Secular Biblical Scholarship and Mormonism

[_maklelan]

maklelan,

Thank you for your most recent post, which definitely goes much further toward generating meaningful discussion than did the previous one. I obviously do not have time to immediately run out and read all the articles you cited, but since you focused primarily on Boyarin I will read and respond to that article as time permits. The Miller piece also sounds interesting, and I will try to get to that as well. I read one chapter of Gundry's book some time ago and recall not being especially impressed either with his reading of John or with the thrust of his argument. Is there are particular section in that book that you feel is relevant to the present discussion?

Best,

-Chris

Gundry's is the weakest of the texts I cited, and it takes such a narrow view, but he does present an interesting case for an exclusively Johannine origin for the logos. I don't ultimately agree with him, but it adds another perspective. It's one of the very first chapters, if I recall correctly.

Boyarin's article is the one I find most fascinating. I've dealt with a number of his texts while I was doing research on Maccabees and martyrdom, and I find his perspective particularly enlightening. Miller's is another attempt to posit a Johannine origin, but it's much better than Gundry's.

[_Nevo]

for what it's worth, here are a couple of quotes from (relatively recent) sources that I happen to have on hand:

• "There has been much debate about the Evangelist's Logos doctrine. Attempts to demonstrate a Targumic or a Gnostic origin do not convince. The background is clearly to be located in Hellenistic Jewish Wisdom and Logos speculation" (D.T. Runia, "Logos," DDD, 529).
  
  
• "Another possible first-century usage is sometimes posited as a major influence on the prologue. In the Aramaic targums the term memra, 'word', is often employed with reference to God and it is argued that it functions in a similar way to 'Logos' here. But only in a very few places does it stand for God's revelatory activity, and most frequently it is used as a way of avoiding the divine name and does not function in terms of personification or a figure that can be distinguished in some way from God. In addition, all the targumic evidence comes from later than the first century and there can be no certainty about how early or widespread may have been been any usage of the term other than as a circumlocution for the divine name. The origins of the prologue's use of 'the Word' are in all probability to be found within earlier Jewish thought about both Wisdom and the Word of God" (Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel according to Saint John [BNTC 4; London: Continuum, 2005], 95).
  
  
• "It is widely thought that the use of the term 'Logos' in 1-1-18 was influenced by, and was intended to allude to, biblical and Jewish traditions about God's Word and Wisdom, sometimes pictured as the uniquely intimate and efficacious agent of divine purposes. . . . In an important study, however, Fossum has shown persuasively that the prologue and, indeed, Johannine Christology more broadly also seem to draw heavily upon biblical and postbiblical Jewish traditions about the name of God and the angel of the Lord. . . . [G]iven that Wisdom is never referred to in GJohn, whereas the divine name is a very salient theme, perhaps divine-name tradition is considerably more important overall than the Wisdom tradition for the Christology of GJohn" (Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003], 366, 384).

[_harmony]

I'm not being facetious, but I don't understand how Biblical scholarship can be secular?

That is scholarship performed by secular scholars with negative assumptions about the supernatural. There are quite a few atheists and agnostics in biblical scholarship.

So they are intent on proving the Bible false? They actually have careers for this purpose?

(I'm sorry to derail, mak, I'm just struggling to wrap my mind around something so odd... )

[_maklelan]

So they are intent on proving the Bible false? They actually have careers for this purpose?

(I'm sorry to derail, mak, I'm just struggling to wrap my mind around something so odd... )

Not at all. They are intent on learning as much as they can about something that fascinates them, which is why I got into biblical scholarship also. Some of them want to prove the Bible false, like Israel Finkelstein and everyone in the Netherlands, but most of them get along great with theists and aren't cynical at all.

[_maklelan]

for what it's worth, here are a couple of quotes from (relatively recent) sources that I happen to have on hand:

• "There has been much debate about the Evangelist's Logos doctrine. Attempts to demonstrate a Targumic or a Gnostic origin do not convince. The background is clearly to be located in Hellenistic Jewish Wisdom and Logos speculation" (D.T. Runia, "Logos," DDD, 529).

Runia is a Philo specialist. I think the connections to Philo are emphasized far too much as a result. There's no real discussion of why the Targumic or Gnostic evidence doesn't convince, though. This is also an older text.

"Another possible first-century usage is sometimes posited as a major influence on the prologue. In the Aramaic targums the term memra, 'word', is often employed with reference to God and it is argued that it functions in a similar way to 'Logos' here. But only in a very few places does it stand for God's revelatory activity, and most frequently it is used as a way of avoiding the divine name and does not function in terms of personification or a figure that can be distinguished in some way from God. In addition, all the targumic evidence comes from later than the first century and there can be no certainty about how early or widespread may have been been any usage of the term other than as a circumlocution for the divine name. The origins of the prologue's use of 'the Word' are in all probability to be found within earlier Jewish thought about both Wisdom and the Word of God" (Andrew T. Lincoln, The Gospel according to Saint John [BNTC 4; London: Continuum, 2005], 95).

A good book. I think it's interesting that Lincoln rejects the Philo possibility in the paragraph preceding this one. I disagree with the assessment that memra was not a personification that operated separate from God. Boyarin would do the same.

"It is widely thought that the use of the term 'Logos' in 1-1-18 was influenced by, and was intended to allude to, biblical and Jewish traditions about God's Word and Wisdom, sometimes pictured as the uniquely intimate and efficacious agent of divine purposes. . . . In an important study, however, Fossum has shown persuasively that the prologue and, indeed, Johannine Christology more broadly also seem to draw heavily upon biblical and postbiblical Jewish traditions about the name of God and the angel of the Lord. . . . [G]iven that Wisdom is never referred to in GJohn, whereas the divine name is a very salient theme, perhaps divine-name tradition is considerably more important overall than the Wisdom tradition for the Christology of GJohn" (Larry W. Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2003], 366, 384).

This is a good point, as Hurtado's points usually are.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Mak,

I just want to let you know I haven't forgotten about this thread. I spent a lot of time with family and friends this New Year, and I am editing my mom's Ph.D dissertation for her. I thus have only read about 10 pages of Boyarin, and don't know when I'll finish. It may be a while. Nevertheless, I still intend to return to finish this thread, so be sure to check here from time to time. Thanks,

-Chris

[_Droopy]

The corporeality of God became outdated (in Judaism) because of the increasing influence of Hellenistic thought, the introduction of converts from a Hellenistic worldview, and the need for the theology to syncretize in order to survive. Christians leaned heavily toward Hellenistic thought because Greek intellectual converts (who syncretized their new religion with their long-held philosophies) became the vehicle for legitimizing the Christian worldview within Greek and Roman cultures (which scoffed at what they perceived to be an unenlightened theology), and which ultimately appropriated Christianity for their own benefit. The corporeality of God was one of the first victims of this new perspective, as Origen manifests quite clearly.

Its interesting how this Hellenization process-the moving from anthropomorphism to metaphysical abstraction-overtook Christianity in exactly the same way and through a very similar process. A very similar socio-cultural process seems to have mediated the change from plurality of gods to the strict monotheism the Deuteronomists have given us in the post exhilic version of the Old Testament canon as we have it.

This is an interesting subject and one that Nibley used to discuss a great deal; how the idea of God's literal beingness, not just in an ontological sense, but in a literal physical sense, drove so many people, and particularly the intelligentsia, away from the original Gospel teachings toward abstract philosophical theorizing. Augustine's criticisms of the great unwashed and unsophisticated Christians in the countryside who still hold to the notion of an embodied God always comes to mind here.

I would not be surprised to find that this has happened, historically speaking, many more times than just those cases, ancient Judaism and Christianity, of which we have record. Indeed, modern New Age metaphysical doctrines display exactly this same mind set.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Mak,

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you on this. I finally finished editing my mom's dissertation, so I had some time to finish reading Boyarin today. I'm glad you recommended his article to me, because there is some very good stuff in it. However, I must admit that in the context of the present discussion I feel I've been sent down something of a rabbit trail. Boyarin's understanding of the content and function of Logos does not differ fundamentally from Tobin's, and in fact Tobin is cited approvingly in the paper. Boyarin is simply arguing that "Hellenistic" Judaism was far more mainstream than the term might seem to imply-- that, indeed, nearly all Judaism in the first century was "Hellenistic". Rather than presenting Memra as an alternative to Logos, the two are presented as more or less identical: Memra is simply Logos in Aramaic. Boyarin seems very much to agree with Tobin-- and with me-- that Philo and John sprang from more or less the same theological tradition.

I think there is room to critique Boyarin's treatment. For example, he overlooks the Odes of Solomon, a first-century Jewish text written in Greek that is so much like the Fourth Gospel that Charlesworth mistook it for a Johannine Christian text. He also doesn't say much about gnosticism's roots in the same milieu as Philo, John, and the Memra Targums. And I think he probably dismisses too easily the existence of "rabbinic" Judaism in the first century. But since none of that is extremely relevant to our discussion, I'll leave that all aside for now.

With respect to the question of anthropomorphism, my point still stands. I argued that Logos-theology relies on a Middle Platonic concept of God as transcendent. Boyarin suggests that Middle Platonism's Logos-theology may actually be more derived from Judaism than the other way around, but he agrees on the fundamental principle that Logos-theology implies a transcendent God. On page 255 we read, "Indeed, as pointed out by Burton Mack, the very purpose for which Sophia/Logos theology developed within Judaism was precisely to enable 'a theology of the transcendence of God.'" My interpretation of pleroma as the divine light of God's being is also perfectly compatible with the Jewish Memra-texts Boyarin cites, which say among other things that "The Word of the Lord was the light, and it shone" (260).

Anyway, I really don't understand how you thought Boyarin would help your cause. Perhaps you could clarify. Best,

-Chris