Contextual Introduction to the New Testament. Nashville: Abingdon, 2014.

In this contextual introduction to the New Testament, Paul N. Anderson employs “second criticality” as a means of putting into play the most plausible of critical and traditional approaches to issues, featuring also a Bi-Optic Hypothesis. In this engaging text, Anderson shows the Johannine tradition to be a worthy resource for understanding the Jesus of history as well as the Christ of faith, alongside the Synoptics. In the light of nearly sixty crises and contexts, the texts of the New Testament are illuminated meaningfully for present-day readers.

Rudolf Bultmann. The Gospel of John: A Commentary. Johannine Monograph Series 1. Translated by G. R. Beasley-Murray, R. W. N. Hoare, and J. K. Riches, 1971; foreword by Paul N. Anderson. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014.

As the first volume in the Johannine Monograph Series edited by Paul Anderson and Alan Culpepper, The Gospel of John: A Commentary by Rudolf Bultmann well deserves this pride of place. Indeed, this provocative commentary is arguably the most important New Testament monograph in the twentieth century, perhaps second only to The Quest of the Historical Jesus by Albert Schweitzer. While Bultmann’s composition theory has become less than compelling in the views of recent scholars, the extensive foreword by Paul N. Anderson suggests the continuing value of Bultmann’s contribution regarding John’s literary, historical, and theological riddles.

Richard Horsley and Tom Thatcher. John, Jesus, and the Renewal of Israel. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2013.

This book show the impact of Jesus’ ministry as presented in the Gospel of John in the light of pressures inflicted by the Roman Empire in the first century C.E. From a deeply Jewish perspective, the canonical Gospels—including the Gospel of John—show how Jesus of Nazareth sought to contribute to the renewal of Israel within such a complex and tumultuous context.

Helen K. Bond. The Historical Jesus: A Guide for the Perplexed. T&T Clark, 2012.

The introduction to this new guide sets out the sources (Graeco-Roman, Jewish, and Christian), noting the problems connected with them, paying particular attention to the nature of the gospels, and the Synoptic versus the Johannine tradition. A substantial section discusses scholarship on Jesus from the nineteenth century to the explosion of works in the present day, introducing and explaining the three different 'quests' for the historical Jesus.
Subsequent chapters analyze key themes in historical Jesus research: Jesus' Galilean origins; the scope of his ministry and models of 'holy men', particularly that of prophet; Jesus' teaching and healing; his trial and crucifixion; the highly contentious question of his resurrection; and finally an exploration of the links between the Jesus movement and the early church. Throughout, the (often opposing) positions of a variety of key scholars are explained and discussed (e.g., Sanders, Crossan, Dunn, Wright, Brown).

Paul N. Anderson. The Riddles of the Fourth Gospel: An Introduction to John. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 2011.

The Fourth Gospel has played an important role in the course of Christian theology and remains one of the most cherished writings of the New Testament. It is also one of the most controversial and deeply enigmatic works, as scholars seek to unravel its mysteries through the application of different historical- and literary-critical methods. This text offers scholars and students alike an innovative and accessible survey of the historical, literary, and theological “riddles” that continue to fascinate John's readers. Distinctive among introductions to John, this book features a chapter on the Jesus of history as informed by the Gospel of John.

Paul N. Anderson. The Christology of the Fourth Gospel: Its Unity and Disunity in the Light of John 6. Third edition, with a New Introduction, Outlines, and Epilogue. Cascade Books, 2010.

John’s portrayal of Jesus is one of the most fascinating and provocative in the New Testament. It presents him as both human and divine, and this tension has been a prolific source of debate and disagreement within Christianity and beyond. The purpose of this work is to explore the origins and character of the unity and disunity of John’s Christology.

Tom Thatcher. Greater than Caesar: Christology and Empire in the Fourth Gospel. Fortress Press, 2009.

Recent scholarship has shown that the peculiar history of a particular community of believers gave the Fourth Gospel its distinctive shape. Now Tom Thatcher argues that we must take account not just of tensions arising within the synagogue or between factions of believers in Christ but also attend to the Johannine portrayal of figures representing Roman rule in order to understand the Gospel's origin and message. Greater than Caesar examines the Fourth Gospel's characterizations of Jesus' opponents and its depictions of Jesus' authority and power in his confrontations with agents of imperial power, including Pilate and Jewish authorities. Thatcher argues that the Gospel is a thorough repudiation of the Roman Empire's claims on human allegiance. The one who speaks from the "dying machine" of the cross shows that he is in fact "greater than Caesar."

Craig R. Koester. The Word of Life: A Theology of John's Gospel. Eerdmans, 2008.

This accessible, engaging work explores the major theological dimensions of John's Gospel, including God, the world and its people, Jesus, the crucifixion and resurrection, the Spirit, faith, and discipleship. Koester's book is notable for its comprehensive treatment of themes and its close, careful focus on the biblical text, on the narrative itself. The introduction provides a succinct overview of the Gospel and shows how disputes about John's theology throughout history have significantly shaped the church and wider society. During his discussion, such expressions as being “born again” and Jesus as “the way” -- which evoke both interest and uneasiness today -- become much clearer in the context of the Gospel as a whole. Koester interacts with the best of current research and makes creative proposals about how to understand the many aspects of John's theology.

D. Moody Smith. The Fourth Gospel in Four Dimensions: Judaism and Jesus, the Gospels and Scripture. University of South Carolina Press, 2008.

This multidimensional volume from the leading American scholar of Johannine studies brings together D. Moody Smith's germinal works from the past two decades along with some original articles published here for the first time. The resulting collection augments current understanding of the Gospel of John with fresh insights and research and points the way toward opportunities for new inquiry. The collection is structured around four focal issues that define contemporary studies of John. In the first section, Smith places the book within its Jewish milieu, attempting to account for the tension between the work's seeming anti-Jewishness and its familiarity with Jewish life and thought. Next Smith engages the relationship between John and the historical figure of Jesus, especially the extent to which John's representation of Jesus reflects knowledge of independent traditions as well as the self-consciousness of his own community. The third section examines John's account against the Synoptic Gospels, assessing the evidence of John's access to an independent record of the passion and the possibility that John adopted the gospel genre from Mark. Finally, Smith explores how the Gospels, and especially that of John, evolved into scripture and how they have come to be interpreted in conjunction with one another.

Tom Thatcher and Stephen D. Moore, eds. Anatomies of Narrative Criticism: The Past, Present, and Futures of the Fourth Gospel as Literature. SBL Resources for Biblical Study. SBL Press, 2008.

Reflecting on the 25th anniversary of Alan Culpepper’s milestone Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel (1983), this book explores current trends in the study of the Gospel of John as literature. The contributors represent a wide range of methodological approaches that explore ways contemporary readers generate meaning from John’s story of Jesus. The book includes an introduction to narrative-critical studies of John; essays on specific themes and passages that focus on interpretation of the text, history of research, hermeneutical approaches, and future trends in research; and a reflective response from Alan Culpepper. Overall, the book seeks to trace the history and project the future of the study of the Bible as narrative. Contributors are Paul N. Anderson, Colleen M. Conway, R. Alan Culpepper, Robert Kysar, Tat-siong Benny Liew, Francis J. Moloney, S.D.B., Stephen D. Moore, Adele Reinhartz, Jeffrey L. Staley, Mark Stibbe, Tom Thatcher, Ruben Zimmermann, and Jean Zumstein.

Tom Thatcher, ed. What We Have Heard from the Beginning: The Past, Present and Future of Johannine Studies. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2007.

The past fifty years have seen powerful shifts in the methods and objectives of Biblical Studies. The study of the Johannine Literature, in particular, has seen a proliferation of new approaches, as well as innovative exegetical and theological conclusions. This volume surveys the emerging landscape from the perspective of scholars who have shaped the field. Written in a conversational and reflective tone, the articles offer an excellent overview of major issues in the study of the Fourth Gospel and 1-2-3 John.

"What Thatcher has produced is a unique composite of two disparate genres: the history of research and the professional memoir. The result is a book that is both deeply informative and utterly fascinating." - Wayne Meeks, Yale University
"What We Have Heard recognizes that biblical scholarship is done by real people, whose interests and perspectives change over time. It is not an abstract discipline." - Craig Koester, Luther Seminary

Mary L. Coloe, PBVM. Dwelling in the Household of God: Johannine Ecclesiology and Spirituality. Liturgical Press, 2007.

In Coloe’s first book, God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel, she explored the profound insight of John's Gospel expressed in Jesus’ invitation to his disciples: “Make your home in me, as I make mine in you” (John 15:4). For the gospel's author and audience, the dwelling of God among humans was, above all, the Jerusalem Temple. The gospel traces how after the trauma of the destruction of the Temple the Johannine community came to expand and deepen its knowledge of God's dwelling among humans, finding it now in the person of Jesus and in the community of believers.

Dwelling in the Household of God moves us from seeing God's dwelling place as the Temple to seeing God's dwelling place within the community of believers. The starting point now is an image in John 14:2: “my Father's house,” which is given its Old Testament meaning of “my father's household.” Our awareness thus moves, like that of the first Christians, from understanding “My father's house” as the Temple (John 2:16) to “My Father's Household” as a community of believers drawn into Jesus ' own divine filiation. Coloe invites us to re-read the gospel from the post-Easter perspective of those who have become brothers and sisters of Jesus and living Temples of God's presence. What emerges is nothing less than a profound mysticism of the mutual indwelling of God and believers.

Paul N. Anderson. The Fourth Gospel and the Quest for Jesus. New York: T&T Clark, 2006.

Paul Anderson's new book grows directly out of the John, Jesus, and History project, and it also provides something of a basis on which other work may build. Part II was presented at the 2002 sessions under the title, "Why This Study Is Needed, and Why It Is Needed Now," assessing strengths and weaknesses of six planks in each of the two primary platforms being analyzed: the dehistoricization of John and the deJohannification of Jesus. It then poses a new synthesis of John's distinctive relations to each of the Synoptic traditions, especially making innovative suggestions regarding the Johannine tradition's relations to the Markan and Lukan traditions. Combined with a modest two-edition theory of composition, this theory of Johannine-Synoptic Interfluentiality is sure to make a contribution to the larger interests of tradition-history analyses.

Part IV poses a nuanced assessment of which aspects of the Synoptic tradition are superior historically to John's and which aspects of the Johannine tradition are superior to Synoptic presentations. Eight considerations are proposed for each, and eight additional aspects of multiple attestation in all four Gospels are presented in "bi-optic" perspective. Parts I and V provide reviews of significant trends in Johannine and Jesus studies, and they present Anderson's larger set of views involving the "dialogical autonomy" of the Fourth Gospel, including its literary, historical, and theological implications. Just as the dialectical character of John's distinctive Christology evoked some of the major controversies of the Patristic era, the dialogical character of John's presentation of Jesus has produced some of the most enduring impasses in the Modern era. While a conjunctive approach to theology provided a way forward many centuries ago for theology, it has yet to be comprehensively applied to John's historical and literary conundrums. This study attempts to do so.

Tom Thatcher. Jesus the Riddler: The Power of Ambiguity in the Gospels. Westminster John Knox, 2006.

The words of Jesus are often spoken in riddles--in parables and other sayings that were and continue to be difficult to understand. In Jesus the Riddler, Tom Thatcher explains that Jesus may have been intentionally ambiguous, using riddles to establish his authority as a teacher and to encourage his followers to think more deeply about the nature of truth. Jesus' riddles, like riddles across many cultures, potentially refer to many different things, and they challenge those who hear them to decode the meaning the riddler intends. Figuring out the riddles in which Jesus spoke requires a depth of faith and close attention to the words of the Gospel. With text boxes and other helpful features, this book guides readers through discerning these puzzling and important words.

Tom Thatcher. Why John Wrote a Gospel: Jesus--Memory--History. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2005.

Thatcher’s book applies recent theories of social memory and literacy to answer the question, Why did John write a gospel? While past studies have answered this question in terms of the Fourth Gospel’s major theological themes, this volume reflects on the reasons why John might have thought that a written book about Jesus would be a particularly useful way of addressing community experiences.

Parts 1 and 2 discuss the social functions of writing in the ancient world and analyze passages in the Fourth Gospel that reveal John’s thinking about memory and tradition, concluding that John most likely wrote a gospel not only to preserve data about Jesus but also to exploit ancient attitudes toward written texts. Despite the fact that John believed the Church’s memory of Jesus was guided and preserved by the Spirit, a written gospel would add rhetorical weight and prestige to his claims about Christ.

Part 3 explores the historical context of the Fourth Gospel in order to determine why John might have found a written gospel useful. Thatcher applies models of dogmatic, mystical, and counter-memory to argue that John was likely locked in a debate with the Anti-Christs mentioned in 1-2-3 John, a group that rejected John’s interpretation of the Jesus tradition in light of their own experience of the Paraclete.

Part 4 discusses the most substantial differences between living social memories and written history books to outline reasons why a written gospel would be particularly useful to John and his disciples in their debates with the Anti-Christs. The final chapter extends the implications of the study to several related issues, including a review of the Developmental Approach to the Fourth Gospel’s composition and the potential value of the Fourth Gospel as a source for the Historical Jesus.

Helen K. Bond. Caiaphas: Friend of Rome and Judge of Jesus? Westminster John Knox, 2004.

This highly engaging and readable book is a study of Joseph Caiaphas, a Jewish high priest of the first century and one of the men who sent Jesus to his death. This book is a valuable resource for scholars of ancient history and students of the Gospel of Acts.

Helen K. Bond. Pontius Pilate in History and Interpretation. SNTS Monograph Series 100. Cambridge University Press, 2004.

This study reconstructs the life of Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor responsible for the execution of Jesus. The first section provides the historical and archaeological background. The following chapters look at six first-century authors: Philo, Josephus, and the four Gospel writers. Each chapter asks how Pilate is being used as a literary character in each work, why each author describes Pilate in a different way, and what this tells us about the relationship between each author and the Roman state.

Jaime Clark-Soles. Scripture Cannot Be Broken: The Social Function of the Use of Scripture in the Fourth Gospel. Brill, 2003.

Using sociological tools, Clark-Soles explores the ways in which the author of the Fourth Gospel deploys scripture to form his sectarian community. Part of the study devotes attention to both the Qumran and Branch Davidian sects.

Dwight Moody Smith. John among the Gospels. Second Edition. ‎University of South Carolina Press, 2001.

John's relationship to the other canonical Gospels has from Christian antiquity been the subject of serious discussion and debate. Did John know them? Did he use them as sources for his own "spiritual" gospel? If so, can his eccentricities in using them be explained? In this book, Smith confronts these questions, describing how the relationship of the Fourth Gospel to the Synoptics has been understood, particularly in modern biblical scholarship.

John's difference from the other gospel narratives was recognized by such ancient Christian writers, who set the stage for opposing views of John's relation to the Synoptics. John was deemed either compatible with, if supplementary to, the other canonical Gospels, as Clement and Eusebius believed, or obviously at odds historically with the companion works, according to Origen's opposing view. These two essential interpretive views have played out to the present day. Smith summarizes the theories and countertheories that have driven Johannine scholarship since the time of the early church, clarifying the interrelationship among commentators and offering an insightful overview of this key issue in Johannine studies. The most recent shift in the critics' appraisal of the Gospel of John has its roots in the 1970s. Against the predominant view that the Fourth Gospel was a composition independent of the Synoptics, scholars began to point out that elements of the redaction or composition of the Synoptics themselves appear in it―an insight that led back to the conclusion that John knew and used one or more of the Synoptics in their present, canonical form.

In a new, final chapter included in this second edition, Smith emphasizes the difficulty of determining what constitutes redaction and how the apparently redactional or compositional elements found their way into the Gospel of John. Using the Gospel of Mark as his primary point of reference, Smith probes the difficulties involved in discerning how John understood and used the Synoptics, if indeed John knew or used them at all.

Mary L. Coloe, PBVM. God Dwells with Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel. Michael Glazier, 2001.

The image of the Temple speaks of a building, of a place of God's heavenly presence, and yet the experience of many Christians has been of God's indwelling in the human heart. In this book, Coloe crosses the centuries through John's Gospel text and plunges into the experience of the Johannine community. Here, readers receive a sense of God's indwelling as promised by Jesus, and how it relates to the symbol of the Temple in the gospel narrative. In the years after the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, the Johannine community looked to the symbol of the Temple as a key means of expressing its new faith in Jesus. During his lifetime he was the living presence of Israel's God dwelling in history. In the absence of the historical Jesus, the believing community -- past, present, and future -- continue to be a locus for the divine indwelling and so can truly be called a living Temple.

This book offers a new and consistent perspective on the symbol of the Temple which clarifies the Christology of the Fourth Gospel. It establishes a new plot for this gospel -- the destroying and raising of the Temple -- and shows how this occurs within the text. The chapters provide a new approach to its structure. It is unique in its treatment of John14:2, where it establishes that the new Temple is the household of believers on earth. It also presents a new interpretation of the Johannine Crucifixion and the scene with Jesus' mother and the Beloved Disciple. Chapters are “God's Dwelling Place in Israel,” “The Temple of His Body: 2:13-15,” “The Supplanter: 4:1-45,” “The Tabernacling Presence of God: 7:1-8:59,” “The Consecrated One: 10:22-42,” “My Father's House 14:1-31,” and “Raising the New Temple: 18:1-19:42.”

Tom Thatcher. The Riddles of Jesus in John: A Study in Tradition and Folklore. SBL Press, 2000.

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Catrin H. Williams. I Am He: The Interpretation of 'ANI HU' in Jewish and Early Christian Literature. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament, 2. Reihe 113. Mohr Siebeck, 2000.

New Testament scholars often claim that the interpretative key to Jesus' pronouncement of the words ego eimi in the Gospel of John lies in the use of this phrase in the Septuagint of Isaiah to render the Hebrew expression 'ani hu'. While previous studies have paid particular attention to the New Testament usage of ego eimi, Williams sets this evidence within a broader framework by offering a detailed analysis of the interpretation of 'ani hu' in biblical and Jewish traditions. She examines the role of 'ani hu' as a succinct expression of God's claim to exclusiveness in the Song of Moses and the poetry of Deutero-Isaiah, and she attempts to reconstruct its later interpretative history from the substantial body of evidence preserved in the Aramaic Targumim and several midrashic traditions. Biblical 'ani hu' declarations are cited by rabbinic authorities as proof-texts against a variety of heretical claims, particularly the 'two powers' heresy, but new 'ani hu' formulations, not necessarily confined to divine speeches, are also attested. In the concluding chapters, Williams considers the role of 'ani hu' when seeking to interpret Jesus’ utterance of the words ego eimi in Synoptic and Johannine traditions.

 

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