Raymond E. Brown, The Community of the Beloved Disciple.
Appendix I: Recent Reconstructions of Johannine Community History, p. 171-182

A reconstruction of the history of the Johannine community is at best probable. I therefore think it is fair and useful to summarize some other reconstructions in order to familiarize the reader with the range of opinions among specialists on this subject. In the introduction to my Anchor Bible commentary on John, by discussing many theories of composition, authorship, and destination, I have already surveyed the classic approaches to Johannine history; and so here I shall confine myself to reconstructions that have appeared in the 1970s since my commentary was finished.

J. Louis Martyn

For years Martyn has been most active in developing the thesis that the Fourth Gospel must be read on several levels, so that it tells us not only about Jesus but also about the life and struggles of the Johannine community (n. 18 above). It is significant that now he has attempted an elaborate reconstruction of Johannine church origins, based on the following principle: "The literary history behind the Fourth Gospel reflects to a large degree the history of a single community which maintained over a period of some duration its particular and somewhat peculiar identity." Martyn distinguishes three periods of Johannine community history: Early, Middle, and Late.

1. THE EARLY PERIOD. (Before the Jewish revolt until some point in the 80s.) The pre-Gospel formation began with separate homilies, e.g., a homily underlying John 1:35-49 wherein a preacher sought to persuade (fellow) Jews, who had well-formed messianic expectations, to come to Jesus and find him to be the Messiah. The miracles of Jesus were narrated as signs that he was the Messiah. Success in conversions at first produced relatively little alienation from the Jewish heritage, viz., no debates about the validity of the Torah nor about the Gentile mission. The resultant Johannine group consisted of Christian Jews who stood "in a relatively untroubled stream of social and theological continuity precisely within the synagogue." One of the preachers in this inner-synagogue messianic group gathered the traditions and homilies about Jesus into a rudimentary written gospel, somewhat similar to the Signs Gospel or Signs Source posited by many scholars. "The possibility that the Beloved Disciple was a historical person who played a role in the Early Period cannot be pursued in the present essay."

2. THE MIDDLE PERIOD. (Presumably the late 80s.) Becoming suspicious of this rapidly growing messianic group, some in the synagogue demanded exegetical proof for what the group proclaimed about Jesus. This led to midrashic debates and to degrees of alignment within the synagogue for and against the group. Two traumas precipitated new developments. The first trauma occurred early in the Middle Period when the synagogue authorities introduced the reworded Birkat ha-Minim (curse on the deviators) into the liturgical service in order to be able to identify and eject those who confessed Jesus as the Messiah. Some of the messianic group (and some attracted toward it) turned back to remain safely within the synagogue community. Those who continued in the group now became Jewish Christians (no longer Christian Jews), separate and alienated from the synagogue. The second trauma occurred when the synagogue authorities, in order to prevent further defections to the Jewish Christian group, put on trial and executed some of the Johannine community's evangelists on the charge that they were misleading Jews "into the worship of a second god alongside Adonai" (see John 5:18; 10:33; 16:2). Expulsion and persecution led the Johannine community to new christological formulations; and instead of a simple heilsgeschichtlich continuity with Jewish expectations, a dualism of above/below came to the fore. Jesus was now presented as a Stranger who had come from above (3:31) and been rejected by "his own people" (1:11). Those who accept him are hated by this world and are not of this world (17:14, 16); they are no longer "Jews" but have become "true Israelites" (1:47) chosen by the Stranger from above (15:16). By the judgment of the synagogue itself, they are no longer disciples of Moses but disciples of Jesus (9:28).

3. THE LATE PERIOD.(Not precisely dated by J.L.M.) This complex period involved the increasing self-identification of the Johannine community in relation to other Christian groups (and not only in relation to the synagogue). First, a relationship to Crypto-Christians who remained within the synagogue. The Johannine group argued that one is either from above or from below and that no fence straddling is possible. The Christian Jews in the synagogue were judged unable to maintain a dual allegiance; they were equivalent to the hated "Jews" and were "disciples of Moses, not of Jesus." Moreover, the Crypto-Christians seemed to have aided the synagogue authorities in their persecution of the Johannine Jewish Christians by informing on them. Second, a relationship to other Jewish Christians who had left the synagogue and were scattered by persecution. These were the "other sheep" of 10:16 who would ultimately be joined with the Johannine community into one flock under one Good Shepherd. When the Gospel was written, at least a quadrilateral situation existed:
   1. The synagogue of "the Jews."
   2. Crypto-Christians (Christian Jews) within the synagogue.
   3. Other communities of Jewish Christians who had been expelled from the synagogue.
   4. The Johannine community of Jewish Christians.

* * *

By way of brief comment, it should be obvious to the reader of this book that I agree on many points with Martyn whose work I greatly respect. But let me note briefly my disagreements. First, he does not come to grips with the role of the Beloved Disciple, a figure who can scarcely be left in suspension if one wants to be faithful to the Gospel's own sense of history. Second, he does not explain why the Christian Jews from the early period developed a christology that led to their expulsion from the synagogue and their becoming Jewish Christians. What was the cause or, at least, the catalyst? Third, he dates the middle period too late. Granted that the most probable date for the introduction of the Birkat ha-Minim was ca. A.D. 85, an opposition between the community and the synagogue must have been developing for a considerable period before that. The late 80s would be a better date for his late period. Fourth, Martyn needs to give more attention to the Gentile component, not only in the Johannine community (since simple Jewish terms are explained in the Gospel), but also in what he calls "other communities of Jewish Christians." By the end of the century the main churches were mixed.

Georg Richter

The late G. Richter proposed a reconstruction of Johannine history whose guiding principle is prima facie diametrically opposed to Martyn's guiding principle of continuity within the same community. Richter is not tracing the history of one community adapting itself to changing circumstances; for he finds in the Fourth Gospel traces of the theological views of four different communities, all of whom worked with and upon an early basic Johannine writing (Grundschrift):

1. MOSAIC-PROPHET CHRISTIANS. Rejecting the idea of a Davidic Messiah, a group of Jews, resembling the Ebionites, proclaimed Jesus as a prophet-like-Moses. Expelled from the diaspora synagogues in the area of North Palestine, Syria, and the Transjordan, this group produced a Grundschrift, a foundational gospel-like work, out of the traditions that were available (including a Signs Source and a non-synoptic passion account).

2. SON-OF-GOD CHRISTIANS. Part of this Jewish Christian community developed a higher christology of Jesus as the preexistent, divine Son of God, a figure who came down from heaven bringing salvation. This christology caused conflict with other members of the community who retained the earlier christology of the group. The Son-Of-God Christians split from the Mosaicprophet Christians and rewrote the Grundschrift as a vehicle of their higher christology. For example, they added the Logos hymn of 1:1-13 and the pre-existence statements of the Johannine Jesus. The rewriter may be called the evangelist.

3. DOCETIST CHRISTIANS. Some of the Son-of-God Christians interpreted the evangelist's high christology in a docetic way: Jesus' divine origins were so stressed that he became a totally divine being whose earthly appearance was only an illusion. The docetist Johannine Christians withdrew from the communities of Group II, as attested in I John 2:19, but continued a missionary activity which produced strife. The gospel, as it had been revised by the evangelist, served the Johannine docetists as their gospel, and no new docetic revision was made-only a docetic interpretation.

4. REVISIONIST CHRISTIANS. A redactor who was decidedly anti-docetic rewrote the Grundschrift by making additions (1:14- 18; 19:34-35) and composed I John as an apologetic defense of a theology of Jesus as the Son of God come in the flesh. The result was that he and his congregation stood somewhere in-between the Johannine Christians of Group I and Group II; for, in rejecting the docetism of Group III, he had pulled back to a position that was less adventurous than that of the evangelist of Group II.

* * *

Like Martyn, Richter thinks the Johannine community arose among Jews who believed that Jesus had fulfilled well-known Jewish expectations, and at a later stage there developed within the Johannine community a higher christology that went beyond Jewish expectations. Let me note briefly my disagreements with Richter. First, on the basis of 1:35-51 Martyn is right over against Richter in seeing the originating group's expectations as more standard Davidic expectations. I would judge that the substitution of Mosaic expectations came later, after the contact with the Samaritans. Second, Richter is probably wrong in positing two totally different communities (I and II). As I pointed out in discussing chap. 4 of John, the disciples of Jesus accepted the new Samaritan converts without acrimony. Perhaps the correct position is between Martyn and Richter: a basic group underwent development (so there is continuity); but part of the development is attributed to the entrance of and amalgamation with a second group, who catalyzed the higher christology. Third, while Richter does a service in carrying the development beyond stage II (where Martyn stopped for all practical purposes), he is wrong in reading the struggle between docetist Christians and revisionist Christians into the Gospel. That struggle is documented in the period of the Epistles (after the Gospel). Fourth, the designations "docetist" and "revisionist" do not do justice to the subtlety of the issues involved in the struggle between the author of the Epistles and those who seceded.

Oscar Cullmann

For over thirty years and in scattered articles Cullmann has discussed aspects of Johannine community history, but only recently has he given us an overall and detailed picture of the development as he sees it. In one sentence318 he sums up his thesis about a Johannine circle which embraces several writers (at least the evangelist and a redactor) and a community with a special tradition: "We thus arrive in the following line, moving back in time: Johannine community-special Hellenist group in the early community in Jerusalem-Johannine circle of disciples- disciples of the Baptist-heterodox marginal Judaism." These cannot be broken down neatly into I, II, etc., as with the previous reconstructions; but let me describe the direction of Cullmann's reconstruction.

At the font of Johannine life there is a strong but distinctive historical tradition and direct relationship to Jesus. The Fourth Gospel, which can be called a life of Jesus, was the work of the Beloved Disciple (who is thus the author or evangelist), an eyewitness of the ministry of Jesus. The original (unredacted stage) of John was composed "at least as early as the synoptic gospels and probably even earlier than the earliest of them." The differences between John and the Synoptics are explicable, at least in part, by the fact that Jesus had two different styles of teaching.

The Johannine movement drew its followers from among "heterodox" Jews, including those who were followers of JBap and then of Jesus, and those who were very close to or identical with the Hellenists of Acts 6. The community that emerged was not a small group polemicizing against a larger church, but a group with distinct origins that had its own peculiar components.

* * *

Obviously in my own reconstruction I am close to Cullmann on a number of significant points: the importance of the Beloved Disciple; origins among disciples of JBap; the importance of the Samaritans and of Jews similar to the Hellenists; a core historical tradition behind the Gospel. However, Cullmann overly simplifies the situation, leading me to list the following disagreements. First, it is fundamentally inadequate to explain the differences between John and the Synoptics on the basis of different styles of speech stemming from Jesus; those differences are the product of editorial and theological development. Second, precisely those differences make it most implausible (nay impossible) that the Fourth Gospel was written by an eyewitness of the ministry of Jesus; the role of the Beloved Disciple was therefore not that of the evangelist. Third, the term "heterodox Jews" is too much of an umbrella term bringing under the same cover movements that were more distinct. Moreover, it is inaccurate historically since it implies Jewish orthodoxy at the time of Jesus. Fourth, more needs to be said about the shaping of Johannine thought by struggles with other Christians and by internal division.

Marie-Émile Boismard

The honors for the most elaborate and detailed reconstruction of Johannine literary history belong to Boismard whose volume on John is really a commentary on four hypothetical stages of composition. Each stage is intricately involved with the life of the Johannine community:

1. DOCUMENT C. This was a complete gospel stretching from JBap to the resurrection of Jesus, written in Aramaic in Palestine about the year 50. This may have been composed by the Beloved Disciple (whether he was John Son of Zebedee or Lazarus). Its christology was primitive, with Jesus pictured as the Prophetlike- Moses or as the Danielic Son of Man. It had no pejorative attitude toward the Jews. The order of material in the document was close to that of the Synoptic Gospels, although it was more archaic than Mark.

2. JEAN IIA. Another writer (John the presbyter, mentioned by Papias) subsequently did two editions of Document C (and wrote the Epistles). He was a Jew who wrote this first edition in Palestine ca. A.D. 60-65. In it he added new material to C, and began to speak pejoratively of the world, as well as showing some opposition to the Jews-reflections of the changing life-situation of the community.

3. JEAN IIB. His second edition, done ca A.D. 90, drastically changed the order of the original to the order of the Gospel much as we now know it. He now knew all three Synoptic Gospels and some Pauline letters, and so had contact with other Christian groups. The writer had moved to Ephesus from Palestine, and this edition was in Greek. Persecution had left its trace in a strong aversion to "the Jews"; and Jesus was now presented as a preexistent figure, clearly superior to Moses. Sacraments also came to the fore.

4. JEAN III. Still a third writer, an unknown Jewish Christian of the Johannine school at Ephesus, was the final redactor early in the second century.

Although Boismard's reconstruction of such exact literary stages will probably not receive wide acceptance, there are aspects of real importance in his theory. By positing three Johannine writers, he portrays well the complexity of the Johannine school. Correctly he sees a shift from an original Jewish background and a more primitive christology to a Gentile setting and a higher christology; and he may well be right in connecting this to a geographical move (from Palestine to Ephesus) on the part of the main writer and presumably of some of the community.

Wolfgang Langbrandtner

Another type of reconstruction, represented by this young scholar, brings gnosticism into the heart of Johannine development. He distinguishes three community stages:

1. GRUNDSCHRIFT. There was an early basic Johannine composition which organized the Jesus-material thematically: John 1:1-13 was a statement of christology and soteriology; John 3 dealt with anthropology; John 4 and 6 dealt with the need for faith; etc. Jesus was portrayed as in the world but not known by the world, and signs were regarded as irrelevant to faith. The author of the Grundschrift had a gnostic, dualistic outlook, so that the modern scholarly attempts to interpret the Fourth Gospel as gnostic do more justice to this basic work than to the final Gospel. It was not written before A.D. 80, and the Johannine community that gave expression to its thought therein did not go so far back (as a social unit) as the Jewish War of the late 60s.

2. REDACTION. A complete reshaping of the Grundschrift both as to material and order gave us the Gospel as we now know it, with the journeys to Jerusalem and the calendar offcasts that runs through chaps. 5-10. Although the redactor was not the Beloved Disciple, he appealed to the Beloved Disciple (an aged man of great status and the living vehicle of the Paraclete) as the guarantor of the tradition. The redactor needed this support precisely because he was reinterpreting the Grundschrift in an antignostic, anti-docetic way; and a major struggle was underway within the community. This redaction, which was done ca. A.D. 100, stressed the fleshly existence and bodily resurrection of Jesus, ethics, sacraments, and future eschatology.

3. EPISTLES. These were written in the order II John, III John, I John (n. 177 above). The redactor had gathered a group around him, including the presbyter of II-III John; and this "we" presented themselves as community teachers, while those who opposed the redacted Gospel had now seceded. Although relatively few years had passed since the Gospel was redacted, the community of the redactor was moving in the direction of "early Catholicism." Some, however, like the Diotrephes of III John, thought the situation was still too ambiguous and more church order was demanded.

* * *

In my judgment there are some valuable observations in Langbrandtner's analysis, especially as to the final directions of Johannine history. However, I would have the following points of disagreement. First, he does not do justice to the pre-Gospel situation, to the tie between Jesus and early Johannine origins and tradition, and to the struggle with "the Jews." Second, his theory depends on his ability to reconstruct verse-by-verse the Grundschrift and the additions of the redactor. No firm theory can be built on so disputable a base, for every scholar will have a different assignment of verses to the putative Grundschrift. Third, he has moved back into the heart of the Gospel an inner- Johannine dispute that is attested clearly only in the Epistles, and so has neglected the major struggle of the Gospel with outsiders, whether Jews or other Christians. Fourth, he has overdone the gnostic orientation of the Fourth Gospel which he attributes to its earliest layer. The fascination of German scholarship with the gnostic orientation of John produces some contradictory results in terms of allotting the gnosticism to different stages of composition. Bultmann allotted it to Revelatory discourse source (that few scholars now accept); Langbrandtner allots it to the Grundschrift; and both agree that the main writer of the Gospel was correcting the gnostic tendencies of the earlier material that came to him. Other German scholars think that the main Johannine writer was the source of the gnosticism, so that he was introducing gnostic ideas into the material that came to him; for Kasemann he was "naively docetic"; for Luise Schottroff he was a rather developed gnostic. I would argue that, while the Gospel was capable of being read in a gnostic manner, it was the Johannine secessionists, mentioned in I John, who first began to go down the path toward gnosticism, and that at no period documented in either the Gospel or the Epistles can one yet speak of a real Johannine gnosticism.