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(John 20:9): a Study in Narrative Time

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(John 20:9): a Study in Narrative Time ITQ0010.1177/0021140013517530Irish Theological QuarterlyMoloney 517530research-article2014 Article Irish Theological Quarterly 2014, Vol. 79(2) 97 –111 ‘For As Yet They Did Not © The Author(s) 2014 Reprints and permissions: Know the Scripture’ (John sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0021140013517530 20:9): A Study in Narrative itq.sagepub.com Time Francis J. Moloney, SDB, AM, FAHA Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University, Australia Abstract Reference to ‘the Scripture’ that Peter and the Beloved Disciple do not ‘yet’ understand in John 20:9 remains a problem for interpreters of John. Which passage from Israel’s Sacred Scriptures lies behind this conclusion to the episode of the two disciples at the empty tomb? This essay argues that John 20:9 is part of a larger narrative and theological strategy (see also 2:22; 12:16; 20:30–31) that presents the Gospel of John as ‘Scripture.’ The disciples, players in the story, do ‘not yet’ know this Scripture. A later generation, those who have the Gospel of John in hand, who have not seen yet believe (v. 29), have access to a Scripture ‘written’ that they may go on believing (vv. 30–31). Keywords believing without seeing, Beloved Disciple, Gospel of John, narrative time, ‘Scripture’, ‘written’ lmost a decade ago I published a study suggesting that the author of the Gospel of AJohn regarded his story of Jesus as ‘Scripture.’1 I returned to this question some years later, in a reflection that further suggested that the author of the Fourth Gospel 1 Francis J. Moloney, ‘The Gospel of John as Scripture’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 67 (2005): 454–68. This study is also available in Idem, The Gospel of John: Text and Context, BibIntS 72 (Boston/Leiden: Brill, 2005), 333–47. Further references will be to this version. I had already Corresponding author: Francis J. Moloney, SDB, AM, FAHA, Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, Fitzroy Victoria 3065, Australia. Email: [email protected] 98 Irish Theological Quarterly 79(2) claimed to be bringing the Scriptures to their te,loς: their chronological and qualitative ‘end.’2 I had been initially drawn to this suggestion by Dwight Moody Smith’s SBL Presidential Address in Boston in 1999, and further influenced by the little-noticed but important study of Andreas Obermann on the Johannine hermeneutic at play in his use of Scriptural citations.3 These works focused upon the way John used citations from Israel’s Scriptures. My work presupposed the narrative unity of the Gospel as we have it. On that basic narrative critical principle I interpreted the enigmatic statement from the narrator in 20:9, drawing the story to closure, as an indication that the Beloved Disciple and Peter were not as yet able to recognize the story in which they were players as ‘the Scripture’ (tὴn grafήn).4 The reflection that follows takes that argument further, initially locating v. 9 and vv. 30–31 within their narrative setting, bringing into play a further narrative critical tool: the use of ‘time’ in stories.5 Reading John 20:1–31 It has been claimed that so much happens in the Johannine passion account that there is little need for a story of the resurrection. Jesus has been exalted as universal king by means of his being ‘lifted up’ (especially 18:28–19:16a), the community has been founded (18:1–11; 18:12–27; 19:25–27), the Scriptures have been fulfilled as Jesus has perfected his task and poured down the Spirit (19:28–30). The ongoing presence of the crucified Jesus in Baptism and Eucharist has been granted so that later generations might also believe, even in his absence (19:31–37). The nascent community exits bravely from its former obscurity (19:38–42), and all who accept the revelation of a God of love in this man who laid down his life because of his love for his friends will gaze upon the pierced one (19:37; see also 15:13). As Jesus stated in his final prayer: ‘This is eternal life, that they know you, the one true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent’ (17:3). Bringing to perfection the promise of the Prologue (see 1:18), the crucified Jesus Christ has made God known. What more is needed?6 made this suggestion, more tentatively, in Idem, Glory not Dishonor: Reading John 13–21 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1998), 162–63, and The Gospel of John, SP 4 (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 1998), 520–21, 523. Without intending to determine the historical figure(s) that produced the Fourth Gospel, I will use the traditional ‘John’ to refer to an author. 2 Francis J. Moloney, ‘The Gospel of John: The “End” of Scripture,’ Interpretation 63 (2009): 356–66. 3 D. Moody Smith, ‘When did the Gospels become Scripture?’ JBL 119 (2000): 3–20. On John, see pp. 12–14. Andreas Obermann, Die Christologische Erfüllung der Schrift im Johannesevangelium: Eine Untersuchung zur johanneischen Hermeneutik anhand der Schriftzitate, WUNT II.83 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1996). 4 See Moloney, ‘John as Scripture,’ 343–45; ibid., ‘The “End” of Scripture,’ 364–65. 5 My most important guide in this is Gerard Gennette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method, trans. Jane A. Lewin (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980), 86–160. See also Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan, Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics, New Accents (London: Methuen, 1988), 43–58. 6 See, for example, Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 2 vols; trans. Kendrick Grobel (London: SCM, 1955), 2:56: ‘If Jesus’ death on the cross is already his exaltation Moloney 99 The readers of the Gospel of John would have been well aware of the tradition that Jesus had been raised from the dead, and they wanted to hear that ending. But there is more to John 20 than the continuation of the resurrection tradition. John tells the res- urrection story for his own purposes. There are two major elements in the Johannine resurrection narratives: the consequences of the completion of the ‘hour’ for Jesus, and the consequences of his death, resurrection, and ascension for believers of all times.7 A study of John 20 as a whole must devote attention to the way in which this original dénouement of John’s story of Jesus developed both of those elements. What follows focuses particular attention upon the consequences for believers of all times. The Fourth Evangelist has a literary tendency to ‘frame’ episodes. A number of exam- ples of this practice can be found across the Gospel. The oneness between God and the Logos in 1:1 and the oneness between Father and the Son in 1:18 opens and closes 1:1– 18; the Mosaic law is used by ‘the Jews’ to put Jesus on trial in 5:16–18 and at the end of his discourse that runs from 5:16–47, Jesus claims that Moses accuses them in 5:45–47; a miracle happens at Cana in 2:1–12 and Cana is again the location for a miracle in 4:46–54; the passion narrative begins with a scene in a garden in 18:1–11, and closes with another in 19:37–42. The same feature appears at a macro-level across the Gospel. The most well-known ‘frame’ is created by the often identified parallels between 1:1–18 and 20:30–31.8 A feature of the Cana to Cana section of the Gospel, that traced a series of responses to the word of Jesus from the Mother of Jesus, ‘the Jews,’ Nicodemus, John the Baptist, the Samaritan woman, the Samaritan villagers, and the Royal official (2:1– 4:54), has been the presentation of differing responses to Jesus by a number of char- acters in the story. Reading these successive episodes leads the reader/listener through a catechesis on true faith by means of examples of the non-faith of those who rejected Jesus (‘the Jews’ and the Samaritan woman in a first instance), partial faith from those who accepted him on their terms (Nicodemus and the Samaritan woman in a second moment), and true faith from those who unconditionally accept Jesus and his word, cost what it may (the Mother of Jesus, John the Baptist, the Samaritan villagers, and the royal official).9 As this ‘journey of faith’ began the story (2:1–4:54; after the and glorification, his resurrection cannot be an event of special significance. No resurrec- tion is needed to destroy the triumph which death might be supposed to have gained in the crucifixion’ (emphasis in original). My understanding of John 20:1–31 is available in several places. Most recently, see Francis J. Moloney, The Resurrection of the Messiah: A Narrative Commentary on the Resurrection Accounts in the Fourth Gospel (New York/Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2013), 101–36. 7 On the claims of this paragraph, see the remarkable essay of Sandra M. Schneiders, ‘The Resurrection (of the Body) in the Fourth Gospel: A Key to Johannine Spirituality,’ in Life in Abundance: Studies in John’s Gospel in Tribute to Raymond E. Brown, ed. John R. Donahue (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2005), 168–98. 8 See especially the work of George Mlakhuzhyil, The Christocentric Literary Structure of the Fourth Gospel, 2nd edn, AnBib 117 (Rome: Gregorian and Biblical Press, 2011). 9 See Francis J. Moloney, Belief in the Word: Reading John 1–4 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 1993), 192–99. 100 Irish Theological Quarterly 79(2) Prologue [1:1–18] and the call of the first disciples [1:1–1:51]), a parallel ‘journey of faith’ closes the story (20:1–29).10 At the end of the story, however, a well-schooled reader/listener finds that the journey of faith is not made by different characters, but by the same character, and each character involved is a foundational figure for the Johannine Church: the Beloved Disciple (20:2–10), Mary Magdalene (vv.
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