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Theological Prelude to the Prologue of John's Gospel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Edwin D. Freed
Edwin D. Freed
Affiliation:
Gettysburg CollegeGettysburgPennsylvania
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Extract

Professor Joachim Jeremias has raised the question of the logos problem. He calls attention to the change in the Septuagint (LXX) from the vocalisation of to and its translation with λόγος in Hab. 3:5, the personified logos in Wis. 18:14–16, and the unmistakable closeness of Rev. 19:11–16 to the latter passage. He notes that the logos title in the New Testament is limited to the Johannine writings (John 1:1, 14; 1 John1:1; Rev. 19:13). Jeremias says that in dealing with the logos problem in New Testament investigation it has become customary to begin with the prologue of John and that this is an error since the absolute use of ὁ λόγος, ‘the Word’, in John 1:1, 14 (in contrast to , ‘the word of life’, in 1 John 1:1 and , ‘The word of God’, in Rev. 19:13) warrants the assumption that the title was known to the readers and that it already had a Christian prehistory behind it when the Johannine prologue was formed. Jeremias concludes that the unmistakable closeness of Rev. 19:11–16 to Wis. 18:14–16 must be noted; that the logos title might have originated in Hellenistic Judaism and so applied to Jesus Christ as a title of the returning Lord; that, on the other hand, John 1:1, 14 and 1 John 1:1–31, where the title is extended to the pre-existent and earthly Jesus, already represent an advanced stage of the Christian usage of the logos title.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 32 , Issue 3 , June 1979 , pp. 257 - 269
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1979

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References

page 257 note 1 ‘Zum Logos-Problem’, ZNW 59 (1968), pp. 82–85.Google Scholar

page 258 note 1 The influence of the Jewish concepts of wisdom and word on New Testament writings, especially on the prologue of John, has often been noted. See, for example, Dürr, Lorenz, Die Wertung des göttlichen Wortes im Allen Testament und im antiken Orient (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1938)Google Scholar; Ringgren, Helmer, Word and Wisdom (Lund: Häkan Ohlssons, 1947)Google Scholar; Harris, Rendel, The Origin of the Prologue to St. John's Gospel (Cambridge: University Press, 1917)Google Scholar; and more recently, articles on ‘Wisdom’ and ‘The Word’ in Buttrick, George A. et al. (eds.), The Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible 4 (New York and Nashville: Abingdon, 1962), pp. 852–860; 868–72Google Scholar; Brown, Raymond E., The Gospel According to John (i-xii), Anchor Bible 29 (New York: Doubleday, 1966), pp. 519–524Google Scholar; and Suggs, M. Jack, Wisdom, Christology, and Law in Matthew's Gospel (Cambridge: Harvard, 1970)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Philo's conception of wisdom ‘as an eternal property of God identical with His essence’, ‘as an incorporeal being created by God’, ‘as immanent in the world’, and as identified with logos, see Wolfson, Harry A., Philo: Foundations of Religious Philosophy in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard, 1947)Google Scholar, passim, especially I, pp. 184, 254–8, 333–4. See also Dürr, op. cit., pp. 142–65, esp. 142, 162–3 for Philo and John, as well as works cited above in this note.

page 258 note 2 RSV translation here and elsewhere.

page 258 note 3 Johnson, Aubrey R., The One and the Many in the Israelite Conception of God (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1961), p. 17Google Scholar. Cf. also the work by Dürr cited above and Grether, O., ‘Name und Wort Gottes im Alten Testament’, BZAW 64 (1934), pp. 59ff.Google Scholar

page 259 note 1 op. cit., p. 33. Johnson himself calls attention to the converse statements of H. Wheeler Robinson that ‘there is a Godward, as well as a manward, application of corporate personality’ and that ‘it must have been much easier for man's personality to be conceived as temporarily merged in that of God’ (ibid., pp. 33–4). Professor Jacob M. Myers has called my attention to another group of relevant passages: in Judg. 6:34 the Hebrew text reads, ‘The spirit of the Lord put on Gideon’ (cf. 1 Chron. 12:18; 2 Chron. 24:20; Job 29:14). All of this must be kept in mind when considering the Jewish background for the logos Christology.

page 261 note 1 Jeremias, Joachim, The Parables of Jesus (New York: Scribners, 1963), pp. 77Google Scholar, 79. Cf. here also Smith, B. T. D., The Parables of the Synoptic Gospels (Cambridge: University Press, 1937), pp. 127–129.Google Scholar

page 261 note 2 Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, ed. Kittel, Gerhard, IV (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1967), pp. 124–125.Google Scholar

page 261 note 3 Cullmann, Oscar, The Christology of the New Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959), p. 249.Google Scholar

page 262 note 1 Much has been written on Jesus as the wisdom of God and whether or not he consciously identified himself with the divine wisdom. See Taylor, Vincent, The Names of Jesus (London: Macmillan, 1953)Google Scholar; Davies, W. D., Paul and Rabbinic Judaism (London: S.P.C.K., 1955), pp. 155–158 and the references cited by himGoogle Scholar; Christ, Felix, Jesus Sophia: Die Sophia Christologie bei den Synoptikern, ATANT 57 (1970)Google Scholar; and Feuillet, A., Le Christ Sagesse de Dieu: d'après les épîtres pauliniennes (Paris: J. Gabalda, 1966)Google Scholar. The question of Jesus' self-identification is complicated and debatable and one which lies beyond the scope of this paper.

page 262 note 2 Bultmann, Rudolf, The History of the Synoptic Tradition (New York: Harper & Row, 1963), p. 31.Google Scholar

page 263 note 1 This is the view of Loisy, Alfred, L'Évangile selon Luc (Paris: Émile Nourry, 1924), p. 336. Loisy also thinks that the words which follow are not meant to be a quotation from some unknown source.Google Scholar

page 263 note 2 See Vincent Taylor, op. cit., pp. 150–2. Taylor discusses ‘the Wisdom of God’ as a name for Jesus in 1 Cor 1:24 but says nothing of the title in Luke 11:49.

page 263 note 3 See note 2 above and the rest of this article.

page 264 note 1 Perhaps belief in Jesus as the Son of God led to a belief in his pre-existence and divinity in the more advanced Christological thinking of early Christianity. Key passages which seem to state or imply Jesus' pre-existence are Rom. 8:3; 1 Cor. 10:3–4; Gal. 4:4; Phil. 2:6–11; Col. 1:15–20. For his divinity see, for example, Heb. 1:3, 8–9; John 1:1; 10:30, 34; 14:9; 20:28.

page 265 note 1 This word is meant to convey something which seems to be included in the logos Christology of John 1:1–3, 14 and which differs from the concept conveyed with the word ‘humanity'. It seems to me that ‘the Word became flesh’ (John 1:14) means something different from ‘the word of life’ (1 John 1:1). See here part 3 of the article by Jeremias with which we began.

page 265 note 2 See here Brown, Raymond E., ‘Does the New Testament Call Jesus God?’ in TS 26 (1965), pp. 545–573.Google Scholar

page 266 note 1 For a concise and effective analysis and comparison of these passages see Brown, R. E., The Gospel According to John, pp. 20–21, 25, 30–1.Google Scholar

page 266 note 2 Whiteley, D. E. H., The Theology of St. Paul (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1964), p. 112Google Scholar. See also Rawlinson, A. E. J., The New Testament Doctrine of Christ (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1949), pp. 133, 163–5, 187–9'. 210Google Scholar. A detailed study of the wisdom ideas in Paul may be found in A. Feuillet, op. cit., pp. 147–76.

page 266 note 3 op. cit., p. 191.

page 266 note 4 That the prologue of First John and that of the Gospel stand in some kind of close relationship to each other is obvious. It seems to me that the relationship between the two prologues, precisely with respect to the use of the term logos, has never been conclusively determined. I shall not even suggest a solution to that problem.

page 268 note 1 See here Freed, Edwin D., ‘Some Old Testament Influences on the Prologue of John’, in Bream, Howard N., Heim, Ralph D., and Moore, Carey A. (eds.), A Light Unto My Path: Old Testament Studies in Honor of Jacob M. Myers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1974), pp. 145–161.Google Scholar

page 268 note 2 op. cit., pp. 167–8: ‘Dass aber sozusagen die ganze damalige Ökumene für die Logosidee aufgeschlossen war, war und ein Teil des , wie es Paulus in klarer Erkenntnis der Dinge im Galaterbrief (4, 4) so treffend ausgesprochen hat.’