Why John Wrote a Gospel: Jesus--Memory--History

TOM THATCHER

. ._. . . Jo n

._.'fL a Gos e JESUS

MEMORY

HISTORY

Why John Wrote a Gospel

WHY JOHN WROTE A GOSPEL J esus-Mem ory-History

Tom Thatcher

if) 200610m T llatd1cr

Alln'gbr:s rrsn-vn/. Nop:an ofthisbookmay be rcproducedortransmined in anyfonn or by any means, electronic or mechaniC! I, including phmocop)~ng, recording, or by any infonnation storage or retrieV:J I system, ll'ithoUI pennission in ll'riting from the publisher. For infonmtion, address \Vestminstcr John Knox Press, 100 VVithcrspoo n Street, Louis... ille, Kenmci.'Y 40202-1396. ExOse the question. I share this experience to identify the constellation of interpretive problems that has been at t.he forefront of my thinking for the past decade, the core constellation that underlies the book you arc now reading. I became interested in folkloristics and ora lity theory during my b st rear of seminary, and since that time 1 have been on :1 <JUCSt for the answers to two basic CJ uescions. First, \Vhy

Prescript did 1\ lel " and posntrcd it as a supplement to the Synopt:ics- both a supplement to the content ofJ esus' story, providing information the others deleted, and, more important, a sort of theological supplement to the others, revea ling the deep spirituaVchristological truth behind the cvenrs of history. The most remarkable thing abom C lement's postulate is the fact that it smnds as the majority view to this day. Indeed, it is hard to identify any thesis in any academic discipline that has held consensus so long as C lement's claim that J ohn is a "spiritual gospel" (although of course our modern understandings of that moniker differ somewhat from Clement's emphasis). And the durability of th is thesis problematizes any attempt tO say anythi ng about the interface between Jo hn 's J esus tradition :and Lhe text of the Fourth Gos1x:l, simply because scholars have had difficulty identifying parts of this "spiritual" text that might reflect traditional content. That is, scholars have had :1 hard time detennining what pa rts of the Gospel of J ohn are "traditional" in any sense of the word, as o pposed to th ings the author simply worked up out of his theological im:agination.

xiv

Prescript

As the name of the discipline suggcslS, Social Memory theory is essentia lly concerned with the social dimensions of memory, specifically with the wa}'S th:n present social realities impact the way that groups envision and use the past. "Memory" is taken in the broadest ]>Ossible sense here to include any means by which groups ancmpt lO preserve the past, construct the past, or evoke the past, includingoraltr.aditio ns, rituals, trends and styles, bodily pr.actices and habits, and written texts. Social approaches to memory arc grounded on at least two key premises: fi rst, that " rcmeml>cringn is a complex pheno menon that can not IJc reduced 10 the recall of data br isolated individuals; second, that the interplay between the past and present understandings of the past is always a complex pheno menon, and ultimately a group phenomenon. As such, Social Memory theory dr.aws its energy, insighlS, and vocabulary from a wide range of fields, including psycholob'Y• sociology, ant.hro1>0logy, neu rolOb'Y· linguistics, philosophy, and history-basically, any disci pline that deals in any way with anything that human IJcings do with the past. I realized immediately that th is approach held the key to my Oint of doing that? \\'h)• write a book about Jesus? Essentially, these three <Juestions h:we led me to conceptualize my ongoing pursuit in a differcm wa}', which boils down to approaching the problem of tradition a1Hi text from the opposite direction. In other words, I real ized that 1 had been working with ~ model of tradition that moved fro m j esus to memory ro tr.aditions to written Gospels, an approach I inherited from my parents and gr.andJla rents in the gt•ild of biblical srudies. But from the perspective of the acmal evidence, this approach looks at the problem backward. Fo r the si ngle indisputable piece of dat:t about the Johannine J esus tr.adirion (or the Markan j esus tradition, or the Manhea n, or the T homasine) is this: somrbody nt wmr poilll i11 timr tlrcidrtl ro 7Jl1itr rb11t trmlitioll dow11 i11 a book.

Prescript This poim has become so sign itic:m tto my thinking th:H I nee([ to unp:1ck it a biL The single thing we can pro\·c about :my ancicm Gospel, the single historical Etct that we can know with absolute certa inty, is that some e:1rly Christi:tn decided to write his or her thoughts about jesus down on paper. As such, the only absolutely firm starting point fo r irwestig;nion docs nor lie with Jesus, theJe ~ us tradition, or d1e history of the early church; the o nly finn sta rt ing point li e~ at the other end of the line, with the existence of the written texts themselves. \Vh:n wou ld hapJ>en, I wondered, if I start('d my inquiry imo the G ospel of J ohn from that single. certain Etct and worked backward? Specifically, what happens if the irwcstig:nion s!'arted not with questions about Jesus or or.J l tr.Jditions, but r.1ther with the question, \Vhy did j ohn- living as he did in a cu lture where most people couldn't read, fewer could write, and no one rebrrcttcd that f:!ct at :tl l- write(lown his ideas about J esus? \Vhy did John write Crha]>S the aJ>Ostle John, and that the Fourth Gospel is this person's autobiograph ical memoir. Yet even in this model, the Gospel of John is placed at the end of a long period of oral preaching and is treated as a reposimry for a primitive witness to Jesus, generally with no specific e.\:pbnation of why John evenmnlly felt compelled to commit his vision to writing. 1 The present book also seeks to transcend the problem of possible literary sources. Advoco1tes of the view that John utilized wri uen sourceswhether the Srnoptics or sources now lost- believe thar materials from these sources were revised, conflated, and supplemented in tl1e production of the Fourth Gospe1.4 lfdtis is indeed what hap]>ened, it remains relevant to ask why John felt it necessary to produce a new written Gospel thar would combine infonnation culled from a Signs Gospel or the Gospel of Luke or other documents with supplementa l traditional m:ttcria l. Essentially, I am concerned

Prescript

xvii

wi th John's recycling of rr:adition:tlm:ttcri:t ls :and the motives behiml his decision to comm it these tr:adition:tlmateri:tls tO writing, rqprdless of the specific source (or;.tl, written, or person:al recollection) of :any p:trticubr unit of that tr;.tdition. Second, from time to time you mar wonder wh:at any of this might say about the ""historicity" of the Gospel of J ohn or of specific sections of that text. \ Vhilc I will talk ahout John 's historic:a l consciousness, this hook does not adtlrcss rhc historicity issue, not even implicitly, and no pou·t of my argument should be taken as :m attempt to support or challenge :my of John's claim~ about J esus. As l noted, m~· thinking here is dri\·en prim:l rily by contemporary approaches 10 or;.tl tradition and ancient liter:u:y and by th:n br:mch of Socia] ,\ \emory theory th:n focuses on the politics of eotnmemor.ttion, what's :H st:tke in the ways we construct im:agcs of the past. These methods do not and, in my view, c:mnot sa~· :tn}'thing definit ive :about the historicity issue, :although their irnplic:ttions could doubtless be developed in th:tt el interpreted, it remains :111 assumption aUout, rather than an explanation of, why d1c Gospel of John was writtm as a response to any particular set of circumstances. Culpepper's arguments, then, arc sufficient to explain the ori ~,'in of m:my peculiar nuances of J ohn's theology, and of several unique narrative motifs in the Fourd1 Gospel. Such arguments may also be sufficient to offer a relative date for the composition of the first draft of the text, at least relative to the history of J ohn's Christian community, if not relative to general history. Funher, Culpepper's arguments are entirely sufficient to explain why John and!or the Beloved Disciple and/or the followers of either or both of these indhiduals preached and taugh t alxmt Jesus the way d1ey did. In fairness, it must be stressed that these arc Cul pepper's primary concerns, and that the question of the relationship l>etween the developmen t of John's theology and John's motives for writing :1 Gospel is simply not an issue within the scope of his study. But even if all of Culpepper's arbTUments--or any arguments of a similar type-were accepted without debate, d1ey would rema in inadequate to explain why any person involved in thc J ohannine trajectory of early Christianity felt it necessary w preserve d1eir unique vision of J esus in writing. Why did J ohn choose to write a Gospel in response to his difficult situation, r:n.her than, say, preaching a sennon? Or assassinating the leading local Pharisees? Or organi7jng a mass suicide for all Chr i sti:~ns in the area? Or fil ing a protest with the Roman authorities? Or simply giving in, rejecti ng Christ, and returning to the Jewish fold? VVhy, from all these and m:my other options, did John choose w write a Gospel in response to his sim:uion? In other words, in answering the question, \-Vh y did John write a Gospel? Culpepper acmally discusses why the Gospel of John exists rls it does tod11y but does not explain why the Gospel of John exists.

\Vhy Did john Write a Gospel ? ·nuce key questio ns:

~ VVhy did john decide to cm_nm it his version of Jesus' story w " ' writing, when most people m his culture couldn't read?

~ VVhy did john think a written text was necessary, when he " ' believed that the Spirit wou ld preserve Jesus' memory?

~ llow did a written Gospel serve J ohn's purposes?

\\11y Did John \\'rite a Gospel?

9

The present study, by contnst, will focus on t.he word write in the above question: \ t\Thy did J o hn choose to commi l his version of J esus to 7t~riting, at a point in time when it was expensive and difficu lt to do so, el of Allark was written tO preserve the words of Peter, whose disciples wished to obta in "through writing a memory of the word that had been given to them through [orn\J teaching" so that they could archive this infonnation for future reference after the aJlOSlle's Cn his own text, but again for the purpose of preserving his ora l message. "Matthew fi rst preached ro Hebrews," Euscbius expl ains, "and when he was about to go on to others he gave in writi ng the gospel according to himself in his native language [Arnmaic], thus through the text lca\•ing his presence to those from who m he was being sent" (&d. Nist. 3.24.6). The apostle J o hn later real ized that some teachi ngs and events from early in J esus' ministry were not re!:orded in the Synoptics, and wrote the Fourth Gospel so that these memories would not be J>Cnnancntly lost (&d. Hin. 3.24.7-8). Eusebius's comments dearly emphasize the archive fu nction of writing: the early Christians wrote Gospels because they wished to preserve the first disci ples' actual memories of Christ. W hile his specific concl usions about the authorship of the ca no nical Gos]>Cis no longer represent the majority view of bibl ical scho larship, the logic ofEusebius's argument sti ll dominates discussions of these texts as sources for the historical J esus. Are the Gospels reliable archives of J esus? Do they preserve accurate memories o r not? From the pcrsJ>CCtivc of the archive function, the Gospel of j o hn is simply a pennanent version of the Fo urth Evangelist's ornl preaching and teaching, and reading th:n book is not very different fro m a sermon believers might have heard in one of John's churches. At le;JSt two passages in the Fourth Gosrtel could be taken as evidence that J ohn 's first readers also held this view: J ohn 19:3 1- 35 and J ohn 2 1:20-25. Both pass:1gcs are cri ti cal to any discussion of memory and history in the Fourth Gos1>el.

\\ 'riting:~sArchi1·e

17

J ohn 19:3 1-35 is one of only two :mcicnt ;lccounL~ of the trurifmgillm (cf. Gospd of Prtrr 4: 1-5). This scene lindsJe:.us h:mging on :t eros:. :n Calv:l'!' between two crimi nals. In order to hasten their deaths so d1at the corpses will not become a source of impurity during the Passo1·cr fcstiv:1l, :1 S(JU3d of l{orn:m soldiers comes 10 break their legs. B111 Jesus, to their surprise, has :~lrc:1dy expired, an observation they test by (lri1•ing a spe:~r into his side. This produces a Aow of watcr :~nd blood, satisE1ctory evidence of his dcmisc.

Th e Crurifragium (John 19:31-35) li T hcn the J ews, si nce it w:~:. the D:~ y of Prep:lr.Hion, :1skcd Pilatc th:~t their legs should l>c broken and they shoulears that ;'the one who saw this" cn~nt i:. the lklowd Disciple, 11 ho i~ st:Jnding ncar the uoss :~nd to whom Jesus has just entmsted his lx:rc:wcd mother (19:25-27). 10 Bee:~ use the Founh Go:.pd 1x:1rtr:ays the Hclovcd Disciple as :1dose associ;Ltc of the historieal Jesus, verse 35 ~is most n:~tur:ally understood as the writer's [:: J ohn's] :I ]Lpe:ll to the [eyewitness] evidence of someone ... on whose authority he \"entures to relate so rcrnarbblc a f:1ct. " 11 Some comment:Hors go :.o f.tr as to suggest that in 1·crse 35 the Hclo1·ed Disciple is :u:nmlly re1·ca ling himself as the author of the hook. Carson, for ex:1mple, arb'"lLCS that "here the witneS'> [tO J esus' death I and the [Fourth) E1•:mgclis1 :1re one, and the most COill]lCI Iing;Lssmnption .. is th:lt he [the :Luthor] is :also the lx:loveddist:iplc." 1! \\'hcthcr or not the Beloved Disciple is here Jx:lrtr:aycd as the author of the Fourth Gost>el or only :JS the sou rce of the ;Luthor's information, the text cle:lrl}' :~ ssoci ate s itself closcl)' with the testimony of an cycwimess, :111 individu:~ l who could rec:1ll personal cmpiric:1l c .~ J>ericnccs of J esus. "Someone,'' John s:~ys, ''sm;.• this happen (6 (wfK'IKW.£
Luke on "Why Write a History Book?" (Luke 1:1-4) 1\Vhereas

many have t:lken it to hand to compile an account of the e\·ems that have come to fulfillment :1mong us, 1 just as those who were eyewitnesses from the beginning :md the servants of the word passed !these things! down to us, >it seemed good to me also, having investigated ever)•thing c:trcfully from the beginning, to write them in :m orderly way for you, Most Excellent Theoph ilus, 4 so that you may know the cert:Jitlt}' of rhe words you have been t:wght.

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\.Vhy john Wrote a Gospel

Among the canonical Gospels, only L uke ami J ohn di rectly indicate the reasons for whil:h their respective books were written. The Prologue to Luke- Acrs (Luke I : 1-4) acknowledges that other accounrs of J esus' life, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses (ert'rrb7rnn), were al ready in existence . Luke, however, posturing himself as the first historical .J esus scholar, has carefully reviewed these te.~ts :lbrainst his own field notes, and is now prepared to preserve in writing a definitive version of Jesus' life and teachinbrs· T he verb KU'f1lX~w ("have been mught,'' v. 4), whatever its technical nuances, indicates Luke's awareness of the significance of the move from orality w literacy. T hcophil us was "taught" these thi ngs abom j csus by mouth, but Luke now writes to preserve a mo re permanent and "orderly" (&. 62

YVhy John Wrote a Gospel

with archetypal heroes and villains. T he heroes-those on the side of God, Light, :md, of coursc, J ohn-:Jrc the "ch ildren of God," people who have been "born again" and redeemed from th e clurchcs of darkness through their faith in C hrist (John 1:1 2; 3:3-5; I John 4:7; 5: 1-5). Logically, the villains should be billed as "ch ildren of the de\'il," but the Elder and j ohn instead refer categorica lly to those who oppose j esus as "the world." God loves the world (John 3: 16), but his love is unrequited, for the world hates jesus and rejoices over his death (John 7:7; 16:10). Believers, unfortunately, catch the ricochet of this conAict, for the world hates the disciples just as it hated j esus (John 15: 18- 19; 17: 14-16). J esus, however,
I jOHN 5:5-10

S\\fho

is the one who conquers the world, if not the person who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6This is the one who comes through water and blood: j esus C hrist- not in the water only, but rather in the water and in the blood. And the Spirit is the wimess, bec:~.use the Spirit is the uuth. 7For there are three who testify-lithe Spirit and the water and the blood-and the three are in agreement. 9 lf we accept the testimony of human beings, the testimony of God is greaterbecause this is the testimony that God testifi ed about his Son [i.e., that the Son came in water and blood]. 10'Tbe one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself [about the Son coming in water and blood]; the one who does not believe in (the teStimony of] God (about the w.~ter and blood] makes him out to be a liar, bec:~.use she has not believed in the testimony that God testified about his Son.

2 jOHN 7-11

7Because many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not confess, "Jesus is the C hrist coming in Aesh"this is the deceiver and the Antichrist. 8Watch yourselves, so that you do not destroy what we worked for rather than receiving a full reward. 9 £\·eryone who runs ahead and docs not remain in the teaching o f C hrist does not have God; rhe one who remains in the teaching has the Father and the Son. lOif anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching [that j esus is the C hrist in Aesh], do not receive him into the houseanddo notsay, "Welcome,"tohim. 11 Fortheonewho says, "Welcome," tO him shares in his wicked work.

3 j OHN 9-11

91 wrote

something to the church, but Diotrephes, the one who loves to be first among them, does not receive us [i.e., will not let people see my letter]. 10Because of this, when I come I will remind [the believers] o f his deeds that he docs, slandering us with wicked words. And not being content with this, he also does not receive the brothers [i.e., will not let the Elder's liaisons come to his church], and he forbids those who want [to talk to the Elder's liaisons] and th rows them out of the church. 11 Beloved, do not imit:Jte the evil, but rather the good. The one who does good is from God; the one who does evil has not seen God .

John'~

,\!emory Framework

6i

lc John's me mo ry o f j esus was sig nifica ntly s haped by three majo r framewo rks: I . A general feeling of hostiliry from all nonhclie\·ers, people of .. thc world"' 2. A specific feeling of hostil ity :~nd persecution from J ews who did no t agree with him about Jesus 3. A need to counter and oppose the claims of the AntiChrist~ (or at least, of their way of remembering J esus)

[ "ill proceed m arb'l.te, wrote a Gospel to make up for the deficiencies of this :1pproach. Fo r our present puqlOses, hm\e\·cr, please note that 1 will show no fear in assuming th:tt at the time that the Fourth Gospel was wrim::n the AntiChrisr.s were a re:ll and coherem thre:u, n group that John ~pecifically sought to refute by writing his book about J esus. 11ut e\·en if you do not agree with n1c th:n the epistles were wrillcn before the Fonnh GOS]>Cl, and/or if you feel that the AntiChrists were not yet a distinct mo\·ement at the time that J ohn wrote his hoo k abourJ esus, 1do not think that our differences on this i~sue would n ecessaril~, invalidate my :trgument here. As wi ll be seen , 1 am not so much interested in the AntiCh rist-;' specific bel iefs :1bout Chrisr as in the way that they wen1 ahourconsrructing their beliefs allOut Christ, the approach to the issues th:tt they adopted. 1 :unconce rned, in other words, not with the romwr of the AmiChristian memory of J esus, but r:nher with me mrtms by\\ hich me AntiChrists created lheir memories ofJesus, what we might c:all the "gener:ni,·e grammar" of their ChristolOb'Y· In Ill~' \'iew, the approach that the AntiChrists ad\"Oc:ued would have hcen ;I problem fo r John, dt e Elder, :md others in their camp long he fore the t\ntiChri~ts :tcll!ally left the .Johannine churches, and I sec J olm reacting against this approach in general more th:m a br:~ in s t this group of people in p;lrticular. In support of this claim, 1 would note that J ohn Painter-who tinnly bcliC\'eS that me Fourth Gospel preceded the epistles-h:Js argued quite SOilll' time ago now thatJohn 17 was written in :1 111"icipation of the challenge that the AntiChrists wou ld later prcsem. According to Painter, Jesus' prayer for unity :tt John l 7 was wrincn in reaction to an inRux of Gemi le believers who ''no

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Why John Wrote a Gospel

longer had a direct link wil11 the J esus tradition" and instead tended "to think of the revelation of new truth through the Spirit ofTruth." These charistn:ltic Gentiles, Painter arbrucs, bcgnn "to inrcrprct the activity of the Spirit in terms of'ccstatic utterance,' " leading them w develop and promote innovative ideas that thrc:ltcncd to divide John's congregations. In Paimcr's vicw,John's warnings about th is pro hl em in his Gospel were ineffective, and the sch ism gr;Jdually grew into the AntiChrist situ:Jtion rcfl ccrcd in I John. 11 I thin k it reasonable to argue, then, that the Fourth Gospel imcracts with the AntiChrists' approach to Jesus rradition, either by amicipating that approach at the ea rl y st<Jgcs of the con flier (i\ Ia Painter) or by attacking that approach after a formal spli t h:1d occurred. As noted, I persona lly lean toward the latter o ption, but wou ld ag':li n stress that my discussion focuses on a spectrum of options for thinking abo ut J esus that existed within thc J ohannine community around the time that the Fourth Gospel was written. Reb>"ardlcss of the precise chronological relationsh ip, John's Gospel would E1ll o n one end o f this spectrum, the AntiChrist.-.' preach ing would fall on the other, and the differences between these perspectives will provide crucial clues to the question, VVhy did J ohn write a Gospel? ThcJoh:mnine memory framework, then, was ch;Jractcrized by connict and controversy. Jo hn's memory of Jesus was shaped in dialo&rue with Christians who felt persecmcd and who faced significant doctrinal divisions. \Vithin that framework, he sought to construct a vision of the past that would unify his churches on the basis of a common image ofJ esus. But in doing so, he encountered an obstacle that made a written Gospel especially useful to his purposes. That obstacle w:1s his own theory of charismatic memory and its inherent limitations when applied to the management and usc of J esus tradition. T he specific contours of this problem are the subject of the next several chapters.

6

O ne Way Back to Two P laces: AntiC hristian Coun termemory

John's memory o(jcsus w:IS dri\'CII by the Spirit and shaped 10 meet the needs of churches alienated fro m the world :md thrc:ttcncd by the AntiChrists (or, :I&ecial impomnce. bvio usly, such an approach is not typical of the V.'cstem historical traditio a fact of which both N ict7Sehe and Foucault were well aware. Foucault not thar a history of effects will SJ>ecifically oppose mainstream ideas about "his ory" at several key points. At each of these IXlints, it is clear that Foucault is thjnki ng of history books as a fonn of cultural memory, a way that societies shade and preserve their image of the past. Thus, his genealogical approach "opJ?OSCS the theme of history as reminiscence or recognition," resisting the

boob.

7i itlca th:lt history books arc simply an:hi\·cs of information that objectively prcscn·c and descri be cvcms for later refere nce :u1d review. It ;t lso "opposes history given as conti nuity or rcprcsemati\·c of a tradition," defying the wa~· that hi ~tory books suggest C\'CIHS namrally occur in logiA "countennc mory"« (no dispute ahout wbich time; d ispute about what kind of time- which ti me zone? same data, different framework)

Nor is it clea r that th e AntiChrists developed their vi~ion by importing alien, gnostic elements into the orthodox Johannine framework; certai nly, there is no evidence to suggest that they thought they were doing this or intended to do so. The AntiChrists' position represents a true countcrmemory in the sense that their image of Christ was forged in the same context as J ohn's on the basis of the same traditiona l dam base, yet with the element.OSition. VVhile "the Jews" could do no worse than deny John's claims, the AntiChrists, as (fonn er) members o f Jo hn's own communiry, buih their vision of J esus from the same stuff as John's own

understanding and, like John himself, could insist that their memory was driven and guided by the Holy Spirit. J ohn's decision to write a Gospel was one aspect of a large r response to this threat, and the tactical advantages of a written text are set in bold relief when the conflict is analyzed in tenns of the tension between "dogma" and "mysticism" in re ligious memory.

THE LOOK OF JESUS IN THE LIMINAL ZONE Any consideration of the AntiChrists' theological position must answer t\1-'0 questions: Why did the AntiChrists "run ahead" of the traditional j ohannine way of thinking about J esus? How did the AntiChrists manage to develop a coumennemory of jesus that would ap(>eal to Christians li!.:.e Diotrephes (3 John 9)? Both questions are subheadings under a larger problem that is relevant to any serious discussion of the way that memory works. A theory of memory must explain two phenomena: the persistence of coherent views of the past m·er time and the discontinuity of views of the past over rime. A theory of memory must, in other words, explain both remembering and forgetting, and

83

84

Why John Wrote a Gospel

Two key questions:

~ I. Why did the AntiChrists ~run ahead" of John 's way of thinking

\I

and develop a countennemory of Jesus?

~ 2.1-low did the AntiChrists d~velop a countennemory of Jesus that \ I was appealing to some Chnsri:ms? the facrors that lead an individual or a group to retain some pieces of the past while diSC:Jrding the rest. For the current study, this means that it is necessary to explain how t he AntiChrists, as members ofJohn's religious community, were

able to create a countermemory that reained some elements of the conventional j ohannine perspective while ignoring or forgetting other elements, and also lO explain wby they felt compelled to do this.

Why Reinve nt Jesus? To answer the question, Wby did the AntiChrists develop a countermemory of Jesus? it will be necessary to consider why any religious group would change t he way they think about the past, especiall y the way they think about the founding figures of their movement. This problem is perhaps more complicated than first appears, for the me mory of religious groups is inherently conservative, at least more conservative than the memories of most other gro ups. Religious memory is "conservative" in the sense that it explicitly attempts to explain prcscm social realities in rem1s of the period of origins, maldng the problems of today fit the teachings of the founders of the fa ith. Indeed, "what is peculiar to the memory of religious groups is tha t, while the memories of other groups penneate each o the r murually and tend to correspond, t he memory of religious groups claims to be fixed o nce and fo r all. It (religious me mory] either obliges o thers to adapt themselves to its dominant represenrations, o r it systematically ignores them." Religious groups attempt to remain in close contact with the period of origins through riruals, creeds, tr::lditions, and sacred texts that preserve the image of that past. The founders of the faith are cano nized through this constant rehearsal of their words and deeds, malcing t he memory frameworks of the first generation a defau h value for the thinldng of all b ter believers, one that seems to tr::lnscend the petty concerns of today. 1 One may therefore say that religious memories, the images of the past preserved by members of a religious group, are characterized by an acute sense of the d istance between "now" and "then" and by an attempt to minimize that disunce by interpreting the present through the frameworks of past ways of thinking.!

Jesus Now and Then

85

In the early dars of :1 religious movement, the tension between the periO
J esus' Framework

30C.E.

40

50

Solution 1: Tbe Dogmatist sflys ..

60

70

80

90

tOO

Solutio" 2: Tbe Mystic says .

"lakeJesus'wayollhinkingand Ulllhlttoinllrpretlhklgsnow.we hlven,beendoin!IIVIW)'goodjob ollhltiiWY,soGodlllprotlably golngtolllvttolead,outoanew anddelperwtllontogetalthls warkllnesloutollllsdudl.~

way relev:m t to the problems of tod.1y? And especially, how can the church make jesus speak tO today whil e maintaining even basic doctrinal cominuiry with past generations of believers and their own attem p t~ to make j esus speak to contemporary concerns?

Jesus ;-.,'ow and Then

89

llai Owachs ar!,'lleS th:H the church has achiere 96

Vlh y john Wrote a Gospel

noticed." Indeed, the great Christian mystics ha\'C genera lly generated their visions through meditations on the Gospels, the sacraments, icons, and various devotional texts that were :~!ready officially endorsed by the church. 4 The mystical insight is thus "new" only in the sense that it ccntrali7.CS things that were previously on the mar~;ins of mainstream lll CillOI)', and is "personal" on ly in the sense that it rcprt:Sents the creative genius of a single individual rnther than the collective wisdom of the academy or the church. The case of the Norwood lll}'Stic follows this pattern. Visionary Sandy, in her private raptures, saw the Virgin Mary, a key figure in the New 'l tstamcm and all subsequent Ch ristian texts and iconograph)'i she did not see some previously unknown mediatory figure. Further, Mary's "new" message-that Americans "need to get back to a Christi:m way oflife"' characterized by "lm·e of God and love of neighbor"--could scarcely be considered innovative. Even her attendant signs and miracles involved objecrs and symbols of the ancient Christian faith: photographs of the Virgin where she appea rs to be Ca ucasian and is dressed in \.Vestern garb, typical of her representation on prayer ca rds and dollar-stare prinrs; transformed crucifixes; healings that resemble the miracles of Christ; crosses in the sky. In these and o ther respccrs, while the mystical countcrmcmory claims to trnnsccnd paraly-Led dogma, it in fact borrows irs visionary grn mmar entirely from the treasury of the church's dogmatic tradition. The new mystica l vision is a "countermernory," not only because it depends on the church's established trnditions, but also because it relics on orthodox dogma to set approp riate bounda ries for the mystical experience. "During his transports and his ecstasies the mystic hence maintains the continuous feeling that his particular experiences take place within a framework of notions that he has nor invented, that have not been revealed to him alone, but that the Church preserves and has taught hin1. "ST he Ch ristia n mystic, in other words, rarely opposes dogma, but rather opposes either the inabi lity of dogma to add ress conrem]>Ornry issues o r, in the opposite instance, the conflation of dogma with conremporary concerns to a point where it becomes difficult to identify a distinctly Christian J>erspccti,·e. Ln this way, Christian mystics remain d istinctly "Christian," no maner how personal their ' 'isions may be. Those who entirely de part from the tn1dirional do&rmatic framework fall imo another category, "heretics," whose memory cannot be imcgratcd into mainline perspectives because it is not bounded by a fami liar ser ofimagcsand ideas. Because of my background, career, and intercsrs, I have had occasion to dialogue with charismatic Catholics, pemecosral evangel icals, and religious people of va rious denominations who claim that the}' have been abducted by aliens who revealed secret information to them. Analyzing such anecdotal dntel

debate with mystics over memory. Before proceeding to that discussion, it will be helpful m brieAy highlight the inherent complexity of J ohn's situation and the options available tO him. As nmcd earlier, thcjoh:mninc memory of j esus was essentia lly personal, a product of the Spirit's work in individual Christians. This view of the Spirit could support both dogmatic and mystical approaches to thc j oh:mninc tradition. From J ohn's dogmatic perspective, the Pa raclcte establ ishes a close connection between the historic:11jcsus and the risen Lord. Since the Paraclele is the presence of J esus in the community, teachings that arc inspired by Lhc Spi rit should closely resemble the teachings of the human j esus; since the Spi rit has been :JCtive ever since jesus' death (John 7:37-39; 20: 19- 22), the beliefs of today should be consistcm with the established creeds of yesterday. J ohn's approach to J esus tradition was thus conservative and minimalist, focused on the past and resisting expansions as d:mgerous innovations leading to error {I J ohn 4:1-6). BUL it seems tha t the AntiChrists interpreted the community's traditional sayings about the Paraclctc in a mystical way, one that allowed them tO take a maxima list approach to dogm:J and tradition. If the resurrected Lord, through the Spirit, continues to speak and act in the church, the life and teachings of the human j esus would be only of historical interest, the beginning of a story that is ongoing in the community's experience. From this perspective, there would be no point to stress that "Jesus [the man] was the [divine] Christ," for every believer possesses the divine C hrist in the form of the Paraclete. As a natural conse<JUCnce, the AntiChrists were more concerned with Christ's immediate presence and guidance than with the community's creeds about jesus, and were also naturally less interested in his "blood" ( I John 5:6)-in the life and teac hings of the historical J esus as a reference poim for current experience. T his mystical outlook would quickly solve the problem of the growing dis tance between J esus' socia l framework and the church's framework- it would, in fact, reduce that distance to z.cro by pulling j esus out of Palestine and into the church's own liminal zone. Viewed from the AntiChrists' angle, J ohn's dogmatic approach would appear not so much wrong as simply obsolete, too rigid in its datab:1se and unable to respond quickly enough to the needs of today. Clearly john could nor ignore this threa t, :1nd his best possible response to the AntiChrists seems obvious: seek and Ort to thl· AntiChrists' charismatic view (see j o hn 14:26; 15:16--27; 16: 12- 14). \\'hilc it 111:1}' h:~1·e been (he most obvious reS[)OilStimony of the Bclo,·e of mcmoq•, aS]:lCCts ofim:1ge!> of the past that \\Cre ripe for the AntiChrists' purposeuh, I and I alone em "remember" these things. Yet even n1y personal recollection of these \'Cry pril':lle :Jets is :1 social phenomenon in two respects: (a) hccause these things occurred in the bro:1der con text of my [):lSI life, ;I life that was alll'S alrc:1dy intertwined with the lives of other people, ami (h) bcc:Juse. as I now think about my private p:1q, I :1111 forced to t:oncepmalizc and express what has h:lp]>Cncd through the fr:~rncwork of terms and values dmwn from Ill)' society of tod:l~'· I was :1 mem· bcr of :1 group when these thing-; hap[lCncd, and I recall them now as a mem· I>Cr of :1 group--other [:teople :1rc alwa~'!> present in my memories, e1·cn 11 hen the~' :~rc not at the forefront of my consciousness.

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V.'hat sociologis[S call the "collective memory" of a f,'TO up is therefore nor simply the sum tot:! I of all the disc rete memories o f every individ ual in the group, all of my memories plus all of }'OUrs plus all of everyone else's. Rather, a group's "social memory" is the capacity that every member of the group pos·

scsscs to relate stories about the past in :1 me:mingful way, ~mean i ngfu l " because they arc molded by memory fra meworks that other people share. l.n this respect, memory is not a contelll, a fixed body of data about the past, but r:lthcr a social conrract, an :tgrccmcnr about how the past should be conceptualized and discussed. T he social contract of memory is illustrated by A. J. H ill's Under flresmre, the swry of the U.S. submarine S-5. 1 The S-5 sank o n a test voyage in 1920 when a crew member forgot w close one of the exhaust valves before a divea serious faux pas when tr.JVeling in an underwater vessel. Like most books of th is kind, Hill's volume rclls the ralc of the wreck and the heroic rescue of the crew. But Umler Pressun· departs from the standard forma t of naval disaster stories in m any respects. I-I ill writes in an informal, novelistic style, moving suddenly back and forth between the differe nt sections of the ship to narrate simultaneous events involving isolated groups of sailors. Each chapter has several divisions that describe wh~lt was happening at the s:une moment in various submerged comp:1rtmems, refl ecting the varying perspectives of the trapped sea men . This makes for a very interesting read, and at the end of the book the author expla ins that this unique format was possible because twe nty of the sun•ivors wrote personal testi moni es shortly afte r thei r rescue. Under Pressm·e is thus a composite image of the S-5 disaster as seen through the eyes of these sun•ivors, a mosaic of the recollections of twenty wimesses. In one sense, H ill 's book might be ca lled a "collective memory" of the S-5 submarine rescue. By breaking from a conventiona l linear narrative, by changing scenes and perspectives, by giving character sketches and biobrraphical flashbacks to comextualize individ uals and their actions, by telling the story through the eyes of many people at once- in these and other ways, H ill draws the reader into the presence of the crew of the S-5, allowi ng her to share vicariously their image of the past. U1f(/er Fhssurc might therefore be thought of as a "collective memory" in the sense that it weaves together many recollections of a common experience into a master narrative . This composite narrative tells the story as remembered by the whole group, :l story that includes the experiences ami reflections of each individual crew member but ultimately tra nscends the personal recollections of ~ny one of them. But at a dee per level- the level :It whid1 the social dime nsion of memory becomes helpful for acnmlly understanding wha t people do with the past- it becomes dear thar twenty eyewitness accounts of a submarine wreck, even when conveniently sorted and colbtcd into a single story, do nm consti nJte a

-E\'erything Th:u Rises ,\ lust Comocrge"'

109

"collecti\'e memorv" of th ~!! event. As llalbwachs notes, ''the collectin; memory !of;t grou p] . :encompasses the individu;tllnemorics while J'emainingJis-

The Past in M emory TI1e Re me mbe red Past. I. is a social contr:1ct, not a cont e nt 2. can he conR:ucd for com·eniencc 3. seeks a sympathetic audience tinct from them," and in rhe process ··any indi\'idu:1l rcmembr:mces that may penetrate arc tr:msfonne(l with in :1 toulity h:tving no pcrson:tl t·onsCOplc's claims :1bom the pasr wirhmu documcmation. This di mension of memory would :l!,r:Jin be magnified in J ohn's situation, where recall was viewed as an opcr:1t:ion of the Spirit. j o hn and the AntiChrists agree th:lt Christ comes to t.he church in the form of the Spirit and helps C hristia ns remember things about j esus. The AntiCh rists say that jesus is reminding them of things that J ohn has forgotten, is revea ling new things to them, and is showi ng them new ways to thi nk about things that the j ohanninc community has known :~II along. As a result of this lll)'Stical outlook, they have developed a \'ision of J esus that differs significantly from J ohn's view. Some C hristians su pport J ohn, while o thers, like Diotrcphes, turn a sympathetic ear to the AntiChrisrs and do not require t.hcm to measure their new outlook :1g:1inst previous orthodox tcachi nbrs. Also because he is symp:1thctic to this new vision, Diotrcphcs docs not apply strenuous criteria of historicity to the AntiChrisrs' statements and seems to T he Past in Memo ry: John's Dilemma The Remembered Past. I. Is a social contract, not :1 content me:ming that it bui lds its image of the p:1st not on the basis of "wh:1t hnppcned," but rather on the basis of the group's order of v:tl ues. This is the c:lse whether or not the content of a memory h:1ppcns to be historic:1lly true. 2. C:m be confhted for CO!l\'C!liem:c rne:1ning that items in memory arc a1T:1ngcd bycomp3rison :md contrast against the backdrop of the issues and v:tlucs of tOealing to some Christians in his churches. \Vhilcjohn could have adopted a number of different strategies to deal with

this problem, a written Gospel would be the ideal res ponse tO the AntiChrists' mystical countermcmory. Every liabi lity of the remembered past discussed in this chapter would be elim inated hy appeal to a hiswry book aiJout j esus. This is the case because hisrory books conceptualize and order the past in ways very

different from living memory and oral traditions. Several of the most significant differences will be discussed in the next chapter.

10

Beyond the Scope of the Present Study: The Public Past in History Books

The production of the Fourth Gospel represented a conscious shift: from a liv~ ing memory of Jesus preserved in community tradition to a history of j esus preserved on paper. Of course, history books are themselves a fonn of collective memory, o ne way that groups preserve images of the past. But history books differ significantly from living memory for two reasons: because they are bistrwiu and because they are books. In other words, history books di verge from collective memory in their concepwalization and presentation of the past, and then magnify t hese differences by committing the historical past m writi ng. These differences would make the composition of a WTitten Gospel particularly appealing to Jo hn in his struggles with the AntiChrists.

The Past in History Books The Written Past • .. I. is universal and un itary 2. is broken into permanent periods 3. loves ignorance

125

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W'hy John Wrote a Gospel

THE TOTAL OBJECTIVE PAST Memories arc generated for private audiences, either for personal reAection or for consideration by others who arc members of the same memory group. 1-! isrory books, by contrast, arc public documents, and as such they treat the past as an objective, universoll phenomenon open to any reader's scrutiny. 1 This basic distinction-that memories treat the past as subjective private experiences whi le histories treat the past as objective public events- generates significant differences in the way that memories and history books conceptua lize, organize, :md present the past to their respective audiences. Specifically here, history books treat the past as an additi\'e equation and require their readers/audiences to view the whole of the past and all of its parts from a thirdperson perspective. In the process, they establish themselves as the final authori ty in all discussions of "what has happened." In mathematical terms, historiography- the business of writing history lx>oks and all the rules and rq,rulations that guide that business-operates on an addition equation. Every individual moment of the past is rreated as a single, distinct item, and all these items coulok is simply a subset of that larger whole and borrows its contents from the greater mass; "the historical world," Halbwachs observes, "is like an ocean fed by the many partial histories." One could therefore, if so inclined, scan all the history ix>oks that have ever been written and [>Ostclteir texts on a mo1ssive \Veb site, "the universal memory of the human spccies[ .com),"l complete wiclt a search engine that would allow anyone anywhere to discover anything that has ever happened, even if such infonnation is of no immediate relevance to any living person or memory group. Of course, reviews of this \-\feb site would irmncdiatcly point out that the database is incomplete, because iris irn]>OSsiblc to record everything. But while this fact is a great comfort to students who arc cramming for history exams, historians view it as a significant loss. In the universe of history, all people and events from the past are esscnti:tlly equal and worthy of record, and items are excl uded fro m a particular study not because they arc nor worth remembering but simply because time, space, and money-hungry publishers (who for some reason snrbbornly refuse to print books that people will not read) do not permit them to receive the attention they deserve.~ Memory and history lx>oks, then, both try to preserve the past, but they do so in ways that reAcct very different sets of priorities. For example, I noted earlier that A. J. HillS lx>ok Undt'T Pressure, when \1ewed as the collective memory of the crew members of the S- 5 submarine disaster, docs not suffer from the fact that only twenty sun·ivors left ac(."Ounts of the event, rather than thirty. This is the case because collective memory is not so much a content as a conrract, a way

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127

of thinkin g about the past that would enable Jll of the survivors tO talk ahoutthe wreck in a meaningful way whenever they wished. As :1 socia l contr.Kt, this memory fr:11nework would specify which [Jet~ could he forgotten annandcoloring

books generate what Roland Barthcs would call "degree zero" images of the past, texts where memories are det:ached from people and carry no in herem meaning o r value. Barthcs developed the concept of "writing degree zero" in a disersonal interests h:ll'e not !,'ltidcd her work. The surre:tlist [Xtimers :llld JXX:lS of the early twemicth cennH)' tmdc such :1 claim; so do all histOrians. 'l'his is true not only of JX>Siti\'istic historians who assume :1 simple corrcbtion l>etwecn their texlS :md ''\\hat hapJ>ened," but also, and equally, true of autobiographical and idcologic1l hiswrians, who must cr:tm their material into ri,!.rid genres of schol:trly discourse that arc sha]lCd hy the rules of the :K';lderny and the house style sheet·s of uni\'er~ity presses r.tthcr th:tn by contmcts ofli vingmcrno ry. Because historians imply that their prcsenmtions arc controlled b~' abstract laws of objectivity or the principles of a theoretical mOed Oy the terms and \'alues of the social groups in which we participate. Then, earlier in this vc~' chapter, I said that "history books :Ire themsckcs a form of L-ollct_·ti\·e memory, one way that groups presen·e images of the past." Now I :1 111 saying that hiswry books opcr:ne in :l degree-zero etwironmcn t where the content of memO!'}' c:tn exist· apart from the soci:1l fr:unewo rks of anyone's memory. I low can all of these claims he true :tt once? In 01her words, if rc:tding history hooks is a form of ret_~tll, and if history books c:tllthcir readers to view the p:t~t from a degree-zero pcrspet:ti\·e, then history hooks must represem :1 SJlCCi:tl form of memory in \\hich images of the p:1st :1re not shaped by anyone's social fr;,meworks. This being the t_';lse, it is possible to think of an objective specied by soci:tl frnmcworks and values. Thi ~ is the specific sense in which historiJns would claim th:tt their work is "ohjccri\·e": their books :1re neutrnlzones of memory. :l pl:tce where the p:tst roams free and unencumbered by the \'a lues and prejudices of popular society. But if ~uch :1 neutral zone e.lists, then it musr be them·ctically possilllc for memorie~ to e .~iq and function free offr:1meworks, right? This line of thinking would, indeed, threaten my m·er.JII argument, if it did not O\'erlook one ke~· f:tct. \Vhile histo~' books do extr:tct the contents of the p:tst from the living fr.1mcworksof memory groups and prcscrve thTound at Lunken Airport, imagl'S of the past arc arranged on the basis of the way the pbce looks n0\1 and discussions with lk·dy ahom how it used to look ~The

train used

"ftmusthave

tobeovet"bythattree,

been, because

right? To the leftofthetree?"

""""'"' howlt ..

"Oh,,.... _ _ ~Hmmm.

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..........

this says there two !noes."

hOwlwasthinklnglhatyou usedtogopastlheooetree togettothe boat? •••~

~

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The l unkenExpress (1977) Justpasttheslide,littleengineers discoverthelunkenExpress, Shaded by ancient elms.

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Why John Wro1e a Gospel

rearranged and fixed on the basis of the images and descriptions in that document. The inscribed past is potent simply because it forces readers/viewers to

think on its own terms, and this is the vety reason why we appeal to picrures and books when we feel our memories failing and in need of support. Historical documents, then, do not help us to remember; they make it unnecessary for us to remember. This aspect of the inscribed past-its ability to function as a surrogate memory bmework-is enhanced in culrures where writing possesses an inherendy symbolic qualiry. In societies such as the one I live in and the one John the enngelist lived in, the social contract of memory gives written versions of the past a special authority, one that elevates the value of their organizing principles. The image of the past in history books rises to a point where it stands in judgment of all living memories and threatens w label as "false" every scheme that does not comply with its terms. In these cultures, one scrap of paper can override the testimony of a dozen witnesses, and the organizing principles of a sacred ten condemn to damnation every memory that does not foUow their lead. Written texts do nor acquire symbolic rhetorical force because a society views their contents as neeessarily superior to the contents of living memory and oraJ traditions. Indeed, documents simply preserve in written form the same facts and figures that once inhabited, and in most cases still inhabit, someoneS living memory. lnstead, written texts carry symbolic rhetorical force when members of a society agree that documents organize and frame the past in an inherently superior fashion.

PERMANENT PERIODS, FROZEN TIME Eviatar Zerubavel notes that it is impossible to think about the past~r, for that matter, lO think about anything-without the aid of a guiding organizational scheme. There are simply tOO many things in the world to think about, aod we can concentrate on individual items only by distinguishing them from the larger backdrop of things that are not getting our attention right now. "It is the fact that it is differentiated from other entities that provides an entity with a distinctive m=ing as well as with a distinctive identity that sets it a pan from everything else." 6 Things acquire value as we son them into mental categories, and in the process they are defined both in terms of what they are and what they are not. Bananas are fruits, which means that they are not vegetables; vegetables are food items, which means that they are nor a means of transportation; cars are a means of transportation, which means that they are not to be eaten but are useful for driving to the store to get more bananas. The meaning of things is thus "alw:~ys a function of the particular mental com-

Berond the Scope of the Present Srudy

lJJ

partment in which we place them." 7 Applied to a theory of memory, this means that images of the past are comprehensible only when they are discriminated, sorted, and arranged into meaningful patterns. As noted in chapter 9, living memory organizes the past by sorting recollections into categories and patterns that reflect the group's value system, and fo r this reason the remembered past follows an internal logic that may not make sense ro outsiders. Further, ~usc they are dependent on group values, the frameworks of memory shift whenever these values shift, leading a group continually to reorganize its memories to reflect current realities. ln the process, some clear images are blurred, some blurred images become clearer, composite pictures are broken apart, and broken pieces melt together. Continuity in memory is maintained not neeessari ly at the level of content, but rather through the persistence of the social contract that allows all members of the society to speak about the past in a meaningful way at any given History books, however, organiz.e the past in ways very different from living memory, and then stare their version of what happened in nonnegotiable terms. To highlight these differences, it will be helpful here to consider both the means by which history books order the past and the effect of writing on that organizational scheme.

Narrative Logic Memories are comprehensible only when they are sorted and arranged in meaningful patterns. The most basic, yet perhaps most significant, means by which both memory and history books o rde r the past involves the insertion of conceptual breaks into the mathematical flow o f time, a process sometimes referred to as "periodiz.ation." "Periods" are distinct blocks of time that are bracketed by "watershed" mo ments, events and/or individuals whose appearance marks the beginning or end of an era. E,<Jatar Zerubavcl, who has discussed this phenomenon extensively, notes that watersheds are significant because "they are collectively perceived as having in•·o\ved significant identity transfonnations," moments when the life of the individual or group under consideration "took a rurn" and began to move in a different direction. Once events and people are bracketed by watersheds and grouped together in a distinct period, it is generally assumed that they share certain characteristics that refl ect the "spirit of the age." This spirit, of course, differs from the spirits that drove other eras (eras in the life of an indh'idual or eras in the larger life of a society), a fact that helps us remember the relevant characteristics of people who lived at that time and understand the reasons they did the things that they did.

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Why John Wrote a Gospel

ln the case of living memory, w:ncrshcds parallel the mental boundaries in a group's value system and function alongside those boundaries. The mental gaps between categories of concepts are superimposed onto the flow of time to project b:Jckward into the past the origin of these discontinuities, and ofth e group's overall w:~y ofthinlcing. 8 For example, \Vestemers typically see 1789, the opening year of the French Revolutio n, as a major ruming point in world history, and treat that event as a watershed moment dividing two disti nct eras. This menrnl move is possible beouse Westerners believe that the culture and values of post-Revolution France are irreconcilable with those of the monarchy, so that the France of 1788 and the France of 1790cannot fit into the same ment:Jl category. In the same way, my tendency to situate the \1\'ounded Knee Massacre in 1830, rnther than the true date of 1890, reflects the fact that I view the C ivil \.Yar as a ruming point, or a watershed moment, in U.S.· minority relations, and under my parndigm Wounded Knee fi ts better with the spirit of the earlier age. My memory, in other words, arr::mges images of the past in ways that reAect my personal order of values, breaking time into distinct peri· ods that refl ect the way I interpret the things that happened in each ern. But as noted above, history books claim to transcend all value ~ystems under the guise of objectivity, and therefore presume that events and people from the past are inherently neutral entities. Even contemporn ry, posnnodern histori· ans--feminists and post·colonialists, for example-who are acutely awa re of the value systems inherent in all interpretations of the past, treat the acrual eve nts o f the past as inert objects that can be \'iewed and reviewed from a \'ari· cry of different angles. As a result, while living memory picks watersheds that refl ect and reinforce the group's current system of beliefs, histories carve out periods oftime on the basis of "the state ofthe [academic] field, the coherence of the argument, ]and] the structure of the presentation. "9 In the Western tra· dition of historiography-the trndition whose conventions regulated John's production of a wrinen Gos pel- the "structure of the prese ntation" generally takes the fonn of a chronological narrative. H istorical narratives organize the past by weaving the chaotic fabri c of time into a coherent tapestry of causes and effects, creating a story that leads from a fixed beginning to a definitive end. The past is manageable in history narratives because effects arc linked to causes in such a way that the relationshi p between the two cannot be negoti· ated- if things didn't happen this way, we can't get from the first page of the book to the lasr. 10 Other historians who disagree might suggest different causes or point out multiple side effects, but critical review of this kind only replaces one narrative with another and thereby affi nns the ove rall logic of historiography, even when specific facts are debated. Of course, one can write a chronological narrative only from a va ntage point where the causes and effects come d early into focus. The historian

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135

must rherefore situate herself beyond the conclusion of the story, outside the plot rather than within it, so that she may view the past "as a whole from af.u." For this reason, "hindsight as well as anachronism shapes historical intervre· tations." 11 Specifically, historians work backward, viewing every moment of the past through the lens of the end of the story and shaping every event to make it fit neatly between its precipitating causes and subsequent conse· quences-consequences that people livi ng in the time period under consid· erntion might have guessed but could not have known. Neither John F. Kennedy nor the mass of people gathered at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas, on the morning of November 22, 1963, knew that the president would be dead by I :00 p.m., but every biographer of Ke nnedy must know this in for· marion and must write the story of a li fe that could have ended at that fixed point. " ln short, historical explanation surpasses any understanding available while events are still occurring. The past we reconstruct is more coherent than the past was when it happened." 1' ln order to squeeze the past into tight chronological sequences with clear beginnings and logical conclusions, historians must set precise OOundaries for their data pools. Here again, periodi:r.ation plays a key role. " ln the process of transforming history into a story, the decision of where to begin and end the story defines what constitutes the relevant event and determines its mean· ing."ll Eviatar Zerubavel refers to this phenomenon as "mnemonic decapita· tion" and notes rhat history narrnrives always operate on an~ nihilo principle, pretending that the story was preceded by a sort of historical void during which nothing really relevant was going on .14 On the flip side, decapitation creates the impression that the events and people that fall \\irhin a history book's narrative OOundaries must be important to the topic under considera· tion; otherwise, they wouldn't be included. IS

The Digital Past History books organ ize the past by removing people and events from living frameworks of memory and threading them together in Crson who possesses Lhe Spirit c:m claim to be a remembrancer, able m recall J esus and guided by the Paraclete in her interpretations of that memory. \·Vhile the amhor of I John could appeal to this belief ad hom inem to posture the Spirit/tradition as a special "anointing~ that prot ccL~ true Christians from the heretical teachings of the AntiChrists ( I j ohn 1:10-27), Joh n's cha rismatic approach to memory would :also make it ultimatcl}' impossible for him to refute the AntiChrists' claims. As private spiritua l exJ>erience, the AntiChrists' coumermemory of Jesus would not be subject to historical inquiry and would not demand the objectivity that makes it ]>assible for historians to proclaim their versions of the past "true." As inspired recollection, 1..hey could claim that t.heir memories of J esus were just as good as John's. But j ohn could counter the AntiChrists with a hismry book, one t.hat would posture J esus :ts a public fib•urc and thus make all claims about his :activity potentially subject to investig:ttion. John points this out himself in texts such as john 19:35 and 1 1:24, wh ich apJ>eal to eyewitness testimony in the coun of t..he reader's scrutiny. IJy moving J esus into the public past, John creates an image that claims to transcend private faith experience in the same way that a biography of Don Gullett would transcend rn y private rncrnoryofhis remarkable home run and treat that even t as fact o r fiction rather than nostalgia. Of course, this does not mean that J ohn sought to eradicate the influence of the Spiri t. \.Vere J ohn thoroughly amicharismacic, passages such as John 14:26 and 16:13 would not have been included in his Gos1>el. h seems more likely that J ohn wished m balance and supplement the P;lraclctc's "a nointing" with a written text that could wmplcment and define that ongoing spiritual CXJ>erience. Bclie'"ers could now refer to the text of the Fourth Gos]>el as a

Why John Wrote a Gospel

147

muchstone for pneumatic memory in the same way that they could "test the spirits" by appealing to the community's established christologie2l creeds (see I John 4:1-6). Text and memory would henceforth work together to support John's witness to J esus.

REASON 12, TRAPPED TIME Meeting new people and sharing life stories with them is one of the major perks (and occupational ha2.:1rds) of my job as a seminary professor. M:my of my students are entering ministry as a second career, forcing them to signifiC2ndy reconfigure the plot of thei r personal and professional aumbiographies w explain how they came to this poim in their lives. As they look for guideposts and precedents, they often interrogate me as to where my own path began. "\Nhen did you deeide to become a professor?" they ask over a ham burger. "Did you always want to do this?" And the worst question, "So, do you think you're going to keep doing this, or will you end up doing something else?" Depending on the circumstances, people generally get one of two versions of my life history, the story of"Professor Tom" or the story of"Pastor Tom," both of which I have included on the next page in abbreviated fonn . Obviously, a quick perusal of these two smries reveals a number of key differences, differences that might lead to charges of dishonesty. Yet each of these narratives is true in the sense that I could document all of the specific facts to which they refer. T his being the case, I can, in good conscience, tell people whichever story supports the way I am feel ing at any given moment about how my life will ultimately resolve itself. Because memory's image of the past is always shaped by the fram ework of our immediate values, memories change whenever these values change. In the process, new watersheds rise and are eventually replaced to continually break the Row of time into manageable periods, periods that in turn characterize the events and individuals who inhabit them. Experience demonstrates how quickly and how often we can reconfigure our memories to fit the rhetorical needs of the moment. But such liberties, on which memory so often depends, do not extend to history books. If, for example, I were to write an autobiography, the written version of my life could not tolcrnte such contradictions, and would need to suppress, for sake of clarity and space limitations, those details that were not immediately relevanl to, and supporti\·e of, the story I chose to publish. l.n my written autobiography I would be Professor Tom or Pastor Tom- not one on one page and the other on the next-quite unlike the way that I can tell one story today and another tomorrow. Readers who happened to hear me telling someone the alternate version might even challenge the ethic of my presentation,

Life of Tom Version 1: "Professor Tom.,

Life ofTom Version 2: "Pastor Tom.,

When I first ])e(_":l.me a Christian in high school, I didn't know anything about the Bible. I wasn't really !';lised

\Vhen I finished high school, I felt c:tllcd to some type of ministry, and wanted to attend a Bible college and start working in a church pan rime. Butmyparentsobjectedbeawse l had a full- ri de scholarship to the University of Cincinnati.! went there fora yen butreallyneverfcltcomfomble, and transferred to finish a degree in ministry. l decided l wantedaMaster of Divinity, so I went on to seminary while my wife finishet:ti>·c.priv:uccxpericnce.

1. Treat as the past asobj~>t:tive,publicf.Kts.

2.0rg:mi resthe JY.ISt aroundb'TOUJ>>'alncsand shi ftswhcnthose•'3 lucs shift

2.0rg:mir.c thCJY.IStaround ...... J>onraito fJesuso nnot atixcd histotit'3lnarrdti>·c . . . ehangcorsh ift ovcrti tn c, tnakingi tilllmun etoeurrent and (.";; nnot change, ~"·en wh cnobsoktc val u cs ~nd u perienecs

J. Uses afluid databaseto oonstntctan:k'\"dnt imagcofthepast.

3.

~~~::::~~~~:~~~~~g oursidct llcse<JJICOfthc story.

4. Allowsdcbatcbotho•·cr "wha t happened" and how to interpret what happen~"rl:t.ltionofwhathapiiCnctl.

.... Claims abot~tJ esus ~ rc sub.... jcct toscruuny,\lcbatc,~nd documentation.

, ~:::~~~~~a;~;o~~;/;:~u~~:-

taincdinrhetext;ncwn:vclationsfmmthcSpiriton bcignorcdifim:lc•'3nt

3 ~\:;::~~~~:~;r ::~;~:us did or SJ id cc nainthings; t'3nonlydiscussthcoorrcct intCI']>rctationofthedatain the tnt

5. Assmnc the audicn~-,'s ""''rt. Mosii>I!Oj>le_onnotchalignoraneeandskc111icism. .... lengethecbunsofthe FounhGospc l. orjohn's daimsbasedonaJ>pealsto that tc~t. si rn11l y bet:ause thcyoouldnotreacli t

\ Vh}' John \ Vrorc :1 Gospel

155

hoth the growth of the J ohanni nc tr.Hlition and its intcrprer:nion. And since most people wou ld be un:1hlc 10 re:1d such a book, it would be impossible for most people to ch:1llenge iL.;; cl~ims, or even to ch:1llcngc argllrncnts b:1sed on vague appeals to th:H text. lf "gcncral history starts only when m1di tion ends :md the soci:1l memory is fading or hrc:1king up," it ma}' be s:1id th:njohn wrote 1 :1 Gospel to cr:1se his own memory.

Postscript

The Original Quest for a Historical Jesus

Rcntrning to the guiding question of thiCr's maxim, as applied by advOCites of the developmental appro:.ch, accurntel)' expla ins tre nds in the evolution of joh:mnine memory, beca.use memory always an cmpts to shape its image of the past to m eet the needs of the prcsem . So if, for exa mple, a bunch ofS:unari t:1ns decided to join one of J ohn 's chu rc hes, we could call that event a prels: Manhew, Mark, Luke, and john (assuming the Fo urth Gospel was written before the yea r 100). The e'•idence suggests that t.here cou ld h:1ve been six o r seven mo re, depending on what you t.hi nk abom Q, L, Nl, the Signs Gospel, and possible early editions of the Gorptl ofTbomllr and the Gosptl of Ptter. T his takes us up to a !Jour ten earl y Gospels; for s:1ke of discussion, let's So o ut o f all the e:.rly Christians who f.1ceer of them who responded 1'0 thei r situation by writing a Gospel was statistically insignificant. Fu rther, in rhe j ohannine erhaps the most signi ficant difference between history books and living memories; living memory can change to meet the needs of new situations, but history books cannot. The history book will continue to proclaim irs version of things forever, even when its comenrs challenge current perspectives. Societies acknowledge this fa ct tacitly or explicitly through "book burnings," violent attempts to erase certain memories and ideas by destroying the texts that preseiVe them. An)' developmental theory must explain not only why and how multiple editions of the Gospel of John were produced, but also how each new editor (if there were more than one) rysumntically dtstroytd rotry copy ofprroious tditions so that tbtst tar/in- tditions could not challt ngt tbt ntw vUion. In my view, the effort requi red to produce a revision of a written document

in the first century would imply that the editor in question felt very, very strongly that the ideas promoted in the extant text were deficient. If the text was judged slightly deficient, it would be much easier to simply correct or paraphrase it in oral recitations-or, in extreme cases, to make written notes in the margin at key points-than to bother producing a new one. But if this

164

Postscript

new way of thinlcing was so different from earlier beliefs, and if the differences were so important as to justify a whole new edition of the sacred text, it is hard for me w imagine that an editor would be content to know that twenty copies of the old edition were sitting out in church libraries somewhere ready to challenge the new perspective. So long as these old copies existed, anyone with access to one of them could simply point out that "my Bible doesn't say that" or argue that the old way of thinlcing, still preserved with all its elements in ~:act, was better. Memory can replace the old way of thinking simpl y by ignoring it and saying something else, under the principle that the val ues of today reshape the image of the past in a way that makes it hard ro remember what the group wants ro forger. But new versions of a history book can't do that- the old edition still proclaims its view of things loud and clear. Once writing enters the tradition equation, it becomes necessary w explain exactly how the old way of thinking could be eliminared, which means explaining how someone in the Johannine community could destroy every copy of the version of the text that he sought to replace. This aspect of the problem relates to the interface between memory and community infrastrucrure, the question of who has the authoriry to change the way that a group thinKs about the past. At the time that the Johannine Epistles were written, the infrastrucrure of the Johannine chu rches had broken down to a point where the Elder, mustering all his authority, could not get Diotrephes to give his representatives a glass of water. This being the case, I wonder how he could persuade Diotrephes to hand over his obsolete edition of the Gospel of J ohn so that "the brothers" could burn it in his backyard? Of course, things may have been different at an earlier time, before the days of the AntiC hrist crisis, when the Johannine network was tighter and worked more smoothly. I leave it to those who advocate developmental theories to show that this was the case, and to describe theJohannine infrastrucru re at the point in time when the revisions they propose were introduced and the old versions destroyed. Again, I do not offer these points as a definitive refutation of rhe developmental approach, but only as observations about its limitations when viewed in the light of the interface between memory and writing in J ohn's situation.

JOHN AND JESUS Since the earliest days of the church, scholars have tended w view the Gospel of John as a christological treatise, admirable for its theological and liternry depth but less concerned with the Jesus of history than Matthew, Mark, or Luke. Thus Clement of Alexandria (fl. I90s CE) argued that J ohn, "knowing

Postscript

165

that the outward things had been set down in the [Synoptic! gospels . moved by the Spirit to create a spiritual gospel" (&d. flirt. 6. 14.7), and Suitmann assened in 1958 that "the Gospel o f j ohn cannot be taken into account at all as a source fo r the teaching of Jesus."6 Even John A. ' f. Robinson, who dedicated much of his career to the thesis that the Fourth Gospel "could take us as far back to source (: Jesus himself) as any other [Gospel]," admitted that John's presentation of his subject remains "the most [theologically] mature. " 1 But whether or not the Founh Gospel portrays the j esus of history accurately, John betrays a greater interest in a "historical j esus" than any other primitive Christian author. The Gospel of John was born out of a desire to

john, Memory, and History: Implications I. The Founh Gospel is an apologetic treatise, not an evangelistic tract.

2. The Fourth C'-.ospel that we have 10d ay is most likely the first, or at most the second, edition of that book. 3. John shows more interest in a "historical Jesus" than Matthew, Mark, Luke, or anyone else in his time period. portray j esus as a figure from the past and to keep him locked in that past, to draw a bold line between present C hristian experience and the L>vents of "the beginning," to suppress the living memory of j esus and replace that memory with a fixed image of a person who lived and died decades earlier. Tbe Jesus of the Fourth Gospel is an intentionally historical figure, one whose image is explicitly conftated with Christian faith and the jewish Scriptures, but whose memory is no longer solely dependent on the work of the Spirit and no longer subject to the vicissitudes of tradition and the needs of the moment. There is today, in Be::~consfield, England (some twenty-five miles northwest of London), a building made from wood supposedly taken from the MayfifJWrr, the ship thai carried the Pilgrims to the Uniled States and that plays such a prominent role in American lore about the first Th::~nksgiving. Legend has it th:lt the MttyjiiJWrr, a mean cargo vessel before and after its famous voyage, returned to England and was offered at auction in 1624 after the death of its master and pan owner, C hristopher Jones. The ship, in a state of ncar ruin, sold for a fraction of its potential v::~lue, and was broken \lp, sawn apan, and incorporated into a barn. Considerable debate surrounds this story, but the skepticism of historians has not diminished the thriving tourist trade around the Mayflower Barn (now a reception hall) on the site of the historicjordans Quaker community.

166

Postseript

Assuming for a moment that the legends are true (or C\'Ctl if they are not), one may imagine that an enterprising American might purchase this barn, dismantle it, and bring the resultant pile oflumbcr back to Boston. He could then point ro th is pile with pride and say, "That used to be the Mttyjluwrr." But the Pilgrims didn 't sail across the Atlantic Ocean on a pile of wood, and tourists wouldn't pay much to sec one. This same entrepreneur might therefore hire historians to recreate the original plans of the lvlayjlowrr and then rebuild the ship from those materials, re placing the boards that couldn't be found or were too rotten w usc and, of course, installing electric lighting and other conveniences essential to the tourist traer,58.

171

Notes

172

C hapter 2: Writi ng :u Archive I. David Lowenthal, Tbr Punlsal'orrign Country(Cambridgc: Cambridge Univcrsity Pn.-ss, 1985),252 . 2. Augustine, Thr ConjrJSiom 10.8.12, 10.9.16, in Thr Wor.b of St. Augtutinr: A Translatio11 frJr tbr 21st Crmury, tr.ms. Maria Boulding (New York: New City Press, 1997), 245, 247. Allb'llstinc 's L'0111p lctc discussion of memory covers Con[ti$irms 10.8.12- 10.19.28. 3. Augustine, 10.14.22, in lf'OrksofSt. Augustinr, 251. 4. Quote from Barbie Zelizcr, ~Reading the Pastabo:~inst the Grain: The Shape of h \emory Studies." Criti(o/ Smdirs in 1\lass Communirntirm 12 (1995): 218. 5. Paul Connerton, Hu:.~ Sodrtits Rrmrmfxr, Themes in the Soci~l Scicnco (Cambridge: Cambridge Unh·crsity Press, \989), l'!.. 6. Quote from James Fcutrcss ~nd Chris \Vickham, S«iul Mmt()ly, New Perspccth•es on the Past (Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1991), 8-9. 7. Zelizcr, 118. 8. Quote fmm David Lowcmhal, Prusrmd lry tbr Past: Tbr 1-/rritstgt Cnwtdr nml tbr SpoilsofHistGry (New York: Free Press, 1996), 107. 9. Plato, Pbtwlms 174-75. All citations of Pb11rdms arc from 1'/aro ;, '/Wrlvr VoiIIIIUS, tr.lns. Haroltl North Fowler, LCL (Carnhridgc,MA: Harvard Unil'ersity Press, 1982). Note that Fowler translates the phnse j.U>"l\l.TJ~orl :ts 11cll, into which his or:tl tr:ulition :tnd testimonies h:ti'C l~t:~:n [lUI- (3 . .1i3). Buhmann :tlso argues dwtthc ctlitor who ad{blll :HU '>Ought "to 'ct the prc.>cm ["ri n cn] GOSJK:lundcr the authority ofthcoMcst "itncs,''wjcsu.>(716).

C hapt er 3: T he Pcrsis1cncc of J o hn's 1\ lemory I. See D. A. C:aNJn. Thr GMpd urrt1rdi11K ttJ ]111m ((;r.~nd Rapid ~: Ecrdmam, 199 1), I R1-83; Leon ,\ lorri~. Thr Gt~rprl tlmmlinK lfl Jt~bll: Thr E11K,IiJh '!txt ;;·lfh IIIWOtl!mioll, l!..t'(HJflliQIIII!IdXotn, NIC:"\'T(CrJnd Rapids: Ecrdtu:Ul~, 197 1),101-5. 1. In lb rreu·~ 11unl~, "During the rnini,try !of jesus) the clisciplc~, in ']lite ofdH:ir call ami their bcliefinJcsu~ ... under:.tuo:~tl hi~ words little more th:tn hb arl\'a~aries~ ('/Ju Gru{M'/ 11mmling to St. John: An lmnxlnction ;;·itb Comm,•mttry mul ,\'omrmtbt Gruk 71-:rt, 1nd ed. )Philadelphia: \\'l-stminstcr, 1978),101). \\'hilc John paniall~ ~lle•·iates this confu)ion at 16:19-30. l~arrett') l'Ornrnent ccrtainlyap]Jlieswthetlowofthc n:trrJti•catJohnl. 3. ,\ ]orris explain' that "they !the cro\\CI] thou!!ht of I lim a~ King in 3 wrong ~nse )at the time of the e•·ent]. After the glorification the tlisciple~ thou)!ht of I lim a~ King in :t right sense~ under the guiding in•ight uf the P:tr:tdetc (587-88).

4 .

{~:;;,:~~~·,!~ :~~~~~i;:~i:~ ;:~:~~;~r~~~~;:_:t aradctc with j t:sus himself and transbtcs j ohn 14:1 8 as hi shall not leave you as orph:ms: I [as the Par.Jclcu.:J am co rning back to yo u," insisting that "not two presences but the same ]lrcscncc is involved~ (1.63 7, 640, 644-46; see also Rudolf Bulunarm, Thr Gosprl of] ohn: A Crmmtrtt1111], mms. G. R. Beasley-Murray, R. \V, N. lloarc,andj. K. Ri chc..-s [Philadelphia: \Vcsrminster, 197 1), 6 17- 18). Cuson, howe\·er, argues that "it is not at all dea r that J ohn e•·er spe~l.:s of th e coming of J esus in the Spirit.~ and conduion." In l.tUmry i11 tbr Rommt II OrM, cd. J. II. ll umphrc~·. 35- 58. J oum~l of Roman Archaeolob'Y SupplcmclliJI)' Seric~. Ann Arbor: Uni\·ersiryof 1\lichig:m . 1991. Brown. lhymond E. The Comm1t11iry of rbr Bdm·c·il /)isriplr: Tbr Life. l.mw. 1111111111m of 1111 {ni/iriilulll Cburcb iu Nrv.• 1fsrmnmr "limn. New York: Paulist Press, 1?79. - -. Tbr Episrln oj"]oh11: t l Nr.:: Trtmslmion ;::ilh lmmdunio11 illlll Commr/111/1]. AU. Gmlcn City, NY: Doublei6. Lc F:mu. JosctJh Shcri(bn. Thr l'urcl'il 1'11prrs. 1~ 1 . t\ubrttst Derleth. Sauk City, \\'1: Arkh:un llou-.c, 1975. LeRoy. JlcriJcn. Riltsrl ttntl ,\lw·;,·emmtdllis: f..t11 Brumg ':,Ill' Fon11grsrhtrhtr tin Jobtt/1/ltSr.·tmgdiums. Bonn: Peter ll anstcin, 1968. Le"b, Naphtali, ed. Tbr /J()(II/1/t'lltf fivm tbr lltu· Kol:blw Period iJt tbr Ci1w of l.r11rr1: Greek l'up)•ri, t lnmwir 11m/ Nit/outmn Sign11llll'l'i 1/IJ(/ Subm·iprions. Jerusa letu· lldJre" Vni\'en;itv,1989. Lowenthal, Da,·id. Tb~ hsr Is 11 l-'r11'rign Coumry. Cambridge: Cambrid~'C Uni\'cn;it)' Press. \985 . - -. Possrrsrd fry the Ptm: Tht 1/rrililgr Crus111lr 1111d rhr Spoili of 1/mQI:y. 1'\cw York: Free Pres~ . 1996. 1\brshall, I. I ltmanl. Thr GrJrprl of tul·r: A CommrllfiiiJ 011 tbr Grul· 'li-xt. N IGTC. GT:Jnd lbpids: Eerdmans. 1978. ,\lanin, Rux. M' l'ntth, Power. Self: An lntcn•ie1t ltith 1\ l ichcl Fout-:.~ul t (Ckwbcr 15. 1 981).~ In 'lt-rht/0/0f{iuof thr Sri[. cd. Luther II . ,\bnin. I luck Gmm;~n, and P3triek I I. !I utton, 9-15. Amher..t: Uni,·er~i •y of ,\hssachusetts Pres), 19H8. ,\brtyn , j. Lout ~. llisrory 111111 Tbroloff.Y 111 rbr l~urtb Cosprl. lnd cd. Naslwille: Ahingdon, 1979. ,\\eyers. Eric ,\1 , MAndent S~·n:tgnbrtte): An r\rchaeologic31 l ntrodu~·tion." In Sm7'f'd Rrulm: Tbr /:!.mrrgmre oftbr SJII(IJ{Qgllt 111 thr .·/nrimt II tJrM, cd. Ste,en Fine. 3- 10. Nc" \ Ork: Chford Uni\crsity Press. 1996. 1\ \orri), Leon. Tbt GfJlpd 11rronlmg toJohn: Tbr EngliSh '/(xr ;:;·ith /ml7)(111riiOit, E-rpos111011 IIJIII.Votr1. N ICN' t: Grand l{:t jlids: Ecrdm:m~. 1971. O' D;t)', G:til It Rr.•rl111 ion in tbr 1-'olll'lb Gospcl: Nmlllfh·r Mmlr mul 'flxp/ogiml Cl11im. Phil:ulclphb: Fortres~. 19f!(,_

Works Cited

!86

Owen, Stephen. Rrmnnlmmru: Tbr £qwrimu fl[ tbr l'a.rt in Chlnira/ Chinrsr l..it"amn. Cambridge, MA: Harv:mJ Uni1•crsit y Press, 1986. Painter, J oh n. "The Farewell DiSllst. Chicago: UnilcrSi!}' of Chkagu l' r1.'SS, 2003. Zcrub:t,·cl. Yael. Rrrol'rrrd Roots: Collatil·r ;\11-morylllul rb r ,\fllkin!!,o[ln·,,r/i t\'11tio111d 'l illdition. Chi1.~1go: Unil·c~irr of Chicago Press, 1995.

Index

AruiChri~ts,4.

5, 33-H, 4!!-49, 6 1, M-6-1,65-68.69. i l-75, 79-8 1, S3-84. 85-87,9 1- 92. ')8-9'). 100- 102, 106-7. Ill, ll'J. 111- 1-1. 115,138.140.142.145.1-16. 150. 154,157, 158-59, 161. 163,16-1. 177n.7 t\ugu~tinc,ll,lil n.!, ! 71 n.3

n.S, 174 n.HI, 174 n.ll, 17fo n.lO.

176n. l, 181 n.l F. F., 171 n.IO. 171 n.lfi, IH n.9 Hultmann, Rudolf, 165, 171 n.JO, l iJ n.l?.lHn.:W. IHn.8.174n.10. 177 n.5, 18 1 n.l. IHI n.6 Blll·gc,Gary, l7i n.l (c h.6) Hur\.:c, Pctcr.l80n.20 Burldn, Ann, 77-78. 177 n.IO, 17 7 n.ll l~nK'\:.

lhloath~archi•c,42.1i5 n.lfl lhr· ll:m, .\lc::ir,-Hl.l75 n.7 ltrrrctt, C. K.,!O, 172 n.IO, 17:? n.ll. 173 n.20(ch. 2), 173 n.l (ch ..1), l i3 n.4(ch. 3). 174 n.S, 174 n.IO, 180 n.l (J)IISIS<Tipt) Banhn. Robnd, llil- 29, 179n.5 (ch. 10) Bean!. \hry. I 76 n.l') BclmeU Disciple. \:1'-~'l'i, 5. H. li. IR-20. H-!5.18, .J.3 • .J.5-4b, .J.f!. •JO. ?9. 101, 160, 163. 171 n.IO, 172 n.l6, 173 n.20 l ~ouL:of ,\lormon, 161 lirnwn. Ra ymmul E .. l'). 81. 171 n.ll, 17! n.I.J.. 172 n.l5. 173 n.l7 (eh. !). li3nA(ch.3).li3n.7(ch.3),1H

Crr"S(m, D. A.. 17, 171 nJ (prc!>Cript), 171 n.IO, 172 n.l!, 172 n.tJ, li! n.l6. 173 n.l, 174 n.S C~•·c .. fl.cucr;,.J.2 Cerimhus. 7! Ci\1l \\'3r(Amcrie.1n). l H- 17, IH, HI Clement of~Aicx~ndria, ~;;. 16-1-()5 colb:lil'e memory. Sloe mrm()ry:ro/INm •r1Jwit1l Cullq;c of ,\\t. St. J o~cph, ~·iii, 151 - 53 crson~l. 55-H. 58 asrcc:tllofcx1M:ricncc,l l- 11,10,13, 29-30.31 -32 , 34-3), 77 , 172 11.13 rcligiou,, 78- 79, 84-!-!5, 1711n. 2 (ch 7) symJiathctic audience, 120--!2, 123, 116, 146, 151 ,\lc)CN, Fric .\1 .. 175 n. IO misundcrot~nding(as a literary dc,·icc). 35, 173 n.5 mncmunicdccapiratiun, 135

192

l.n dcx

Morris, Leon, 171 n.3 (prescript), 171 n.\2,17!n.l6,173n.l,l73n.3, 174 n.S, I SOn.! (postscript) mysricalmcmol)'· Scc1/IC'IIIOry: mystiml narrative, 134-35, 136,143, 149,150-51 Norwood, Ohio, 54-55,93- 94, 1-1-9-50 objectivity. Sec bistorybool:s: o/Jjrcrivi~y O'Day,GailR., l73n.5 onltr:ulition. Scctmdition Our Lady of the Holy Spirit Center, 93- 95,97, 149, 178n.l (ch. 8), 178 n.l(ch.S) Owen, Stephen, 179n. IU (ch. IO) Painter, John. 67--68, 176 n.ll, 177 n.6, l81n.3 Papias, 16 Paradctc. Sec Holy Spirit Paul (Apostle), 19, 32, 41, 6 1, 79, 85,87 pcriodization, 132-33, 133-34, 135, 136-37, 138- 39, 142,147, 150-51 Peter (Apostle), 4, 16, 18, 87, 160 Philo,41, 175 n.ll Plato, 104,1 36,172 n.9, 180n.l6 Professor/Pastor ' !Om, 147-49 progress narrative, 116-17 religious memory. Sec mrmory: n·ligious Rensberger, David, 63-64, 7 1, 1 I I, 174 n.ll , 176n.9, 176n.l (ch . 6), 177 nJ, 177 n.6, 178 n.5 (ch. 9) Robinson, J ohn A. T., 165, 174n.3, 18 1 n.7 Roscn1;wcig, Roy, 179 n.7 (eh. 9), 179 n.l, 180n.22 S-) Submarine, 108- 10, 126-27 Schnad:cnhurg, Rudolf, 32, 74, 172 n.IO, 172 n.ll, 172 r1.1 5, 173 n. l 8 (ch. 2), 173 n.20(eh.2),173n.4(eh. 3), 174 n.IO, 174 n.11, 177 n.S, 180 n.l(j>OStsc ript) Schudson,Michael,l78n.9(ch.8)

Schwartz, Barry, 101, 178 n.9 (ch. 8) Shinan, A\~gdor, 175 n.8 Signs Gospel. Sec Gosprl oJJohn: 'U >rittm S0 /1/WIOj

Smalley, Stephen, 177 n.6 social memory. See mrmory:

collcrtiue!SO