The Johannine Prologue and Jewish Didactic Hymn Traditions: A New Case for Reading the Prologue As a Hymn. - Journal of Biblical Literature

The Johannine Prologue and Jewish Didactic Hymn Traditions: A New Case for Reading the Prologue As a Hymn.

By Journal of Biblical Literature

  • Release Date: 2009-12-22
  • Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines

Description

The problem of identifying and classifying early Christian hymns within the NT has not gone away, and no identifiable consensus has emerged with regard to the nature, structure, and purpose of any single purported NT hymn. The Johannine prologue is a case in point. Though many scholars recognize the prologue as something of an early Christian hymn, others suggest that the whole enterprise of identifying early Christian hymns is ill-advised. The sharp differences of opinion on the issue of early Christian hymns indicate that this continues to be an important issue; it is particularly important in that it affects the way scholars interpret the rich and complex thought of John 1:1-18. In this essay I wish to carve out some conceptual space for a position between those who identify hymns in the NT and those who dismiss that impulse as methodologically unsound. I will argue that we have in John's prologue an instance of a particular kind of hymnody--didactic hymnody--an instructional strategy with roots in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Jewish writings, but that also resonates with instructional approaches of the Greco-Roman world. To make this case I first define the concept of didactic hymnody as it existed in the centuries before the Gospel of John. Second, I analyze the prologue as a didactic hymn showing that this perspective provides a satisfying reading of the prologue on a number of levels as it takes account of primary features of the prologue. Since this reading leads to the conclusion that the John the Baptist materials are interpolations, I devote a section to addressing this problem. Next, I review objections to the claim that the Johannine prologue is a hymn, responding in detail to arguments made by Daniel Boyarin. (1) Finally, I contrast Boyarin's approach with my own and show that, while Boyarin identifies some serious problems with the traditional hymn view, he also sets aside some important clues to the true nature of the prologue as a didactic hymn.

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