The Relationship of John 1:19-51 to the Book of Signs in John 2-12 -- By: Stephen S. Kim
Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 165:659 (Jul 2008)
Article: The Relationship of John 1:19-51 to the Book of Signs in John 2-12
Author: Stephen S. Kim
BSac 165:659 (July-September 2008) p. 323
The Relationship of John 1:19-51 to the
Book of Signs in John 2-12
Stephen S. Kim is Associate Professor of Bible, Multnomah Biblical Seminary, Portland, Oregon.
The first chapter of the Fourth Gospel has significant literary and theological roles within the book. It prepares the reader for the rest of the book by introducing key concepts and themes that are developed later in the book. The first chapter provides a foretaste of the kind of revelations to come in the Gospel narrative concerning its main character, Jesus Christ. Since they are sandwiched between the Prologue (1:1–18) and the rest of the Gospel narrative, the significance of the remaining verses in the chapter (vv. 19–51), commonly known as the “Testimonium,” is often overlooked.
However, these verses are an important “piece of the puzzle” to the understanding of this Gospel. This passage includes proclamations by John the Baptist and the disciples about Jesus’ identity as the promised Messiah and as the divine Son of God, the main subject in the remainder of the book (cf. 20:30–31).1
BSac 165:659 (July-September 2008) p. 324
Although the Johannine Testimonium is often placed within the Book of Signs as part of the first major literary unit,2 it seems more fitting both literarily and theologically to place the Testimonium with the Prologue as an introduction to the Book of Signs, or to the whole Gospel.3 Smalley is correct in seeing the entire first chapter as an introduction to the Gospel.4 As Beasley-Murray says, “The prologue of the Gospel ends not with v 18 but with the Christological utterance of v 51. . . . Certainly 1:19–51 is closely linked with the prologue through its expansion of the theme of John’s witness to Jesus (cf. 6–8, 15) and its Christological declarations.”5 Culpepper even characterizes the Testimonium as “a second, narrative introduction” to the Fourth Gospel.6 “Just as the Gospel seems to have two conclusions (at the end of
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