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Psalm 42/43 in John's Gospel

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 February 2009

Edwin D. Freed
Affiliation:
Gettysburg, Pa., U.S.A.

Extract

In a learned and thoughtful article with the same title in this journal, Professor Johannes Beutler1 makes the points concerning John's use of Psalm 42/43 which are outlined below. Let me express my appreciation for Professor Beutler's work by presenting several alternatives.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

NOTES

[1] Psalm 42/43 im Johannesevangelium‘, NTS 25 (1978), pp. 3357. In a paper, ‘Tradition and Composition in John 14’, presented in the seminar on John at the meeting of the SNTS in Toronto in August 1980, Professor Beutler reiterated several of the same views.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[2] Beutler here follows Lagrange, M.-J., L'Évangile selon Saint Jean (Paris: Gabalda, 1925), p. 359;Google ScholarBernard, J. H., A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to St. John, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: Clark, 1928), p. 469;Google ScholarBarrett, C. K., The Gospel According to St. John (London: SPCK, 1955), p. 371.Google Scholar

[3] Here and elsewhere Beutler has been influenced by C. H. Dodd's theory of ‘Testimonies’ and that Ps. 42(43) is such a testimony text. See Dodd, C. H., Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: University Press, 1963), pp. 37 f., 42, 53–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[4] So most of the newer commentaries on John, as Beutler says; references on p. 35, notes 2 and 3.Google Scholar

[5] Beutler rightly remarks that elements of the Markan Mount of Olives account, beyond that of the Psalm tradition, must have been known to John as further parallels between Mark 14. 32–42 and John 12. 27 show. It is, of course, widely acknowledged that John's Passion narrative has things in common with the Synoptics. For excellent discussion and summaries of the parallels see now especially Raymond Brown, E., The Gospel According to John, XIII-XXI (Garden City: Doubleday, 1970), pp. 7871100.Google Scholar

[6] Following Kraus, H. J. and Dahood, M., Beutler regards Psalm 42/43 as a unit.Google Scholar

[7] See my ‘Variations in the Language and Thought of John’, ZNW 55 (1964), pp. 167–97.Google Scholar

[8] It should be noted that in the only place where John uses ταράσσω apart from the passages under consideration, his usage also corresponds to that of the LXX, that is, ‘troubling of waters’. Cf. ὅταν ταραχθ τό δωρ(John 5. 7) with εταράχθησαν τά ὕδατα (Ps. 45/46. 4) and ταράσσουσα ὕδωρ (Hos. 6. 9; cf. also Hab. 3. 15; Isa. 24. 14; Ezek. 32. 2; 34. 19).Google Scholar

[9] Perhaps even more than Psalm 42/43, Psalm 6 is the lament of a person suffering physical and mental anguish. According to W. O. E. Oesterley, it is ‘one of the most vivid of its kind in the Psalter’. See The Psalms (London: SPCK, 1955), p. 134.Google Scholar

[10] Cf. also Ps. 54(55). 17 f.Google Scholar

[11] Originally used for the ‘snort’ of horses (Liddell and Scott), it came to mean ‘groan’; see Souter, A., A Pocket Lexicon to the Greek New Testament (Oxford: Clarendon, 1943), p. 80Google Scholar. It is so translated in KJV, ASV, and by Goodspeed.

[12] The others are έζυπνίςω (11. 11), κοίμησις (11. 13), ὅξω (11. 39), τεταρτααῑς (11. 39), κειρία (11. 44), and περιίέομαι (11. 44).Google Scholar

[13] See A Grammar of New Testament Greek by James Hope Moulton, vol. 3 by Turner, Nigel (Edinburgh: Clark, 1963), p. 23Google Scholar. Turner cites numerous examples in the NT besides John 14. 1, 27; 16. 6, 22.

[14] We are concerned only with parts of John 14. 1–9, 27 and 16. 6, 22; the latter two passages must be taken into consideration with the former.Google Scholar

[15] See Moulton, James Hope, A Grammar of New Testament Greek, vol. 1, Prolegomena (Edinburgh: Clark, 1908), p. 68Google Scholarand Burney, C. F., The Aramaic Origin of the Fourth Gospel (Oxford: Clarendon, 1922), p. 34.Google Scholar

[16] The Gospel According to St. John, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), p. 456.Google Scholar

[17] The Gospel According to John XIII-XXI, p. 625Google Scholar

[18] Ibid., pp. 619, 625.

[19] Das Johannesevangelium, 3 Teil (Freiburg, Basel, Wien: Herder, 1976), pp. 67–8.Google Scholar

[20] Charles, R. H., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1913), p. 92.Google Scholar

[21] Goodspeed, Edgar J., The Apocrypha (New York: Random House, 1959), p. 404.Google Scholar

[22] Tedesche, Sidney and Zeitlin, Solomon, The First Book of Maccabees (New York: Harper, 1950), p. 143.Google Scholar

[24] Goldstein, Jonathan A., I Maccabees, Anchor Bible 41 (Garden City: Doubleday, 1976), p. 328.Google Scholar

[25] Abel, F.-M., Les Livres des Maccabées (Paris: Gabalda, 1949), p. 141.Google Scholar

[27] Perhaps John did intend a more spiritual or existential meaning of the term, as Gundry, R. H., ‘In My Father's House are Many Monai (John 14. 2)’, ZNW 58 (1967), pp. 6872, suggests.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[28] See Freed, E. D., Old Testament Quotations in the Gospel of John (Leiden: Brill, 1965), pp. 104–7.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

[29] Cf. the people's words (Exod. 17. 2 f.), ‘Give us water to drink … to kill us, our children, and our cattle with thirst’ with the Samaritan woman's words, ‘Give me this water that I may not thirst’ (John 4. 15).Google Scholar

[30] See especially Bonsirven, J., ‘Hora Talmudica: La notion chronologique de Jean 19, 14, aurait-elle un sens symbolique?’, Biblica 33 (1952), pp. 511–15.Google Scholar

[31] In each of the OT passages the seeing is reported by a prophet as having occurred in a vision. Was the seeing of the risen Jesus a visionary experience of the disciples as well? Cf. 1 Cor. 9. 1.Google Scholar

[32] And probably synoptic materials as well. The problem of John's relationship to the Synoptics has not been a concern of mine in this paper.Google Scholar