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The ‘Prayer’ of Jesus in John xi. 41b–42
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2009
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page 128 note 1 Cf. Wellhausen, J., Das Evangelium Johannis (Berlin, 1908), p. 52:Google Scholar the ‘genuinely Johannine style’ of vv. 41–2 - not being that of the basic document - makes the prayer suspect. Fortna, Similarly Robert T., The Gospel of Signs (Cambridge, 1970) (SNTS Monograph 11), p. 83Google Scholar; Nicol, W., The Semeia in the Fourth Gospel (Leiden, 1972) (Notsuppl. 32), p. 120.CrossRefGoogle ScholarDodd, C. H., Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge, 1963), pp. 227–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar, questions the validity of the whole enterprise: the Fourth Evangelist has recast his material so thoroughly that attempts at analysis are doomed from the outset.
page 128 note 2 Bultmann, Rudolf, Das Evangelium des Johannes (Göttingen, 1953) (KEK), pp. 311–12Google Scholar, observes that Jesus' prayer is the demonstration of that which he has continually asserted of himself, that of himself he is nothing. We should ask, however, whether such consistency is not due basically to the Evangelist.
page 128 note 3 See, for example, the margins of standard editions of the NT. Noack, Bent, Zur johanneischen Tradition (Copenhagen, 1954) (Teologiske Sifter, 3), p. 148Google Scholar, notes that it sounds like a quotation of a saying to Martha, in spite of the fact that a logion with this content is not preserved elsewhere.
page 128 note 4 Cf. Bultmann, , op. cit. p. 311 n. 3.Google Scholar
page 128 note 5 Cf. Barrett, C. K., The Gospel according to St John (London, 1955), p. 335Google Scholar; Fortna, R. T., op. cit. p. 83.Google ScholarBrown, R. E., The Gospel according to John, i–xii (New York, 1966) (Anchor Bible, 29)Google Scholar, questions whether v. 44 implies proper embalming, as also does Loy, A., Le quatrième Évangile (Paris, 1921), p. 352.Google Scholar
page 129 note 1 For example, especially, John, ii. 19–22, iii. 4, iv. 15, vi. 42, 52.Google Scholar
page 129 note 2 Thus it may be that the words were intended to heighten the miracle, by stressing that Lazarus was really dead: but that in turn looks like an attempt on doctrinal grounds to assert the reality of the resurrection - not just that of Lazarus, but indirectly of Jesus. Cf. Loisy, , op. cit. pp. 352–3.Google Scholar
page 129 note 3 Pp. 83, 89, 240.
page 129 note 4 So Fortna, , op. cit. p. 83Google Scholar; Brown, R. E., op. cit. p. 427.Google Scholar
page 129 note 5 The form with είς τ⋯ν ούρανόν actually occurs at John xvii. I and Luke xviii. 13. Certain textual authorities also insert it here in John xi. 41 a, as Brown rightly observes, op. cit. p. 427.
page 129 note 6 Op. cit. p. 83. Cf. p. 128 n. 1.
page 129 note 7 Loisy, , op. cit. p. 353Google Scholar, comments that the Johannine Christ prays to expound the theses of the Evangelist: he seems to be praying for the benefit of the audience, and the present discourse is a bit awkward because the situation ‘n'a rien de réel’.
page 129 note 8 This would seem to be Bultmann's view; cf. op. cit. pp. 311–12.
page 130 note 1 The parallels at John, xvii. 8Google Scholar, 21 are so clear that it looks as if the writer is deliberately citing a piece of Sayings tradition. Cf. also John, v. 24Google Scholar, 38 and vi. 29. In addition we should compare the ‘sending motif’ at John, v. 36, 38, vi. 57, vii. 29, viii. 42, x. 36, xvii. 3, 18, 23, 25, xx. 21, etc.Google Scholar
page 130 note 2 The ‘heavenly voice’ is not for Jesus but for the bystanders.
page 130 note 3 Op. cit. p. 335.
page 130 note 4 Op. cit. p. 311.
page 130 note 5 The quotation has recently been identified (independently of the present writer) by Hanson, A. T., ‘The Old Testament Background to the Raising of Lazarus’, Studia Evangelica vi, ed. by Livingstone, E. A. (Berlin, 1973) (Texte und Untersuchungen, 112), pp. 252–55Google Scholar; esp. p. 254. Hanson also notes the fact that the quotation is nearer to the Hebrew text than to the LXX, but thinks its presence here is due to John, who may have seen the whole of Ps. cviii ‘as giving the framework for what he recounts of Jesus in these chapters’ (p. 255), and especially as linking the resurrection of Lazarus with that of Jesus. As will appear below, the argumentation of this paper is in a rather different direction.
page 130 note 6 Affinity between John xi. 41b and the Synoptic logion was noted by Schlatter, A., Der Evangelist Johannes (Stuttgart, 1930), p. 255.Google Scholar
page 130 note 7 Viz., II Cor. vi. 2, but in a verbal citation of Isa. xlix. 8 (LXX).
page 130 note 8 I.e. Hiph.
page 131 note 1 Viz. Matt. xxi. 42 = Mark xii. 10–11 = Luke xx. 17; I Pe. ii. 7 (and cf. vv. 4 and 5, where allusions to it are found); Act. iv. 11. There are in addition many allusions to the Psalm in various parts of the NT; see Dittmar, W., Velus Testamentum in Novo (Göttingen, 1903), pp. 338–9, etc.Google Scholar
page 131 note 2 See Ellis, E. E., ‘Midraschartige Züge in den Reden der Apostelgeschichte’, Z.N.W. 62 (1971), 94–104Google Scholar; and the present writer's article, ‘The Judas-Tradition in Acts i: 15–26’, N.T.S. 19 (1972–1973), 438–52.Google Scholar
page 131 note 3 Dodd, Thus, op. cit. p. 154Google Scholar, finds the ‘irreducible nucleus’ of the section in both Mark and John limited to ‘the acclamation, ὡσαννά. εύλογημένος ό έρχόμενος έν όνόματι κυρίου…’. All the other detail varies, but ὡσαννά is absent from the LXX of Ps. cxvii (cxviii). 25.
page 131 note 4 R. E. Brown acutely notes that the verb κραυγάειν is found only eight times in the Greek Bible, six of them in John, . (op. cit. p. 427).Google Scholar This does not necessarily mean that it is Johannine style, but the distribution of its use in the Fourth Gospel is interesting; it is confined to three sections, the Lazarus story (xi. 43), the Entry (xii. 13), and the Crucifixion (xviii. 40; xix. 6, 12, 14). Two of these sections clearly embody traditional material. Does the Johannine τα
τα εώπών with which v. 43 opens indicate that the writer is conscious here of picking up his tradition again after the lapse of v. 42?