Recherche – Detailansicht
Ausgabe: | November/2019 |
Spalte: | 1158–1160 |
Kategorie: | Neues Testament |
Autor/Hrsg.: | Trozzo, Lindsey M. |
Titel/Untertitel: | Exploring Johannine Ethics. A Rhetorical Approach to Moral Efficacy in the Fourth Gospel Narrative. |
Verlag: | Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2017. XIV, 235 S. = Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament. 2. Reihe, 449. Lw. EUR 79,00. ISBN 978-3-16-155741-5. |
Rezensent: | Cornelis Bennema |
This book is Lindsey M. Trozzo’s revised doctoral dissertation from Baylor University under the supervision of Assoc. Professor Lidija Novakovic. Those who are familiar with the Johannine literature will know that the Fourth Gospel includes little explicit ethics and that scholarship has neglected the topic for a long time. T. joins a recent trend in Johannine scholarship that uses new methods to explore the implicit ethics in the Fourth Gospel. Her contribution lies in the use of a particular rhetorical approach to examine what we can say about Johannine ethics.
In the Introduction, T. starts by defining the problem and terms, followed by a brief but accurate history of scholarship on Johannine ethics. To explore the implicit ethics of the Fourth Gospel, she proposes a rhetorical approach that examines the Gospel’s ›moral efficacy‹, that is, the moral change that the Johannine narrative can bring about in its audience. More specifically, she ex-plores four rhetorical elements of the Fourth Gospel: (1.) participation in genre; (2.) incorporation of encomiastic topics; (3.) metaleptic extension of the topics to address the audience situation; (4.) the appropriation of structural devices as guides to the rhetorical trajectory of the narrative (5). The four chapters that follow consider these rhetorical features.
Chapter 1: Participation in the Bios Genre. In this chapter, T. explores genre to discover what the early audience would have expected from the Fourth Gospel. Outlining the history of Gospel genre research, she sides with the scholarly majority that the Fourth Gospel participates in the genre of ancient bios or narrative biography. The significance of this is that ›the audience would likely have expected a moral or ethical function to be a part of the narrative‹ (33). To show how implicit ethics are embedded in ancient biographies, T. explores Plutarch’s Lives, which was composed during the same time period as the Fourth Gospel. Plutarch presents the Lives of his subjects as paradigms for virtue and vice so that his audience can draw moral conclusions from those examples. This way Plutarch engages his audience in ethical deliberation, challenging them to discern which moral principles apply to their own context. Similarly, the early audience of the Fourth Gospel would have expected the narrative to have a moral dimension, and the next chapter explores what rhetorical tools facilitate the communication of this ethical dimension between author and audience. T.’s first step in exploring Johannine ethics is sound, especially the recognition that readers of the Fourth Gospel should engage in ethical deliberation (I have used the categories ›virtuous think-ing‹ and ›moral reasoning‹ in my writings). Further study could explore the nature, workings and scope of such ethical deliberation.
Chapter 2: Incorporation of Encomiastic Topics. In this chapter, T. leaves Plutarch behind because he mostly uses syncrisis (the rhe-torical from of comparison), whereas the Fourth Gospel uses the topics of encomium (the rhetorical form of praise). Based on the Progymnasmata (ancient rhetorical handbooks), she traces the follow-ing encomiastic topics in the Fourth Gospel: origin; nurture and training; pursuits, deeds and other external goods; death; events after death. T. suggests that unity rather than imitation is central to Johannine ethics. Imitation does not seem to be the controlling concept because of Jesus’ unique status; rather, the unity between Jesus and the Father, extended to Jesus’s followers, is determina-tive for Johannine ethics. Much like Alicia Myers in Characterizing Jesus (T & T Clark 2012), T. explores these encomiastic topics only regarding Jesus, the protagonist of the Fourth Gospel. In my view, it is also beneficial to examine how these encomiastic topics apply to other Johannine characters since they too can function as moral change agents.
Chapter 3: Metaleptic Extension of Encomiastic Topics. In this chapter, T. seeks to show how the encomiastic topics are extended to the Johannine audience, revealing the theme of unity as a bridge between the elevated or ›high‹ Christology and implicit ethics in the Fourth Gospel. Starting with the tension between the Fourth Gospel’s Christology and ethics, with specific reference to John 6, T. argues that the Johannine audience is called to imitate Jesus’s unity with, and his response to, God rather than Jesus’s direct actions. T.’s choice of John 6 to elaborate her point is puzzling because it does not even hint at imitating a direct action of Jesus. Elsewhere, however, the idea of imitating Jesus’s direct actions does feature: e. g., ›to be where Jesus is‹ (12:26; 14:3; 17:24); ›to wash each other’s feet‹ (13:14–15); ›to love one another‹ (13:34; 15:12); ›to be obedient‹ (15:10); ›to be sent into the world‹ (17:18; 20:21). She then explores the concept of metalepsis in the Fourth Gospel, that is, places where the distinction between the world of story and the world of narrative is blurred. Examples of metaleptic elements are (i) 1:14, 16; 21:24 where a self-aware narrator (at the level of story) includes himself as a part of the audience (at the level of narrative) and (ii) 9:22; 12:42; 16:2 where (alleged) anachronistic language moves the audience’s mind to their contemporary time. The effect of these metaleptic elements is that the Fourth Gospel fuses the horizons of the time of Jesus and the time of the Johannine community in the late first century (akin to the well-known two-level reading) – it pulls the audience into the story and extend the en-comiastic topics to the audience to stimulate ethical deliberation about their own identity, behaviour and mission.
Chapter 4: Appropriation of Structural Devices. This chapter has two parts. In Part 1, T. examines the rhetorical function of two structural elements – the Prologue and the transitional chain-link interlock. In Part 2, she addresses the scope and meaning of the love command. In my view, this is the weakest chapter. I failed to see how Part 1 significantly contributes to Johannine ethics. Although she explains at length the rhetorical features of the Prologue and the chain-link interlock, her claim that these reveal key themes which affirm the moral efficacy of the text or guide the interpretative process of the audience comes up a little short. In Part 2, T. addresses important issues regarding the Johannine love ethic but does not break new ground. Nevertheless, her argument that the love command should not be considered sectarian is helpful in light of some prevailing views from the past.
In the Conclusion, T. seeks to articulate her version of Johan-nine ethics. She claims that the unity between Jesus and the Father being extended to believers is central to Johannine ethics. The Fourth Gospel presents ›a morality established and enlivened through participation in mystical union with God, an ethic that invites the community into God’s mission of reconciliation for the world‹ (185).
Overall, T.’s study convincingly shows that the Fourth Gospel has an ethical dimension and further study must explore the nature and workings of Johannine ethics. The main point of contention I have with T.’s study is the nature and place of imitation in Johannine ethics. With T., I agree that the Fourth Gospel rejects simple imitation of Jesus. But for T., the Fourth Gospel does not advocate imitation of particular actions of Jesus; rather, it calls the audience to imitate Jesus’s unity with God and his response to God’s mission. In contrast, I have found over forty occurrences of imitation across the Johannine literature covering a wide range of activities. While T. (and others) have recognized that imitation is an aspect of Johannine ethics, I went further, arguing that imitation is central to Johannine ethics (Mimesis in the Johannine Literature [T & T Clark 2017]). While T. argues that participation in the unity of the Father and Son is central to Johannine ethics, I contend that it is imitation. It is no coincidence, I believe, that the first reference to imitation in the Fourth Gospel is the Son’s imitation of the Fa-ther in 5:19, and this becomes the appropriate paradigm for the believer’s imitation of Jesus. In addition, it would have been beneficial if T. had also considered the Johannine Epistles (she only does so, briefly, in the Conclusion). This is evident from the fact that 1 John introduces new forms of imitating Jesus (e. g., in 1 John 2:6; 3:2.3.7.16; 4:11), rooted in the life and teachings of Jesus as recorded in the Fourth Gospel. This shows that (i) the author of 1 John provides the kind of ethical deliberation that he wants his audience to imitate; (ii) imitation is a dynamic, dominant and creative concept in Johannine ethics.
What is central to Johannine ethics is an important issue for further debate and my disagreement with T. in no way reduces the value of her study. In any new quest or trend in scholarship, it is common to see divergence before moving toward convergence (if any). Likewise, in this new era of Johannine ethics, scholars will promote different approaches, argue different theses and come to different findings. Over time, the scholarly community will ›decide‹ which studies are more useful than others. I conclude that T.’s study is a solid step in the right direction and will undoubtedly be-come a fruitful dialogue partner in the ongoing quest for Johan-nine ethics.