Review in: Interpretation
2004 58: 197
Review door: Robert
KysarGevonden op: http://int.sagepub.com/content/58/2/197.full.pdf+html
John
by D. Moody Smith, Jr. Abingdon New Testament Commentary Series. Abingdon, Nashville, 1999.
428 pp. $28.00. ISBN 0-687-05812-0.
WITH A DISTINGUISHED
CAREER THAT SPANS nearly forty years, D. Moody Smith is one of the patriarchs
of contemporary Johannine studies in North America. His influence in critical
studies is well-earned and deserved. In keeping with the series, Smith aims to
interpret the Gospel of John in a manner that reflects the best of current
scholarship yet remains accessible to leaders in the church.
The form of Smith's
commentary follows the general pattern of most modern, critical works of this
kind. He begins with a brief twenty-five page introduction that addresses the
general questions of structure, genre, authorship, composition and source,
setting, and audience, and concludes with a few pages on the theology and
ethics of the Fourth Gospel. His approach to John rests on an assumption that
at least three stages of the Johannine community are reflected in the text: the
periods of Jesus' ministry, the conflict with the synagogue, and the church's
life after the split from the synagogue. He cautiously suggests that Ephesus is
a likely place for the composition of this gospel, some time between 90 and 110
CE.
After dealing with the
first chapter of John, the commentary divides chs. 2 through 20 into two parts,
as do many others: "The Revelation of the Glory Before the World" and
"The Revelation of the Glory Before the Community." Smith treats ch.
21 as an epilogue whose function is to draw together loose-ends from the whole
narrative (e.g., the relationship of the Beloved Disciple and Peter). Nearly
every subdivision of the text (e.g., ch. 17) is first treated as a whole before
the specific verses are addressed. This allows Smith to explore general and
sometimes broader issues involved in the particular text before moving to its
details.
Smith's characteristic theological study of the New Testament
is evident as well as his contension that revelation is a central theme in John
(as the titles of the two halves of the narrative indicate). He emphasizes that
Jesus' death as narrated in the Fourth Gospel entails an unanticipated
understanding of glory. Equally important to Smith is the theory that this
gospel was composed amid conflict between the synagogue and the Jews who had
become Christians. According to this hypothesis, the Johannine Christians were
at some point expelled from the Jewish community. In this sense, Smith represents a widely
accepted theory of the origin of the Johannine
church.
Perhaps
most striking about this commentary is Smith's treatment of passages in the
Fourth Gospel in light of the synoptics. He does not argue that the Fourth
Evangelist knew and used any of the first three gospels (although a later
publication stresses the possibility of John's use of Mark at certain points).
Generally, however, Smith practices a kind of intertextual criticism that
supposes that the four gospels are interrelated and should be interpreted as
such. For instance, he views 13:1-38 as a form of the Last Supper. After
setting a passage in dialogue with the synoptics, Smith brings his discussion
to a conclusion that gives the reader hooks by which to catch the meaning. This
sort of interpretative approach builds upon our knowledge of the synoptic story
of Jesus and prevents us from entirely isolating John from the other three
gospels.
Smith
proposes what we might call a "moderately sacramental" reading of
John. He cannot imagine that ch. 6 could have been read in the first century as
anything other than a reference to the Eucharist, but he holds together both a
sacramental and incarnational understanding of the narrative and Jesus' words.
In a similar manner, he points out that the blood and water from Jesus side
(19:34) probably binds a eucharistie reference to the blood with an
anti-docetic interpretation of the water (i.e., Jesus is really dead).
No
matter how complete and competent, every commentary on John is vulnerable to
criticism, and Smith's is no different. I sometimes wished that he had avoided
a few qualifications and cautions in favor of more concise conclusions. For
example, Smith does not suppose we can decide either that the Fourth Gospel
actually represents the historical Jesus or that it does not. While he
does not hold that the gospel's author was an eyewitness disciple of Jesus, he
insists that we take the gospel's authority seriously. However, if that is a
weakness in this commentary, it is due entirely to the admirable fact that
Smith does not want us to pretend that we know more than we do. The result is a
"middle-of-the-road" treatment of John. This sort of critical thought
may not please those who wish for absolute certainty and crystal clarity, but it
exemplifies an honest intellectual maturity.
This is not to say that Smith's
commentary does not present a clear portrayal of the Fourth Gospel.
Illustrative of the features of that portrait, Smith concludes his discussion
of the death of Jesus in John with these words: "The God who reveals
himself in this Jesus is a God of the depths, as well as the heights, of human
existence. Precisely at the depths of human experience ... he glorifies God;
God glories him (17:4-5)" (pp. 369-70).
The
pastor or church leader will find no better guide through the sometimes strange
land of the Gospel of John and its message for us today than Smith's
commentary. Unlike many commentators who seem to remain neutral or uninterested
in how a biblical text relates to the church today, Smith is a both an
excellent scholar and a devout believer.
Robert Kysar, emeritus
CANDLER SCHOOL OF THEOLOGY
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Zie ook:
Geen opmerkingen:
Een reactie posten