Historical Reliability of John's Gospel: Issues & Commentary, The

Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, Jun 2003 by Beck, David R

The Historical Reliability of John's Gospel: Issues & Commentary. By Craig L. Blomberg. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2001, 346 pp., $26.00.

Having greatly benefited from Craig Blomberg's earlier work, The Historical Reliability of the Gospels, I looked forward with anticipation to reading his newest defense of Gospel historicity. Blomberg, professor of New Testament at Denver Seminary, is unique in his approach, examining each Fourth Gospel pericope episode by episode to assess its historicity. While recognizing the impossibility of "proving" the historical accuracy of John's Gospel to everyone's satisfaction, he argues that for those not predisposed to doubt its authenticity, the balance of the evidence consistently supports the text's own claims of veracity.

Blomberg recognizes that if a convincing case can be made in support of eyewitness apostolic authorship, then the assumption of historical accuracy has a strong foundation. He thoroughly details the evidence that this Gospel is the eyewitness account of one of the twelve, namely John, son of Zebedee. He is detailed and thorough, noting that the unanimous external evidence cannot be summarily dismissed, as is often done. His point-by-point refutation of the arguments against Johannine authorship is particularly strong.

Challenging the notion that the "burden of proof" for historical authenticity lies with the person making the case for it, Blomberg notes that according to accepted standards for the study of ancient history, "a historian found trustworthy where he or she can be tested should be given the benefit of the doubt" (p. 63). He then proceeds to discuss recent refinements to the familiar criteria of authenticity, building on the work of Gerd Theissen and N. T. Wright. He finds these criteria, properly nuanced and refined, to be helpful tools for assessing the historicity of John's Gospel. Following Theissen he rejects the implausible criterion of dissimilarity which assumes non-historicity for the words and deeds that would most place Jesus within the context of first-century Judaism and most reflect the first-century church's understanding of his revelation of himself. Instead Blomberg accepts Theissen's replacement of this with a criterion of historic plausibility.

In applying these criteria to the text of the Fourth Gospel, Blomberg, assuming the basic historicity of John from the evidence for eyewitness apostolic authorship, asks two questions of each pericope. Utilizing the properly refined criteria of authenticity, is there positive evidence in favor of its historicity, and is there anything historically implausible in its first-century context, assuming the trustworthiness of the Synoptics? Using this methodology he carefully works through each episode of John.

While there might be concern that the use of these criteria gives too much away to those who find claims of historicity suspect, Blomberg applies this method to the examination of each pericope with the result that an assumption of historicity is consistently warranted. The Johannine narrative episodes prove to be compatible with their first-century historical context, with the Synoptic portrayal of Jesus' ministry, and with known Jewish parallels, while still demonstrating the distinctiveness that led to Jesus' conflict with many of his contemporaries.

In the commentary portion of his work, he limits his focus to the issue at hand, fully interacting with those scholars who have pointed to elements within each episode that they deem indicative of their non-historicity. he effectively refutes their interpretation of the evidence, offering plausible alternatives. he demonstrates that if a bias against historicity is laid aside, the historicity of the Johannine narrative is consistently indicated.

In his treatment of the temple cleansing, Blomberg gives an even assessment of both alternatives, a Johannine chronological displacement for thematic purposes or two separate temple cleansings. he demonstrates that either is possible, and neither is incompatible with the historicity of the account (pp. 87-91). he notes that the Bread of Life discourse follows the Jewish rhetorical form ?? proem midrash and is a unified whole (p. 127). Countering Martyn's claims concerning excommunication from the synagogue in 9:22, Blomberg notes that modern studies have shown that the birkat haminim was probably not an empire-wide edict nor was it aimed primarily at Christians. However, local informal bans at particular synagogues are consistent with the hostile actions portrayed in Acts (p. 154). His examination of the infamous aporia of 14:31, "rise, let us go from here," concludes that while a combination of two separate discourses is possible, it is not necessary. Teaching while walking is not inconceivable (pp. 204-5).

As valuable as Blomberg's analysis is, some items of concern deserve mention. Blomberg makes a puzzling choice to use "Jesus" and "Christ" interchangeably in this book (p. 19, n. 2). The text of John does not use Jesus' name and the christological title interchangeably. In the 19 occurrences of X[rho][iota][sigma][tau]oc in John, all but two are titular and refer to Jesus' fulfillment of Jewish messianic expectations. The only two exceptions are 1:17 when the author is narrating the prologue and 17:3 when Jesus himself is addressing his Father. The truth which this Gospel proclaims, the heart of its message, is that the man named Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, the fulfillment of God's messianic prophecies, and the giver of life (John 20:31). To ignore the distinction between his name and title disregards an important aspect of John's narrative. Blomberg believes that the affirmation of the veracity of the beloved disciple's witness in 21:24-25 is most naturally read as the "stamp of approval by a group of the beloved disciple's followers . . . making explicit his authorship of the rest of the work" (p. 38). he goes on to add that if we will admit at least this much redactional work, then "it becomes natural to see all of the passages that refer to the beloved disciple as phrased that way by the final editor(s)" (p. 38). he then deduces that while it is possible that all of the Gospel is from the hand of the son of Zebedee, it is "more likely that a separate editor has lightly touched up the document throughout" (p. 38). Although Blomberg perceives only a minimum amount of editorial work in the Gospel, the crucial question is whether there are textual indicators of editorial activity. he points to such for 21:24-25, but the step from there to every beloved disciple reference being redactional is only an inference, and not a necessary one. And if this step is taken without explicit textual indications of editorial activity, what basis is there for refuting those whose "discovery" of layers of redaction goes many steps beyond this?