Martijn Steegen, «M. Steegen: To Worship the Johannine 'Son of Man'. John 9,38 as Refocusing on the Father», Vol. 91 (2010) 534-554
Important early textual witnesses show John 9,38-39a to be absent. Because of the use of uncharacteristic vocabulary, the use of rare verb forms such as e¶fh and pistey¥w, and the unique confession of faith and worship of Jesus as “Son of Man” during his earthly life, John 9,38 has been said to stand outside Johannine theology. I argue that, although John 9,38-39a confronts the Gospel’s reader with uncharacteristic vocabulary, this does not necessarily imply that these words were added by a later hand under liturgical influence. Instead of standing outside Johannine theology, the confession of faith and the worship by the man healed from his blindness function as the first fulfilment of the proleptic prediction of the words in 4,23 kaiù gaùr oO pathùr toioy¥toyv zhtei˜ toyùv proskynoy˜ntav ayßto¥n. Then, I confront the absence of 9,38-39a with yet another text-critical problem in the larger pericope 9,35-41 — the replacement of the title yiOoùv toy˜ aßnurw¥ poy in 9,35 by yiOoùv toy˜ ueoy — and argue that these two text-critical problems cannot be separated from one another. Finally, I explore how the designation “Son of Man” functions within the framework of pistey¥w and proskyne¥w. The worship of the Johannine Jesus can hardly be seen as a goal in itself. Instead, it is an acknowledgement that the Father is made known in the person of Jesus (cf. 9,3), and hence is typically Johannine.
546 MARTIJN STEEGEN
Given the christological importance of the title in the Fourth
Gospel, it is not self-evident that the healed man only expressed
“ ordinary homage to a human being†by means of the verb
proskynew, although it is not yet certain whether the blind man
Â¥
fully grasped the meaning of the christological title 35. In 9,38, as in
9,36, the man addresses Jesus again as kyriov, which probably
Â¥
had at the moment before his confession of faith no specific
christological overtone. However, Rudolf Schnackenburg argues
that the evangelist by specifically using the verb proskynew ¥
definitely intends it to have a deeper meaning . He grounds his
36
position in the fact that the fourth evangelist already used the verb
intensively in 4,20-24 and restricted its meaning to the worship of
God. This finding is strengthened by the fact that the self-
revelatory words of Jesus in 9,37 recall his self-disclosure to the
Samaritan woman in John 4. Especially the words o lalwn meta
Ω ˜ ù
soy ekeËœnov estin in 9,37 are parallel to the revelational words of
˜ß ı¥ ß
4,26 egw eımi, o lalwn soi 37. Since the verb proskynew is ¥
ߥ ß Ω ˜
surrounded by important Johannine key words in the climactic
pericope 9,35-41, one might expect a dense network at the end of
the sign of the healing of the man born blind, the preparation for
which occurs in the preceding Gospel passages 38.
Schnackenburg’s observation is valuable, since it is generally
recognized that the fourth evangelist likes to construct semantic
networks throughout his Gospel. R. Alan Culpepper emphasizes
that various parts of the Gospel are interrelated by the recurrence
SCHNACKENBURG, John, II, 254.
35
SCHNACKENBURG, John, II, 254.
36
THYEN, Das Johannesevangelium, 472. The verb lalew is closely
Â¥
37
connected to the concept of revelation in the Fourth Gospel.
Important Johannine key words — represented in the lists of style
38
characteristics by M.-É. BOISMARD – A. LAMOUILLE, L’évangile de Jean;
F. NEIRYNCK, Jean et les Synoptiques. Examen critique de l’exegese de M.É.-
Boismard (BETL 49; Leuven 1979) and W. SCHENK, Kommentiertes Lexikon
zum Vierten Evangelium. Seine Textkonstituenten in ihren Syntagmen und
Wortfeldern (Text-theoretical Studies of the New Testament 1; Lampeter 1993)
— are: pisteyw eıv (75-50% cat. B51 in Boismard; Neirynck 62332 ; Schenk
¥ ß
328) ; oraw (75-50% cat. B82 in Boismard; Neirynck 59285 ; Schenk 416);
Ω¥
lalew + meta soy (75-50% cat. B63* in Boismard; Neirynck 56205 ; Schenk
¥ ù ˜
245) ; yıov toy anurwpoy (100% cat. A41* in Boismard; Neirynck 64388 ;
Ωù ˜ß ¥
Schenk 402).
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