Mark Jennings, «The Fourth Gospel’s Reversal of Mark in John 13,31‒14,3», Vol. 94 (2013) 210-236
I argue that the author/s of the Fourth Gospel knew Mark, based on the reversal of certain Markan themes found in John. No attempt is made here to suggest the kind of literary dependence which is the basis of the Synoptic problem. Rather, my thesis is that the author/s of John may have used Mark from memory, writing deliberately to reverse the apocalyptic tendencies found in the Second Gospel. Isolated incidents of this possible reversal demonstrate little, but this paper proposes that the cumulative force of many such reversals supports the thesis of John's possible knowledge of Mark.
216 MARK JENNINGS
As we have seen, Mark 13,24-27 has a significant function in
Markan eschatology, as it explicates the eventual vindication of the
elect and the commencement of the kingdom of God. In the same
context (a farewell discourse), using the same broad motifs of glory
and the Son of Man, the fourth evangelist has constructed a narrative
which serves Johannine theology and purposes. John’s eschatology
here is the opposite of what we find in Mark. The glorification and
final revelation of Jesus, and of God in him, takes place at the point
of the crucifixion/resurrection/return to the Father. Is it possible that
John has taken the elements of the Markan pericope and effected a
reversal, bending these elements to serve his own purposes? Differ-
ences according to this hypothesis are not necessarily problematic,
but they could constitute evidence of Johannine reconstruction.
Further, it is not simply a possible reversal in thought that is in ev-
idence here. The description of the Parousia occurs where it does in
Mark, toward the end of the eschatological discourse, precisely be-
cause the appearance of Christ follows the tribulation. This forms the
climax of the passage and the climax of history. Conversely, in John,
this parallel section is positioned at the beginning of the Final Dis-
course. For John, the climax of history is occurring in the outworking
of the narrative, as Jesus walks the path toward death and returns to
the Father. The Johannine Jesus begins with glorification, and then
goes on to talk of the suffering his followers will face after his depar-
ture, because the world hates them (14,15-17; 16,2-3.32-33; 17,14).
If we consider that John was familiar with the Markan material
and order, it would follow that he may have reversed the order in
which the material was placed in order to turn the emphasis on its
head. This would mean that John was deliberately bending the el-
ements of the story in order to present a different eschatology. He
would also be writing with the agenda of imposing a different an-
swer to the problem of suffering, perhaps an answer more in line
with a community coming to terms with a delayed Parousia 25.
Under this hypothesis, John would be reinterpreting the Markan
tradition to emphasise the realised nature of Jesus’ eschatology, re-
locating the locus of hope from the future to the present, possibly
to give an existential answer to the problem of suffering.
Beasley-Murray is prepared to concede that John 13,31–14,31 is a rein-
25
terpretation of the Church’s traditional hope in the Parousia (BEASLEY-MURRAY,
John, 244). It is fair to say, however, that Beasley-Murray is suggesting a par-
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