Thomas Tops, «Whose Truth? A Reader-Oriented Study of the Johannine Pilate and John 18,38a», Vol. 97 (2016) 395-420
This contribution investigates the role of the reader in character studies of the Johannine Pilate. It contends that every characterization of Pilate is determined by narrative gaps, because they give occasion for different ways of interpreting Pilate’s words and deeds. The potential meaning of the text is always actualized by our act of interpretation. This revelatory dimension of the text is valuable in itself, and therefore should be considered as a secondary criterion for evaluating interpretations of the Johannine Pilate. In the second part of this contribution, we illustrate how this can be done for Pilate’s question of truth.
408 THoMAS ToPS
moment, the aorist participle alone remains for this purpose. We in-
deed, by a sort of necessity, regard a point which is fixed in reference
to another action as prior to it, but, strictly speaking, this notion of
priority in past time is not signified by the aorist participle 42.
Consequently, the interpretation that Pilate first asked Jesus his ques-
tion about truth and only afterwards left the praetorium is not excluded.
But nor is this interpretation dictated by the grammar. It is a matter of
interpretation, and kowalski has good reasons to embrace different in-
terpretations of the addressee of 18,38a. That is why we say that 18,38a
contains a narrative gap, because it is unclear who its addressee is.
The interpretation that auvtw/| in 18,38a refers to Jesus, is usually
taken for granted, because auvtw/| in Pilate’s two previous questions in
18,33.37 undoubtedly refers to Jesus. Also the fact that 18,38a is placed
at the very end of the paragraph, and kai. tou/to eivpw.n pa,lin evxh/lqen
pro.j tou.j VIoudai,ouj starts a new paragraph in Nestle-Aland, is respon-
sible for the interpretation that Pilate ends his conversation with Jesus
with 18,38a, and afterwards leaves the praetorium. Nevertheless,
kowalski gives good reasons to open up the possibility of other inter-
pretations. Furthermore, we must observe that the asyndeton at the be-
ginning of 18,38 is rather unexpected. There is no conjunction to
connect Pilate’s question in 18,38a with 18,37. By contrast, in 18,37
John uses ou=n to connect Pilate’s question in 18,37a to 18,36. Accord-
ing to BDR, John’s use of asyndeta gives the reader “den eindruck
von Zwanglosigkeit, nicht eben den von lebendigkeit oder eile des
erzählers” 43. John thus could have used the asyndeton in 18,38 to slow
down the flow of the narrative, and to let the reader be receptive to Pi-
late’s question of truth (18,38a).
But all these things are not noticeable to the interpreter who is
caught up in his characterization of Pilate. S/he is a slave to his/her
own interpretation, because s/he does not recognize the other possibil-
ities of the text, and is not made aware of his/her own act of interpre-
tation. It is the goal of the second part of this article to discuss the
possibility of an interpretation of 18,38a that is capable of triggering
this hermeneutical consciousness.
We can conclude the first part of this article by stating that, in view
of the story world of the Gospel of John, it is not easy to determine
42
CURTIUS, Elucidations, 217.
43
F. BlASS – A. DeBRUNNeR – F. ReHkoPF (eds.), Grammatik des neutesta-
mentlichen Griechisch (Göttingen 1990) § 462.