Theology in the Raw - S2 Ep1114: Theology and Narrative in John's Gospel and the Meaning of Jesus' "Son of Man" Statements: Dr. Ben Reynolds

Episode Date: September 25, 2023

Dr. Ben Reynolds has an MDiv and ThM from Gordon-Conwell Theological seminary and a Ph.D. in New Testament from Aberdeen University--which is where I met Ben. We both studied together under Simon Gathercole at Aberdeen and have been friends ever since. Ben is currently a professor of Bible and Theology at Tyndale University (Toronto) where he's been since 2009, and he enjoys teaching courses on the Gospels, Jesus, Second Temple Judaism, Greek, and hermeneutics. He's written and edited several scholarly works including his latest book: John Among the Apocalypses: Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and the "Apocalyptic" Gospel. In this podcast conversation, Ben walks us through some theological themes in the narrative of John's gospel and helps us understand the meaning of Jesus' "Son of Man" language.  Support Theology in the Raw through Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/theologyintheraw

Hello, friends. I want to let you know about a couple of events that I'm hosting on the LGBTQ Conversation in Santa Clarita and then again in San Diego in California. The Santa Clarita event is October 16th and 17th, and the San Diego event is October 19th and 20th. These are two different events. One is an evening conversation where we sort of introduce the LGBTQ conversation. And then the following day in both cities, we do a full day training for church leaders. Again, on the LGBTQ conversation, we dig into theology, relationships, pastoral ministry questions. We hear testimonies from various people. It's a time when we can come together

and think deeply, love widely, dig into both truth and grace in what has become some of the most pressing questions facing the church today. To find out more about these two events, you can go to centerforfaith.com, go to the events link, and you can find all the info there. Again, October 16th to the 17th in Santa Clarita, and then the 19th and 20th in San Diego. If you cannot make it out to California, or if you don't live anywhere near these cities, you can also stream these events live online. Again, centerforfaith.com. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Theology and Rom. My guest today is Dr. Benjamin E. Reynolds, who is a professor of New Testament and chair of the Department of Biblical Studies and Theology

at Tyndale University in Canada. He received his PhD from University of Aberdeen in Scotland, where I also did my degree. In fact, we became good friends when we're studying for our PhDs at Aberdeen University. He is a specialist in the gospel of John, specifically the concept of the Son of Man. When Jesus refers to himself as the Son of Man, it's a huge debate within scholarship what exactly Jesus is talking about there. So we get into that a bit towards the end of this podcast, but I asked Ben to come on and just give us a good kind of theological entry point into John's gospel. That took us into many different passages and themes and discussions around various things, especially in the early chapters of John. So get your Bibles open and get ready to dive into good John's gospel with the one and only Dr. Benjamin Reynolds.

Ben, thanks so much for coming on The Elgin Round. This is the first time I've had you on. I can't believe this is almost insulting that it's taken me this long to have you on. It's all right. It's great to be here, Preston. It's always a pleasure to talk with you. So Ben and I, we go all the way back to our Aberdeen days. We did our PhDs under, we had the same advisor, Simon Gathricole, who's now at Cambridge. And we were both studying New Testament, but I was studying Paul, you were studying John. So we were basically in two different worlds. I know it's shocking for people to hear, like you're both studying the New, not just the Bible, but like the New Testament.

And our research didn't overlap at all like there was no like no i think what we had in common is we had a similar interest in second temple judaism and its relationship to the new testament um and i we we got together sometimes and we share papers back and forth with our other friend uh joey dodson and then he was also a pauline scholar so sometimes they would get into these conversations you guys you guys are getting these conversations and i would be so lost i'd be like staring off into space you're in this pauline detail uh when are we gonna get back to john yeah we used to get together uh yeah we called it pb and j preston ben and joey we get together at that little pub in that underground the illicit still do you remember that it's not there anymore i was back there um i was in aberdeen last year and and it doesn't

it's gone just so sad it was like the coolest little it's like almost like a cave like underneath the building and it was just dark and we'd get together and like read paper or we'd read stuff ahead of time they kind of give feedback and stuff chat about it yeah i was just back in aberdeen in may i i didn't go looking for it but i had a good time being back what were you doing were you giving a paper or no we we went to we went to a wedding actually and so then we took some time to visit friends because there's a few few people who were studying with us that are still in the area doing uh pastoral work or or various other things or friends from our church oh cool sweet well let's talk about john i i wanted you to come on

and and uh yeah walk us through john primarily because john is it's one of those books that i feel like you know when christians are told to start reading the Bible, it's like, well, you start with John. I don't, to me, John's, I used to do that. But after reading, John's kind of complicated to me. I'm like, I don't know if I'd start there. Maybe start with like Mark or something. But so, you know, John's is one of the more familiar books of the Bible to early Christians. And yet, having studied it on a PhD level, you've probably appreciated some of the Bible, the early Christians, and yet having studied it on a PhD level,

you've probably appreciated some of the complexity and stuff. So where I want to get is this whole theme of apocalyptic and John. Most people, when they hear apocalyptic, they think Daniel, Revelation. The average person typically doesn't think John, but that's kind of your primary world is seeing how apocalyptic thought is integrated in John's work, if that's even the right way to put it. But let's start with just let's go 101 first of all with John and then we'll go 201 and we'll dive deeper into some of these themes related to apocalyptic and Son of Man. Yeah, that sounds great. I mean, there's that classic phrase. It shows up in a number of places.

I don't even remember who first said it, but the gospel of John is shallow enough for a baby to walk in, but deep enough for an elephant to swim in. So that sort of gets at that idea you were talking about how, oh yeah, this is good for a first person to read, but then there's still so much more to learn about it. But I do think some people first get lost if they get into it. And if you think about it, it's sort of that broad that that huge cosmological opening right in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god uh he was with god in the beginning and that that just starts very different than than the other gospels you know mark and matthew just sort of jump jump right into things in a way. Matthew has his genealogy.

Luke has his very literary sort of opening. Mark just cuts to the chase and says, this is the good news about Jesus the Messiah. All right, let's get going. But John has this much longer entry. And the first part of John's gospel, John 1 to 18 or 1 to 17, depending on how you want to measure that off, has traditionally been called the prologue of John's gospel. And that is a huge debated issue within scholarship these days about whether or not that is original. There are a number of scholars that have thought that that was added later and the gospel more or less started with, this is the testimony of John the Baptist in verse 19. There's no textual manuscripts that indicate that,

but that's been a Johannine scholarship idea that has been around since critical scholarship in the 19th century. Did Pete Williams, I thought he, did he kind of, he didn't put that to death, but he dealt it a significant blow by arguing that this is, there's no evidence for this not being part of the original. Oh, yeah. As far as I'm concerned, he dealt a blow to that view. But I was at a conference last fall where I brought Pete's work up and said, hey, because the whole conference was on the prologue. because the whole conference was on the prologue. I don't know if we should really be thinking about it this way

because Pete went into various manuscripts from the 2nd, 3rd, 4th century and showing that there's no paragraphing actually between 118 and 119 in the early manuscripts. Some of the earliest paragraphing you see is between 15 and 16. And then even in ancient liturgical texts, like what was read in in churches there was there was always a break it seems like at 170 so 118 would be the beginning of the next section and 118 says no one has ever seen god the only god who is at the father's side he has

made him known and this is the testimony of john when he sent you, when you sent priests. So that, if you read it in that way, it kind of sort of changes your focus about what's actually at stake here. And it's the one, no one has seen God, but then the question is, well, who, is there someone who's seen God? And John's gospel actually goes on to say, yes, there's only one who has seen God. And that's the one who came from God in the first place. It's kind of highlighting what you're getting at with the apocalyptic piece, but it's this revelatory aspect that John's gospel has in that it's saying the only one who can see God or the only one who makes God possible to be seen is the one who's come from God in the first place.

And that is Jesus, the Messiah. So that's the one you need to follow because he becomes the vision of God on earth. Okay. So prologue, you're going to say part of the original, not going to question that.

Um, what, what, what's the theological function of the prologue? Like, how does this, like, why does John begin it this way?

Well, see, that gets into some of my thinking about John's relationship to the idea of Revelation. I understand apocalyptic as revelatory, things that are revealed. Because when you look at Daniel and Revelation are our two key texts that we think about when we think about apocalypses those are the only two apocalypses that are in the in the bible there are numerous jewish apocalypses outside the bible like first enoch fourth ezra second baruch there's a there's a long series these, and most of these are either written before the New Testament texts, and some of them are written sort of simultaneously or slightly after. And Revelation and Daniel, as I like to tell my students, if you read those two texts alongside these other texts,

they're not that weird. If you read the Daniel and Revelation alongside other texts in the Bible, yeah, they're weird. But when you see them against these other texts, this is a fairly standard sort of genre of literature from this time period in which things of heaven are revealed, angels, God, but then also some of what God plans to do, what's going to happen to the righteous and the wicked in the present and in the future. So those are things that are happening. So I think John has this relationship with that sort of literature. And I argued in a recent book that I think there's a good possibility that the gospel of John was written after Revelation. And I'm not the first person to say this. There's a long

tradition of this in the history of the church. It's a minority report, but there are people who have thought this. And for me, that understanding helps me see, okay, well, Revelation was written first. So if you have someone or a community, if you hold a single authorship, this works. If you hold a community authorship, I think this still works. If Revelation was written first and you see Jesus as this heavenly exalted figure, and then you rethink the life of Jesus on earth through that lens, John's gospel could be what you end up with. Hence, in the beginning was the Word,

and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And here's the Lamb of God with John the Baptist saying this, but will the Lamb have already been revealed in heaven at the throne, right? So there's these possibilities. I mean, I'm not going to stake everything on that, but to me, it makes sense of this revelatory aspect that we see in John, which is quite different than what we see in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Do you take the same author for Revelation and the Gospel, John, or no? Because most scholars don't, right? Oh, most scholars don't. They definitely do not. And why is that? That's a whole other podcast.

Okay. I think most people take it. I'll leave it brief. Part of the reason is one of the arguments is that they've been associated just because the name John is associated with the text. And so you do have the Gospel of John traditionally been associating with Ephesus, the Book of Revelation with the Isle of Patmos. They're not too far away geographically in modern day Turkey. But how does a fisherman from Galilee end up there writing these two texts as someone who's not necessarily a learned, educated person? So that's some of the argument.

And then you also have some testimony to two tombs in Ephesus of a John figure. Oh, right. And that goes back to Eusebius. And even, I'm going to get my names mixed up, but I think it was Dionysius also argued that the authorship in the second century, second or third century, argued that the authorship was different because the language is very different. So Revelation's Greek is considered very rough in comparison to the Gospel of John, which isn't necessarily classical Greek by any means. But there's a difference of style, but there's also a difference of type of literature, type of vocabulary.

So why do people assume the same John, Apostle John wrote both? Because there is some language with Lagos and other images and stuff that you do see in John and Revelation, right? Like as much as there's a different genre, different languages, there's also a lot of similarities too, right?

Or is that, I haven't really thought through this too much. Yeah, there are a number of similarities. There's some shared vocabulary between the two of them that only exists between these two texts in the New Testament. Similar sorts of themes, like the idea of eternal life, the idea of shepherding, the use of describing Jesus as lamb,

even though in Revelation he's called the lamb, but in John he's called the lamb of God, and that's only two times, whereas in Revelation it's 28 times lamb. That's only two times, whereas in Revelation is 28 times land. You also have Jesus called the word in John's gospel and then the word of God in Revelation 19. So you have a number of similar sorts of themes. Some scholars would argue and just say, well, that's just general Christian theology that's appearing in both. I tend to think they're theologically connected. Okay.

But there's a study by Jorg Frey that goes into the details of how adjectives are used, how conjunctions are used, And, and he argues that, that, that sort of wording, which is like a, a fingerprint in some ways on somebody's writing style, they're very different in the way that they're used as far as spelling and other things too.

So these small details are considered some of the difference, at least for, for York Fry and, and for some others. Okay. And they're saying, well, you could come up with themes and, but write, write about them differently. I don't know. I, I tend, I mean, I tend to think that the, the early tradition is much closer than we are to it. And I'm, I'm not going to just discount that entirely because, oh, I'm 18 years, 1800 years away and i'm i'm smarter

so i think we have to hold all those things together and to me it does make sense for single authorship but that's a very rare opinion and oh so you so you do think same john wrote both yeah i i'm more willing to to take that view okay uh me, it sort of makes sense. I can see the arguments against it, but I'm willing to hold to it. You sound like such a scholar. I know. I mentioned my facts. I feel like I'm back at a New Testament seminar. Well, I'm willing to take this view, but I'm not going to.

All right, let's get back to the... So some good arguments for same John writing both. You say there's a good case to be made that Revelation maybe was even written first and then the gospel after. Let's get into the theological meat of John's gospel. Like how does, what makes John tick, if you will? Yeah, well, a lot of it I think is, again, it's this revelation of Jesus. And it's also the signs. John doesn't refer to miracles he

refers to signs and um I think that is a very important thing because of the emphasis also on witness on believing on seeing and and the signs become um what a Boltman talked about as the visible words. So as Jesus is the word, but his actions as signs become the visible action or visible reality of the word. And so these signs, they're not just miracles. He's not just doing amazing things. But the point of them is, like any sign, the sign in itself is not important. So I was just on a hike last week with my kids. We get to the parking lot.

Then there's a sign right at the start of the trail that says, Trailhead begins here. Right? We don't really care about that sign. We care more about the trail, right? And where that trail is going to take us. And so the signs in John's gospel are like a signpost that say, they're telling us something about Jesus. They're pointing us to Jesus, who again is representing who God the Father is. You have seven signs, essentially, depending on how you count them. father is. You have seven signs, essentially, depending on how you count them. And they're also, they're different sorts of things. So the water to wine being the first one, which is a,

it's a nature miracle, right? Jesus is working with nature and he's changing something. He's not healing anybody. But then the second sign is the healing, healing of the uh the official son also in cana but it's a it's a the the boy is sick and so he's healed but then in john 5 you have the third sign where you have the lame person who's who is healed so again it's a different sort of healing and then in john 6 you have another nature miracle with the um the feeding of the 5 000 so you have the bread and the fish extended and then the walking on water which could be considered another nature miracle and and then we have john, the healing of the blind man, and then the raising of Lazarus in chapter 11. So you have a sick person, lame person, blind person, someone who's died and been raised. You have three nature miracles, water to wine, the bread and the fish, and then also the walking on water.

They're each saying something about who Jesus is. And it's been argued before, you can see that there are, Jesus talks a lot in John's gospel. That's another thing. It's pretty chatty, yeah. Yeah. If you have like a red letter Bible, it's much more obvious, like the long spaces in which Jesus speaks. Whereas if you compare that with Mark, he's just talking for a little short periods of time. Or you have Matthew's gospel where he's got these longer discourses,

but they're interspersed by multiple miracles. Here you almost have the signs interspersed with Jesus' teaching. And the teaching oftentimes is closely associated with the sign. always sometimes it's a little bit loosely connected some scholars have argued that they're all closely connected but you do have like john six is a prime example of this connection between the feeding of the five thousand and then the crowd that comes to follow him the next day where they want more food. And then Jesus quotes, well, the crowd actually quotes the scripture to them in John 6, 31. Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.

And then what follows, Jesus sort of addresses both parts of that statement that they made that that citation uh he he gave them and then he argues that it's not that he is not Moses but it's God and it's not a past tense of gave it's a present tense of give he gives the God gives the father gives uh and then and then in the latter part he also deals with the the bread from heaven like its location from heaven not manna coming down but jesus as the bread coming down the sign then points to this reality of who he is and he's coming from heaven and coming to the people okay so is it is there any real quick is there any significance with, you said seven signs, three nature, four with people. Is there any significance why three with nature and why those three with nature, water to wine, bread and fish, and walking on water?

Or is it just these are just, yeah, is there a logic to why those specific signs? Yeah, usually people will talk about the seven as being significant, right? Seven as a number of completion, right? Especially as you've seen seven as a significant number of revelation. But then you have others that argue, well, what about the miraculous catch of fish in John 21? Does the resurrection itself count as a sign? And then you also have, so in John 2, 23 to 25, Jesus has already done the water to wine miracle, the sign. And then he's gone to the temple in Jerusalem at Passover. And he has, he's done his action in the temple.

And then it says in verse 23, now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in his name when they saw the signs that he was doing. So at this point, Jesus, only one sign's recorded, but there's a crowd following him because he's done multiple signs. Yeah, plural, the signs. So John, this is one of the things about John's gospel is that, and all the gospels really, is that they're presenting specific material to tell something about Jesus.

So John has picked these signs for some reason, but I think in my view, I just see them as different types of things that he did you don't get multiple healings of blind people okay don't get multiple lame healings multiple resurrections you've got one of each and they're sort of progressive but as far as the nature miracles are concerned but all three of those, the water to wine, the feeding of the 5,000, and the walking on water, have been argued to make some connection to God in the scriptures of Israel. Like, wine is a symbol of the new age. In some ways, the coming of the Messiah and the prophets, right? The mountains will drip with sweet wine.

prophets right the the mountains will drip with sweet wine so that is one way of understanding that as the first sign here's the beginning of the messianic age in a sense uh with the with the feeding of the 5 000 and the bread and the giving of bread and fish i think we we highlight the fish or the bread i mean and, and we leave out the fish because Jesus doesn't call himself the fish of God, right? The bread of heaven. The fish of life. Yeah, the fish of life. But that's part of that. And that whole passage is set in a wilderness context, right? It's contrasted with Moses and the manna in the wilderness and so we see

we see the way in which jesus and well god really through jesus provides this other bread from heaven bread that will last and um and so that also has this this old testament context because you see it in the way that jesus the jews grumble in 641 and then in other places the the grumbling is a theme of the people of israel in the old testament in the wilderness right they're constantly grumbling you we we should have stayed in egypt we should have done this and so but there's disagreement with what Jesus is saying in these contexts about himself as the bread and also being from heaven. So the fact that he's the bread from heaven is disputed. And then also the fact that you need to eat that bread, that also is disputed. It creates another issue.

But I got a little sidetracked there because the other sign, nature sign, is the walking on water, which Catherine Williams and others have shown has this connection to the idea of some of the Psalms that talk about the Red Sea being divided and the people of Israel going across talk about God's footsteps on the water in the preparation of that and so some scholars have seen that in Jesus walking on water in some ways it's a fulfillment or carrying on of this this walking of God or God's footsteps on the water in

the way that he redeemed his people from Egypt. And so here, Jesus, it creates this, this is also something in John's gospel. It's different from the synoptics in the way that Jesus is very closely associated with the father. I and the father are one,

right? So the signs in some way point to that oneness, at least like the walking on water is one of those okay where jesus is doing things that are credited to yahweh in the old testament basically correct exactly and and you see that too in the raising of lazarus because in john 5 jesus jesus talks about how he only does what the Father has shown him. And this is in 521. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whom he will. Oh, yeah.

So the Son has the authority to give life because the Father has granted that to him. But he also has the authority to judge, which comes in the next line, the life and giving life and giving judgment are two aspects of, of the Lord that the scriptures of Israel talk about as being key, key features of who God is. I got a question about the water and the wine one. That one's always tripped me up because it

seems like why it doesn't seem like a big deal like if i think like walking on water or feeding 5 000 i guess the men right um not including women and children or or raising lazarus from the dead and then andy turned water to wine it's like why i like a good glass of wine too, but I mean like what is, it just seems kind of like, why, why, why that? Like, and I know, okay, so wine, is there, is there some kind of illusion with like, it's at a wedding and the wedding is kind of looking forward to, I don't know, like revelation 19 kind of stuff, you know, the marriage supper of the lamb, or is there, you know, wine is a symbol of a blessing and new creation. Like in, you know, the, in the minor prophets, they often talk about, you know, wine flowing from, or what would it, uh, in dumb and dumber where beer flows like wine. I think Amos says something like, you know, wine will flow from the mountaintop or something like

that. So, so I get, you know, there's some from the mountaintop or something like that. So I get some of the symbolism, but it seems a little mundane. Is it supposed to be that? I don't know if it's supposed to be mundane. I think it is something. I mean, it's spectacular because at the end of it, his disciples, he reveals his glory to his disciples and they believe in him. he reveals his glory to his disciples and they believe in him. But this, what's interesting to me about, if you read, this is one of those passages where those of us who are familiar with the Bible,

we sort of gloss over the details as we read it, right? Because if you read this very closely about to what's happening, nobody really knows this miracle happens except for the servants and then clearly the disciples and and Jesus mother there's very few people like the the groom has no clue where this wine came from the the person who the wine is taken to the the head of the feast has no clue where this has come from and I'm sure the guests have no idea maybe there's a rumor that's spread around but it's this is not a sign that everyone sees it's only for a few but i i do think that the significance of the wedding the celebratory

aspect and the way that wine functions in in the minor prophets uh in these descriptions of the wedding, the celebratory aspect, and the way that wine functions in the Minor Prophets, in these descriptions of the age to come when God is going to redeem his people, I think the wine is indicative of that in the way that it's starting out here at the beginning of Jesus' ministry. Because the text does say, right, this was the first of his signs. Right, right, right. Because the text does say, right, this was the first of his signs. Right, right, right. This is the introduction to who Jesus is going to be shown to be.

However, at the end of the section right before this, Jesus is called numerous names, right? He's already been called the Word of God. John the Baptist refers to him as the Lamb of God. You have Andrew coming to Peter and saying, we found the Messiah. Philip going to Nathaniel saying, we have found the one of whom Moses and the prophets wrote. And then you also have Jesus himself at the end of John 1, 51, referring to himself as the Son of Man. So you have these multiple descriptions of who Jesus is by title or phrase, and then you have this first action. The wine is, I think, this opening celebratory, revelatory aspect of who Jesus is.

Why did he make so much wine? So, Eats, verse 6, six stone water jars holding 20 to 30 gallons each. So we're talking 150 to 180 gallons of wine. If there's like 150 people at the wedding, that's like a gallon per person. Or is that intentional? Again, I'm trying to distinguish between. Right. Somebody could say, well, that's just, these are the facts of what happened. But we know, I mean, I just, I'm always like, yeah, but John, there's many other facts you can read.

I don't want to read too much into stuff, but I don't want to read not enough, too. Like, there's usually a point for every detail that's noted. So, is it the abundance of God's new creation blessing? That's a lot of why. Yeah. I mean, part of it could be the abundance. There's also the fact that these weddings, this was not just a six-hour thing on a Saturday night, a reception on a Saturday night. These were week-long village festivals, right?

And Jesus has come from outside the village. So there's more people than just the villagers here in the village. So like a it's a regional party of these smaller towns probably coming together so whether or not this was early in that week-long festival where every evening they would have a celebration to celebrate the wedding okay um but it is it is a lot of one which leads me to the the catch of fish at the end of john because there's a reference to 153 fish right which going there's been so many opinions as to whether that means something right yeah augustine had his like he counted out like it means this it represents this um i personally just think that's a lot of fish okay and if you have someone who's who's a fisherman

like there were 153 fish in the net so there's no significance to the number other than that it's just a lot of fish that's what i think yeah but uh there's plenty of people who thought that there's some other sort of significance to it but i think maybe for us when we think about industrial fishing that's not very much but if you're out with your rod and your your lure that's a lot of fish right even if even if you're dealing with you know nets like smaller nets that you're hand tossing into the into the sea pulling up i think that's still a lot of fish yeah i. I remember Mark and I, fellow PhD student of ours when we were there, I still remember that

knowledge you mentioned. I still remember him saying, the passage of 153 fish is evidence that not every single number has some sort of symbolic meaning behind it because this one just kind of doesn't. It's just 153 fish. I'm sure some people have argued that it does,

but it's just a historical detail. What's that? 144 fish would create a different argument. 120 fish. Yeah, 153 doesn't seem significant other than it's a big catch. This episode is sponsored by Athletic Greens, now called AG1. AG1 is an incredible nutrition supplement. I've been taking it for over a year now, and I can truly notice the difference.

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dot com forward slash TITR. Check it out. I do want to get to the son of man. Is there, is there, um, cause you, you, you mentioned at the end of chapter one, we could come back to it because the, the signs kind of end in, in chapter 11. Okay. And, and that, and it's Raymond Brown and others have said that the first part of the gospel is called the book of signs. The last part is called the book of glory. Whether or not that's the best way of talking about it, but you only have the signs being talked about up until up through 11.

And then chapter 12 sort of serves as this conclusion to Jesus' public ministry. Okay. And then after that into 13 you have the farewell discourse running from 13 to 17 with jesus prayer in john 17 where jesus is speaking directly to his disciples and and so that's that's some see that as like this inward turn to his internal group at that point uh and so the signs have been public and they're doing what they should, what they're intended to do, where some believe and some don't believe. You know, we have that phrase, seeing is believing,

but that doesn't work in John's gospel. Not everyone who sees believes. And the gospel, of course, ends with the statement with Thomas, blessed are those who believe without seeing so that there's that sense and and then you have the the crucifixion and the resurrection events at the end of john and the glory becomes a very key aspect of this that jesus glorification jesus is glorified through his death and resurrection that he is there's another phrase we'll come back to it the son of man is the idea of lift being lifted up um and that whether that's physical

or whether that's metaphorical lifting up both of them happen through the crucifixion i think it's more than the crucifixion. That's an extended debate among Johannine scholars about what specifically that's referring to. But it's clear that Jesus' crucifixion is part of it, at least. So his death is an exaltation. His death and resurrection are a glorification. So there's a book by the English translation of Yorkork fry's book uh oh i'm just trying to forget it the glorification of the glorified one or the glorified one his point in the title is that jesus as the one who dies and is raised is uh is glorified his glory is in the death, which is sort of antithetical, not to traditional Christian thinking.

But that if you think Luke sort of talks about the way of suffering, he's on his way to suffer and die. Right. glorification, which is most likely drawing from Isaiah 52.13, which talks, particularly in the Septuagint, in the Greek translation, the... Yeah, the book, by the way, is The Glory of the Crucified One, Christology, Theology, and the Gospel of John. Yeah, so Isaiah 52.13 says, Behold, my servant shall act wisely, and be high and lifted up and shall be exalted. So in the Greek translation, it uses the same two words that John uses for lifted up and glorified in the Greek translation there.

So my servant will be high and lifted up, will be exalted and glorified. That seems to be where John is probably drawing some of that language from. So the difference between John and the synoptics, not a contradictory difference, but one of maybe emphasis, is that John sees glory revealed through the crucifixion, not just like, say, the resurrection, whereas the other gospel writers would see crucifixion as suffering on the path to revealing his glory through resurrection? Is that, or how would you maybe word it more precisely? Yeah, that might be one way of saying it, but like Luke's gospel, for example, has been talked about as, there's a point in Luke where Jesus sets his face to

Jerusalem. He sort of, he leaves Galilee and he's on his way to Jerusalem and then there's this long travel narrative where he's moving the visit to Jericho with the with Zacchaeus and then on his way to Jerusalem as he's healing people and then he comes into Jerusalem and this is sort of viewed as this way of suffering because multiple times through that passage he's talking about I must go to Jerusalem to suffer, right? John doesn't talk about suffering.

John talks about exaltation. So again, it's not contradictory. It's the emphasis. The emphasis is different in that for John, the crucifixion. And I would say the resurrection and his return to the father are all viewed under this idea of,

of glory and, um, and exaltation. So the death itself then is not, it's not viewed as this, Oh, he's suffering at the hands of sinners and so forth. It's viewed as,

as this is this thing that has to happen to him. That is a, a glory, an act of glorification by the father. Hmm. Okay. Yeah. Is there,

is there a reason for that? I mean, it's hard to get inside the mind of John, but why? Yeah. Yeah. Why? Well,

the, I mean the first to go back to the first sign, right. He began, he reveals his glory with the sign, right? So the signs themselves become a revelation of glory, and the crucifixion and resurrection are an ultimate example of that glory. He received, again, the glory theme is very closely tied to the Son of Man theme as well because in john 13 when jesus is in just after judas has left to betray jesus

in john 13 31 jesus says now is the son of man glorified and god is glorified in him god is glorified in him god will also glorify him and himself and glorify him at once and that's talking about his crucifixion right yeah that will or the events that are going to take place beginning with the crucifixion yeah so there there are some scholars who would say the exaltation and glorification are the crucifixion only and there are some who would include a little bit more than maybe that but like raymond brown and a few others would say and i'm and where i've put myself see this glorification exaltation as beginning with the crucifixion so it includes it but it also includes the resurrection and

jesus returned to the father part of i mean i don't know if you want me to go into the details of why, but we're sort of getting to like 401 here at this point. Yeah, we're getting in the weeds. But I'll just give the references to them. In 222, the disciples don't remember what Jesus says about the temple of my body until after it says after he was raised from the dead. And then in 12.16, 12.16, after the triumphal entry, we read that the disciples did not understand these things. But when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered these things that have been written about him. And so for me, if the disciples remember these things after he's

raised from the dead and after he's glorified, if those are the same things, that makes sense. Also, it's very clear the disciples don't have a clue what's going on before the resurrection. And even right after the resurrection they're still a little bit lost right until he appears to them so if these things are not if it's not until after he's glorified that they have some understanding of what's happening then the glorification needs to include more than just the crucifixion. Okay. Am I reading too much into this? This is going back to the wedding, the, the, the water and the wine. This is his first sign, 2.11.

He displayed his glory with the wine, blood of Christ, crucifixion. Is that, I mean, is that, is John, you know, planting some seeds in our mind here with the wine pointed to the blood, pointed to the glory, revelation, or is that, I mean, that... I don't think you'd be alone in thinking that.

Somebody somewhere has once argued that. Especially with the bread too, right? So, one of the questions in John 6 is whether or not the end of that that it's necessary to to eat the flesh of the of the son of man who is the bread of heaven is that a sacramental sort of reference? It has to be, right? Is that debated? Yeah, it's debated. It's interesting, or not so interesting, that the majority of Catholic scholars hold to it as sacramental,

and those who tend not to think of it as sacramental are mostly Protestant. Yeah, shocker. Yeah, big shocker. What do you think? I mean, eat my flesh and drink my blood? I mean, first century reader, late first century, early second century reading that. I mean... Oh, yeah.

And obviously, it is a tradition throughout the church to have read this sacramentally because it's it's being read in the context where the sacrament is being given on on a weekly basis right so it's read in that sort of way real quick can you define when you say read sacramentally like i know what you're getting at but what exactly are you yeah so so what i mean is by that is that when someone reads, particularly John 6-51 through 58, but John 51, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever, and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. So reading that sacramentally would mean to read this eating of this flesh and this bread as the Lord's Supper, as the Eucharist.

As in the eating of the bread and the drinking of the wine in the Eucharist, in communion in the Lord's Supper, that this is where this is being fulfilled in this context. And that argument for this sacramental reading or this Eucharistic reading, it makes one argument that extends that is that John does not describe the giving of the Lord's Supper at the Passover in the farewell discourse in John 13 to 17. Jesus washes the disciples' feet, whereas in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus says, take this. This is my body, which is broken for you. Take this cup, which is given for you. In this cup is the new covenant, my blood. John doesn't have that language, but he has this language,

as well as the wine. I tend to not think that this is sacramental. I don't think this is Eucharistic. And because I understand this in a largely in the wilderness context here, the people raise the question again, as I said before, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. Right. raised the question again as i said before he gave them bread from heaven to eat right so they're setting this in the context of the manna coming down from heaven and the eating and in that context the people are both hungry and thirsty and so here jesus is providing the the food that provides hunger, that satisfies hunger. And the drinking of his blood there in 653 is also the satisfying of the thirst from the people in the wilderness who wanted water. Wine doesn't satisfy thirst, right? Water does. And the blood here, I think, is is connected to that.

One of the differences there, there's a few differences between what we find in in the passages in Matthew, Mark and Luke, where the little supper is instituted, is that Jesus says, this is my body. Right. Whereas here he uses the word flesh. body, right? Whereas here he uses the word flesh. So it's a different term, and there's no liturgical use of flesh that I know of where that's happening. So in my view, I see this as this broader Old Testament sort of fulfillment in that Jesus is the bread that satisfies. The comparison here is to the Samaritan woman receiving the living water. Right? So she's thirsty. She's getting water.

The physical water will satisfy for a little bit, but the living water satisfies forever. Right? So the people in 6 634 when jesus says for bread the bread of god is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world and they say sir give us this bread always she's she the samaritan woman says this to jesus too in chapter four give us this water always. It's almost the exact same phrase. So that desire or the way in which John Jesus fulfills this desire for thirst, this desire for food transcends for me the Eucharistic meal. Because... Could it include it?

I mean, is it... It could include it. It could include it. But if you think about this line in 651, I'm the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. Well, the argument Jesus has just given though, is that manna does not satisfy, right? The water from the well does not satisfy,

but this bread from heaven does. But is it in the physicality of the eating of the bread? Okay, yeah. Eating the bread of the Eucharist that satisfies forever? Or in whatever the metaphorical sense of eating Jesus is, which I think is paralleled with the way the branches in John 15 dwell in the vine. By eating Jesus, by a branch being in the vine, all nourishment comes from him. And so that's how eternal life exists. It's not by the physicality of these things.

Because Jesus will say in 6.63, it is the spirit who gives life, the flesh is of no avail. The flesh has no value. But he's just said that we need to eat his flesh. So how does that work? That's not his flesh though, right? That's just...

Well, yeah, I know. Yeah, I see. But it's not his flesh though, right? It's just, well, yeah. Well, yeah, I know. Yeah, I see. It's not his flesh. Yeah. But to say that you have to eat the flesh then to have life, but then to say that the flesh doesn't value. What I'm saying is that what Jesus says of eating his flesh, I think he's talking about something beyond the physicality of eating.

Okay. And it's not the physicality of eating okay and it's not the physicality of the eucharistic meal that gives the light but it's the consuming of jesus as as who he is in into the life of the believer that provides life now the eucharistic meal can be representative or symbolic of that as i speak as a good Protestant. Okay, that's, no, that's, I guess that's where I was, yeah, that's the kind of both-and angle I was looking for. But so, in Catholic theology, there would be a much tighter connection between those two. Yeah, yeah. Okay.

I feel, I'm like, how could anybody not read this Eucharistically? And you just showed me, actually, you don't know what you're talking about. Pauling guy. Why don't you stick with Paul is what I hear you saying. Well, I mean, again, there's a long history of both readings going way back in Christian tradition. And so, yeah,

I just find this one more convincing. Let's talk about Son of Man. So this is something that, I mean, you did your entire PhD research on the Son of Man in John's Gospel. I guess let me lead with the way most, I guess the average Christian might be thinking through. We've often, we're told that when Jesus calls himself the Son of God, that's his divinity, son of man, his humanity. Is that paradigm right, wrong, debated? Yeah, maybe let's start there and we can dive deeper into the role of the son of man in John's gospel. Yeah, it's definitely very much debated.

to the role of the son of man in John's gospel? Yeah, it's, it's definitely very much debated. It's probably, this is probably one of the most debated new Testament issues and the meaning of the son of man. Yeah. The meaning of the son of man. What exactly does that mean? And, and from, I would say from the second century, definitely the third century onward, that division of son of man, humanity, son of God, divinity was very much ingrained within, within. Oh, really? Okay. Because I mean,

you think about it, you never see any references to Jesus being worshiped as the son of man, right? It's, it's a, it's a reference that disappears. He's, he's Lord, he's Christ, he's he's lord he's christ he's son of god but no no worship of jesus as son of man which again fits with that sort of idea well if he was understood as a human being then why would we worship him as a human being but no as the as a divine figure right um now that the son of man issue is very complicated. I was grateful to work primarily, at least initially, on it in John's Gospel because John's Gospel is removed from most of the other sorts of questions because the Son of Man question is very much a historical Jesus question. And John's Gospel is not always in this historical Jesus discussions because it's not considered as historical, at least traditionally because it's so different from the other three.

So trying to think about how best to frame this. Do you go into the one question? You go into the other. Yeah. Why don't you get, okay. Give us, yeah.

If say your youngest kid asked you to explain what the... I feel like Michael Scott, you know, to dim it down. Yeah. Yeah. What are some of the big picture issues or debates with regard to the Son of Man? You can stick with John's gospel or as a whole, maybe start as a whole, I guess, probably the best way to answer to it. Yeah, my youngest is 10, so...

Okay, maybe you're a middle child one of the things about about the son of man is that jesus refers to himself he calls himself the son of man but nobody else does oh okay nobody else speaks of jesus oh the son of man you do have two instances where his words are repeated by somebody else but he he says it of himself. But at the same time, nobody seems confused in any of the Gospels by the fact that he's called the Son of Man. They seem to understand what he's talking about. There are, and again, like I said, it sort of disappears from early Christian use. You don't have references to him very often at all in the early church fathers being called son of man.

And if they do, it's in this completely human sort of reference, this divine human son of God, son of man sort of reference. Son of man without the the in front of it seems to be the way you could have referred to a human being. Okay. Like just as a general human being. A son of man is a human being. Son of Adam, yeah.

Just like C.S. Lewis uses in the Chronicles of Narnia. A son of Adam and a daughter of Eve. Those are humanity references. So the question within the Gospels is, though, you have these different uses of it that suggest that it may not mean more than, it may mean more than a human being. And some have argued that it's, but another, that is that son of man is just a way you can refer to yourself. Oh, a son of man will do this, right?

And that's sort of a generic way of talking about what a human would be. What I found interesting is that that view is very common among British scholars. If you think about British English, you have the sort of phrase where, well, one might do this and one might do that, right? Where it's like, I might do this and I might do that. I'm sort of talking about myself, but I'm sort of distancing myself from it using the word one. So they tend to argue that Son of Man can be used in that sort of way. that sort of way. Now, I think that what complicates this is that Daniel, the book of Daniel, in Daniel 7, there's a figure, Daniel has a vision of a figure of one like a son of man,

or one who, a human-like figure in his vision, which is contrasted with beast-like figures. And so, there's one trajectory of understanding that sees what jesus is saying in when he calls himself the son of man as referring to that danielic figure that that son of man that human being figure from daniel's vision the son of man so that's that's another way of understanding it and that would see it within the so-called apocalyptic view that that the way daniel's figure shows up in say the parables of enoch or fourth ezra and second baruch that figure is also understood as an individual divine heavenly sort of figure that's associated with messiah and so in my view that's what j is doing. He's associating himself with that Daniel figure. And that's why you have this, this the at the beginning of it.

The the son of man phrase doesn't make sense with many of these other references. Okay. Now, there's other... Real quick, does Jesus always say the, does he always include the article when he says son of man? Yeah, one exception is John 5. But the article isn't there, but there's a debate about whether or not the grammar of the Greek sentence sort of would not allow for the article to be used. So it's John 5, 27. Our translations usually translate it with the definite article, the.

And he gave him authority to judge because he is the son of man. That seems to be right out of Daniel 7, though. That's a whole judgment scene, right? Oh, yeah. And the father, the ancient of days, is giving authority to the son of man i mean that's that's contextually it seems whether the article's there or not to be thinking of daniel seven oh yeah and then what if you include what happens in 5 28 and 29 after this do not marvel because the hour is coming uh in which everyone in the in the tombs will hear his voice and and they will and those um they will be coming out to uh

and those doing good to a resurrection of life and those who who have practiced evil to a resurrection of judgment and that is paralleling daniel 12 2. yeah so right after so there's this i think there's this clear sort of daniel context here So the lack of the article may actually purposely be drawing to that. So let me sum up real quick, just so, so son of man, a son of man could refer into like human figure, the son of man seems to be a little different, seems to be linking back to Daniel seven, Daniel seven, very clearly the son of man figure in that vision is an exalted divine figure.

I mean, if all we had was Daniel 7, I don't know if we would have full-blown Trinity stuff, but you would have this, the Son of Man who approaches the Ancient of Days and receives a kingdom is some kind of exalted figure. And in other Jewish literature, that's a common way of referring to the future Messiah is he will also be this son of man, exalted kind of figure. And you're saying John is kind of participating in that interpretation of Daniel 7. Is that a good summary of? Yeah, that's a good summary. I would say definitely John is participating in that interpretive understanding. You see in the Greek translation of Daniel 7 and in these later interpretations that that figure becomes much more divine messianic. The original Aramaic may not read exactly like that, but you do see

this coming to the ancient of days the kingdom being given and it's an eternal kingdom is given to this figure now some like john collins has argued that this is michael the archangel that's who the son of man figure is because you do have these references and some of daniel's visions to a human figure that's angelic but i think that doesn't it doesn't apply all the way across and it also has something it has to do with the interpretation at the end of daniel 7 that the saints the the people of the saints the most high and the holy saint called the holy ones are the holy ones angels or the human beings somebody just told me recently that seventh day adventists believe

that michael the archangel was a pre-incarnate revelation of Jesus or something. I don't know if you've heard. But that's interesting. You said – No, I don't know that. Yeah, I don't know that. The original vision contrasts this one that looks like a human being. I think that's where some people get hung up on the fact that it's a vision, right?

And the vision doesn't say this is a human being. It says the figure looked like a human being like when you're trying to describe your dreams yeah yeah i was in this place that looked like this but it wasn't really that place and then you were there but then you weren't and but there was somebody that was kind of like this person so this is like a human being and And then he sees someone like the beasts. And the beasts are described as kings of the earth. So if the beasts are human kings, it would make sense that the human-like figure is someone who's not human, who's a heavenly figure of some kind. Okay.

That seems to be the – I mean, I remember wrestling with you with this at Iberding 15 plus years ago. Um, and it just seemed like a, like it just seemed so clear to me and maybe I'm biased. Maybe, you know, you convinced me so quickly, but, um, yeah, I just say, it just seemed like it'd be a harder argument to make to say, no, this, this son of man and figure and John is not drawing on Daniel 7. Is that Maurice Casey or my former colleague Maurice? Yeah. Casey and others like Bauckham and Larry Hurtado. Oh, you're going against Richard Bauckham?

Yeah, he's just got a new huge volume that just came out last month on the just the second temple jewish use of the of the term and i think even going back to old testament i haven't seen it yet there's supposed to be a second volume that's coming out on the new testament but yet he argues that it's the phrase son of man he's like someone like me so when jesus uses the phrase, he's talking about, I'm talking about someone like me, but he's sort of talking about himself, but it's not necessarily then a divine reference. And I, this is where I've written somewhere in this edited volume on the, the son of man debate in the introduction. I talk about how one of the challenges with this phrase

is that we don't exactly know what it meant. We don't know how it would be used, right? So, Howard Marshall has this example talking about the son of man where he says, you know, a king, a king sits on the throne, right? That makes sense. The context makes sense to us, right? the throne, right? That makes sense. The context makes sense to us, right? But if the king plays golf, right? Golf is not associated with kingship necessarily. But in the case of this king, it is. So if we don't know what the word means, is authority, is judgment, are they part of what it means to be son of man or is it like as bockham and casey would say it's associated with jesus claiming himself as a human being and he himself is a human being he's the one who has authority and so forth but not in some sort of role or title as son of man man this gets this gets technical this is so for people that aren't familiar with like

phd type oh yeah dissertations this is like well what are we talking about it's more complicated too when you bring in aramaic because that's where that's actually where casey and bachum and a lot of the argument is is about what is that uh and yeah gaze of her mesh and others what does that aramaic phrase bar nash really mean and and was it translated correctly as the son of man so to me it just makes more sense that daniel is a connection i mean even mark mark's gospel quotes daniel 7 right two locations with the Son of Man phrase. So in the synoptics, is it less debated

whether Son of Man is connected to Daniel 7, or is it still the same debate? It's still the same debate. It's still the same debate. John, again, is sort of outside of this conversation. John's question is more, is it what's the relationship with the Son of God or Jesus as the Son? What's the relationship with glory and the crucifixion? That's a bit more than the Johannine conversation is.

Well, we can wrap things up, Ben. There's a lot more to talk about can you give us a few of your top uh your favorite commentaries on on John's gospel commentaries and or I'm thinking like if somebody wants to study John further uh maybe a pastor wants to preach through John like what are some of your top I guess commentaries but also maybe book recommendations that aren't super technical yeah this is where I always remember i hope you remember titles um i still i still find raymond brown's two-volume anchor bible commentary very helpful uh it is probably a little bit more detailed than some people need and he is uh pretty much given to the

like a community hypothesis sort of setup but his exegetical notes I find very helpful and I find myself agreeing with them quite often a newer commentary is Mary on my Thompson's commentary which is a Westminster John Knox who's the interpretation series really accessible commentary really useful uh the more practical too is uh gary burge in the ibp series the application series that's a that's another commentary that might be a bit more accessible for um okay for pastors and and others you didn't mention d.a carsons are you not a carson fan on john he doesn't listen to podcasts, so he can be honest. My experience with the Carson commentary is it's very in-depth.

It gives a lot of information, but there aren't very many footnotes. So it's harder to trace where the information is coming from. So as someone as a scholar, I want to know where the information or who he's agreeing with and where it's coming from so as a someone as a scholar i i want to know where the information or who he's agreeing with and where it's coming from and and it was it's harder to trace that and oftentimes he's very similar to to there from what i remember there's a number of places where he's similar to to brown on a number on a number of issues and so whatever reason, I think it was during my doctoral thesis, I sort of stopped referring to it as often. And then I continued that and I sort of forgot, oh yeah, there's the Carson commentary. That's more of the reason. Yeah, but I used Thompson's

Marianne's commentary in my class last time I taught John. My students appreciated it. And yeah, so your latest book is John Among the Apocalypses. I mean, this is an academic book, right? But what's the 32nd synopsis of that book? The synopsis is I compare the Gospel of John to Jewish apocalypses. So texts like the Book of the Watchers or the Parables of Enoch and 2nd Baruch and texts like that and argue that John has a similarity with those sorts of genre, that sort of literature. But at the same time, I pull back and say,

but it's not actually an apocalypse. It's a gospel. But I get into some literary conversations and argue that John is a gospel, but it's written in what's called an apocalyptic mode. So one of the examples that's always given in these literary conversations is that Jane Austen's book, Emma, is a comic novel. austin's book emma is a comic novel so john's gospel argues an apocalyptic gospel in the sense that it's written as a revelatory gospel in the way that it's framed and so forth so and then the last the last chapter in the book i talked about uh john's relationship with revelation because i as i kept talking to people and saying oh i'm arguing john's apocalyptic gospel and their first question was well what, what about Revelation? What about Revelation? Like, oh, I guess I'm going to have to deal with it.

So that's what I'm, yeah, again, that came out in 2020. I'm working on a guide to Second Temple Judaism right now for students. Oh, right on. Yeah. Yeah. Is that with Continuum or what's the, they do? No, it's with Baker. Oh, cool. Baker. Yeah. Is that with Continuum or what's the... No, it's with Baker. Oh, cool.

Baker. Great. Yeah. So I'm intending it to be short. I want it to be accessible, but then be able to direct people to other sources if they want to go deeper on a certain topic. That was a book I was wanting to write out of my PhD and then just fell into other things. And now I don't know anything about Second Temple Judaism anymore.

Let's just say my knowledge is rusty. Yeah, and the field keeps changing. Does it? Because there are so many scholars now who that's their primary area. Yeah. So books and articles and things just keep coming out on the topic. They're writing commentaries on these texts now in various series. So it becomes more and more of something that people need to be introduced to

because the New Testament is part of that world. It is part of Second Temple Judaism. And some Second Temple Jewish scholars have come to argue that the New Testament is a Jewish text, since it's about a Jewish Messiah written largely by Jews, that it needs to be thought about in that way. And so I think that the time period and the literature of the time period become very important for us for understanding biblical texts. become very important for us for understanding biblical texts. So rather than reading the Second Temple Jewish literature as a background

of the New Testament, read the New Testament as part of this group of Jewish texts, you know, wrestling with. Exactly. Well, Ben, thanks so much for being on Theology in a Raw. I enjoyed this. I hope people were able to hang with some of the scholarly

things we've done. Sorry about that. No, not at all. No, no. I am constantly blown away at how widely read a good chunk of my audience is. I mean, they, yeah. So, yeah, I think some might have struggled, but I think a lot appreciated the depth. So, appreciate you, bro. And are you going to be in San Antonio this fall?

I will be yeah all right that's the plan i will try to be john john and john within judaism session on uh monday monday afternoon all right on around still on monday awesome all right well thanks for being on the show bro all right yeah it's great to be here. Thanks so much. This show is part of the Converge Podcast Network.