I. The Background

The value of the Fourth Gospel rests ultimately in its recognition by Christians from the earliest time as a prophetic revelation, an inspired account of Jesus’ acts and teachings. But it may be clarified and further defined by some attention to several historical and literary questions. Who is the evangelist? Did he (1) compose the Gospel de novo, (2) collect and arrange preformed materials or, taking a middle way, (3) combine traditions and personal experiences to serve his own themes and purposes? Did he intend to mediate traditions of our Lord’s earthly ministry or to use that ministry only as a frame to enclose teachings of the exalted Christ through the Spirit?

1. Who is John?

From the second-century church come two witnesses of primary importance for identifying the evangelist, the title of the Gospel and the testimony of Irenaeus. The title, “Gospel according to John” (euaggelion kata Ioannen), is probably to be dated no later than the first two decades of the second century^[1]In the Gospel title euaggelion is a collective, the “good news” as it is manifested in a particular document. This usage, applied to a written document, fades out after the mid-second century. Cf. B. Reicke, The Roots of the Synoptic Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 150-55. and thus within the normal lifetime of at least a few present at its publication. Indeed, our earliest manuscript so titled, Papyrus Bodmer II (p66), may possibly date from before A.D. 150.^[2]H. Hunger, “Zur Datierung des Bodmer II,”An:zeiger der oster­ reichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 4 (1960): 12-23, cited in R. Riesner, “Bethany Beyond Jordan Gohn 1:28),” Tyndale Bulletin 38 (1987): 33.

But which John does the title refer to? Irenaeus of Lyons (c. A.D. 130-200) provides the first clear information, identifying the author as “John, the disciple of the Lord, who also leaned upon his breast” (John 13:23ff.). Elsewhere he calls John an “apostle,” that is, one of the twelve.^[3]Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3, 1, 1; 1, 9, 2. In another treatise he discloses that as a youth he was instructed by Polycarp (c. A.D. 69-155), a bishop of Smyrna who had earlier known “apostles in Asia,” including ”John the disciple of the Lord.”^[4]Irenaeus, Letter to Florinus cited in Eusebius, Church History 5, 20, 4-8. Therefore, while Irenaeus wrote from Gaul about A.D. 180, his testimony on this matter is in all likelihood rooted in information he received in Asia Minor before the middle of the second century from one who had known John in Ephesus.^[5]Irenaeus, Against Heresies 3, 3, 4, where, in relating Polycarp’s story about John at Ephesus, the first person plural (phugomen) is used, indicating that Polycarp was present at the occasion. Cf. Irenee de Lyon, Cantre les heresies. Livre III (SC 210, 211), 2 vols., ed. A. Rousseau and L. Doutreleau (Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1974), 1:240; 11:43. Since Irenaeus does not actually name Polycarp as the source of his views in this matter, his witness is not conclusive. But it is, as C. H. Dodd put it,^[6]C. H. Dodd, The Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2 1965), 12. He continues, “Of any external evidence to the contrary that could be called cogent I am not aware” (12). See further the discussion of J. A. T. Robinson, The Priority of John (London: SCM Press, 1985), 99-104. “formidable” and cannot be lightly set aside even if (like Paul’s writings) the Gospel was also embraced by certain heretical groups and its Johannine origin sometimes denied.^[7]For the most extensive discussion of the patristic witnesses cf. T. Zahn, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Wuppertal: Brockhaus, 1983 [19211), 1-7, 12-23; idem, Introduction to the New Testament, 3 vols. (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1953 [3 19091), 174-206. Cf. also R. E. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols. (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1970), I:lxxxviii-xcii, xcviii, who, however, later decided against Johannine authorship, apparently in the interest of interpreting the Johannine literature as the outworking of a long-term dialectical process: R. E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple (New York: Paulist Press, 1979), 33f., passim.

The classic statement for Johannine authorship from evidence internal to the Gospel was that of B. F. Westcott^[8]B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John: Greek Text, 2 vols. in 1 (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1980 [19081), l:ix-lix. His argument is followed by A. Plummer, The Gospel According to St.John (CGT), (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981 [18821), xx­-xxxvii. Somewhat similar, Zahn, Evangelium (note 7), 23-41. who, in concentric circles, identified the author with increasing specificity as (1) a Jew (2) of Palestine, (3) an eyewitness,^[9]As direct attestations for this Westcott (note 8, l:lii-lix) adduced the following texts: “We beheld (etheasametha) his glory” Gohn 1:14) emphasizes a specific historical reference of an eyewitness to Christ’s ministry. “He who has seen has borne witness” (19:35) is the evangel­ist’s reference to his own eye-witness status while the plural, “we know,” in 21:24 is the endorsement of this claim “by those who put the work in circulation.” Cf. also B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John [the English text] (London: Murray, 1903 [18811), v-xxviii, where the argument was first made. (4) an apostle, (5) the Apostle John. The clearest internal evidence is John 21:24:

This is the disciple who is witnessing (ho marturon) about these things (touton) and the one who wrote (ho grapsas) these things; and we know that his witness is true (author’s translation).

With these words the “disciple whom Jesus loved” (21:20) is identified (or identifies himself)^[10]So, H. Alford, The Greek Testament, 4 vols. (London: Riving­ tons, ‘1856), l:834f.; H. A. W. Meyer, The Gospel of John (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1884 [‘18681), 554; cf. Plummer (note 8), 356f. But see F. Godet, Gospel According to St.John, 3 vols. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 31896), III: 368-72; R. V. G. Tasker, The Gospel Accord­ing to St. John, (London: Tyndale, 1960), 234ff. as the author of the Fourth Gospel, for this solemn testimony could hardly be meant to refer only to John 21.^[11]So, for example, B. Lindars, The Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1972), 641; W. Heitmuller, “Die Johannes­ Schriften,” Die Schrijten des Neuen Testaments, 4 vols., ed. W. Bousset (Gottingen: Vandenhoek, 3 1918), 183f. Otherwise: C. H. Dodd, “Note on John 21:24,” Journal of Theological Studies 4 (1953): 212f.; E. C. Hoskyns-F. N. Davey, The Fourth Gospel (London: Faber, 21947), 560. The plural, “we know,” most likely refers to certain of “the brothers” (24:23), that is, the co­workers of the beloved disciple who are active in the Johannine mission,^[12]0n “the brothers” as a name for workers in the Christian mis­sion cf. E. E. Ellis, Prophecy and Hermeneutic (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1978), 13-22; C. H. Dodd, in The Bible Translator, 27 (1976): 310f. who, like Tertius (Rom. 16:22), perhaps served as his amanuenses in composing the Gospel and who here identify him as the author. The present tense strongly suggests, though it does not prove, that the beloved disciple was living at the time of the publication of the Gospel.^[13]The point is well made by Zahn (Introduction, note 7, III:239f.). Cf. also Robinson (note 6), 111f.; idem, Redating the New Testament, (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1976), 279f., 310. And the unity of linguistic idiom and literary design suggests that the independent contribution of the co-workers was minimal, perhaps only the clause, “(the disciple) whom Jesus loved,” and the certification (21:24).^[14]Cf. Robinson (note 6), 111-18.

The beloved disciple appears earlier in the Gospel, with and without that title.^[15]John 13:23; 19:26, 35; 20:2; 21:7, 20. Elsewhere without the title but plausibly, cf. John 1:35-40; 18:15f. Of special significance is his presence at the Last Supper (13:23). This identifies him almost certainly as one of the twelve apostles since in the earliest sources they constitute the primary, if not the exclusive, company of Jesus at that meal.^[16]Matt. 26:20; Mark 14:17; but see Luke 22:14. Among the twelve, the beloved disciple best fits John, the son of Zebedee, who is then the John referred to by Irenaeus and by the Gospel’s title. A number of scholars still resist this conclusion,^[17]Cf. S. S. Smalley, John: Evangelist and Interpreter (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 3 1984), 77ff. but their objections have been met, point for point, in The Priority of John, J. A. T. Robinson’s brilliant critique of the question, which concludes “that the man behind John’s Gospel, the beloved disciple, is indeed the son of Zebedee . . .”^[18]Robinson (note 6), 122. Similarly, Brown,John (note 7), xcviii; Smalley (note 17), 75ff., 8If.; J. R. Michaels, John (San Francisco: Harper & Row,   1984), xv-xxiv; Zahn, Evangelium   (note 7); L. Morris, Studies in the Fourth Gospel (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1969), 139-292. Otherwise: R. H. Lightfoot, St. John’s Gospel (Oxford: University Press, 1960), 5ff.; C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to John, (Philadelphia: Westminster, 21978), 123-34; E. Ruckstuhl “Der Junger den Jesus Liebte,” Studien zum Neuen Testament und seiner Umwelt 11 (1986), 131-68 (a former Essene priest).

Among the objections to the apostolic authorship of the Fourth Gospel, perhaps the most important in this century have been the “Hellenistic” contacts and influences observed in it.^[19]So, for example, R. Bultmann, Exegetica (Tubingen, 1967), 10-35, 55-104, 161-80, 230-54; idem, The Gospel of John, (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971), passim; more cautiously, C. H. Dodd, The Interpre­tation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: University Press, 1954), 10-130. Cf. C. K. Barrett, The Gospel of John and Judaism (London: SPCK, 1978); G. R. Beasley-Murray, John (Waco: Word, 1987), lxxiv. However, in some respects these (alleged Gnostic and Mandaean) influences were later than and in part derivative from the Gospel. Insofar as they were contemporary with John (for example, Philonic Judaism and Stoic philosophy) they pose no obstacle to a Palestinian origin of the evangelist. After all, Palestine had been a part of the Hellenistic world for over three centuries.^[20]Cf. M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 2 vols. (London: SCM, 21974); J. A. Fitzmyer, “The Languages of Palestine in the First Century A.D.,” A Wandering Aramean (Missoula: Scholars,2 1979), 29-56 (= Catholic Biblical Quarterly 32, 1970, 501-31); E. E. Ellis, Prophecy and Hermeneutic, 125f., 245f. More significant for the author’s Palestinian origin are his wide-ranging Semitisms,^[21]Cf., among others, M. Black, An Aramaic Approach to the Gospels and Acts (Oxford: Clarendon, 3 1967), 272ff.; C. F. Burney, The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1922); C. C. Torrey, “The Aramaic Origin of the Gospel of John,” Harvard Theological Review 16 (1923): 305-44; idem, Our Translated Gospels (New York: Harper & Row, 1936). Burney and Torrey argued that the Gospel was originally published in Aramaic. T. W. Manson, “The Fourth Gospel,” Studies in the Gospels and Epistles (Manchester: University Press, 1962), 105-22, noted that Burney’s Aramaisms were absent from twenty-three pericopes of the Gospel, but Adolph Schlatter’s investigation had revealed Semitisms (Hebraisms) in all but four of these passages (a total of eleven verses). Cf. A. Schlatter, “Die Sprache und Heimat der vienen Evangelisten” (1902), Johannes und seine Evangelium (W D. F. 82), ed. K. H. Rengstorf (Darmstadt: WBG, 1973), 28-204. Otherwise: E. C. Colwell, The Greek of the Fourth Gospel (Chicago: University Press, 1931). his many contacts with the thought of Qumran,^[22]Cf. H. Braun, Qumran und das Neue Testament, 2 vols., (Tub­ingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1966), 1:96-138; II:118-44; J. H. Charlesworth, ed., John and Qumran (London: Chapman, 1972); K. Stendahl, ed., The Scrolls and the New Testament (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), 183-207 (R. E. Brown). and his knowledge of pre-70 Jerusalem, of Samaria, of Galilee, and probably of Gaulanitis.^[23]Cf. W. F. Albright, “Recent Discoveries in Palestine and the Gospel of St. John,” The Background of the New Testament and Its Eschatology, ed. W. D. Davies (Cambridge: University Press, 1964), 153-72; Dodd (note 6), 30, 49, 50-312 passim. Briefly, for examples, cf. E. E. Ellis, The World of St. John (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2 1984), 15; Riesner (note 2), 58-63. A Palestinian Jew might well know the Greek language and Hellenistic thought, but a Jew native to the diaspora would not likely reflect such a close geographical knowledge of Palestine and would certainly not write Greek with the pervasive Semitic idiom observable in the Gospel of John.^[24]Cf. A. Schlatter, Der Evangelist Johannes (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag 1960 [19301), ix: The mark of Palestinians is their bilinguality. But do the Semitic and other distinctive idioms represent perhaps only sources used by the evangelist?

2. Whence John’s Theology?

Other first-century documents disclose that the Apostle John was active for a time in the mission of the Jerusalem church and very likely participated in the apostolic task of transmitting Jesus’ acts and teachings.^[25]Gal. 2:9; Acts 1:13; 3:1; 4:13, 19; 6:2ff.; 8:14. On the pro­cess of transmitting gospel traditions in earliest Christianity cf. B. Gerhardsson, Tbe Origins of the Gospel Traditions (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 15-24, 59-65; idem, The Tradition (Lund: Gleerup, 1986), 50-57; E. E. Ellis, “Gospels Criticism,” Das Evangelium und die Evangelien, P. Stuhlmacher (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1983), 38-49. He and his mission circle appear to have used traditions in common with the Petrine and/or the Matthean/Jacobean missions, represented respectively by the Gospels of Mark and of Matthew,^[26]Cf. especially John 6:1-13, 16-21 with Mark 6:32-44 + Q (see note 50). In some features John agrees with the Q Vorlage of this episode more than with Mark. On Mark as the gospel from the Pettine circle cf. Papias (cited in Eusebius, Church History, 3, 39 15), who claims to get his information from the Apostle John (cf. Reicke, 161, note 1). Further, cf. M. Hengel, Studies in the Gospel of Mark (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1985), 2-6. On the cooperative transmission of gospel traditions within and between different apostolic circles, including Matthew’s affinities with the Jacobean mission based on Jerusalem cf. Ellis (note 25), 45-54.; on Matthew’s linguistic affinities with the Gospel of John cf. Schlatter (note 24), x-xi. and he shares a number of traditions in common with Luke.^[27]Cf. J. Schniewind, Die Parallelperikopen bei Lukas und Johannes (Darmstadt: WBG, 1958 [1914]); E. E. Ellis, Tbe Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 5 1987), 27.

Attempts to identify discrete sources^[28]For example, Bultmann (note 19), 6f. or even proto-Gospels^[29]C. R. T. Fortna, The Gospel of Signs: A Reconstruction of the Narrative Source Underlying the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: University Press, 1970); idem, The Fourth Gospel and Its Predecessor (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988). For critiques of this approach cf. R. Kysar, The Fourth Evangelist and His Gospel (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1975), 33-37; D. A. Carson, “Source Criticism of the Fourth Gospel,” Journal of Biblical Literature 97 (197S): 411-29· idem, “The Purpose of the Fourth Gospel,” Journal of Biblical Literature 106 (1987): 649. behind, respectively, the “narrative” and the “discourse” material in John is more problematic, especially when the process of composing and publishing the Gospel of John is represented as successive “stages” or even “editions” by a “Johannine school.”^[30]See the discussion in Smalley (note 17), 102. Apart from their hypothetical character, such reconstructions have the problem of explaining how this process could produce such a highly unified literary and theological product. In the opinion of Adolph Schlatter, even between the Gospel and 1 John “there exists an identity of linguistic usage of such degree that for me the formula, ‘Johannine school,’ becomes totally fanciful.”^[31]Schlatter (note 24), x. But see O. Cullmann, The Johannine Circle (London: SCM, 1976), 1-11. In this respect one observes a clear tension, if not a certain contradiction between the structuralist ap­proach of R. A. Culpepper’s The Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel (Phil­adelphia: Fortress Press, 1983), evidencing the Gospel’s literary unity, and aspects of his earlier work, The Johannine School (Missoula Mont.: Scholars Press, 1975), e.g., 266, 274.

A few scholars have sought to connect the composition of the Gospel with ongoing theological tensions within “the Johannine community” (whatever that is), contrasting an earlier group with a “higher” christology and a subsequent group with a “lower” christology^[32]For example, E. Haenchen, John, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), 77f., 94-97. (or vice versa)^[33]Cf. G. Richter, “Prasentische und futurische Eschatologie im 4. Evangelium,” Gegenwart und kommendes Reich, ed. P. Fiedler (Stuttgart: KBW, 1975), 117-52, summarized in Brown, Community (note 7), 174ff. While Brown rejects an intra-community conflict (28) and mutes the dialectic (51f.), he nonetheless interprets the Gospel as a synthesis of earlier disparate christological views (52). in which the final edition of the Gospel provides for the two perspectives a combination or synthesis. This approach is not new. Indeed, it was advanced 150 years ago by F. C. Baur^[34]For example, F. C. Baur, Die kanonischen Evangelien, (Tubin­gen: Fues. 1847), 314-18; idem, The Church History of the First Three Centuries, 2 vols. (London: Williams, 3 1878), 178: In John the “Jewish-Christian and the Pauline doctrine are here blended together in a higher unity.” In Das Markusevangelium (Tubingen: Fues., 1851), 150-52, Baur viewed Mark somewhat similarly as a combination of Matthew and Luke, but unlike his modem successors he did not attempt to read a dialectical process into the formation of the several gospels. Cf. W. G. Kummel, The New Testament:…In­vestigation of its Problems (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972), 137ff. and has been promulgated ever since, in one form or another, by his theological heirs. However, for a number of reasons it does not inspire confidence. (1) Its hypothetical theologies of hypothetical sources reach with excessive imagination beyond any reasonable historical reconstruction.^[35]Cf. C. K. Barrett, Essays on John (London: SPCK, 1982), 76. (2) It imposes on the literature a (Hegelian) dialectic that is based more on a philosophical model than on historical criticism and, anachronistically, (3) it appears to read later christological disputes back behind the formation of the Gospel of John. While New Testament documents do at times counter theological aberrations, a dialectical approach tends to exaggerate this factor, often assuming that a hostile Indian is lurking behind every tree in the New Testament forest. In any case, the formulation of John’s Christology has a much better explanation, as we hope to show below.

 

Jesus: God and Man

The “history of religions” school supposed that Jesus was first regarded, in Palestinian Christianity, as a human Messiah and only later, after the church moved into the pagan diaspora, was he confessed to be God.^[36]Cf. W. Bousset, Kurios Christos (Nashville: Abingdon, 1970 [1921]), 205-10, passim. With the refutation of that thesis,^[37]For example, J. G. Machen, The Origin of Paul’s Religion (New York: Macmillan, 1921); M. Hengel, The Son of God (London: SCM, 1976). Cf. C. Colpe, Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule (Gottingen: Vandenhoek, 1961). the question remains: What was the adequate and most probable cause for the Jewish followers of Jesus of Nazareth—and most explicitly the Apostle John—to recognize him not only as their Messiah but also as God himself? Was it a gradually growing apprehension over a generation or the immediate explosive response to his bodily resurrection from the dead and their encounter with him as an immortal glorified being?

For rationalistic scholarship the latter is not an option since its closed world view precludes a resurrection of a man from death; for this, if for no other reason, psychological or other naturalistic explanations have to be incessantly pursued. But for Christian theists it will be a most probable option and perhaps the only convincing historical explanation for the sudden shift in attitude among the earliest followers of Jesus. It is, in fact, the option that the Gospel of John offers (20:28). It would, of course, have inevitably taken time for a conviction that Jesus was Yahweh to be theologically formulated and biblically expounded. But the earliest Christian literature suggests that it did not take long, perhaps because Jesus himself in his earthly acts and teachings had already prepared the way.

1. Paul

From the resurrection of Jesus onward, there is no stage of early Christian history known to us in which the (implicit or explicit) confession of Jesus as God is absent.^[38]It is also probably not absent in formulations of the traditions in Acts 2-3. Along with the human messianic ascriptions given to Jesus here, the prophecy that Yahweh will pour out his Spirit is later said to be the act of Jesus, who has received “the Holy Spirit” from “the Father” Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17,   33). The unity-cum-distinction of Jesus with Yahweh is implicit, as it is in other passages in which Old Testament Yahweh texts are applied to Jesus. This factor is over­ looked in J. A. T. Robinson’s “The Most Primitive Christology of All?” Twelve New Testament Studies (London: SCM, 1984), 139-53 = Journal of Theological Studies 7 (1956): 177-89. J. D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1980), 142, recognized that in Acts 2:33 Christ “began to share in God’s prerogative as the giver of the Spirit,” but he apparently did not see the ontological implications. Within twenty-five years of the resurrection we find the earliest literary witness, the Apostle Paul, speaking of Jesus as the creator of the universe and once or twice calling him God.^[39]Col. 1:15ff.; Rom. 9:5; cf. 2 Thess. 1:12; Tit. 2:13; Col. 2:9; C. E. B. Cranfield, Romans, 2 vols. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1979), II:464-70; P. T. O’Brien, Colossians, Philemon (Waco: Word, 1982), 32-47; but see G. E. Cannon, The Use of Traditional Materials in Colossians (Macon: Mercer Univ. Press, 1983), 19-37. In one text he cites a preformed traditional confession of Christus Creator that must date from even an earlier time:^[40]1 Cor. 8:6; cf. E. E. Ellis, “‘Traditions in 1 Corinthians,” New Testament Studies 32 (1986): 494f.

For us there is one God the Father
From whom are all things and we for him
And one Lord Jesus Christ
Through whom are all things and we through him.

Elsewhere Paul can call Christ the divine Wisdom, the divine Spirit, and the image of God.^[41]1 Cor. 1:24; Col. 2:2f.; 2 Cor. 3:17; 4:4. He freely applies to Jesus Old Testament texts that refer to Yahweh^[42]Rom. 10:9, 13 Joel 2:32); 1 Cor. 2:16 (Isa. 40:13); 2 Cor. 3:14-17 (Exod. 34:34); Phil. 2:9ff. (Isa. 45:23f.). and uses triadic formulas that are raw materials for the later definition of the trinity.^[43]1 Cor. 12:4ff.; 2 Cor. 13:14. Also carrying divine connotations is Paul’s regular title for Jesus, “Lord” (kurios), the Greek Old Testament’s translation of Yahweh.^[44]Cf. Fitzmyer, “The Semitic Background of the New Testament Kyrios-Title,” (note 20), 115-42.

Paul makes these astounding statements while asserting, quite as firmly, that Jesus is the Messiah, the seed of David,” “the second man,” “born from a woman, born under the Law.”^[45]Rom. 1:3; 1 Cor. 15:47; Gal. 4:4. In calling Jesus the Messiah, Paul says no more, of course, than Peter’s confession during the earthly ministry of Jesus^[46]Matt. 16:16. although after the resurrection both he and Peter used the title with a much deeper apprehension of its meaning. But in identifying the man Jesus with Yahweh and the Spirit, while at the same time distinguishing him from both, Paul has made an enormous leap, some would say for a Jew an impossible leap. What could possibly have caused it?

In The Origin of Paul’s Gospel, the Korean scholar, Seyoon Kim, has offered a thoroughly grounded and, to my mind, quite probable thesis that Paul first identified Christ with Yahweh, that is, with “the image of God,” at his encounter with the exalted Jesus on the Damascus road.^[47]Acts 9:3-9 = 22:6-16 = 26:12-18. I would add: that encounter as it was informed by Jewish tradition, by a christological reinterpretation of Scripture and by traditions of Jesus’ teachings.^[48]0n Paul’s knowledge of Jesus traditions cf. Ellis (note 40), 485-90. In the light of the Pauline and other evidence, Martin Hengel of Tubingen is fully justified in his conclusion that

the “apotheosis of the crucified Jesus” must already have taken place in the forties, and one is tempted to say that more happened in this period of less than two decades than in the whole of the next seven centuries . . .^[49]Hengel (note 37), 2.

2. The Synoptic Gospels

The synoptics also display a twofold perspective on the person of Jesus, divine and human. At his baptism and transfiguration, human, messianic ascriptions are given to him, probably the royal Messiah, the suffering Servant, and (at the transfiguration) the Prophet like Moses:^[50]Mark 3:11 + Q; Mark 9:7 + Q (judging from the agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark in these episodes); cf. Ps. 2:7; Isa. 42:1; 44:1f.; Dent. 18:15, 18; the discussion of I. H. Marshall, The Gospel of Luke (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1978), 154-57, 388. Cf. Luke 7:39 b. “You are my beloved son, in you I am well pleased.” “This is my son, the chosen one; hear him.” Each of these designations is included in John’s presentation of Jesus, although they appear in different contexts.^[51]1 John 1:49 (Ps. 2:7); 1:29 (Isa. 53:6f.); 1:21 (Dent. 18:15); cf. John 5:46; 6:14; 7:40; 3:14; 12:38. At the same time, in the synoptic gospels the title, the Son, is also used in the absolute sense, as it is in the Gospel of John, as a divine ascription, that is, Jesus’ exclusive and reciprocal knowledge of God the Father.^[52]Luke 10:22 = Matt. 11:27; cf. Mark 13:32; 12:6 + Q, (see note 50).

The title “Son of Man,” the favorite of Jesus and under which other designations appear to be subsumed, likewise exhibits human   and divine connotations. On the one hand it is used inter alia to define and interpret various titles (Son of God, Messiah, Servant)^[53]For example, Mark 8:29ff. + Q; 14:61f. + Q (see note 50); Mark 10:45 par; Luke 22:21, 37. or to express the role of the Isaianic Servant.^[54]Cf. J. Jeremias, New Testament Theology (London: SCM, 1971), 295f.; S. Kim, The Son of Man as the Son of God (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1983), 38-73 (Mack 10:45; 14:21 parr; John 6:53; 13:31): “Jesus] understood that he was to fulfill this mission as ‘the “Son of Man,”‘ by carrying out the functions of the Ebed Yahweh prophesied in Isa. 42-61 . . .” (73). Further, cf. W. Grimm, Die Verkndigung Jesu und Deuterojesaja (Frankfurt: Lang, 2 1981), 209-22 (Mark 8:31 par; 9:31 par), 231-77 (Mark 10:45); 0. Betz. Jesus und das Danielbuch. Band II (Frankfurt: Lang, 1985), 108-11 (Mark 9:2-9 + Q, see note 50. On the other hand it occurs at least twice, in Jesus’ apocalyptic discourse and at his trial, with reference to Dan. 7:13f. where divine connotations appear to be present.^[55]Mack 13:26 patr; 14:62 pat; cf. Matt. 25:31. I forego references to the Son of Man in I Enoch 37-71 (“the Parables”) since it is uncertain whether its origin is pre-Christian (cf. Caragounis) or, more  likely, post-Christian and dependent on the Gospels or on Jesus­ traditions (Milik, cf. Knibb). Cf. C. C. Caragounis, The Son of Man, (Tubingen: J. C. B. Mohr, 1986), 85-94; J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 91-98; M. A. Knibb, “The Date of the Parables of Enoch,” New Testament Studies 25 (1979): 345-59, 358f. The question depends inter alia on whether in Jesus’ usage the figure “like a son of man” in Dan. 7:13f. is to be connected with Ps. 8:4ff. and, in turn, with Gen. 1:27f.,^[56]The verbal links lie in the terms “dominion” and (in Dan. 7:13f. and Ps. 8:4ff.), “glory,” and “Son of Man.” In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul uses Ps. 8:6 (15:27) and Gen. 2:7 (15:45, 47) in identifying Christ as “the eschatological Adam” and “the second man.” I formerly inclined toward this view of Dan. 7:13f. (cf. Ellis note 12), 167. or whether he is to be connected with Ezek. 1:26ff., that is, with the figure on a throne in heaven “like the appearance of a man . . .that is the appearance of the likeness of the glory of Yahweh.”^[57]The verbal links lie in the terms “glory,” “throne,” “cloud,” and “like. . . a man.” If the former, the Danielic Son of Man could be understood as a human figure, the (royal messianic) representative or manifestation of “the people of the saints of the Most High” (Dan. 7:27). If the latter, he would be understood to be Yahweh himself or a hypostatization of Yahweh.^[58]Cf. Caragounis, (see note 55), 61-81 and the literature cited; C. Rowland, The Open Heaven (London: SPCK, 21985), 95-101; Kim, (note 54), 15-19; M. Black, “The Throne-Theophany Prophetic Com­mission and the ‘Son of Man,’ ” Jews, Greeks and Christians, ed. R. Hamerton-Kelly (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1976), 57-73, 62: What “Daniel [7:27] was contemplating was nothing less than the apothe­ osis of Israel in the end-time.” If Dan. 7:13f. is the key to understand Jesus’ use of the title Son of Man, what was his understanding of Daniel 7? His trial-scene seems to provide the best insight into the matter:

“Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed?” Jesus said, “I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power (Ps. 110:1) and coming with the clouds of heaven” (Dan. 7:13). And the high priest [said], . . .”You have heard his blasphemy. . .” Mark 14:61f.

As elsewhere, Jesus interprets his messiahship in terms of the Son of Man, the Danielic Son of Man.^[59]See notes 53, 54. Mark 14:61f. + Q (see note 50) is, of course, a summary but sets out with clarity the biblical essence of Jesus’ response. Since a messianic claim was not considered blasphemous, Jesus’ appropriation of the figure in Dan. 7:13f. apparently was the grounds for the charge of blasphemy and presupposed that the Danielic figure was understood to be a divine being or status.

Earlier Jesus’ claim, as the Son of Man, to forgive sins in his own name, had also evoked from the theologians a charge of blasphemy, and on their assumptions the charge was fully justified since he made claims that only God could rightly make.^[60]Mark 2:1-12 + Q (see note 50); cf. Luke 7:36-50; John 5:14; 20:22f. Interestingly, during his earthly ministry it was the religious opponents of Jesus who suspected a veiled claim to deity in his words; the disciples grasped it only after his resurrection. But even the disciples stood in awe of one who by a word and on his own warrant controlled the natural order^[61]Mark 4:35-41 + Q (see note 50); Matt. 14:22f. patr + John 6:15-21. See also Mark 11:12ff., 20f. par. and created matter^[62]Mark 6:32-44 + Q (see note 50) + John 6:1-15. and life.^[63]Mark 5:21-43 + Q (see note 50); Luke 7:11-17; John 11:1-46. Jesus was doing acts that in the biblical faith of Israel could rightly be ascribed only to God.^[64]Cf. E. E. Ellis, “Life,” New Bible Dictionary, ed. J. D. Douglas (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 21982) = Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 3 vols., ed. N. Hillyer (Wheaton: Tyndale House, 1980), II: 901-4. Since D. F. Strauss some scholars have mythologized these accounts, but it is important to note that they do so not on literary-historical but on confessional grounds, that is, the philosophical dogma that such miracles are by definition impossible.^[65]Cf. D. F. Strauss, The Life of Jesus Critically Examined (Phila­delphia: Fortress Press, 1972 [1840]); R. Bultmann, Existence and Faith (New York: Meridian, 1960), 292.

Of Jesus’ veiled allusions to his deity perhaps the most remarkable is his claim to raise himself from the dead:^[66]Mark 14:58   = Matt. 26:61. In this episode Greek Matthew (26:57-68) apparently used, in addition to Mark, a Q source that in some respects is more primitive. Cf. Matt. 12:39f. (? Q).

We heard him saying
I shall destroy this temple (naon)
Made with hands (cheiropoieton)
And in three days shall build another
Not made with hands (acheiropoieton).

Matthew and Mark imply that Jesus’ words are here misused by the false witnesses but, as Jesus’ silence shows, they do not regard the words as fictitious. And Mark, at least, knows that Jesus was referring to his body as “this temple.”^[67]Cf. Mark 15:29, 32; B. Lindars, Jesus Son of Man (London: SPCK, 1983), 71f. He shows this by his interpretative parenthetic additions, “made with hands” and “not made with hands,” for these idioms were employed in circles within which Mark worked to contrast the present creation (or age) with the new creation begun with the death and resurrection of Jesus.^[68]2 Cor. 5:1; Col. 2:11; 4:10; cf. Acts 7:48 with 12:12; cf. 17:24; Heb. 9:11, 24. Mark here pictures Jesus as the sovereign master of his fate and captain of his soul, a feature usually associated with the Gospel of John. Indeed, John 2:18-22 gives the clearest interpretation of the original incident:

“What sign do you show us . . . ?” Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up . . .” But he was speaking concerning the temple of his body. Therefore, when he arose from among the dead ones, his disciples remembered that he had said this and they believed . . .

3. The Gospel of John

Doubtless the presentation of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel^[69]Cf. D. Moody Smith, “The Presentation of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel,” Johannine Christianity (Columbia, S.C.: University Press, 1984), 175-89 = Interpretation 31 (1977): 367-78, although I doubt that the contrast with the synoptics is quite so great as Smith sometimes suggests. For a survey of the literature cf. J. Becker in Theologische Rundschau 47 (1982): 332-44; 51(1986): 72-77; S. S. Smalley in Expository Times 97 (1985-86): 107f.; idem, (note 17), 210-19; I. H. Marshall, “Johannine Theology,” International Standard Bible Encyclopedia’, II: 1081-91. differs from the synoptics, but is it a difference of degree or of kind? “In the beginning was the prologue” and it sets the christological theme, whether or not it was formed last in the composition of the Gospel. It does so in terms of the Old Testament and in terms of Jesus as God and man.^[70]Dodd (note 19, 274-85) finds the background of the Johan­ nine Logos or “Word” Gohn 1:1) primarily in the Old Testament wisdom, “the hypostatized thought of God” (275), as that is expressed in Philonic Judaism: A “Logos-doctrine similar to that of Philo is present all through the gospel, . . .” (279). Cf. J. R. Harris, The Origin of the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel (Cambridge: Univer­ sity Press, 1917), 3-24. The prologue describes the broader sweep of the story of Jesus in a three-step progression, beginning with the pre­-existent Word, who was God (1:1),^[71]The absence of the article before theos (= God; not theios = “divine”) stresses a qualitative identity while maintaining a numerical distinction from God the Father. proceeding to the incarnate Word, who is Jesus the Messiah (1:14, 17), and concluding with the designation of the (resurrected) God-man as “the only-begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father” (1:18). The body of the Gospel reflects a twofold perspective in which the evangelist appears to oscillate between messianic and “deity” ascriptions. For example, at the beginning the messianic confessions of the Baptist and of Nathanael (1:29, 34, 36, 49) are coupled to the prophecy of the exalted Son of Man (1:51); at the close Thomas’ confession of Jesus as God (20:28) is joined to the concluding exhortation “that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God” (20:31).^[72]Or perhaps John 20:31 combines human and divine titles. In this respect the organization of the Gospel has certain similarities with the Gospel of Luke where the (divine/human) christology that is elaborated in Luke 3-24 has already been presented in nuci in Luke 1-2.^[73]In Luke the messianic Son of God and seed of David (1:32) is none other than the God-begotten Son (1:35); the savior who is Messiah Yahweh (christos kurios, 2:11) is none other than Yahweh’s Messiah (2:26). Cf. 0. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testa­ ment (London: SCM, 21963), 285-87; E. E. Ellis, The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 51987), 74, 263f; W. Grundmann, “chrio,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament 9 (1974): 533n. Cf. also Matt. 1:23 with 2:6.

The prologue is probably best understood as an elaborated exposition of Gen. 1:1-5^[74]So, P. Borgen, “Observations on the Targumic Character of the Prologue of John,” Logos was the True Light (Trondheim: Tapir, 1983), 13-20 = New Testament Studies 16 (1970): 288-95. Cf. H. H. Hobbs, The Gospel of John (Nashville: Broadman, 1968), 25. and, if so, it agrees with the evangelist’s practice elsewhere of interpreting the person of Jesus in terms of Scripture. Thus, by Old Testament citations Jesus is identified with the rejected Servant of the Lord,^[75]John 12:38 (Isa. 53:1); cf. 1:29-36. the Paschal Lamb,^[76]John 19:36 (Exod. 12:46); cf. 1:29-36. But see L. Morris, Reflec­tions on the Gospel of John (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1986), 35-42. the humble^[77]John 12:15 (Zech. 9:9). and suffering messianic King,^[78]John 13:18 (Ps. 41:9); 15:25 (Ps. 35:19); 19:24 (Ps. 22:18); cf. 17:12 (Ps. 41:9). Cf. S. Mowinckel, He That Cometh (Oxford: Blackwell, 1959), 21-124; D. Kidner, Psalms, 2 vols., (London: Inter­Varsity, 1975), I: 18-25; A. Bentzen, King and Messiah (Oxford: Blackwell,  1970), 35-38. and also with Yahweh:^[79]John 19:37 (Zech. 12:10); cf. 12:13 (Zeph. 3:15).

They shall look on him whom they pierced.

The perceptive hearer or reader would recognize here a veiled reference to God, personally present in the messianic king, as the rejected and coming savior of Israel.^[80]On the coming of Yahweh in Old Testament expectation cf. Mowinckel (note 78), 144-49. The synagogue exposition (midrash) at John 6:31-58 similarly contrasts the manna given by Moses with the manna yielding eternal life that Jesus, the Son of Man from heaven, will give.^[81]Exod. 16:4, 15; John 6:38, 51, 53, 59. Cf. Borgen (note 74), 21-46; idem, Bread from Heaven (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965), passim.

Titles for Jesus involving the term “Son” are the most numerous, the most complex, and the most significant for understanding John’s christology. “Son of God” can be used, as it is in the synoptics, either for Jesus’ messianic kingship^[82]John 1:49; 11:27; 20:31. See above, note 50. On the various titles inJohn cf. Smalley (note 17), 210-19; R. Summers, “The Christ of John’s Gospel,” Southwestern Journal of Theology 8 (1965): 35-43. or for his preexistent divine nature.^[83]Cf. John 10:33-39, 36. See above, notes 55 and 73. Used in the latter sense, it is equivalent to God and evokes from the Jewish religious leaders a charge of blasphemy not unlike that in the synoptics.^[84]John 10:33-36; cf. 5:18; 19:7; Mark 2:7 + Q (see note 50); 14:64. For John, as for Paul (1 Thess. 2:14) and Luke (e.g. Acts 17:33) the opposing Jewish leadership could be called simply “the Jews.” The term “Jews” was apparently like the term “Yankees.” For out­ siders it designated the whole ethnic group just as Yankees often does all Americans, but within Judaism (as “Yankees” among Americans) the term could refer to a part of the group, sometimes with uncomplimentary connotations. Yet, John tells us, this is who Jesus really was (and is), and it is this evangelist’s special gift to depict clearly ”Jesus as the representative of the world above [who] visits and really lives in this world without depriving it of its verisimilitude and without depriving life here of its seriousness.”^[85]Smith (note 69), 187f.

The absolute use of “the Son” stresses both the unity of Jesus with God the Father and also his filial subordination to him. The Son is “from the Father” and is one with the Father, is loved by the Father, and is to be honored like the Father.^[86]John 16:28; 10:30; 3:35; 5:20, 23f. No less than the Father, the Son has autonomous life, gives eternal life, and will raise the dead at the last day.^[87]John 5:26; 6:27, 40. At the same time the Son is sent by God, is lesser than the Father, does only what the Father does, and accomplishes his work.^[88]John 4:34; 5:26, 14:28,31; 5:19; 17:4. Cf. A. W. Wainwright, The Trinity in the New Testament (London: SPCK, 41977), 191-95. The Gospel of John has perhaps the strongest subordinationist christology in the New Testament, and it expresses it within the filial bond of Father and Son.^[89]Cf. R. Scroggs, Christology in Paul and John (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1988), 67-72.

“Son of Man,” a title appearing only thirteen times in the Gospel, nevertheless has a decisive role in the presentation of the person of Jesus. Unlike the synoptics, the term expressly refers to Jesus’ pre-existence^[90]John 3:13; 6:62; but cf. 3:16f.; 16:28 where it is the “Son of God” who descends from heaven and returns to it. On the descent/ascent theme in John cf. G. C. Nicholson, Death as Departure (Chico, Calif.: Scholars Press, 1983). and perhaps makes a stronger allusion to his corporate person, but it is otherwise not essentially different from the usage of the other gospels.^[91]So, Smalley (note 17), 213f.; R. Maddox, “The Function of the Son of Man in the Gospel of John,” Reconciliation and Hope, ed. R. Banks, (Exeter: Paternoster Press, 1974), 186-204, 203. As in them, Jesus in the Fourth Gospel uses Son of Man for (1) his present ministry,^[92]John 9:35. (2) his role as judge at the last day^[93]John 5:22, 27-29; cf. 6:39f., 44 with 6:27, 53. and, especially, (3) his death and resurrection:

The Son of Man must be lifted up.^[94]John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32ff.
Now is the Son of Man glorified.^[95]John 13:31; cf. 12:23.

The term, “lifted up” (bupsoun), carries in it both the implication of death by crucifixion and of exaltation to heaven and is probably the original form of Jesus’ veiled (public) prediction of his death.^[96]John 12:33f. (“crowd”). The synoptic formulation (Mark 8:29ff. + Q; Luke 9:44f.) probably represents a clarification, either given by Jesus to his disciples privately or a post-resurrection revelation of the true meaning of “lifted up.” It does not have a docetic connotation for, although John does not speak of Jesus “suffering” (paschein), he clearly states that Jesus was to die and was dead.^[97]John 12:33; 19:33; cf. 19:34-37; 20:27.

The most graphic description of the significance of the death of the Son of Man is Jesus’ word that God the Father “sealed” the Son of Man to give and to be the food for eternal life:^[98]John 6:27, 53; cf. Ps. 78:24f.

Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man
And drink his blood
You do not have life in yourselves.
The one who chews my flesh and drinks my blood
Has eternal life
And I will raise him up at the last day.
John 6:53f.

This passage may be John’s elaboration of Jesus’ words at the Last Supper, used as clarifying commentary in Jesus’ “manna sermon” at Capernaum.^[99]John 6:31-58 (Exod. 16:4, 15; Ps. 78:24f.). Cf. Mark 14:22ff. parr; 1 Cor. ll:23ff. In the Johannine discourses it is difficult if not impossible to say where the words of the earthly Jesus end and John’s elaboration begins. If one accepts the Gospel as the work of an apostle/prophet who has “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16), his elaboration is no less authentic words of Jesus than a precise repro­duction of their pre-resurrection form. The saying here becomes the basis for the presentation of his person later as the inclusive entity, the living vine, who by the Spirit will come to them and be “in them,” the one into whom his followers are to be incorporated by faith.^[100]Cf. John 6:63f.; 14:17f.; 15:1, 4.

 

The Corporate Son of Man

On several occasions during his ministry Jesus taught that his followers were in some sense intimately associated with his own person. He identified himself especially with those who were to be the bearers of his message:

The one who hears you hears me
The one who rejects you rejects me.^[101]Luke 10:16; cf. Matt. 10:40; Mark 9:41.
Inasmuch as you did it
To one of the least of these, my brothers
You did it to me.^[102]Matt. 25:40.
The one who receives whomever I send,
Receives me.^[103]John 13:20.

Jesus further clarified the bond between himself and his disciples in his exposition (midrash) on God’s vineyard,^[104]That is, the parable of the wicked husbandmen: Mark 12:1-1 + Q (see note 50); Isa. 5:1f.; cf. Ps. 80:8f. in his temple saying,^[105]John 2: 18-22. See above. Cf. S. Kim, “Jesus -the Son of God . . . ,” Tradition and Interpretation in the New Testament, ed., G. F. Hawthorne (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1987), 142ff. and in his words at the Last Supper. (1) In the exposition he identifies himself typologically both with the keystone in God’s eschatological temple and (in Q) with the massive stone in Daniel that “filled the whole earth” and is the kingdom of God.^[106]Ps. 118:22; Dan. 2:34f., 44f. (2) The temple that he will raise up refers first of all to his individual resurrected body. But (3) by the distribution of the bread at the Last Supper he identifies his disciples with his body and, according to John (15:1f.), in the after-supper discourses he returns to an exposition of the allegory of the vineyard in which he is the vine and his disciples are the branches.

From this background, and particularly from Jesus’ words at the Last Supper,^[107]Rightly, A. E. J. Rawlinson, “Corpus Christi,” Mysterium Christi, ed. G. K. A. Bell (London: Longmans, 1930), 241f.: Paul’s understanding of the corporate Christ has its “primary roots” in Jesus’ teachings at the Last Supper. there arose especially in the Petrine, Pauline, and Johannine missions a rich and deep perception of Christ as one who incorporates his people into himself as his body and as the new temple. For Paul it involved an understanding of the church as “the temple of God”^[108]For example, 1 Cor. 3:16; cf. 1 Pet. 2:4-10. Cf. E. E. Ellis, Paul’s Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 41985 [19571), 88-92; idem (note 40), 487-90. and the “body of Christ”^[109]For example, 1 Cor. 12:27. Cf. C. F. D. Moule, “The Cor­porate Christ,” The Origin of Christology (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2 1978), 47-96; R. P. Shedd, Man in Community, (Lon­ don: Epworth, 1958), 157-77. On the background of the research cf. E. E. Ellis, Paul and His Recent Interpreters, (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1979 [19611), 24f. One can agree with A. Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, (London: Black, 2 1953), 127, that the corporate Christ or what he calls the “mystical body of Christ” is “for Paul not a pictorial expression . . .but an actual enti­ty.” But, pace Schweitzer, in my judgment it is not a sacramentalism nor is John’s “doctrine of redemption through being-in-the-Logos­ Christ” a “hellenistic conception” (349). and of individual believers as those who live “in Christ” and Christ “in them.”^[110]For example, Rom. 8:1, 10. Cf. G. A. Deissmann, Die neutes­tamentliche Formel “in Christo Jesu” (Marburg: Elwert, 1892). For Luke also the corporate Christ is presupposed in the words of the Lord to Paul at Acts 9:4: “Why do you persecute me?”^[111]Cf. Luke 20:38 (auto); 23:43 (met’ emou); E. E. Ellis, Eschatology in Luke (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1972), 11-19; “Eschatology in Luke Revisited,” L’Evangile de Luc, ed. F. Neirynck (Gembloux: Duculot, 21988), forthcoming. John represents the individual believer as living or “abiding” in Christ and Christ in him,^[112]For example, John 6:56; 15:4,.7; cf. 1 John 2:28; 4:13ff.; 5:11f. Cf. T. E. Pollard,   “The Father-Son and God-Believer Relationships According to St. John,” L’Evangile de Jean, ed. M. de Jonge Gembloux: Duculot, 1977), 363-69; Brown,]ohn (note 7), I: 510-12. But see A. Feuillet, “Participation in the Life of God,” Johannine Studies (New York: Alba House, 21966), 169-80. and he employs these expressions within the framework of the corporate Son of Man.

According to C. H. Dodd “the term “Son of Man” throughout this gospel [of John] retains the sense of one who incorporates in Himself the people of God . . .”^[113]Dodd (note 19), 248. However, I doubt the associations with the Hellenistic “heavenly man” that Dodd sees in the concept. Cf. C. Colpe, “huiostou anthropou,” Theological Dictionary of the New Testament 8 (1972): 408-15. In any case the Son of Man exhibits clear corporate connotations in at least two passages: the manna sermon in John 6, which has been discussed above, and the imagery of the angels “ascending and descending upon the Son of Man” at John 1:51. This passage appears to allude to a targumic rendering of Gen. 28:12:^[114]A. Diez Macho, ed., Targum Neofiti I: Genesis (Madrid: SIC, 1968), 572.

Come and see a just man [Jacob]
Whose image is engraved in the throne of glory. . .
And . . . the angels . . .were ascending and descending
And observed him

By a typological identification, what is envisioned of an enthroned ”Jacob,” the patriarch who incorporates the nation in himself, is to be fulfilled in the exalted Son of Man who incorporates the true “Israel” in himself. Supporting this interpretation is the context, in which Nathanael has just confessed Jesus to be “the king of Israel,” and a number of other considerations that cannot be explored here.^[115]Cf. John 4:12ff.; Dodd (note 19), 244ff.; Kim (note 54), 82-86.

Conclusion

During the earthly ministry of Jesus, his followers’ view of his person scarcely went beyond the anticipation that he was the Messiah, the one who would redeem Israel.^[116]Luke 24:21. Only among the apostles, the ones who were granted a meeting with and commission by the risen Jesus, did the realization become immediately apparent that the Messiah Jesus, the savior of the nation, was the manifestation of Yahweh himself and that his followers were   corporately   identified with his death and resurrection and with his person. It was left to the apostles to make these truths apparent to the infant congregations of the post-resurrection church. In the case of the Apostle John it was done by telling the story of Jesus’ earthly ministry in a way that, without sacrificing the truth of Jesus’ humanity and his individuality, would let those “deity” and corporate aspects of his acts and teachings and person be understood by the audiences in the Jewish-Christian synagogues of Palestine.^[117]J. L. Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, (Nashville: Abingdon, 21979) is doubtless correct in pointing to the needs in the churches as shaping John’s presentation, but his view of post-resurrection perspectives and elaborations in John seems to me to be excessive, and what he puts at the end of the first century I think belongs largely to A.D. 35-60. Cf. Robinson (note 6), 28-35, 67-92; idem (note 13), 307-11.

If the above observations are valid, the conclusion follows that the christology of the synoptic gospels and of the Jesus-traditions behind them is not so far removed from the christology of John as is usually supposed. In John the deity-claims of Jesus may be somewhat more explicit, the corporate dimension of his person more pronounced, and his subordination to the Father more accented. But these are differences of degree and not of kind. The major contribution to New Testament christology of John vis-a-vis the other gospels is apparently to bring to the surface perspectives on Jesus’ person that in the synoptics are only implicit or left for the reader to infer.

Although I did not have the opportunity of knowing Dr. Huber Drumwright personally, I am happy to contribute this essay to a volume in honor of one who meant so much to Southwestern.