Gospel Writing by Francis Watson

Author:Francis Watson [Watson, Francis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL000000
ISBN: 978-1-4674-3765-3
Publisher: Eerdmans Publishing
Published: 2013-07-26T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

Reinterpreting in Parallel (Jn, GTh, GPet)

As preceding chapters have shown, a historical account of gospel origins must incorporate the evidence of gospels later deemed noncanonical. The Gospel of Thomas confirms the existence of the Sayings Collection genre within which Jesus’ sayings were originally preserved and transmitted. In conjunction with the L/M hypothesis, the resulting SC hypothesis occupies the space left vacant by the demise of Q. Similarly, the extant fragments of the Egerton gospel contain pre-Johannine and presynoptic material that sheds light on the interpretative processes underlying the canonical gospels. It is simply wrong to suppose that canonical gospel origins can and should be explained without reference to extracanonical texts; there is no reason to assume any such correspondence between early gospel writing and a canonical/noncanonical divide first attested in the latter part of the second century. Precisely in order to grasp the historical, hermeneutical, and theological significance of this distinction, a precanonical stage must be envisaged in which gospel literature proliferates in the absence of any canonical limit.

In the present chapter, this argument will be further developed by investigating parallel interpretative processes in the gospels attributed to John, Thomas, and Peter. The fact that the Johannine gospel was later located on one side of the canonical boundary and GTh and GPet on the other is, of course, profoundly significant. But this canonical differentiation does not reflect differences inherent in the texts themselves. These gospels all claim apostolic authority, and they all present an image of Jesus rooted in early tradition and shaped by later interpretative developments. There is no reason to suppose that a canonical text must have been separated from its noncanonical counterparts by an interval of many decades, or that, even if such an interval could be demonstrated, it would possess any special significance. It is true that, within the ongoing tradition shaped by the fourfold gospel, a judgement in favour of the canonical text and against the noncanonical one is proper and necessary. One may indeed wish to affirm that the catholic church was right in its selection, and that these four gospels are individually and collectively adequate to the reality of divine self-disclosure in Jesus in ways that noncanonical gospels are not. Yet there is no standpoint from which such an affirmation could be made other than the one already shaped by the canonical decision.

In the gospels attributed to John, Thomas, and Peter, existing interpretations of early tradition are subjected to reinterpretation. Before engaging directly with these texts, the concept of reinterpretation must be developed in the context of a comprehensive outline of a reception process extending from the life of Jesus to the formation of the fourfold canonical gospel. The outline will draw on the findings of previous chapters, but will also anticipate points to be developed in the rest of this book.

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