Abstract
Studies of the sapiential traditions in the Fourth Gospel remain unfortunately insulated from recent research into the fluid relationship between wisdom and apocalypticism in early Judaism. The well-known connection made between wisdom and Torah in Sirach and Baruch leads many scholars to mischaracterize John’s perspective on Law as incongruous with Jewish sapientialism. However, appropriate consideration of the interconnection between wisdom and apocalypticism demonstrates the error of this characterization. This article compares the relationship between wisdom and Torah in 4QInstruction, the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Gospel of John. Both Wisdom and 4QInstruction offer instructive comparanda for the Fourth Gospel’s presentation of wisdom. The article proceeds in essentially two parts. First, I consider the role of the law in 4QInstruction and the Wisdom of Solomon, arguing that each of these very different texts subordinates the written law to a revealed heavenly wisdom. Then, in critical dialogue with the work of the late John Ashton, I reexamine the relationship between divine revelation and Torah in John and suggest that the Fourth Gospel is most fruitfully read as another example of the fluid boundaries between wisdom and apocalypticism in early Judaism.
In 2006, George Nickelsburg chided New Testament scholars for their ‘attraction-avoidance relationship with the modern study of early Judaism’, critiquing especially their willingness to ‘blissfully ignore’ recent developments in the study of apocalypticism (2006: 17-18). For Nickelsburg, one of the most critical of these developments is the recognition that ‘Jewish wisdom and apocalypticism cannot be cleanly separated from one another’ (2006: 19). 1 Indeed, it is now commonly acknowledged (within the field of Jewish studies) that many texts of the Second Temple period balance more sapiential instruction with cosmologies and epistemologies that are far more characteristic of apocalyptic literature. Some have characterized this overlap as a ‘straddling of genres’ (Burkes 2002: 22). Others prefer to see it as evidence that heuristic constructs like ‘wisdom literature’ and ‘apocalypticism’ are not nearly as elucidating as some give them credit for (Nickelsburg 2006: 17-38; Goff 2014: 60-62; cf. Samely, Alexander, Bernasconi and Hayward 2013: 296).
Much admirable progress has since been made by New Testament scholars to redress Nickelsburg’s concerns. 2 However, studies of the sapiential traditions in the Gospel of John remain unfortunately insulated from these developments. 3 Since Raymond Brown published his important observations on the subject in his commentary, many scholars have investigated the Fourth Evangelist’s appropriation of sapiential motifs (Ashton 1986; Ringe 1999; Willett 1992; Scott 1992; Bennema 2002; Charlesworth 2003; Glicksman 2012; Loader 2018). Such studies represent mostly expansions of Brown’s comments, the details of which need not be rehearsed in detail here. 4 Suffice it to say, despite a few dissenting voices, it is now commonly recognized that at least one layer to the Fourth Gospel’s Christology is the presentation of Jesus as incarnate wisdom (Bennema 2002: 19; Loader 2018: 329).
For many, the connection between Jesus and wisdom in the Fourth Gospel raises an interpretive problem: if Jesus is wisdom incarnate, what of the traditional association between wisdom and Torah? As is well known, the famous wisdom hymns of Sirach and Baruch equate wisdom with Israel’s law.
5
These declarations have greatly influenced scholarly characterizations of the relationship between John’s sapientialism and other Jewish wisdom literature. Indeed, in many important studies of the use of wisdom motifs in John, a rather problematic assertion (made either explicitly or implicitly) surfaces: that the Fourth Gospel’s separation of wisdom from Torah necessarily entails a degree of separation from Judaism itself. Consider the following statements: A Jewish John? Not really, because John’s Judaism which displaced Torah and set loyalty to Jesus at its centre could not be owned by most Jews of his time. (Loader 2018: 330)
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The traditional Jewish way of attaining wisdom was by observing nature and reading Torah … However, the subtle revelation in the Fourth Gospel that Jesus goes beyond the Jewish conception of Sophia changes this practice. (Glicksman 2012: 100) Playing on the link between Torah and Wisdom, the Fourth Gospel presents the Logos of its prologue as Torah. Given the centrality of Torah, charges that a sect undermined Torah would be serious in Jewish circles, and such charges were probably leveled against Christians … John’s response is consequently pointed: Jesus himself embodies the Torah. (Keener 2003: 360)
Each of these statements operates on the same basic assumption: to abrogate the equation of Torah and wisdom would run the risk of cutting ties with Judaism altogether. Glicksman and Loader take that abrogation to be patently obvious in the prologue. Keener thinks the opposite: to avoid persecution from other Jews, John not only equates Jesus with Logos, but Logos with Torah. 7 In other words, the well-known connection made between Wisdom and Torah in Sirach and Baruch leads many scholars to characterize John’s perspective on the Law as incongruous with Jewish sapientialism. But these judgments rely on outdated characterizations of wisdom literature.
Appropriate consideration of the interconnection between wisdom and apocalypticism is sorely needed if we are to correct these mischaracterizations of both John and Judaism. This article compares the relationship between wisdom and Torah in 4QInstruction, the Wisdom of Solomon and the Gospel of John. Both Wisdom and 4QInstruction offer instructive analogues to the Fourth Gospel’s use of sapiential imagery. The article proceeds in essentially two parts. First, I consider the role of the law in 4QInstruction and the Wisdom of Solomon, arguing that each of these very different texts subordinates the written law to a revealed heavenly wisdom. 8 Then, in critical dialogue with the work of the late John Ashton, I reexamine the relationship between divine revelation and Torah in John, and suggest that the Fourth Gospel is most fruitfully read as another example of the fluid boundaries between wisdom and apocalypticism in early Judaism. 9
Wisdom and Torah in 4QInstruction
Of the several sapiential documents discovered at Qumran, the lengthiest and arguably most significant to the Qumran community is the text that has come to be known as 4QInstruction, previously known as Qumran Sapiential Work A. 10 A diverse compilation of paraenetic exhortation, halakhic reflections and apocalyptic warnings, 4QInstruction is held together by a persistent reference to something called the רז נהיה, or ‘the mystery to come’. What exactly the mystery is has been the subject of some debate, as has the translation of this peculiar Hebrew phrase. רז is a Persian loan word meaning ‘mystery’, and נהיה is a Niphal participle of היה. The Niphal usually leads translators to render the phrase with a future orientation: the coming mystery, or the mystery to be. 11 However רז נהיה is translated, common to most interpretations is the understanding of the mystery as an important form of instruction or revelation. ‘Day and night meditate on the mystery to come. Inquire constantly. Then you will know truth and iniquity, wisdom and folly’, says the instructor to his student (4Q417 2 i 6-9). 12
However, there remains controversy over precisely what kind of revelation is being invoked in the author’s references to the רז נהיה. 13 That the mystery very often appears in instructional and pedagogical contexts (e.g., 4Q417 2 i 6-9; 4Q416 2 iii 14) has led some scholars to suggest that it refers to a written body of authoritative teaching, either the Torah (Sanders 2001) or an extrabiblical compendium of sectarian teaching (Harrington 1996a, 1996b, 1997). This explanation of the mystery makes good sense of the text’s frequent injunctions to meditate on (הגה) or to investigate (דרשׁ) the רז נהיה, both important verbs used of the Torah in other contexts. 14
But the mystery is also referenced in other contexts that seem much less likely to refer to a written document. Elsewhere, it is associated with cosmic judgment, creation and, significantly for our purposes, God’s wisdom: ‘By means of the mystery to come he has laid out [the world’s] foundation and its works … with all wisdom and all cleverness he has fashioned it’ (4Q417 2 I 8-9). 15 Here, the נהיה רז is set in parallel with wisdom (חכמה) in a context evocative of some of the more traditional depictions of חכמה, such as Prov. 3:19: ‘Yahweh established the earth by wisdom, he set up the earth by understanding’. 16 The Community Rule contains another important reference to the mystery that does not seem to refer to a physical text: ‘For from the source of his knowledge [God] has disclosed his light, and my eyes have seen his wonders; the light of my heart has seen the mystery to come’ (1QS 11 3-4). Here, the רז נהיה is perceived by the speaker as God’s light, another image that is highly consonant with other portrayals of wisdom: “She is the reflection of eternal light, the spotless mirror of God’s action, the image of his goodness.” (Wis. 7.26).
These and several other references to the mystery significantly problematize the theory that the רז נהיה refers to a written text. Whatever else רז נהיה signifies, it seems to at least include the more familiar Jewish concept of wisdom. Thus, Elgvin concludes that ‘the mystery to come should be understood against the background of the biblical and early Jewish concept of divine wisdom’ (Elgvin 1998: 136).
If the רז נהיה was not a written text, it is almost certainly not an elliptical way of referencing the Torah. What then is the relationship between this apparently more exclusive revelation and the biblical law? The role of the Torah in 4QInstruction is a complicated one. To begin, there is the obvious problem that 4QInstruction never references the Torah by name (Strugnell, Harrington and Elgvin 1999: 27). 4Q416 2 ii 8-9 commands the student: ‘do not abandon your statutes (חוקיכה)’, which might be a subtle invocation of the law, although חוק could just as easily refer to the particular injunctions prescribed in 4QInstruction (noted also by Goff 2007: 29). In general, the teaching of 4QInstruction is much the same sort of paraenetic material found in Proverbs and Sirach, with perhaps more apocalyptic overtones insofar as it stresses the importance of a revealed mystery. 17 A few mentions are made of Moses, but in unfortunately fragmentary contexts.
However, closer examination reveals more indebtedness to the Torah than meets the eye. In an important article, Lawrence Schiffman (2004) has shown that, though not frequent, several instances of explicit and imaginative halakhah occur at various points in 4QInstruction. Genesis 2.24 is quoted in 4Q416 2 iv 1, initiating an extended interpretation of the wife’s marriage vows referenced in Num. 30.7-10 (see Schiffman 2004: 90-94). Further, the ‘law of mixed species’ found in Lev. 19 and Deut. 22 is commented on in 4Q418 103 ii 6-9. That the author knew the Torah and considered it an important source of authority seems to be beyond dispute.
As Schiffman notes, such halakhic concern is unusual within the context of Jewish wisdom literature, which as a rule tends to downplay the particularistic aspects of Israel’s laws (2004: 89). In other words, 4QInstruction relies on the Torah and engages in Torah interpretation. Yet the Torah is not the only, or indeed the most important, source of revelation and instruction for the student of 4QInstruction. This role is claimed by the רז נהיה, which Goff correctly describes as ‘the main source of wisdom for the addressee of 4QInstruction’ (Goff 2005: 67). How does the author believe the Torah relates to the mystery? Elgvin casts the mystery and the Torah in opposition with each other, arguing that, in 4QInstruction, ‘true wisdom is not found in the Torah but in רז נהיה’ (2000: 237). Goff is more ambivalent about their relationship, commenting that ‘acquiring wisdom through the mystery to come is not incompatible with obtaining it through Torah’ (2007: 300; see also Harrington 1997: 31-32).
However, neither of these assessments does complete justice to the evidence from 4QInstruction. Against Elgvin, there is the fact that the Torah remains an important source of wisdom for the addressee of 4QInstruction, exemplified in the text’s exegesis of several Torah texts. Against Goff, it does not seem quite sufficient to say that the mystery and the Torah are merely ‘compatible’ forms of revelation. The רז נהיה is the primary source of all knowledge in 4QInstruction. The student is assured that by studying it he will know truth, iniquity, wisdom and eternal glory (4Q417 2 i 6-13). That the text also knows and interprets the Torah in fact suggests that the Law is one of many things into which the student is given insight via his study of the נהיה רז. Goff comments correctly that ‘in principle, the mēbîn can learn about any topic by studying this mystery’ (2007: 28). I suggest that this same principle is what allows the author to so deftly weave together sapiential instruction with more traditional halakhic concerns. It is through the revelation provided by the רז נהיה that the Torah is read correctly.
Insofar as it blends notions of revealed mysteries with traditional paraenesis, 4QInstruction is a prime example of the blurred lines between the ‘sapiential’ and ‘apocalyptic’ genres in the Second Temple period. But even within the sapiential and apocalyptic traditions, it is demarcated further by the presence of explicit halakhic interpretations. Unlike other wisdom traditions that correlated wisdom with Torah to smooth over tension between the two (Sirach, Baruch), this text freely draws on the Torah while also appealing to a more exclusive form of revealed wisdom, the רז נהיה. In its portrayal of a harmonious relationship between Mosaic Torah and wisdom, it is also distinct from the purely apocalyptic wisdom of 1 Enoch, whose authors ‘leapfrogged Moses’, according to Nickelsburg (2001: 50). In 4QInstruction, the Torah and the נהיה רז exist in a beneficial interpretive relationship: the student’s study of the mystery entails correct interpretation of written scripture. 18
Wisdom and Torah in the Wisdom of Solomon
The Wisdom of Solomon is another text that is a little out of place within the category of ‘wisdom literature’ as it is traditionally conceived. Many have noted that certain features of the text have no real parallel in other wisdom sources, such as its concerns about the soul’s immortality (2.23-24) and its reference to God’s mysteries (2.22). 19 In order to properly account for these divergences, a number of scholars have argued that Wisdom should also be read alongside apocalyptic traditions scholars (Burkes 2002; Collins 2002, 2005; Goff 2010; Atkins 2021). Given this growing consensus, the Wisdom of Solomon represents another important text in our consideration of law and wisdom in the sapiential/apocalyptic genre.
Discussions of the role of Torah in the Wisdom of Solomon tend to foreground the fact that the Law does not receive much attention in the work as a whole (see Legaspi 2018: 188). This is an important starting point, as the author’s lengthy encomium to wisdom and its role in Israel’s history never once joins Sirach and Baruch in equating Wisdom with Israel’s law (Schaper 2013: 301; contra Schnabel 1985: 134). This is not to say that the Law is completely absent from the text. The wicked in 2.12 are reproached for their ‘sins against the Law’ (ἁμαρτήματα νόμου) 20 and further accused of not keeping the Law in 6.4 (οὐδὲ ἐφυλάξατε νόμον).
A few instances in Wisdom are especially suggestive of an attitude towards the Law that is not unlike the one we observed in 4QInstruction. In Wis. 9.9, the author extols wisdom because ‘she knows what is excellent in your sight, and what is pleasing according to [God’s] commandments (ἐντολαῖς σου)’. While it is possible that God’s commandments could refer to his will more generally (so Legaspi 2018: 188), it is at least equally possible that it is a reference to the Torah (so Schnabel 1985: 132). If it is, then the hypostasized wisdom can be seen to function not as Torah itself but as Torah’s interpreter. The speaker goes on to ask of God: Send her forth from the holy heavens…that she may labor at my side, and that I may learn what is pleasing to you. For she knows and understands all things, and she will guide me wisely in my actions and guard me with her glory (Wis. 9.11-12 NRSV)
In Wis. 9, it is clear that, although Wisdom is not the Torah, she is given by God to instruct the speaker and train them in God’s commandments. A similar sentiment is expressed in 6.18: ‘Love of wisdom is the keeping of her laws’. Though it is not entirely clear that this is a reference to the Torah, it is likely so. For one thing, the phrase τήρησις νόμων is something of a technical term in Greek-speaking Judaism for Law observance (Winston 1979: 155). Further, as wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon is very closely bound up within the divine identity (she is a ‘pure emanation of the glory of the almighty’, 7.25) the reference to ‘her laws’ would not be out of place as a reference to the Torah. We are left once again with the impression that proper understanding of the Law is accomplished only via Wisdom. 21
Absent from the Wisdom of Solomon are the kinds of explicit halakhic concerns that we observed in 4QInstruction. There is of course no evidence that the author would advocate for the rejection of specifically Jewish practices such as circumcision, dietary restrictions, etc., but they do not seem to be a high priority. 22 The text’s frequent exhortations to righteousness and its invocation of the ‘cardinal’ virtues in 8.7 might suggest that the author is more interested in ethical interpretations of the Torah. 23 But even if Wisdom’s interpretation of the Torah differs substantially from that of 4QInstruction, the two texts perform similar interpretive maneuvers in the way they relate Torah and wisdom. In Wisdom, as in 4QInstruction, Torah is a source of revelation distinct from wisdom, but in need of the elucidation and interpretation that only wisdom can offer.
Law and Wisdom in the Fourth Gospel
John Ashton and John’s Apocalyptic Wisdom
At this point, we can return to the question of the relationship between wisdom, Torah, and apocalyptic revelation in the Gospel of John. When it comes to situating the Fourth Gospel within apocalyptic frameworks, few names are as significant as John Ashton, who memorably argued that the Gospel of John is ‘an apocalypse – in reverse, upside down, inside out’ in his landmark study Understanding the Fourth Gospel (2007: 329). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Ashton was also one of the first to identify especially notable similarities between the apocalyptic vision of wisdom on display in 4QInstruction and in John. 24 Ashton (2012) has argued that the רז נהיה is a compelling analogue to the Johannine Logos and offers a helpful comparison where he observes some substantial overlaps. His observations are intriguing but can be supplemented by several further items.
Ashton cites the hymn at the conclusion of the Community Rule as a comparandum to Jn 1.3: ‘All things came to pass by his knowledge (כול בדעתו נהיה); he establishes all things by his design; and without him nothing is done’ (1QS 11 11). John says of the Logos: ‘all things came to be through him, and apart from him nothing came to be’. Ashton asserts that the presence of the Niphal of היה is suggestive of the רז נהיה, but it should be noted that the term ‘mystery’ does not occur here. A more helpful comparandum for the Johannine Logos that does specifically invoke the mystery to come is found a few lines earlier in the Community Rule: ‘For from the source of his knowledge [God] has disclosed his light, and my eyes have seen his wonders; the light of my heart has seen the mystery to come’ (1QS 11 3-4). 25 In no uncertain terms, the רז נהיה is equated with the divine light and divine wonders, which the author professes to have seen and uses as justification for his role in the community. 26
We could scarcely be nearer to some of the key claims made by the prologue’s author concerning the Logos. The Logos is the true light that must enter into the world, and the author has seen his glory that reflects the glory of God himself. In this way the Logos resembles the kind of ‘remote’ heavenly wisdom that was disparaged by Sirach and Deuteronomy but celebrated by 4QInstruction and the Wisdom of Solomon. 27 The Johannine community shares the Qumran community’s reverence for a revealed source of heavenly wisdom (Ashton 2012: 63). 28 As Samely et al. observe, such a claim to unique revelation (especially from a ‘first-person governing voice’) is a common diagnostic feature of texts that scholars tend to label ‘apocalyptic’ (2013: 109).
We might note additionally that the Logos/Jesus and the רז נהיה seem to offer their students similar rewards for their persistent study. One example can be seen in the texts’ shared emphasis on the reader’s apprehension of ‘truth’. ‘Truth’ (אמת) occurs nearly 45 times in 4QInstruction and is also a theologically significant term for the evangelist (Jn 1.14, 17; 4.23; 5.33; 8.40, 45; 15.26; 16.23; 17.19). 4QInstruction promises its student that if they ‘investigate the mystery to come and seek always, [they] will know truth and unrighteousness’ (4Q418 43 i 4, my translation). Jesus speaks quite similarly in Jn 8.31: ‘if you remain in my word, then you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’. The disciples’ reward for absorbing and obeying Jesus’ teaching (their ‘remaining in the word’, Keener 2003: 747) is that they will apprehend the truth and thus attain freedom from sin (see Jn 8.34). This is not at all unlike 4QInstruction’s promise that the reader’s study of the רז נהיה will allow them to know both truth and unrighteousness. 29
Further suggestive of an apocalyptic nuance to John’s understanding of wisdom are some of the sensory and tactile actions associated with the community’s apprehension of the Logos. Ashton notes that the Logos was a ‘source of contemplation for the Johannine Christians’, citing Jn 1.14 (‘we have seen his glory’), and that this was also true of the רז נהיה (2012: 62). Indeed, the student in 4QInstruction is frequently exhorted to ‘gaze at the mystery to come’ (usually a form of נבט, e.g., 4Q416 2 i 5; 4Q417 2 i 18). We might add to Ashton’s observation about sight that many other verbs associated with the רז נהיה in 4QInstruction find echoes in Johannine literature. Besides the presence of sensory and tactile literary motifs throughout the gospel, 30 the Johannine community reflected in 1 John lays claim to a very sensory apprehension of the Logos: ‘That which was from the beginning, which we have heard (ἀκηκόαμεν), which we have seen (ἑωράκαμεν) with our eyes, which we have beheld (ἐθεασάμεθα) and which our hands have grasped (ἐψηλάφησαν), concerning the living word (τοῦ λόγου τῆς ζωῆς) … we proclaim to you’ (1 Jn 1.1-3). 31
While these particularly sensory depictions of the community’s apprehension of the Logos do not find strong parallels in the traditional wisdom literature, they sound rather like the apocalyptic experiences associated with the wisdom of רז נהיה. 32 The student of 4QInstruction is also instructed to grasp the mystery to come (לקח, e.g., 4Q416 7 3; 4Q418 77 4), to meditate on it (הגה, e.g., 4Q417 2 i 6), and to hear it (cf. 4Q418 10 1). Once again, the ‘wisdom’ trope behind the Johannine tradition’s Logos seems to have a good deal in common with the kind of wisdom on display in 4QInstruction and a few other Qumran documents. Like the רז נהיה, the Johannine Logos is a revealed, heavenly wisdom that the elect community can claim to have seen, heard and grasped.
These similarities between the Logos and the רז נהיה need not undercut or compete with the significant amount of traditional wisdom imagery associated with Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (see again Brown 1966: cxxii-cxxv). However, they can clarify and nuance our understanding of the background to John’s wisdom Christology. As Ashton suggested and as this investigation has substantiated, the similarities we find suggest the influence of an apocalyptic strain of wisdom tradition, where God’s revealed wisdom is sent to and comprehended by an elect community.
Law and the Johannine Logos
If Ashton and I are correct that John’s depiction of Jesus and the Logos is indebted not only to traditional wisdom depictions but also to an apocalyptic notion of a revealed mystery, we are justified in reexamining the relationship between John’s revealed mystery and the Law. It is here where Ashton’s version of John’s apocalypticism requires some reconsideration. This section argues that, much like the רז נהיה of 4QInstruction and wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon, the revealed wisdom represented by the Johannine Logos/Jesus functions in an elucidating and reinterpretive relationship with the Law and Israel’s written scriptures more generally.
Ashton’s discussion of the issue appropriately highlights the complementary relationship between the רז נהיה and the Law at Qumran, but he sees no such parallel in the Fourth Gospel: Unlike the Qumran community, the gospel of John abandons the Law completely. The Law is not just superseded but cancelled: ‘for the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ’ (2012: 64).
There are several reasons why this is an inadequate assessment of the Fourth Evangelist’s view of the Law. To begin with, there is the obvious note that this extremely adversative reading of Jn 1.17 is by no means the only viable interpretation. If we take the χάριν ἀντὶ χάριτος of 1.16b to mean ‘grace upon grace’ or ‘grace on top of grace’, the resultant picture is of a grace given through the Law and abundantly added to in Christ (see Dodd 1953: 295; Keener 2003: 421; Willet 1992: 41).
More importantly, Ashton’s exclusive focus on the prologue prevents him from considering an abundance of data from the rest of the gospel where correct interpretation of the Law and of the scriptures more generally are of vital concern to the evangelist. To begin with, Jesus’ disputes with his opponents frequently involve debate over the Law and its interpretation. 33 Jesus accuses his opponents of hypocritically breaking the Law on numerous occasions, notably Jn 7.19 and Jn 8.17. Influence of halakhah and haggadah is on display in Jn 10 (Ackermann 1966; Attridge 2021). Perhaps most significant is the debate in Jn 5, where Jesus claims that the very scriptures his opponents read were actually about him, and that if they had correctly understood Moses, they would have understood Jesus. Jan G. van der Watt summarizes it well: ‘The Law forms a central pillar in the ethical discussions in the Gospel. Neither party holds a negative view of the Law as such. The real problem lies with the interpretation of the Law’ (2012: 189). Whatever form of Law-observance the Johannine Christians engaged in, the evidence from the gospel narratives casts doubt on Ashton’s assertion that ‘the gospel of John abandons the Law completely’ (2012: 64). It does, however, position Jesus as the source of correct interpretation of the Law.
This concept plays out not only in Jesus’ disputes with opponents, but also in authorial asides about Jesus’ disciples. Throughout the text, the glory revealed in the cross and in Christ’s resurrection is the catalyst for reimagined scriptural understanding in the Fourth Gospel. John 2.22 declares that ‘when Jesus was raised from the dead, his disciples … believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken’. So also Jn 12.16: ‘his disciples did not understand these things at first, but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things had been written about him and had been done to him’. So also Jn 20.9 indicates that understanding the scriptures only comes through knowledge of Jesus’ resurrection. Within the Johannine narrative, experience of Christ’s resurrection entails a rereading and indeed a reinterpretation of scripture (see Coloe 2004: 408-409).
Here, our discussion intersects with an issue so broad that it would not be unreasonable to classify it as its own subfield within Johannine studies. The various approaches to John’s view of the Torah have been helpfully summarized by William Loader, who organizes them around two main views: (1) John affirms Torah only insofar as it predicts Jesus’s messiahship and its own obsolescence; (2) John and his community believe Torah remains in force, but Jesus has replaced it as the ‘basis for ethics’ (2012: 143, 157; see also Pancaro 1975; Vehrenhorst 2008).
I am unpersuaded by the first option, largely because the evidence offered above casts significant doubt on the ‘obsolete Torah’ theory. Option 2 divorces John’s ‘upholding [of Torah] as he reads it’ from Johannine ethics, with the effect that, by Loader’s own admission, ‘the positions are very close when it comes to the relevance of Torah for ethics in John’ (2012: 157). But this separation of ‘Torah’ from ‘ethics’ is much more at home in the vernacular of twenty-first century scholarship than that of first-century Judaism. Jews, especially those of the Diaspora, often preferred to focus on ‘ethical’ interpretations of the Torah. We observed this phenomenon in the Wisdom of Solomon, which ignores issues like Sabbath and circumcision but stresses the acquisition of the cardinal virtues of Greek philosophy. Philo provides evidence for Jewish interpreters in Alexandria who believed that their allegorical hermeneutic, providing as it did the true interpretations of circumcision, Sabbath and the festivals, dissolved their responsibility to the literal laws (Migr. 89-93; on this important passage, see Sterling 2016). A similar sentiment can be detected in Paul’s assertion that love of neighbor fulfills the law (Rom. 13.8-10). There is no reason not to frame these ethical readings as interpretations of the Torah informed by a new hermeneutic, be it Platonic allegorizing, virtue ethics or Christology.
The same should be said of the scriptural interpretation at play in the Fourth Gospel. It is certainly true that we have lamentably little evidence that would help us reconstruct the ways in which the Johannine Christians negotiated concerns about Sabbath and circumcision. But a focus on ethics, and especially a command to love (Jn 13.34-35; 15.12,17), cannot be taken as evidence that a Jewish author is not concerned with interpreting and observing Torah. It is precisely the manner of Torah observance that is at stake in the interpretation. It is clear that concern over scriptural interpretation was of critical importance for the Fourth Evangelist. Thus, we would do well to distance ourselves from Ashton’s assertion that ‘the Gospel of John abandons the law completely’ (2012: 64). It is also clear that the community behind the Fourth Gospel felt that their experience of God’s incarnate Logos necessitated a rereading of the scriptures. In other words, God’s wisdom revealed in Jesus is the Johannine guide for interpreting the Law.
Conclusion
What can we conclude from this consideration of wisdom and apocalypticism in the Fourth Gospel? For one thing, it is worth noting the characteristics which the Fourth Gospel shares with the Wisdom of Solomon and those it shares with the Qumranites. On the one hand, the similarities between the sapientialism of the Johannine community and that of the Qumranites are greater than even John Ashton originally noted. Both the gospel and 4QInstruction call an elect community to gaze on, hear and grasp a revealed heavenly mystery. But when it comes to the details of Torah interpretation, the Gospel of John looks a great deal like the Wisdom of Solomon, concerned not so much with detailed halakhic concerns as ethical injunctions. The affinities that the gospel shares with both the exclusive Palestinian sect and the Diasporic paean remind us that reconstructing the gospel’s Jewish context requires a more nuanced approach than simply appealing to a Palestinian or Diasporic background.
Further, the foregoing survey demonstrates that is unnecessary to posit that John must intend his Logos as a cipher for Torah based on the equation between the two in Sirach and Baruch. The Gospel of John is instead well at home within a strand of Jewish sapientialism that subordinated the Torah to the authoritative interpretation offered by a revealed heavenly wisdom. Most importantly, the suggestion that John’s version of wisdom functionally disassociates the gospel from Judaism is untenable. Rather, the Gospel of John evinces many of the characteristics of a ‘genre-straddling’ wisdom text. The רז נהיה of 4QInstruction, the figure of Wisdom in the Wisdom of Solomon, and the Logos of the Fourth Gospel each represent a divine revelation that remained distinct from Torah yet closely bound up in its proper interpretation.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
Previous drafts of this article have benefited from the incisive comments of many readers. I wish to thank Harold Attridge, John Collins, Bruce Longenecker, Lidija Novakovic, and the anonymous reviewer(s) at JSNT for their generous feedback.
1.
His conclusion was anticipated by Collins 1993. Collins associates the debate with Gerhard von Rad’s assertion that ‘the real matrix from which apocalypticism originates’ is wisdom (1965: II, 306). Of course, as Samely, Alexander, Bernasconi and Hayward have demonstrated, there is some difficulty in identifying ‘wisdom’ as its own discrete genre in the first place (2013: 296).
2.
3.
The appeal to wisdom traditions in the study of the Fourth Gospel has a long history, but the most influential presentation of the evidence came in Raymond Brown’s groundbreaking commentary (1966: 519-24). However, see also Harris 1917; 
: 274-77.
4.
Frequently referenced is the fact that Wisdom, like the Johannine Logos, is present with God at creation (Prov. 8.22-31; Sir. 1.4), functions as a mediating agent through which the creation act takes place (Prov. 3.19) and in some texts seems to have a certain share of God’s divine nature (Wis. 7.25). There is also the striking affinity between Sirach’s ‘tabernacling’ wisdom (Sir. 24.8) and the Logos’s sojourn among humanity in Jn 1.14. Beyond the prologue, John’s Jesus shares many habits with the personified Wisdom of Proverbs, including penchants for speaking in long discourses centered on statements in the first person singular (Prov. 8.12-21; Jn 6.35-40) and inviting listeners to symbolic banquets (Prov. 9.4-6; Jn 6.53-58).
5.
Sirach declares: ‘All this is the book of the covenant of the Most High God, the Law that Moses commanded us as an inheritance for the congregations of Jacob’ (Sir. 24.23 NRSV; see the discussion in Marböck 1976). Baruch offers a similar sentiment: ‘God gave [wisdom] to Israel, whom he loved. Afterward she appeared on earth and lived with humankind. She is the book of the commandments of God, the Law that endures forever’ (Bar. 4.1 NRSV). Taking this as his starting point, Eckhard Schnabel identifies a ‘universal presence of the correlation of Law and wisdom in post-biblical Judaism’ (1985: 343). Much the same point is emphasized by .
6.
7.
8.
My choice of comparanda is necessarily selective. Many other Jewish texts exhibit a similar blending of sapiential and apocalyptic elements to one degree or another (e.g., 4 Ezra, 1 Enoch 42). Wisdom of Solomon and the sapiential material from Qumran are especially helpful in this discussion because their melding of sapiential and apocalyptic worldviews is a commonly recognized phenomenon. For example, in his taxonomy of ‘wisdom’ and ‘apocalyptic’ literature in ancient Judaism, Nickelsburg includes only Wisdom and the Qumran evidence under the heading ‘Texts that Complicate the Categories’ (: 28-29).
9.
Samely et al. offer a particularly helpful intervention into discussions of such fluidity, articulating a framework that does not focus on ‘single genre terms such as ‘midrash’, ‘wisdom’, ‘apocalypse’ but rather ‘independently verifiable literary features emerge which, coordinated with each other in the new framework, produce a complex and modular description of any given document’ (: 3).
10.
The fact that at least six different copies of 4QInstruction were found at Qumran is evidence of its significance in the community, as is the presence of one of those copies in Cave 1, where more important texts were likely kept (Elgvin 1998: 25; Harrington 1997: 25). For an introduction to the variety of sapiential texts at Qumran, see .
11.
Other translations have been suggested. García Martínez and Tigchelaar prefer ‘the mystery of existence’ (1999) which Harrington critiques as too ‘static and metaphysical’ (: 551).
12.
The standard scholarly edition of the text of 4QInstruction is found in Strugnell, Harrington and Elgvin 1999. This English translation is drawn from : 859, with alterations.
14.
E.g., Ps. 1.2; Ezra 7.10.
15.
Translation taken from Goff 2007: 18, with minor alterations. Strugnell, Harrington and Elgvin claim that the phrase ‘surely attests a strong determinism’ (: 28).
16.
My translation. Wold also emphasizes the mystery’s role in creation (2013: 20-24).
17.
On 4QInstruction as an ‘apocalyptic’ text, see Elgvin 1998: 150; Ashton 2012: 60; : 105.
18.
Interestingly, Tooman has identified a similar pattern in other sapiential texts from Qumran: ‘knowledge and practice of the Torah [is] often arrived at by means of revelatory interpretation’ (2013: 225). Tooman’s essay does not consider 4QInstruction. Hoffmann (1999) has argued in a similar vein that Jewish apocalyptic literature generally expects complete law observance of its ideal readers, but see the criticisms of .
20.
This is one of six cases in Wisdom in which Johannes Fichtner (1938) translates νόμος as ‘Gesetz’ (see also Albrecht 2015). Schaper asserts that 2.12 ‘clearly refers to the Torah’ (: 294).
21.
A very similar judgment is rendered by Winston: ‘When he insists that unless God send his Wisdom down from on high men would not comprehend God’s will (9:17), he is certainly implying that the Torah is in need of further interpretation for the disclosure of its true meaning, interpretation which Wisdom alone is able to provide’ (: 43).
22.
This might be because the text could be addressed to a non-Jewish audience, though this issue is not certain. See the summaries in Burkes 2002: 25 n. 19 and : 63-64.
23.
27.
28.
For Christ as a revealed mystery in the theology of the Fourth Gospel, see also Caneday 2017; : ix.
29.
I am indebted to the anonymous reviewer of JSNT for this illuminating observation.
30.
On this interesting topic, see Lee 2010; Kurek-Chomvez 2010; Hirsch-Luipold 2017; .
31.
32.
33.
We might note that in the Fourth Gospel, ‘Law’ is sometimes used to identify a scriptural text outside of the Mosaic Pentateuch (e.g., Jn 10.35, 15.25).