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A Survey of New Testament Studies‐II. The Influence of Environment on New Testament Thought

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2024

Joseph Bourke O.P.
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It may be useful to return to our initial picture of a primitive community of believers, each with his gaze steadfastly fixed upon ‘the Man on the other side of Easter Sunday morning’, the Man whom we can no longer see except through their eyes. How, the critics ask, can we be sure that they see him truly—that their account of his words and deeds is correct? It was an account formulated by naive and credulous minds, minds already pre-conditioned by the fever of Messianic excitement which marked the closing years of the pre-Christian era, minds that were exposed, consciously or unconsciously, to a whole range of external religious influences, among which those of the Old Testament and rabbinic Judaism would only have been the first.

Within the fold of Judaism itself not only the more orthodox traditions of Rabbinical interpretation have to be taken into account, but the possible influence of enthusiast movements such as Essenism (as attested by the Qumrân writings) and related baptist movements. The outstanding characteristic of these movements is an intense and eager expectation of a personal and apocalyptic advent of God in judgment in the near future, and an insistence on penance and purification in preparation for this event. ‘Do penance for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ is one of the key sayings recorded of Jesus. How far, the critics ask, was it influenced by these ideas? How far was the original message amplified and embellished in terms of them by his followers?

Type
Research Article
Information
Blackfriars , Volume 43 , Issue 505-506 , July 1962 , pp. 319 - 329
Copyright
Copyright © 1962 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

page 319 note 1 The first part of this survey appeared in the March 1962 issue of Blackfriars.

page 321 note 1 Desclée 1958. Tournai 27s. 9d.

2 J. van der Ploeg et al: La Secte de Qumrân et les Origines du Christianisme, Recherches Bibliques IV 1959 Desclée de Brouwer, Toumai.

3 A Dupont‐Sommer : The Essene Writing from Qumrân, translated by G. Vermes. Basil Blackwell, Oxford 1961. 45s.

4 A. Dupont‐Sommer: The Dead Sea Scrolls. A Preliminary Survey. Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1952.

5 D. Daube: The New Testament and Rabbinic Judaism. London 1956.

6 J. W. Doeve: Jewish Hermeneutics in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts. Assen 1954.

7 R. Bloch: art. ‘Midrash’ in Suppliment à la Dictionnaire de la Bible, Pirot‐Robert ed. Fasc. xxviii. Paris 1955. Letouzey et Ané.

8 R.Bultmann: Das Evangelium des Jokannes 4th ed. Göttingen 1953 with complementary fascicule 1957.

9 E. Percy: Untersuchungen über den Ursprung der joh. Tkeologie, Lund 1939.

10 C. H. Dodd: The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel.

11 M.‐E. Boismavrd: Le Prologue de Saint Jean, Lectio Divina 11. Cerf 1953, and Du Bapfême àČana (Jean i 19‐ii II) Lectio Divina 18. Cerf Paris 1956.

12 H. Sahlin: Zur Typologie des Johannesevangeliums. Uppsala-Leipzig 1950.

13 C. K. Barrett: The Gospel according to St John. S.P.C.K. London 1955 p. 33.

14 F.‐M. Braun: Jean le Tholéogien et son Évangile dans I'Eglise Ancienne, Gabalda et Cie, Paris, 1959.

15 cf. K. G. Kuhn, ‘Die in Palästina gefundenen hebräischen Texte und das Neue Testament’. Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 47, 1950, p. 193 ff.

16 E. M. Sidebottom: The Christ of the Fourth Gospel S.P.C.K., London 1961, 27s 6d.

17 op. Cit.

18 Early theological speculation on the Fourth Gospel has been enhghteningly explained by M. F. Wiles in his The Spiritual Gospel. The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel in the Early Church. Cambridge University Press 1959. 25s.

19 S.P.C.K. Biblical Monographs, London 1961. 9s. 6d.

20 W. D. Davies: Paul and Rabbinic Judaism 2nd ed. 1955. S.P.C.K. 21s. An earlier but still invaluable work on the same subject is J. Bonsirven's Exegèse Rabbinique et Exegèse Paulinienne, Beauchesne et ses Fils, Paris, 1939.