Excerpt from
God Dwells with Us
Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel
by Mary L. Coloe, P.B.V.M.
© The Order of St. Benedict, Inc., Collegeville, Minnesota. All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced by any means, without the written permission of The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota 56321.
Contents
Introduction
The Prologue
God's Dwelling Place in Israel
The Temple of His Body: John 2: 13-25
The Supplanter: John 4: 1-45
The Tabernacling Presence of God: John 7:1-8:59
The Consecrated One: John 10:22-42
My Father's House: John 14:1-31
Raising the New Temple: John 18:1-19:42
The Dwelling Place of God
Bibliography
Index
Introduction
In the year 70 c.e. the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Two identifiable groups who had their origins in Judaism survived the devastation of Titus' army. One group, under the leadership of the Pharisees, in particular R. Johannan ben Zakkai, set about the task of a major reinterpretation of Jewish traditions and a redefinition of its identity and cultic practices. A second group of Jews, influenced by Jesus' teaching and under the guidance of God's Spirit, had come to believe that God's Messiah had been sent in the person of Jesus of Nazareth (John 1:41; 11:27; 20:31). This second group became known as Christians (Acts 11:26). For both groups the destruction of Jerusalem and the loss of the Temple marked a major turning point. At the same time as the Pharisees were engaged in the critical task of self-definition, Christian communities were also seeking to understand the revelation of God in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Both groups therefore were engaged simultaneously in a major religious struggle for self-identity. In this climate the two groups, who had their origins in the one story of Israel, took separate paths.
For the people of Israel, the Jerusalem Temple had been the focal point of their faith that God dwelt in their midst, enabling them to be a holy people through the Temple's ongoing sacrificial cult. The rabbis sought a theological meaning for its destruction and alternative ways of living lives acceptable to Yhwh. The rabbis found such an alternative in the Torah. The transition from sacrifice to Torah is illustrated in this later rabbinic tale.
Once, as Rabban Yohanan be Zakkai was coming forth from Jerusalem, Rabbi Joshua followed him and beheld the Temple in ruins. "Woe unto us," Rabbi Joshua cried, "that this, the place where the iniquities of Israel were atoned for, is laid waste!" "My son," Rabban Yohanan said to him, "be not grieved. We have another atonement as effective as this. And what is it? It is acts of loving kindness, as it is said, For I desire mercy and not sacrifice" (Hos 6:6) (Avot de Rabbi Natan, ch. 6). Members of a Christian community found themselves in conflict with post-70 Judaism and sought answers for their situation. They had been proclaiming Jesus as the Messiah for many years, even while the Jewish members of the community continued to join in synagogue prayers and Temple worship. When they found they were no longer accepted within the Synagogue, when those who professed Jesus as the Christ were being rejected from Judaism (John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2), they faced a painful question—how could they maintain their Jewish traditions, especially their rich cultic traditions, and maintain their new faith in Jesus?
The Fourth Gospel is the written record of one Christian community's response to this question. How could this community tell the story of Jesus in a way that gave full value to Israel's historical and cultic traditions? When the rabbis were proclaiming that they had the Torah which could replace the Temple as a means of sanctification of the people, so that God could still dwell with them, what could a small, recently formed, Christian community offer to counter the Mosaic Torah? Even if the community turned to Jesus as the one who fulfilled Israel's hopes, what could such faith mean so many years after the experience of his historical ministry? When their Jewish neighbors gathered to pray and celebrate the great festivals of their faith and history, what did the Johannine Jewish-Christian group have to celebrate? Where could they gather for prayer, with the Temple gone and the local synagogues no longer tolerating unorthodox views?
In this book I examine the creative theological insight that drew on the great cultic traditions and meaning of Israel's Temple to answer such questions by presenting Jesus as the Temple. Through a detailed analysis of relevant passages from the Fourth Gospel, I will show that the Temple is not just one symbol among many, used by the community to express who Jesus is for them; for the Johannine community the Temple is the major symbol that functions in two ways:
i. The Temple, as the dwelling place of God, points to the identity and role of Jesus.
ii. The imagery of the Temple is transferred from Jesus to the Christian community, indicating its identity and role.
In other words, I propose to show that the Temple functions in the narrative as the major christological symbol that gradually shifts its symbolic meaning from the person of Jesus to the Johannine community in the post-resurrection era. In the time of Jesus' ministry, he is the focus of the cultic imagery of Temple and Tabernacle. Within the Jewish feasts of Passover, Tabernacles, and Dedication, Jesus appropriates to himself the cultic symbols—bread (6:35, 48, 51), water (7:37-39), light (8:12), sacred place (10:36). Within the narrative there are indications that what is said of Jesus, will, in a future time, apply to the community of believers (4:23; 7:38, 39; 14:2). These proleptic comments are associated with the future gift of the Spirit.
The Temple, therefore, is not a peripheral image. It is used consistently throughout the text and moves beyond the life of Jesus into the life of the community, giving the community a clear sense of identity and a way of sustaining faith in the absence of Jesus. Furthermore, I will show that the actual plot of this Gospel is announced as the destruction and raising of a Temple (2:19) and only when this is achieved does Jesus announce, "It is finished" (19:30).
The Temple in Contemporary Scholarship
While some scholars have studied the significance of the Temple in the New Testament, and even devoted entire books to particular Johannine passages, none to date have traced the Temple symbolism across the Gospel or shown how the actual narrative presents the destruction and raising of the Temple prophesied in John 2:21. While the commentaries discuss Jesus' words about destroying and raising the Temple (2:19), along with the narrator's explanation that he spoke of his body (2:21), this verse has not been given due weight in interpreting other Temple passages. Its significance for the rest of the Gospel narrative has not been explored, nor has there been an analysis of what is meant by destroying and raising the Temple within the Johannine narrative. How does the narrative show this destruction and rebuilding? This is the task I set myself. I will explore what the Temple means as a symbol of Jesus' identity and then look at the way the Temple symbolism is transferred from the person of Jesus to the Christian community. I will show first that the Temple is a christological symbol and second that it becomes a symbol of the Christian community for this particular group of believers.
Symbol
In speaking of the Temple as a symbol, it is important to clarify some of the terms used. Symbol (Suvmbolon)—as the word itself suggests—is the throwing together, the joining together of two otherwise dissimilar realities. The Fourth Gospel displays a self-conscious use of symbolism and its religious function to bring together the divine reality, the world "above," with the human reality, the world "below." At a literal level these two worlds are incongruous and mutually exclusive. Symbolism allows the incongruity to be displaced as the human mind is stretched to transcend the literal meaning of the words and glimpse a further level of possible meanings. The literal meaning is nonsense forcing the hearer/reader to look for a "surplus of meaning." So Nicodemus is asked to go beyond the literal meaning of "birth" to a deeper meaning (3:3-5); the Samaritan Woman is required to understand a further level of meaning in the phrase "living water" (4:11). Basic to religious symbolism is a belief that creation has come from God, and therefore things of the created world have the potential to reveal God. "What has been created can become a symbolic bearer of the revelation." The Johannine Gospel makes this explicit with the statement, "the Word became flesh" (1:14); that which is of the Divinity becomes human.
A metaphor names two apparently dissimilar realities. According to Ricoeur, a good metaphor "implies an intuitive perception of the similarity ... in dissimilars." In the example "I am the vine," two things are linked—"I" and "vine." The reader is challenged to find the points of connection. In what way is Jesus like a vine, or like bread, or light? In the language of semantics the "I" is the "tenor" and the "vine" is the "vehicle." When the narrator makes the comment, "But he spoke of the temple of his body" (2:21), this is a metaphor, where "Temple" is the vehicle, and "body" is the tenor. Two different types of realities are brought together, a building and a human person. At a literal level the words are nonsense. The readers, if they are to enter into the narrative world, are required to puzzle out how the notion of "Templeness" could relate to the body of Jesus, and conversely, what is it of Jesus that can be called "Temple."
A symbol, as distinct from a metaphor, only presents the vehicle and the reader is required to supply the tenor. If the readers do not recognize that a symbol is being given, they are left with only a literal level. So Jesus accuses the crowd of seeking him because "you ate your fill of the loaves" (6:26). The deeper symbolism of the feeding, the links with Moses and the Passover, they have missed. The failure to recognize a symbol can also lead to misunderstandings, such as those displayed by characters in the Gospel, Nicodemus, (ch. 3) and the Samaritan Woman (ch. 4). Symbols can be missed, and they can be misunderstood. "The potential symbols can also fail to become vehicles of the revelation."
In my reading of the Fourth Gospel, the Temple functions as a symbol. In the Prologue, and in chapter 2, the reader is given two metaphors that identify Jesus in terms of Israel's cultic system. Jesus is the tabernacling presence of the divine Word (1:14). Jesus is the Temple (2:21). In these metaphors the reader has both the tenor (flesh, body of Jesus) and the vehicle (Tabernacle, Temple). The symbolism is explicit even if the full meaning of the symbol remains unclear. Having given the Temple the quality of a symbol whose meaning transcends a literal building, the discerning reader will carry this transcending impetus into the rest of the reading experience. The Temple will not be just a neutral setting, within which Jesus and other characters interact. The Gospel has created a narrative world where the Temple and Jesus are intrinsically linked. The Temple, in one sense, is like a voiceless character or spectator in the narrative whose presence and significance must never be taken for granted. It looms large on the Johannine stage. My aim is to analyze how the Temple functions within the symbolic world created by the narrative. Just as characters can have a particular function within a plot, so also, I contend, does the Temple.
The historical and religious context may explain why the Temple captured the imagination of this community as a means of expressing who Jesus was, and what it, the community, is. The stark fact that the Temple no longer existed, except in memory, meant that Judaism was transferring the meaning of the Temple's destruction and sacrificial imagery into daily living. The Johannine community, in the midst of a Torah-centered Jewish community, also needed to reinterpret the meaning of the Temple's destruction. In this historical situation, the Johannine community transferred the meaning of the Temple to the person of Jesus. But this could be only a partial solution. For if the image of the Temple applied only to Jesus, then the Johannine community would be in exactly the same situation as Israel without their Temple, for Jesus is now absent. Whatever one makes of his post-Easter presence, the physical body of Jesus is absent. The creativity of the community, or perhaps its leader, is shown in the way it transfers the symbol of the Temple from the body of Jesus to the community of believers. As the meaning of the Temple lives on in rabbinic Judaism through Torah, the meaning of the Temple lives on within the Christian community in the ongoing presence of Jesus in the lives of the believers through the power of the Spirit-Paraclete (14:17, 26; 16:14).
A second reason why the Temple may have been chosen as such a major symbol is because of cultic considerations. It was precisely within the cult that the Johannine community was feeling the pain of its separation from Judaism, in no longer having access to the praying community of Israel in the synagogue. Since worship was such a critical point of division, the community needed a means of reinterpreting Israel's cult so that the Jewish members of the Johannine community, in their radical decision to accept Jesus, would not feel they were entirely cut off from their traditional roots.
Methodology
To describe the methodology I have used, Sandra Schneiders' comment is appropriate, "Rather than starting with a method or even an established methodology ... the interpreter starts with the questions that he or she wants to answer." My initial questions could be stated as: in what way does the Temple, as it is presented in the Fourth Gospel, reveal the identity and mission of Jesus? in the absence of the historical Jesus of Nazareth, what is the significance of the Temple for the Christian community?
My approach is text focused. The text creates a particular narrative world, employs language and symbols, depicts characters and events in an attempt to engage a reader. But the text is not a closed system. The Gospel emerged within a particular historical, religious, and cultural milieu and is self-consciously in dialogue with readers who are part of that milieu. The narrative, through the world it creates, has an explicit aim to bring a reader to faith (19: 35; 20:31). There is a dialogue between the text and the historical/social/religious world of the first century. My approach attempts to take seriously both parties in the dialogue and to hear their voices resonating through the Gospel. With these questions as my starting point and a dialogical approach the investigation used the following methods: For each chosen pericope I established a structure that gave a literary and logical coherence to the entire passage. I am unable to accept "displacement" theories, such as those proposed by Bultmann, as an explanation of the tensions which appear in the Johannine narrative.
I investigated the religious and cultural background to:
—any scriptural allusions, both explicit and implicit
—any relevant first-century customs
—any liturgical practices indicated by the text.
This involved a study of various Jewish texts, primarily the M. T., the LXX, the Targums, with some reference to the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and rabbinic writings. I sought any inter-textual allusions where the Gospel had pre-established a particular significance for a word or phrase. By such inter-text the evangelist creates his own system of meaning that may confirm or critique Jewish traditions.
I maintained a distinction between the characters within the narrative and the readers of the narrative. Characters in the narrative are limited in what they know. They have access only to specific pieces of information and react to Jesus and each other on the basis of this. Readers of the narrative have far greater information. They have access to the entire Gospel as it has so far unfolded. In addition to the words and actions of all the characters, they have the information given in the Prologue, the narrative asides (e.g., 1:38; 2:21; 4:2; 3:24; 7:50) and the enlightened point of view of the post-Easter author (e.g., 2:22; 12:33). Of particular importance in this approach is the possible first-time or implied reader who has a general knowledge of the Christian story but is gradually educated, through the reading process, in the particular Johannine meaning of this Christian story. These methods, partly literary critical, partly historical critical, are a means of entering the world or system of meaning created by the text. How is the Temple incorporated into the world as it is constituted by a first century author and theologian for a first century audience? What meaning is the Temple given in a text which took its final form some twenty to thirty years after Jerusalem's destruction? By examining the text, the context, and inter-text, I hope to provide some answers to these questions.
Presuppositions
i. The Text
I accept the text as a unified whole, allowing for the probable stages of a first writing and then a later writing or writings, by the same author. Along with most scholars I accept that chapter 21 is from a later editor, who may have also either rearranged or made additions to the Last Discourse. In my reading, the Gospel displays a consistency of language, emphases, symbols, theological purpose, and design that leads me to presume its author is a first-century writer of great theological insight, gifted also with artistic and literary skill. I presume therefore, that the text as we have it made good sense to this author for his particular purposes and his community. If I, as twenty-first century reader, cannot see the sense of the Gospel's design, or language, or symbolic system, it is not doing justice to the text to presume a multiplicity of non-authorial sources, or a later reshuffling and addition of sections, or to suppose that the bulk of the text is the work of a later "clumsy" hand.
In taking this approach I draw upon traditional historical-critical methodologies in combination with more recent narrative approaches. By taking this synthetic approach, I hope to allow the text to speak for itself, and through the text, to allow a first-century author to disclose his intentions.
ii. The Locale
The Gospel is written in a situation of conflict. The consistent conflict Jesus experiences with some of the Jewish leaders, the strong rhetoric that emerges in these conflicts, the three instances of the term ajposunavgwgo" (John 9:22; 12:42; 16:2), suggests a community in conflict with at least the local Synagogue, if not the wider post-70 Jewish community. The importance of the synagogue in comprehending the milieu of the Gospel is well argued by Craig Evans. He cites as evidence for the Synagogue background the following five points each of which he then develops:
1) There is expression given to certain rabbinic terms and methods;
2) There are important parallels with specific targumic traditions and rabbinic midrashim;
3) Explicit reference is made to the expulsion of Christians from the synagogue;
4) The use of the Old Testament appears to reflect an apologetic designed to present Jesus as Israel's Messiah and to deflect skepticism and criticism arising from the synagogue;
5) There are also important parallels with Qumran which suggest that portions of the Johannine tradition had their origin in Palestine.
Outline of the Argument
I begin by examining the Prologue and situating the issue of God's Dwelling within the historical context of Jewish and Christian conflict in the years after the destruction of the Temple. The question for rabbinic Judaism, and the nascent Christian community is—Where is God, and where is God's revelation accessible? The Prologue provides the readers of this Gospel with the first clue of the unique symbolic system that will permeate the text of the narrative; Jesus is introduced in cultic terms as the tabernacling presence of God's glory now visible within the human story (1:14).
The following chapter examines the various traditions that may lie behind the choice of the word ejskhvvnwsen, to describe the flesh-taking of the Divine logos (1:14). This chapter traces the development of Israel's cultic traditions from the Tabernacle to the Solomonic Temple, and the various reactions to Israel's cult. This long and detailed chapter is crucial for a full appreciation of all that is involved in the brief statement of 1:14. Through the analysis of Israel's cultic traditions I seek to establish what was Israel's sense of God's dwelling in their midst, how this was expressed in the institution of the Temple, and how this expression changed due to changing historical and religious circumstances. I examine the attempts made in the prophetic, Deuteronomic, wisdom and apocalyptic traditions (including Qumran) to reform or "spiritualize" the cult. In this survey of Israel's history, I discuss some of the terms found in the Targums (armym Memra, hnykv Shekinah and rqy Yichra) that may provide a liturgical insight into Jewish worship contemporary with the Johannine community. This chapter provides evidence that traditions of God's presence in Israel were not static but underwent frequent reinterpretations in response to different historical needs and religious sensitivities.
The fourth chapter begins the formal exegesis of Johannine texts explicitly concerned with issues of Temple worship. Before examining the Johannine approach to the Temple, I briefly describe the various presentations of the Temple within the Synoptic Gospels. The Fourth Gospel in its use of Temple imagery is taking a motif already present within the Christian tradition but developing this motif into a christological symbol of Jesus' identity and mission. The so-called "Cleansing of the Temple" provides a major hermeneutical key to understanding the symbolism of the Temple in later passages, "But he spoke of the temple of his body" (2:21). I argue that this scene goes far beyond a "Cleansing" of Israel's cultic practices; rather, Jesus' actions and words declare the Jerusalem Temple as void. Jesus is the new Temple, the new dwelling place of God in human history.
The dialogue with the Samaritan Woman (4:1-26) raises the issue of the place and manner of worship. While the Temple is not named explicitly, the discussion of a sacred topos (4:21), of future worship in spirit and truth (4:23) and Jesus' relationship to the Samaritan traditions is highly relevant to this analysis.
In chapters 6 and 7 two Jewish festivals are examined, Tabernacles (7:1-10:21) and Dedication (10:22-40). An important movement begins in the feast of Tabernacles when there is a proleptic interruption of the narrative to speak of a future gift of the Spirit (7:37-39). While this is not the first reference to the Spirit (cf. 3:5, 6, 8, 34), this prolepsis begins the transferal of the Temple symbolism from the person of Jesus to the future community of believers. The Feast of Dedication not only concludes the series of "the feasts of the Jews" (chs. 5 to 10) but also brings to a climax Jesus' revelation of his intimate identity with the Father (10:30, 38). Jesus is the consecrated dwelling place of God (10:36).
In chapter 8 I examine the image of "My Father's House" (14:2). In this examination I show how the image of Temple-as-building undergoes a shift in meaning to Temple-as-community. This shift in meaning is part of the process of transferring the symbolism of the Temple, as applied to Jesus during his ministry, to a future post-resurrection time when it will apply to the believers.
The final chapter examining the Johannine text involves a study of "the Hour" (John 18–19). This chapter brings many of the preceding arguments to their conclusion. I place particular emphasis on Jesus' role as the builder of the new Temple and what this building process involves. I show how the Johannine narrative depicts the destruction and raising of the Temple. The chapter leads into a summary and conclusion.
The Rationale for Scenes Chosen
I have chosen those pericopes where I believe there is a relationship between the words of Jesus and the physical setting: the Temple Act and Logion (2:13-25) within the Jerusalem Temple; the discussion of worship situated at Jacob's well near the site of the ruins of the Samaritan Temple (4:1-45); Jesus' claims to be water, light and ejgwv eijmi set within the Temple during the rituals of Tabernacles (7:1–8:59); Jesus' self-description as the "Consecrated-one" situated in the Temple during the Feast of Dedication (10:22-42); Jesus' words which reinterpret the meaning of the Temple in terms of a community (14:1-31), set within his farewell discourse surrounded by his disciples; Jesus' words on the cross as the Temple is destroyed and rebuilt (18:1–19:42). These scenes allow for an interplay between the words used and the physical setting, adding thereby a dramatic emphasis to the meaning of the words.
The dramatic emphasis serves a theological purpose. The Fourth Gospel asserts that the divine glory is now accessible to human sensory experience in the flesh of Jesus (cf. 1:14). Physical reality is the means by which God can be revealed. Geography, time and place create both a narrative world in which events take place, and a symbolic world where God's Presence and purpose are revealed:
Les images concrètes et les scènes se succèdent dans une sorte de <
The scenes chosen show the narrative skill and theological insight of the author who designs his scenes to convey his christological perspective that Jesus, and later the community, displace the Temple as the locus of the divine dwelling.
In many ways the approach taken in these pages has grown out of my own ongoing spiritual journey that has come to know an indwelling God. Christians of many centuries have found in the Fourth Gospel words that speak to their experience of God's closeness. Who has not been moved by the images in chapter 15?—"Abide in me, and I in you"(15:4); "I am the vine, you are the branches"(15:5). Can the words of this Gospel still speak to men and women of the twenty-first century who seek intimacy with God "without seeing" the Jesus of history. Are these images just words, or do they name a reality that Christians of all ages can experience? Can we still see in our world a God who dwells with us? These types of questions and an intuitive "yes" born of hope and experience led me into the task of a disciplined academic examination of texts that have been important over the centuries for Christian spirituality.