T. Francis Glasson. Moses in the Fourth Gospel. London: SCM Press, 1963.
I read about this book in another book that I was reading and thought
that it looked interesting. I checked it out on Amazon and saw that
Dove was offering it for a low price, so I bought it. It’s a short
book—-it has 110 pages—-but it is valuable because of its references to
rabbinic, patristic, and other interpretive sources. Glasson even
refers to an old Russian text of Josephus, which depicts Jews affirming
that Jesus was Moses risen from the dead!
Glasson essentially argues that Moses is a significant figure in the
Gospel of John, and also elsewhere in the New Testament. According to
Glasson, Jesus in John’s Gospel was the prophet like Moses who would
speak God’s words (Deuteronomy 18:15-19). Like Moses, Jesus brought
bread to the people and changed water into another substance (blood, for
Moses, and wine, for Jesus). When Jesus said in John 8:12 that he was
the light of the world and that those who follow him will walk in light
rather than darkness, he was not likening himself to the sun, Glasson
contends, for who follows the sun? According to Glasson, Jesus was
likening himself to the pillar of fire that guided the Israelites to the
Promised Land. John 1:14 affirms that Jesus tabernacled among us, and
Glasson reads that in light of God dwelling in a Tabernacle with the
Israelites on the wilderness journey. For Glasson, a message of John is
that Christians are on a wilderness journey, and Jesus is like a new
Moses (and other phenomena of the Exodus and wilderness journey),
guiding them towards their destination.
Yet, Glasson argues that the Gospel of John maintained that Jesus was
superior to Moses. Whereas rabbinic literature depicts the Torah as
the wisdom that was present at creation, for example, the Gospel of John
depicts the Word who became Jesus Christ as the one who was with God at
that time. John 1:17 states that the law was given through Moses, but
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Glasson refers to rabbinic, patristic, and other interpretive
literature to make the parallels between John’s Jesus and Moses more
explicit. He mentions examples in Jewish literature of Moses becoming a
celestial figure or interceding for Israel even after he died, and that
resembles how John depicts Jesus. John 19:34 states that blood and
water came out of Jesus’ side at the crucifixion after a Roman soldier
pierced him with a spear, and Glasson refers to a rabbinic text in which
water and blood comes from the rock that Moses struck to provide the
Israelites with nourishment. Glasson realizes that detractors will say
that he should not use rabbinic and patristic literature in talking
about the Gospel of John, for rabbinic and patristic literature came
later. But Glasson responds that rabbinic literature can have older
traditions. One page 12, he refers to D. Daube, who noted that the
phrase “Moses’ seat” does not occur in rabbinic literature until long
after the time of the New Testament, and yet Matthew 23:2 still uses
that expression. Glasson states that the expression “was in use among
first-century Jews and the lack of earlier attestation is a mere
accident.”
Glasson also notes verbal parallels between the Septuagint and the
Gospel of John, especially regarding the final exhortations of Jesus and
Moses in Deuteronomy, and Moses’ commissioning of Joshua.
I agree with Glasson’s thesis that Moses plays a significant role in
the New Testament. There are plenty of explicit examples of that in the
New Testament itself, even if one chooses to ignore rabbinic and
patristic literature. As far as Glasson’s appeal to rabbinic and
patristic literature is concerned, it is certainly what made the book
interesting! But I would recommend caution in appealing to later
literature to understand the Gospel of John. For one, just because a
rabbinic source says that an earlier authority made a point, that does
not mean that the point really came from that earlier authority. It
could have come later, and it was put into the mouth of that earlier
authority. Jacob Neusner has discussed criteria on how to determine
what is earlier and later in rabbinic literature. Second, there may be
cases in which rabbinic literature is responding to the Gospel of John
or early Christianity. It could be taking what early Christianity says
about Jesus and applying it to the Torah or to Moses, in order to argue
that the Torah and Moses are superior to Jesus. In such a situation, to
think that John has these sorts of statements in mind in writing his
own Gospel would be mistaken. I do not think that this is always the
case in Glasson’s examples, but it should be kept in mind as a
possibility.