The Historicity of Lazarus: Internal Features of the Text of John 11
“If the Fourth Gospel can be seen
as a Gospel of Life,” writes Andrew Lincoln in his commentary on John, “then
this [Lazarus] episode is the Fourth Gospel in miniature.”[1] Indeed, C.H. Dodd observes that its length
alone—even before we regard its content and specific place before the
transition into Christ’s passion—is the longest narrative in John outside the
passion narrative and hence commands attention.[2] However, given the recent history of
skepticism in regards to the historical reliability of the Fourth Gospel
generally (not to mention Hume’s perennial reminder to us of the cumulative
weight given to a history of naturalistic experience that “dead men do not
rise”) it often can only mean to the modern reader that when such superlatives
as “greatest earthly miracle before the passion,”[3] are
used in regards to Lazarus, this high theological praise varies inversely with
any type of solid historical pedigree underlying the event. Thus in this essay we will be focusing in
particular upon the details of the narrative as “internal evidence” which appear
to commend it as not “mere” theology, but as a very detailed retelling of what
can plausibly be rendered as historical events, thus providing what Richard
Bauckham has labeled “testimony,”[4]—a
category that helpfully retains both theological
and historical in their inner unity
and connection.
John 11:1 π •Hn de÷ tiß
aÓsqenw◊n, La¿zaroß aÓpo\ Bhqani÷aß, e˙k thvß kw¿mhß Mari÷aß kai« Ma¿rqaß thvß
aÓdelfhvß aujthvß. John 11:2 h™n de« Maria»m hJ aÓlei÷yasa to\n ku/rion mu/rwˆ kai«
e˙kma¿xasa tou\ß po/daß aujtouv tai√ß qrixi«n aujthvß, h∞ß oJ aÓdelfo\ß
La¿zaroß hjsqe÷nei. John 11:3 aÓpe÷steilan ou™n ai˚ aÓdelfai« pro\ß aujto\n le÷gousai:
ku/rie, i¶de o§n filei√ß aÓsqenei√.
John 11:4 aÓkou/saß de« oJ ∆Ihsouvß ei•pen: au¢th hJ aÓsqe÷neia oujk
e¶stin pro\ß qa¿naton aÓll∆ uJpe«r thvß do/xhß touv qeouv, iºna doxasqhØv oJ
ui˚o\ß touv qeouv di∆ aujthvß. John 11:5 hjga¿pa de« oJ
∆Ihsouvß th\n Ma¿rqan kai« th\n aÓdelfh\n aujthvß kai« to\n La¿zaron. John 11:6 wJß ou™n h¡kousen o¢ti
aÓsqenei√, to/te me«n e¶meinen e˙n wˆ— h™n to/pwˆ du/o hJme÷raß, ohn 11:7 e¶peita meta» touvto
le÷gei toi√ß maqhtai√ß: a‡gwmen ei˙ß th\n ∆Ioudai÷an pa¿lin... John 11:11 π Tauvta ei•pen, kai« meta» touvto le÷gei
aujtoi√ß: La¿zaroß oJ fi÷loß hJmw◊n kekoi÷mhtai: aÓlla» poreu/omai iºna
e˙xupni÷sw aujto/n. John 11:12 ei•pan ou™n oi˚ maqhtai« aujtwˆ◊: ku/rie, ei˙ kekoi÷mhtai swqh/setai.
John
11:13
ei˙rh/kei de« oJ ∆Ihsouvß peri« touv qana¿tou aujtouv, e˙kei√noi de« e¶doxan
o¢ti peri« thvß koimh/sewß touv u¢pnou le÷gei.
John 11:14 to/te ou™n ei•pen aujtoi√ß oJ ∆Ihsouvß parrhsi÷aˆ:
La¿zaroß aÓpe÷qanen,
John 11:15 kai« cai÷rw di∆ uJma◊ß iºna pisteu/shte, o¢ti oujk h¡mhn
e˙kei√: aÓlla» a‡gwmen pro\ß aujto/n…. John 11:39 le÷gei oJ ∆Ihsouvß:
a‡rate to\n li÷qon. le÷gei aujtwˆ◊ hJ aÓdelfh\ touv teteleuthko/toß Ma¿rqa:
ku/rie, h¡dh o¡zei, tetartai√oß ga¿r e˙stin. John 11:40 le÷gei aujthØv oJ
∆Ihsouvß: oujk ei•po/n soi o¢ti e˙a»n pisteu/shØß o¡yhØ th\n do/xan touv qeouv;
John
11:41
h™ran ou™n to\n li÷qon. oJ de« ∆Ihsouvß h™ren tou\ß ojfqalmou\ß a‡nw kai«
ei•pen: pa¿ter, eujcaristw◊ soi o¢ti h¡kousa¿ß mou. John 11:42 e˙gw» de« hØ¡dein o¢ti
pa¿ntote÷ mou aÓkou/eiß, aÓlla» dia» to\n o¡clon to\n periestw◊ta ei•pon, iºna
pisteu/swsin o¢ti su/ me aÓpe÷steilaß.
John 11:43 kai« tauvta ei˙pw»n fwnhØv mega¿lhØ e˙krau/gasen: La¿zare,
deuvro e¶xw.
John 11:44 e˙xhvlqen oJ teqnhkw»ß dedeme÷noß tou\ß po/daß kai« ta»ß
cei√raß keiri÷aiß kai« hJ o¡yiß aujtouv soudari÷wˆ periede÷deto. le÷gei
aujtoi√ß oJ ∆Ihsouvß: lu/sate aujto\n kai« a‡fete aujto\n uJpa¿gein.
Translation: There was a certain man named Lazarus who was sick; he
was from Bethany, from the village of Mary and Martha, his sisters. Now this Mary who was the sister of the
ailing Lazarus was the one who anointed the Lord’s with oil, and brushed his
feet with her hair. So the sisters sent
to Jesus a message to say “O’ Lord, behold, one whom you love is sick!” After hearing this, Jesus said to them, “this
sickness is not leading to death, but rather it is for the glory of God, in
order that the Son of God might be glorified through it.” Now, Jesus loved Martha and her sister, and
Lazarus, yet when Jesus heard that Lazarus was sick he remained in the same
place he was for two days. Then, after
this he said to his disciples, “Let us go into Judea again. He said these things, and after this he said
to them, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going in order that I
might awake him.” Then the disciples
said to him, “Lord, if he sleeps he shall get better.” But Jesus spoke concerning his death, but
they had they opinion that concerning actual sleep [lit. sleeping sleep]. Then Jesus said to them plainly, “Lazarus
died. Yet I rejoice because of you, in order that you might believe, that we
were not there. But let us go to him”…
Jesus said, “take away the stone.”
Martha, the sister of the one who died, said to him, “Already he smells,
for it has been four days.” But Jesus
responded, “did I not tell you that if you believe you shall see the glory of
God?” They then removed the stone. Jesus lifted his eyes upward and said,
“Father, I give thanks to you, that you have heard me; I know that you always
hear me, but because of the crowd standing around I say this, in order that
they might believe that you sent me. And
after saying these things, he bellowed in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come
outside!” Then the one who was dead came
outside, bound foot and hand with strips of cloth, and cloth wrapped around his
face. Jesus said to them, “untie him and
let him go.”
II. Prolegomena
Here before we
begin we must note the limit of our investigation will be confined to internal,
textual evidence for the veracity of the historical nature of the Lazarus
account. What cannot here be dealt with
are questions of naturalism, the general plausibility of miracles, and the
like. Thus it must be admitted that this
paper is of little apologetic value on its own, and that if one brings to the
text the presupposition that resurrections are the miraculous are simply a priori impossible, then no amount of
“internal” textual evidence will persuade otherwise.[6] The specific intent of this paper therefore,
is to bring out the literary aspects of the text which appear on examination to
warrant admitting their historical plausibility.
And
one more word: why the Lazarus story?
Why not investigate the much more popular ground for historical
sleuthing and go after the Resurrection itself?
Part of the reason is that even considered in isolation, the story
itself is simply put, a good story—it has interesting characters, vivid
emotional descriptions, dialogue combined with sign-acts.[7] In Sproston North’s words, “here for the
first time sign and discourse have been fused to form a narrative of
unprecedented richness and complexity which, with the added genius of John’s
dramatic sensibilities and sure literary touch, is a masterpiece of the Gospel
writer’s art.”[8] Combine this with the fact the Lazarus story
essentially forms both the foreshadowing or preamble for Christ’s own death and
resurrection, and is used by the
Evangelist as something of a “pivot” that transitions between the two halves of
his Gospel,[9] it
seems a very interesting candidate in its own right to attempt and demonstrate
historical veracity exists even amongst a literary and theological design. In fact, precisely because scholarship has
found such a richness in its literary elements it has often interpreted without
sufficient reference to its historical nature.[10]
III. Lazarus in Context: Rising Tensions
The sign of Jesus
raising the dead Lazarus is generally seen as the seventh and final sign in
what is often called “the book of signs,” (ch.2-13) or the first half of the
Gospel of John, as opposed to the second half often designated as the “book of
glory” (ch. 13-20).[11]
It is a fitting close to the “book of signs” that John has chosen in many
respects, and not just because in terms of impressiveness it constitutes a sort
of denouement to the signs of Jesus so far.
In addition to also being the seventh sign that John presents (the
number of perfection) Craig Keener points out a sort of symmetry between
Christ’s first and last miracles: "This climactic sign of Jesus'
ministry joins the opening sign in framing Jesus' public ministry. The opening
sign (2:1-11) recounts Jesus' benevolence at a wedding; the last involves it at
a funeral. The joy of weddings and mourning of funerals could function as
opposites in ancient literature."[12]
The
temporal context for the miracle of Lazarus is that it takes place with the
Feast of Dedication in the background, celebrating the cleansing and
rededication of the temple by Judas Maccabeus in 164 B.C. after its defilement
by Antiochus Epiphanes. Borchert gives a
helpful brief on the nature of the ceremonies and as such the background
context necessary to place ourselves within the thought-world Jesus is moving
within:
I believe chap. 10 represents a
new theme that builds upon the inadequacy of the Jewish leadership and the
rejection of Jesus' messianic calling evident throughout the Tabernacles
section of John (chaps. 7- 9). But the Festival of Dedication (which is the
focus of chap. 10) also has a messianic aspect because that festival had been
celebrated as a memorial to the rejection of false rulers, epitomized by
Antiochus IV (Epiphanes), who among other things desecrated the temple by
slaughtering a pig on the altar of sacrifice and also erected a statue of Zeus
(Jupiter) in the most holy place, the inner sanctuary of the temple. The
subsequent victory and expulsion of the Syrians from Israel in 164 B.C. under
Judas Maccabeus and the accompanying reconsecration of the temple was
thereafter established in the Jewish calendar as a national religious freedom festival,
which at that time definitely implied messianic
expectations.[13]
Thus
while there may seem to be no immediate connection with the miraculous raising
of Lazarus, in fact it seems here the continuity of theme orbits precisely
around the concept of the Messiah, or, perhaps better: two opposing concepts, as Witherington notes just prior to John 11
Jesus gave a speech in the midst of a feast honoring the military victory of
the Maccabees. Here in John 10, “Jesus
delivers a discourse indicating that true leadership does indeed mean laying
down one’s life for the sheep, as some of the Maccabees had in fact done. Only now, instead of many heroic shepherds,
Jesus speaks of only one true shepherd for God’s people.”[14] Here Christ represents another instance of
what N.T. Wright calls “subversion.”[15] That is, Jesus embodies Israel’s narrative in
himself and represents himself as its fulfillment, yet precisely in doing so
also inverts the story, subverting
expectations to realign them with Jesus’ own agenda—exploding them from within,
so to speak. Here he is not living up to
the image of a Maccabean military deliverer, while in Jn.11 he demonstrates
that despite this he is the
resurrection and the life. Though it
seems overstated to say as Stephen Kim does that “Jesus was showing that true
messianic deliverance was spiritual not political,”[16]
he is surely right to point out that “This growing polarization of opinions [regarding
Jesus as Messiah] provided the setting for Jesus' miracle of raising Lazarus
from the dead (Jn. 11). And this miracle provided the ultimate basis for faith and
at the same time the ultimate cause for unbelief and eventually murder.”[17] Important for our purposes in this essay,
regarding the internal evidence for the historical nature of the Lazarus story,
is the conclusion of Craig Blomberg regarding the events just preceding it in
ch.10:
Jesus teaching in the temple
during Hanukkah aptly satisfies the double similarity and dissimilarity
criterion. All the points and
counterpoints made in this debate resonate with Jewish background, Scripture,
and exegetical technique. Yet Jesus
makes a sufficiently outrageous claim so as to provoke the authorities to
hostility once again.[18]
Which is to say
anyone who wants to claim they are fiction has the burden of proof as the
account reads as authentic within its various details as being both true to the
Jewish context and what seems to be Jesus’ general “subversion” strategy. And
regarding the report just after Jesus’ speech during Hanukkah, when he fled to
somewhere east of the Jordan (10.40) and made more disciples based on peoples
previous enthusiasm for John the Baptist, Schnackenburg comments, “the
historicity of this report can hardly be doubted,” precisely because Jesus’
“retreats” from those who seek to kill him could be construed as an
embarrassment to tradition, and are hardly likely to have been invented.[19]
Thus
here, along with Bauckham and S. Byrskog’s[20]
more generalized work on the concept of “eyewitness” testimony for the Gospel
of John at large, begin to paint a picture of the historical legitimacy of
John’s Gospel leading up in to the pericope of Lazarus, giving a sort of
initial a priori plausibility to the
claim that the Lazarus narrative itself is grounded as history, and not merely
a mythology of the Evangelist’s (or his “community’s”) imagination.
IV. Doubts, Details, and Dirges
This
is not, to argue, however, that
John’s presentation in ch.10-11 necessarily represents the actual chronological order of events. Both Ben Witherington[21]
and Raymond Brown[22]
argue for the historical veracity of the event, yet also simultaneously argue
that this positioning in the Gospel of John has more to do with John’s literary
and theological agenda than it does chronology.[23] Their reasoning for this is similar: if John’s Gospel is the sequentially correct version, and therefore “it was the event that triggered the events that
led up to Jesus’ death and resurrection, it is very difficult to see how the
Synoptic authors could possibly have afforded to omit this information.”[24] Yet here we must side with Blomberg’s more
nuanced position. Witherington is not
necessarily wrong in stating that
John does not represent the chronological order,[25]
yet:
John and the Synoptics alike omit
and include material according to relatively clear theological and literary
criteria. What does not fit those
criteria is not included, however much we might have thought it should be. Thus the resurrection of Lazarus does not
appear in the Synoptics because it takes place in Judea prior to the last of
Christ’s trips to Jerusalem, of which the Synoptics wish to record only
one. The transfiguration does not appear
in John because it occurs in the middle of the ministry, but does not take
place in or around Jerusalem or directly tie in with one of the Jewish
festivals. And so we might continue. We
may not be able to guess the reason for every omission in a given Gospel, but
enough examples are clear that such omissions cannot be used to argue that a
given Evangelist did not know of an event he omits, much less that it is not
historical.[26]
Hence
even if John’s chronology was correct,
it does not necessarily cause the difficulty that Witherington fears, as the
claim could be made that its omission falls under the logic of some larger
schema dictating the selection process.
At any rate a potential stumbling block has been removed as
Witherington, Brown, and Blomberg all argue that the potential lack of chronological
order does not speak against historical
veracity. Thus such a counterclaim
calling the story fiction is here not wholly undermined, but is mitigated by
the deletion of a potential charge.
Another
quick potential theory must be mentioned before we approach the story itself,
namely several commentators note the parallel that in Luke 16:19-31 there is a
man named Lazarus whom the rich man in the same parable wishes to be
resurrected. Thus the speculation runs
in Susan Schneiders, for example, that the parable gave rise to the pericope in
a sort of imaginative transference.[27] However as F.F. Bruce and Blomberg both
mention, the name Lazarus (based upon the Hebrew “Eleazar,” or “God helps”) was
too frequent to allow such hypothesized connections to get us anywhere.[28] Even apart from this, there is no evidence
for such an argument, and as such it is difficult at this point to not give a
fair hearing to the Gospel account itself, to which we turn.
To
begin with the author—let us assume it was John—seems to go to great lengths to
indicate that it was indeed a physical death that is being pointed to (c.f.
11:39: le÷gei oJ ∆Ihsouvß: a‡rate
to\n li÷qon. le÷gei aujtwˆ◊ hJ aÓdelfh\ touv teteleuthko/toß Ma¿rqa: ku/rie,
h¡dh o¡zei, tetartai√oß ga¿r e˙stin). In fact Derek Tovey makes the interesting observation that
at several key points had John wanted to shy away from representing Lazarus’
death as a concrete, physical termination and resuscitation, he could have.[29] Jesus’ earlier pronouncement in 11:4[30]
that Lazarus’ illness would not “be unto death,” along with Jesus’ reference to
Lazarus as “sleeping” all lend, argues Tovey, to the perfect possibility of
steering the narrative as a sort of purely
symbolic foreshadowing or interpretation of Christ’s death and
resurrection. But not only does this turn
not happen—Frederick Bruner notes
that Jesus does not say that Lazarus’
illness with not go through death,
but that it will not ultimately “terminate” in death[31]—in
11:13-14 both John and Jesus explicitly cut
this short: ei˙rh/kei de«
oJ ∆Ihsouvß peri« touv qana¿tou aujtouv, e˙kei√noi de« e¶doxan o¢ti peri« thvß
koimh/sewß touv u¢pnou le÷gei. to/te
ou™n ei•pen aujtoi√ß oJ ∆Ihsouvß parrhsi÷aˆ: La¿zaroß aÓpe÷qanen, John appears, moreover, to go out of his way to identify the specifics—naming Lazarus’
sisters for example, and given that they share the same general characteristics
as they do in Luke 10:38-42, it indicates “a common tradition here [between
Luke and John] which is based on the memory of a historical pair.”[32] There
appears to be some divide amongst scholars regarding the proleptic
identification of Mary as the one who “anointed the Lord with oil and brushed
his feet with her hair,” as this has not yet occurred in the narrative.[33] Tovey notes that some argue for misediting of
the sources, yet this hardly seems plausible as, though possible it would take
an incredibly clumsy editor to simply “misedit,” the story out of order like
this. Rather it seems more likely that
it is either a narrative device called “prolepsis,”[34]
or perhaps expects the identification to be common enough that it will be
recognized antecedent to John’s specific telling of it.[35]
In fact Richard Bauckham has recently given much additional
weight to this latter idea, by arguing that named characters may appear in the
Gospel narratives “because they were eyewitnesses who not only originated the
traditions to which their names are attached, but also continue to tell these
stories as authoritative guarantors of tradition.”[36] He seeks to establish the argument that,
contrary to popular scholarly opinion names tended to be dropped out in later tradition, rather than added.[37] And this “dropping out” argues Bauckham is arguably
proportional to the extent that the named characters were remembered as
eyewitnesses and informants. If anything
the tendency to invent names for unnamed characters in the Gospels, he adds,
does not appear to have become popular until the 4th century.[38] Thus if Bauckham’s arguments are correct,
they give a certain additional weight to the plausibility of the historical
underpinning’s of the narrative via the presence of named characters.
Additional to all the has preceded, we might note that the
so-called “criteria of embarrassment,” namely, that if a story or event would
be possibly damaging to the reputation of the characters involved, it is likely
not invented by later (supportive) tradition, has several instances of
application within the Lazarus pericope.
When Jesus proposes, after waiting two days, that he and his disciples
go back to Judaea they initially recoil.[39] Here Blomberg notes that “the negative light
verse 8 casts on the disciples is unlikely to have been invented by later by
those very disciples.”[40] Witherington makes much the same point
regarding Martha, and the general lack of belief in Christ’s power to raise the
dead. These characteristics hardly seem
likely to have been invented at a later date but ring of a realistic account of
human struggles with faith. Add to this
the additional point already mentioned that the characteristics of Mary and
Martha seem to match their descriptions in Luke 10:38-42—with Martha as the
outgoing sister and Mary as the more reserved but portrayed as the more
devout—gives another level of legitimacy to the authenticity of the character
reports here.[41] Much the same can be said of Jesus’ grief at
Lazarus in v.33 (e˙nebrimh/sato
twˆ◊ pneu/mati kai« e˙ta¿raxen e˚auto\n) which
probably not be ascribed to Jesus in an unhistorical fabrication as it could
indicate weakness.
Moreover there are many incidental
details in the story that ring true to the time period, the customs, and
artifacts which would all be necessary corollaries to historical reality. For example Jesus’ use of the “sleep”
metaphor to describe Lazarus was—despite the disciples apparent slowness in
regards to it[42]--standard
in both Jewish and Graeco-Roman worlds of the day.[43] Martha’s reprimand to Christ (here perhaps
another for the criterion of embarrassment, it seems unlikely a character held
in esteem would be imagined to have reprimanded Christ) to not open the tomb
because it has been four days, both reflects the idea that because the Jews did
not use embalming processes like the Egyptians the body would have begun
suffering serious decay,[44]
and perhaps also reflects contemporary Jewish tradition that the spirit departs
the body after three-days and thus eliminated any hope of resuscitation.[45] Moreover both the style of tomb—a small cave
with a stone in front of it—and the particular wrapping of described of
Lazarus, all fit neatly into the historical location of the day. In fact the very realistic portrayal of the
scene at large—its descriptions of the crowd, the vivid emotional descriptions,
the dialogue—all, in D.A. Carson’s opinion the entire scene is described
realistically.[46] Even the disbelieving crowd gathered outside
the tomb, and the stress that Bethany is within two miles to Jerusalem,
implicitly confirm standard mourning customs and why so many were able to
gather for Lazarus.[47]
Even something as seemingly “theological” or
“high-Christological” as Jesus’ “I Am the Resurrection and the Life,” statement
(v.25) appear to ring with historical accuracy precisely because they remain
somewhat obscure—why would Jesus’ admittedly powerful metaphor have given
Martha heightened expectation for Lazarus’ immediate
revivification (which Jesus appears to want her to conclude), when she rightly
notes that the general expectation is that the resurrection is not until the
end of the age? Precisely here we would expect a certain level of gloss or
commentary to have perhaps appended itself in hopes of clarifying—something
that John is not hesitant to do elsewhere when he adds in 11:13 for example,
that the disciples thought Jesus was talking about sleep, but in fact he
referred to real death? The only
clarifications John does make seem to taste more of realism than smoothing
over, and add to the realism of the portrayal both in their presence
and—notably—in their absence.[48] Significant as an example of the absence of
gloss is the “extremely odd”[49]
juxtaposition of the description of Jesus’ love for Mary, Martha, and Lazarus,
while he yet delayed two days after receiving the message of Lazarus’
illness. “This is not how one acts when
they receive news of a deathly ill loved one,” notes Maloney,[50]
yet again there is no attempt to here gloss this tension, which one might
expect if the narrative was simply unhistorical fiction. Hence here we must agree with Tovey’s apt
summary that this is John’s attempt to both describe what we would
anachronistically call “realistic history” while also bringing out the theological meaning latent within that
realistic narrative to create a “theological history.”[51]
V. Synthesis
We began
by noting that though many see the Gospel of John as the high point of theology
among the Gospels, many have traditionally in the post-Enlightenment period
taken this “high theology” to be inversely proportional to any realistic basis
in history. This appears on closer
inspection to be incorrect.
Reconstructions of possible alternate origins to the story—from Lazarus
in Luke—turn out to be both implausible due to the frequency of the name
Lazarus in the ancient world, and completely lacking any substantial positive
evidence; on the other hand strategies to identify strata of redaction
traditions are so manifold as to essentially negate eachother’s usefulness. Thus we may turn to the text of the pericope
itself with the confidence that the burden of (dis)proof lay upon its detractors. And what we find in the story is a highly
realistic narrative that is surrounded by other highly realistic depictions of
events such as the Dedication festival.
Within the story are moving—and even potentially embarrassingly “all too
human”—characterizations, not only of the disciples, or of Martha, but of Jesus’
lament itself, and incidental details like the distance of Bethany to Jerusalem
and the gathering crowd of mourners in accord with Jewish custom, which
implicitly reinforce a realistic picture of the day. While these internal textual clues are
necessary for historical realism, they are of course not sufficient. So as we noted at the beginning these will
hardly convince if one sets out with the dogmatic insistence miracles are
impossible and resurrections are fairytales.
But at the very least this paper has hoped to demonstrate that whatever
the actual truth of the account, it reads
like no fairy tale, but a very serious attempt to write both good and meaningful history.
[1] Andrew Lincoln, The
Gospel According to St. John (New York: T&T Clark, 2005), 335.
[2] C.H. Dodd, The
Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cambridge University,
1968), 363.
[3] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Gospel of John: A Commentary (Grand Rapids:
Eerdman’s Publishing, 2012), 657.
[4] Richard Bauckham, “The Fourth Gospel as the Testimony
of the Beloved Disciple,” in The Gospel
of John and Christian Theology, ed.Richard Bauckham and Carl Mosser (Grand
Rapids: Eerdman’s Publishing, 2009) 120-139.
[5] While in this paper we will be doing our best to deal
with the whole pericope, for economy of space we have chosen to only represent
and translate a portion of the text.
[6] For example, Maurice Casey, Is John’s Gospel True? (London: Routledge, 1996), 55-56 simply
rejects out of hand any plausibility to the historical nature of the story
precisely because it contains what he considers mythical miraculous elements.
[7] Dodd, John notes
the thoroughly Johannine cast of the material (228) which of course could also
lead one to doubt that precisely in its
interesting features it is most far from a historically realistic narrative.
[8] W.E. Sproston North, The Lazarus Story within the Johannine Tradition (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 162.
[9] Andrew T. Lincoln, “The Lazarus Story: A Literary
Perspective,” in The Gospel of John and
Christian Theology, 211; c.f. also Witherington, John’s Wisdom, 198.
[10] Derek M. H. Tovey, “On Not Unbinding the Lazarus
Story: The Nexus of History and Theology in John 11:1-44” in John, Jesus, and History: Vol : Aspects of
Historicity in the Fourth Gospel ed. Paul N. Anderson, Felix Just, and Thom
Thatcher (New York: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 215.
[11] For example, Raymond Brown, The Gospel According to John (I-XII) (Garden City: Doubleday,
1966), cxxxviii.
[12] Craig Keener, The
Gospel of John: A Commentary (MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 2:835.
[13] Gerald Borchert, John
1-11 (B&H Publishing Group, 1996), 328.
Emphasis added.
[14] Ben Witherington, John’s
Wisdom: A Commentary on the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster
John-Knox, 1995), 187.
[15] N.T. Wright, Jesus
and the Victory of God (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 126
[16] Stephen S. Kim, “The Significance of Jesus Raising
Lazarus from the Dead in John 11,” Bibliotheca
Sacra 158 (January-March, 2011), 56.
[18] Craig Blomberg, The
Historical Reliability of John’s Gospel: Issues & Commentary (Illinois:
InterVarsity, 2001), 164.
[19] Rudolph Schnackenburg, The Gospel According to John (New York: Herder & Herder, 1982),
315.
[20] Bauckham, “The Fourth Gospel as Testimony,”; S.
Byrskog, Story as History—History as
Story (Leiden: Brill, 2002).
[21] Witherington, John’s
Wisdom, 196.
[22] Brown, John,
1:429-30.
[23] So Witherington, John’s
Wisdom, 196: “It is an especially fitting foreshadowing of what would
happen to Jesus on Easter, and it is likely for this reason the evangelist has
placed an originally independent narrative here.”
[25] This is given more force when we notice the structure
of the Lazarus story itself has another foreshadowing to it—namely in 11:2
where Mary is identified proleptically as the one “who anointed the Lord with
oil, and brushed his feet with her hair,” which of course has not happened in
the story yet. Thus strictly linear
story telling does not seem to be primary on the agenda of John. More on this in a moment.
[26] Blomberg, Historical
Reliability of John’s Gospel, 55-56.
[27] S. Schneiders, “Death in the Community of Eternal
Life,” Interpretation 41 (1987):
44-56.
[28] F.F. Bruce, The
Gospel of John, (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 1983), 240; Blomberg, 165.
[29] Tovey, “On Not Unbinding Lazarus,” 216.
[30] aÓkou/saß de« oJ
∆Ihsouvß ei•pen: au¢th hJ aÓsqe÷neia oujk e¶stin pro\ß qa¿naton aÓll∆ uJpe«r
thvß do/xhß touv qeouv, iºna doxasqhØv oJ ui˚o\ß touv qeouv di∆ aujthvß
[31] Bruner, John, 657.
[32] Tovey, “On Not Unbinding Lazarus,” 217.
[33] C.f. Ibid., 218.
[34] Francis J Maloney, The
Gospel of John: Text and Context (Boston: Brill, 2005), 219.
[35] Richard Bauckham, “John for Readers of Mark,” in
Richard Bauckham, The Gospels for All
Christians: Rethinking the Gospels Audiences, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998),
161-166. C.f. Bruner, John, 657; Blomberg, John 165.
[36] Richard Bauckham, Jesus
and the Eyewitnesses (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 2008), 39.
[38] Ibid.
le÷gousin aujtwˆ◊ oi˚ maqhtai÷: rJabbi÷, nuvn e˙zh/toun se
liqa¿sai oi˚ ∆Ioudai√oi, kai« pa¿lin uJpa¿geiß e˙kei√;
[40] Blomberg
[41] Witherington, John’s
Wisdom, 199.
[42] Perhaps another instance for the criteria of
embarrassment!
[43] Borchert, John,
352 demonstrates this with several texts.
[44] Tovey, “Not Unbinding Lazarus,” 220.
[45] Brown, John,
1:424.
[46] D. A. Carson, The
Gospel According to John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1990), 416.
[47] Carson, ibid.; C.f.
also Witherington, John’s Wisdom,
203.
[48] Lincoln, “The Lazarus Story: A Literary Perspective,”
notes that it is often a sign of realistic narratives intent on describing
events to retain certain aporiai in
the texts; c.f. Blomberg John 168,
who makes the same point.
[49] Maloney, The
Gospel of John, 221.
[51] Tovey, “Not Binding Lazarus,” 221.
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