Cover

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction: Overview of Research

Michael Labahn: “It’s Only Love” – Is That All? Limits and Potentials of Johannine “Ethic” – A Critical Evaluation of Research

1. Introduction

1.1 “Kiddies, Love One Another!”: Taking Lessing as Point of Departure

1.2 “Ethics” or “Ethos” – What Are We Looking For?

1.3 Johannine Ethic – Different Ethics?

2. No Ethic in John? A Critical Evaluation of Main Arguments

3. Traces of the Johannine “Ethic” in Recent Research

3.1 Johannine “Ethic” in Handbooks on New Testament Ethics

3.2 Reading Johannine Ethic in Its Textual and Cultural Contexts

3.2.1 Love and Love of Jesus’ Disciples/One’s Brothers

3.2.2 Johannine “Ethic” and Its Context/Background in Scripture

3.2.3 “Law”, “Commandment”, and “Sin”

3.2.4 “Works of God” to Be Imitated

3.3 Exploring New Approaches to Johannine Ethics

3.3.1 Social Scientific Readings and Johannine Ethics

3.3.2 Johannine Images as “Vehicles for Ethical Arguments” (Jan G. van der Watt)

3.3.3 Narrative Ethics

3.3.3.1 Narrative Ethics and Narrative Criticism

(a) Characters

(b) Stories

3.3.3.2 Narrative Ethics and “Sinnbildung” (Udo Schnelle)

4. Conclusion: Do Johannine Christians Love Their Enemies?

Ruben Zimmermann: Is There Ethics in the Gospel of John? Challenging an Outdated Consensus

1. Consensus: No Ethics in John!

1.1 Reduction to the Commandment Concerning Love and Conventicle Ethics

2. The Phenomenological Objection: Looking for Traces of Ethics

2. The Methodological Objection: What Is “Ethics”? Or What Are We Searching For?

3. The Form-Critical Objection: Ethics by means of the Media of Narration and Imagery

3.1 Images as Models: Jesus as a Role Model

4. The Tradition-Historical Objection: The Ethics of Friendship as a Test Case

5. Conclusion: Is There Ethics in John?

Possible Contexts of Johannine Ethics

Andrew T. Glicksman: Beyond Sophia: The Sapiential Portrayal of Jesus in the Fourth Gospel and Its Ethical Implications for the Johannine Community

1. Introduction

2. Similarities and Differences between Sophia and the Johannine Jesus

2.1 Origin and Trajectory of Mission

2.1.1 Heavenly Preexistence and Role in Creation

2.1.2 Descent, Invitation, Rejection, Ascent

2.2 Metaphorical Language

2.2.1 Light Imagery

2.2.2 Food and Drink Imagery

2.3. Relational Language

3. Ethical Implications of Jesus as “Beyond Sophia”

4. Conclusion

Erik Eynikel: The Qumran Background of Johannine Ethics

1. The Major Points of Ethics in the Qumran Literature Compared with John

1.1 The Dualism of the Two Spirits

1.2 The End Is Yet to Come

1.3 The Role of Man in This Eschatological Battle

2. How Does All This Work for the Johannine Literature?

2.1 The Spirit of Truth and the Spirit of Wickedness

2.2 The Struggle between Light and Darkness and the Final Day of Reckoning

2.3. The Role of Man and the Question of Determinism and Predestination in John

3. Conclusion

Volker Rabens: Johannine Perspectives on Ethical Enabling in the Context of Stoic and Philonic Ethics

1. A Stoic Concept of Ethical Empowering in John?

2. Relational Empowering in John

3. Relational Empowering in Philo

4. Conclusion

Ethics in the Gospel according to John

William R. G. Loader: The Law and Ethics in John’s Gospel

Karl Weyer-Menkhoff: The Response of Jesus. Ethics in John by Considering Scripture as Work of God

1. Ethics in John and the Example of Jesus’ Actions

2. Τὰ ἔργα ποιεῖν: Responding to the Works

2.1 God the Father and Jesus the Son

2.1.1 ποιεῖν and τὰ ἔργα

2.1.2 Activity or Passivity?

2.1.3 The Paradigm of Responsivity

2.2 Jesus and Humanity

2.2.1 “Believing” and “the Works of God”

2.2.2 Transitivity

2.3 The Works of God as a Reference to Scripture

3. An Example: God Working in Jesus in John 4

3.1 Intertextual Suggestion: A Betrothal Type-scene

3.2 Verifying the Allusion

3.2.1 Availability

3.2.2 Volume

3.2.3 Recurrence

3.2.4 Thematic Coherence

3.2.5 Historical Plausibility

3.2.6 History of Interpretation

3.2.7 Satisfaction

3.3 The Intertextual Effects on Ethics: Jesus Responsively Performs a Work of God

Jan G. van der Watt: Ethics of/and the Opponents of Jesus in John’s Gospel

1. Introduction

2. The Opponents: A Moral View of What They Say and Do

3. The Narrator on the Opponents

4. Jesus’ View of the Opponents

4.1 A Focus on the Deeds of the Opponents

4.2. A Focus on the Identity of the Opponents

5. Conclusion

Christos Karakolis: Semeia Conveying Ethics in the Gospel according to John

1. Introduction

2. The Meaning of σημεῖον in John

3. Σημεῖα and ἔργα

4. Ἔργον, ἔργα and Family Ethics

5. The Works of Jesus and the Works of the Disciples

6. Semeia-Narratives Conveying Ethics

7. Summary – Conclusion

Mira Stare: Ethics of Life in the Gospel of John

1. Introduction to the Theme

2. The Vocabulary of Life (= the ζωή-Vocabulary) in the Gospel of John

2.1 The Lexeme

2.2 The Distribution

a) Frequency

b) Position and Distribution within the Gospel of John

2.3 The Vocabulary of the Johannine Jesus

2.4 The Combinations of the Words ζωή and ζῶ in the Gospel of John

3. The Theme of Life in John 6 and Its Hermeneutics

3.1 Complexity

(1) The Food That Endures for Eternal Life

(2) Jesus – the Giver and the Gift, the Addressee and Recipient of Life

(3) The Living Father – Source and Giver of Life

(4) The Life-Giving Spirit

(5) The Words of Jesus – Words of Eternal Life

(6) The Addressees of the Promises of Life

Conclusion

3.2 The Openness of the Reality of Life to Every Individual, i.e. the Universal Circle of Addressees

3.3 Life as a Personal Relationship with Jesus

3.4 The Life and the Individual’s Decision

4. The ζωή-Ethic in the Gospel of John

4.1 Jesus’ Example to his Followers in John 13:12–15 and the New Commandment in John 13:34; 15:12

4.2 The Ethic-Parable of the Winegrower, the Vine and the Branches and the Commandment/Commandments of Jesus in John 15:1–17

4.3 The Concept of Life, the Ethics and Its Missionary Nature in Jesus’ Prayer in John 17

5. Conclusion

Hermut Löhr: Ἒργον as an Element of Moral Language in John

1. Introduction

2. “Begriffe” in a Narrative – Some Reflections on Method

3. ἔργον κτλ. in John

4. Human Deeds

4.1 John 3:19

4.2 John 6:28

4.3 John 7:3

4.4 John 8:39, 41

4.5 John 10:32–33

4.6 John 14:12

5. Ἒργον in the Johannine Letters

6. Conclusion

Chrys C. Caragounis: “Abide in Me”. The New Mode of Relationship between Jesus and His Followers as a Basis for Christian Ethics (John 15)

1. The Imagery of the ἄμπελος and the κλήματα

2. The Context of the ἄμπελος and κλήματα Saying

3. Abiding as the Relationship of the New Ethics

Glen Lund: The Joys and Dangers of Ethics in John’s Gospel

1. Setting the Scene

2. One Clear Command

3. Is the Love Command Solitary?

4. The Ethical Instructions in John

5. Good Principles But Further Difficulties

6. How Early Johannine Ethics May Have Worked

7. Beyond Legislation

8. The Dangers of Freedom

9. Moral Challenges in the Time of the First Epistle

10. Moving On

Paul N. Anderson: Discernment-Oriented Leadership in the Johannine Situation – Abiding in the Truth Versus Lesser Alternatives

1. Truth Appeals within the Johannine Situation

1.1 Phase I: A Palestinian Phase (30–70 C.E.)

1.2 Phase II: Asia Minor I (70–85 C.E.)

1.3 Phase III: Asia Minor I (85–100 C.E.)

2. Johannine-Situation Ethics – Putting Love into Action

3. Discernment-Oriented Leadership and Emerging Christian Models

3.1 The Caliphate of James – Dynastic Leadership and Its Legacy

3.2. The Organization of Presbyteries among the Churches – Collective Discernment and Leadership

3.3. Episcopal Developments after the Memory of Peter – A Structured Approach to Apostolic Leadership

3.4. Discernment-Oriented Leadership – A Spirit-Based and Egalitarian Approach to Christian Direction and Unity

4. The Character and Operation of Discernment-Oriented Leadership

4.1. Discernment Operations within the First Edition of the JohannineGospel (30–85 C.E.)

4.2. Discernment Operations within the Johannine Epistles (85–95 C.E.)

4.3. Discernment Operations within the Final Edition of the Johannine Gospel (85–100 C.E.)

5. Conclusion

Ethics in 1 John

Udo Schnelle: Ethical Theology in 1 John

1. Introduction

2. 1 John as a Theological Discourse

3. Main and Side Discourses in 1 John

4. The Main Discourse: The Manifestation of Faith in Love

5. Conclusion

Jeffrey E. Brickle: Transacting Virtue within a Disrupted Community: The Negotiation of Ethics in the First Epistle of John

1. Transacting Virtue

2. The Performance Scenario

3. Strategy and Structure

4. The Four Parties Involved

4.1 That Which Was from the Beginning

4.2 The Apostolic Eyewitnesses

4.3 The Recipients

4.4 The Antichrists

5. Negotiation and Beyond

Tom Thatcher: Cain the Jew the AntiChrist: Collective Memory and the Johannine Ethic of Loving and Hating

1. Love, Hate, and Murder

2. Memory and/as Ethics

2.1 Framing the Past

2.2 Landmarks of Memory

2.3 Memory as Key to Identity

2.4 Memory and Morality

3. Framing the Conflict: John, the Jews, and the AntiChrists

3.1 Cain and Abel Remembered

3.2 Murderers from the Beginning: John, the Jews, and the AntiChrists

3.3 Keying Cain and Abel

4. Conclusion: Memory and the Ethics of Loving and Hating

List of Contributors

Index of References

1. Old Testament

2. Greco-Roman Literature

3. Ancient and Rabbinic Jewish Literature

4. New Testament

5. Non-canonical Early Christian Literature

Index of Modern Authors