Tom Thatcher. Why John Wrote a Gospel: Jesus—-Memory—-History. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2006.
I got this book at a low price from Christian Book Distributors. It
looked like it would be a good book for me to read for two reasons.
First, I have read more than once in the biblioblogosphere that
historical Jesus studies are moving away from the longstanding criteria
of authenticity, and towards a focus on memory. For a long time, and
even today, scholars have applied criteria to the Gospels in order to
determine what parts of the Gospels are historically accurate. For
example, if the Gospels say something embarrassing about Jesus, then
what they say in that case is probably accurate, since why would Gospel
authors make up something that is embarrassing about Jesus? If the
Gospels present Jesus saying something that is discontinuous from the
teachings of early Christians, then Jesus most likely said it.
Nowadays, scholars are saying that there are weaknesses in the criteria
(i.e., what we may consider embarrassing about Jesus may not have been
thought to be so by the Gospel writers), and many are saying that we
should look at memory, particularly social memory. I have read a number
of blog posts about this topic, and yet there are gaps in my mind about
it. I have wondered: Does the focus on memory imply that the Gospels
stem from eyewitness testimony, from people who were in Jesus’ presence
and remembered what he did and taught, even if they interpreted or
applied those things in different ways? Because Thatcher’s book
contains an extensive discussion of social memory, I figured that I
might find some answers there.
Second, I have long had questions about writing in the ancient
world. Why were things written down in the first place, when there was
oral culture and people passed down traditions by word of mouth? Why
would Gospels need to be written down? Who did the writing, since
writing in those days may have required some wealth or influence due to
the costliness of writing materials?
Tom Thatcher’s Why John Wrote a Gospel addresses the
question of why the Gospel of John was written down. He raises some of
the same sorts of questions that I have: Why write, when most people
arguably could not read, and when there was an oral culture? But he
also asks questions that rest on other considerations. Why did the
author of the Gospel of John see a need to write a Gospel, when he said
that the Holy Spirit would bring things about Jesus to people’s
remembrance (John 14:26)? If the Holy Spirit could cause believers to
remember what Jesus said and did, would it not be unnecessary to write
those things down to preserve them and to keep them from being
forgotten? On a similar note, did not I John 2:27 tell believers that
they needed no one to teach them because they were anointed by the Holy
Spirit? If John believed that they were so anointed and guided directly
by the Holy Spirit, why would he write a Gospel so that they could be
taught or remember what Jesus said and did?
Thatcher’s answer is that the author of John’s Gospel was writing the
Gospel down to create an official and permanent version of what Jesus
said and taught, in opposition to the Antichrists whom I John
criticizes. The Antichrists were denying that Jesus Christ came in the
flesh: they may have been saying that a Christ spirit came upon the
historical Jesus of Nazareth and left Jesus when Jesus was about to be
crucified, or that Jesus only appeared to be human but really was not,
but rather was a divine figure. The Antichrists maintained that they
were faithful to the memory of Jesus—-and they may have even claimed
that they were witness to new revelations from Jesus. But the writer of
the Johnannine literature did not believe that their interpretations of
Jesus’ life were accurate, for he thought that Jesus came in the flesh
and died as part of God’s plan. Consequently, the Johannine author
wrote his Gospel. Writing in those days served to give permanence or
stability to certain recollections or versions of a story, which was
what the Johannine author wanted to do: once something was written down,
that was hard to change, and it was even official, in some sense.
Moreover, because most people could not read, they tended to revere the
written word.
I found Thatcher’s book to be useful and helpful for a variety of
reasons. I appreciated his reference to ancient Christian sources that
actually specified why the Gospels were written down: to preserve what
Jesus said and did. Thatcher’s discussion of memory was also valuable.
He pointed out that the Gospel of John itself maintains that memory is
about more than what Jesus said and did, for it also includes the
correct interpretation of those events. The Gospel of John, after all,
says that some of Jesus’ words were misunderstood until after he was
resurrected (see, for example, John 2:22). Moreover, Thatcher argued
that memory is social. Even if we remember doing something in solitude,
we did what we did within a social context, and, if we wanted to share
what we did with others, we would have to communicate it in a way that
would make sense to our social context. I should also note that
Thatcher’s cartoons and visual aids in the book clarified to me what he
was arguing.
In terms of criticisms, I have four. First of all, although Thatcher
made a fairly decent case that most Jews could not read in antiquity,
he should have interacted with scholarship that argues the opposite,
such as Alan Millard’s Reading and Writing in the Time of Jesus (see here,
both my post and the comments). Second, Thatcher states that people
may not have even read the Gospel of John, but he should have interacted
with the question of whether they would have read from it in church
services, as Jews hear the Torah being read in synagogues. Third, I
wish that Thatcher addressed the question of who in the ancient world
would have had the wealth, power, or resources to write a Gospel, or to
contribute to the writing of one. That could have launched a profitable
discussion about the role of social interests in defining what is
orthodox and heretical. And, fourth, I was not always clear about
Thatcher’s definition of memory. I often thought that he believed that
it related to eyewitness testimony—-people remembering what they
saw—-but he seems to indicate in places of the book that memory can be
broader than that: that it can include believing something about the
past, or even encountering events through reading a book.
Although Thatcher did not address all of the questions that are in my
mind about social memory and writing, I did find what he said about the
Gospel of John to be interesting and thought-provoking. His personal
anecdotes also made him a pleasure to read.