Rhetorical Impact of the Semeia in the Gospel of John, The

Trinity Journal, Spring 2005 by Köstenberger, Andreas J

WiIIis Hedley Salier. The Rhetorical Impact of the Semeia in the Gospel of John. Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 2.186. Tubingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004. Pp. ix 234. Euro 49.

This book is a slightly revised version of the author's doctoral dissertation written under the supervision of Graham Stanton at Cambridge University. Its purpose is to provide an integrated presentation of the Johannine "signs" as they function within the final form of the gospel, in contrast to previous studies that focused on source-critical issues such as the alleged Johannine "signs source." The author seeks to move, first, from the text to the audience by analyzing the context of the "signs narratives" in the gospel; and, second, from the audience to the text by way of a sociohistorical investigation of the presumed audience of the Fourth Gospel.

The strategic importance of the "signs" within the literary framework and theological presentation of John's gospel is not in serious dispute. In light of the fact that Bultmann's classic "signs source" theory has been convincingly refuted on the basis of the pervasive literary unity of the gospel as a whole, Salier sets out, in the wake of M. Labahn's recent study, Jesus als Lebensspender, to explore the narrative function of the "signs" in the final form of John's gospel. After a general, though not very thorough, survey of the state of research and a presentation of his methodology, the author provides a survey of semeia terminology in the Septuagint, GraecoRoman literature, and early Christianity. The bulk of the work is then devoted to a study of the signs narratives in John's gospel, organized under the headings "The Beginning of the Signs" (John 1-4); "Controversial Signs" (John 5-10); "Signs of Life" (John 11-12); and "The 'Sign of Signs'" (John 1321). The final chapter provides a summary of the major conclusions reached.

Salier's treatment of "signs" references in John 1-4 provides adequate discussions of Jesus' turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana (2:111) and his healing of the centurion's son (4:46-54). In my view, however, Salier does not adequately interact with the proposal that the temple clearing constitutes a Johannine sign (cf. 2:18). At one point, Salier refers to "the destruction and rebuilding of the temple" as a sign; later in the same paragraph, he labels "the complex event that is the death and resurrection of Jesus" as a Johannine sign. According to Salier, this means that the reader is to read those later events in "signs terms" (p. 52). But, if so, what, then, constitutes the sign? Is it the destruction and rebuilding of the temple; the death and resurrection of Jesus; the way in which the latter is symbolized by the former; or something else? A better explanation would seem to be that the "sign" is Jesus' prophetic action of clearing the temple, which presages the temple's destruction as God's judgment on the nation of Israel. As developed further below, Jesus' death and resurrection seem to be presented in the Fourth Gospel, not as a "sign" of something else, but as the reality to which the signs point. An unfortunate consequence of Salier's dismissal of the temple clearing as a possible sign is the omission of this incident from his discussion of the sign narratives in John 1-4, despite the fact that the word semeion is found in John 2:18. This problematic procedure overrides Johannine terminology and truncates the apprehension of his "signs" theology. On a more minor scale, another questionable point in this section is Salier's argument that Jesus' statement in John 4:48 is to be read "as a positive expression of the relationship between belief and signs" (p. 57) rather than, as is universally held by commentators, as an indictment of people's unbelief.

In his treatment of "signs" in John 5-10, Salier correctly notes that this section is characterized by escalating controversy, and that the function of these signs is to provide evidence in the dispute between the two parties, Jesus and "the Jews." While accurately designating the healing of the lame man (5:1-15), the feeding of the multitude (6:1-15), and the healing of the blind man (ch. 9) as a Johannine "sign," Salier, in my view incorrectly, identifies Jesus' walking on the water as a "sign" by implication, with only the barest of substantiations (see p. 84). The chapter on "signs" references in John 11-12 adequately covers the evidence.

At the very outset of his treatment of "signs" in John 13-21, Salier calls Jesus' death and resurrection the "sign of signs," despite the fact that the only reference to semeion in the second half of John' gospel is found in the purpose statement in John 20:30-31. Salier's assertion is far from unassailable that "this final reference suggests that the death and resurrection of Jesus, together, constitute both a sign and the culmination of the signs presented throughout the Gospel" (p. 143). More plausibly, the reference in 20:30-31 is to Jesus' messianic "signs" presented in John 1-12 which were met with Jewish unbelief issuing in the crucifixion (12:37). If so, the corresponding feature to Jesus' signs narrated in John 1-12 in John 13-20 is the unfolding reality of Jesus' rejection by the Jews, which issues in his crucifixion and is followed by his resurrection, whereby the latter relates to the former as reality relates to symbol, or as fulfillment relates to typological anticipation. In my view, it is illegitimate to blur the distinction between "signs" and "works" terminology in John's gospel by in effect treating the references to erga in 14:10-12 and 15:22-24 as if they were references to semeion. Only the latter, not the former, terminology invokes the symbolic dimension of Jesus' works, and this distinction should not be diminished or obliterated.