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The Burden of Ambiguity: Nicodemus and the Social Identity of the Johannine Christians

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2009

Raimo Hakola
Raimo Hakola
Affiliation:
Department of Biblical Studies, P. O. Box 33, 00014University of Helsinki, Finland email: raimo.hakola@helsinki.fi
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Abstract

Nicodemus is an enigmatic literary character who is wavering in no man's land in John's narrative between Jesus' opponents and his true disciples. Some scholars have taken Nicodemus as an example of someone of inadequate faith who remains an outsider throughout the narrative, while others have traced his development from initial and tentative faith to open and public commitment to Jesus. The present article, however, agrees with those who have acknowledged that no single trait determines Nicodemus's portrait, but, in the end, this portrait remains ambiguous. In the article, a text-centered approach to Nicodemus is complemented by asking how this ambiguous literary character may have functioned as a symbol for those who shared John's dualistic tendencies. The article draws upon the social identity approach in order to explain how Nicodemus's ambiguity may have helped the Johannine Christians to accept the uncertainties in their social environment without abandoning the stereotyped and fixed thrust in their symbolic world.

Keywords

The Gospel of Johncharacters in the BibleNicodemusJohannine communitysocial identity
Type
Articles
Information
New Testament Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 438 - 455
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

1 My larger hermeneutical background here is the so-called three-world model developed in a number of writings by Kari Syreeni. See, e.g., Syreeni, K., ‘Wonderlands: A Beginner's Guide to Three Worlds’, SEÅ 64 (1999) 33–46Google Scholar; ‘Peter as Character and Symbol in the Gospel of Matthew’, Characterization in the Gospels: Reconceiving Narrative Criticism (ed. D. Rhoads and K. Syreeni; JSNTSup 184; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1999) 106–52. The model is based on a distinction between a literary work's text world, symbolic world and the real world behind the text. The model can be seen as an attempt to create a holistic context that makes it possible to utilize and combine different methodological approaches that are mostly kept apart in the study of the NT. For the evaluation of the model, see Merenlahti, P., Poetics for the Gospels: Rethinking Narrative Criticism (Studies of the New Testament and its World; London & New York: T&T Clark, 2002) 119–24Google Scholar.

2 Neyrey, J. H., ‘John III: A Debate over Johannine Epistemology and Christology’, NovT 23 (1981) 115–27Google Scholar, esp. 118 n. 11. Nicodemus is also taken as an outsider by Culpepper, R. A., Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983) 134–6Google Scholar.

3 Neyrey, ‘John III’, 118–19. Neyrey continues this line of interpretation in his recent commentary; see Neyrey, J. H., The Gospel of John (NCBC; Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2007) 77Google Scholar: ‘Nicodemus knows little when he arrives and has learned nothing when he leaves’.

4 Collins, R. F., ‘From John to the Beloved Disciple: An Essay on Johannine Characters’, Int 49 (1995) 359–69Google Scholar, esp. 363.

5 Duke, P., Irony in the Fourth Gospel (Atlanta: John Knox, 1986) 108Google Scholar.

6 Martyn, J. L., History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 3rd ed. 2003) 113Google Scholar; Rensberger, D., Overcoming the World: Politics and Community in the Gospel of John (London: SPCK, 1989) 40–1Google Scholar. For criticism of this two-level reading strategy, see below n. 24.

7 Cf. Moloney, F. J., Belief in the Word: Reading John 1–4 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994) 108Google Scholar; Munro, W., ‘The Pharisee and the Samaritan Woman: Polar or Parallel?’, CBQ 57 (1995) 710–28Google Scholar, esp. 716.

8 Bassler, J. M., ‘Mixed Signals: Nicodemus in the Fourth Gospel’, JBL 108 (1994) 635–46Google Scholar, esp. 637. In a similar vein, Schnackenburg, R., The Gospel According to John (3 vols.; London: Burns & Oates, 1968–82)Google Scholar 1.370: ‘Nicodemus concludes that Jesus must also be a divinely-enlightened teacher. It speaks well for the respected scholar that he seeks out someone who has not been formed in the schools (cf. 7.15), addresses him as “rabbi” and enquires about his doctrine. It is a polite exaggeration when he affirms that the other doctors share his opinion’. Cf. also Malina, B. J. and Rohrbaugh, R. L., Social Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998) 81Google Scholar: ‘It would be somewhat startling, if not highly improbable, for a member of the Jerusalem elite to address a Galilean villager in this way’.

9 For this irony, see Culpepper, Anatomy, 169; Duke, Irony, 45–6.

10 Meeks, W. A., ‘The Man from Heaven in Johannine Sectarianism’, JBL 91 (1972) 44–72Google Scholar, esp. 54. Cf. also Malina and Rohrbaugh, The Gospel of John, 84. They remark that ‘in antiquity this sort of put-down was directed at those interested in things of the sky yet unable to properly understand life on earth’. They refer to the following parallels: Wis 9.16; 4 Ezra 4.2; Diogenes Laertius 1.34; Ps. Callisthenes Life of Alexander 1.14; Cicero De Republica 1.39 and Seneca Apocolocyntosis 8.3.

11 Rohrbaugh, R. L., ‘What's the Matter with Nicodemus? A Social Science Perspective on John 3:1–21’, Distant Voices Drawing Near: Essays in Honor of Antoinette Clark Wire (ed. Hearon, H. E.; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2004) 145–58Google Scholar, esp. 155. Rohrbaugh interprets John's language as an anti-language that opposes a dominant social order and is incomprehensible to those outside the community where the language is used. Thus also Petersen, N. R., The Gospel of John and the Sociology of Light: Language and Characterization in the Fourth Gospel (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, 1993) 89–109Google Scholar; Malina and Rohrbaugh, The Gospel of John, 46–8; Neyrey, The Gospel of John, 13–14. While the notion of anti-language works apparently well in the case of Nicodemus in John 3.1–21, it is not clear how it can explain Nicodemus's more promising appearances later in the Gospel.

12 Munro, ‘The Pharisee’, 725. Cf. also Painter, J., The Quest for the Messiah: The History, Literature and Theology of the Johannine Community (Nashville: Abingdon, 2nd ed. 1993) 198Google Scholar. Painter says that because John does not describe this scene either as a success or as a failure, ‘we should see that the quest of Nicodemus progresses through future episodes until final success is narrated, 19.38–42’.

13 de Jonge, M., Jesus: Stranger from Heaven and Son of God: Jesus Christ and the Christians in Johannine Perspective (SBLSBS 11; Missoula, MT: Scholars, 1977) 36Google Scholar. Thus also Rensberger, Overcoming, 39; Neyrey, The Gospel of John, 150.

14 Malina and Rohrbaugh, The Gospel of John, 155.

15 de Jonge, Jesus, 34: ‘Joseph and Nicodemus are pictured as having come to a dead end; they regard the burial as definitive’. Rensberger, Overcoming, 50 n. 17: ‘Nicodemus, like Caesar's Antony but without his irony, has come to bury Jesus, not to raise him’.

16 Sylva, D. D., ‘Nicodemus and his Spices’, NTS 34 (1988) 148–51Google Scholar, esp. 148.

17 Painter, The Quest, 198.

18 Munro, ‘The Pharisee’, 716. In a similar vein, King, J. S., ‘Nicodemus and the Pharisees’, ExpTim 98 (1986) 45Google Scholar; Moloney, F. J., Glory not Dishonor: Reading John 13–21 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998) 149Google Scholar.

19 Brown, R. E., The Gospel According to John (2 vols.; AB 29; New York: Doubleday, 1966 and 1970)Google Scholar 2.960. Cf. also Schnackenburg (John, 3.297) who takes Nicodemus's gesture as ‘an extraordinary manifestation of respect’.

20 Meeks, ‘The Man from Heaven’, 54.

21 Bassler, ‘Mixed Signals’, 644. Cf. also Sevrin, J.-M., ‘The Nicodemus Enigma: The Characterization and Function of an Ambiguous Actor of the Fourth Gospel’, Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel: Papers of the Leuven Colloquium, 2000 (ed. Bieringer, R., Pollefeyt, D. and Vandecasteele-Vanneuville, F.; Jewish and Christian Heritage Series 1; Assen: Royal van Gorcum, 2001) 357–69Google Scholar, esp. 368–9: ‘Nicodemus has not yet found his place in the narrative. He has rightly been said to be ambiguous and marginal, unable to fit in any category… In the end like in the beginning he is the character of a story still to be completed’.

22 Conway, C. M., ‘Speaking through Ambiguity: Minor Characters in the Fourth Gospel’, BiblInt 10 (2002) 324–41Google Scholar, esp. 330.

23 Thus Sevrin, ‘The Nicodemus Enigma’, 367.

24 Cf. Reinhartz, A., Befriending the Beloved Disciple: A Jewish Reading of the Gospel of John (New York: Continuum, 2001) 37–53Google Scholar; Nicklas, T., Ablösung und Verstrickung: ‘Juden’ und Jüngergestalten als Charaktere der erzählten Welt des Johannesevangeliums und ihre Wirkung auf den impliziten Leser (RST 60; Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2001) 49–72Google Scholar; Hakola, R., Identity Matters: John, the Jews and Jewishness (NovTSup 118; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 41–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hakola, Raimo and Reinhartz, Adele, ‘John's Pharisees’, In Quest of the Historical Pharisees (ed. Neusner, J. and Chilton, B. D.; Waco, TX: Baylor University, 2007) 131–47Google Scholar.

25 For Hellenistic material, see Johnson, L. T., ‘The New Testament's Anti-Jewish Slander and the Conventions of Ancient Polemic’, JBL 108 (1989) 419–41Google Scholar, esp. 432. For Jewish and Christian material, see Hakola, Identity Matters, 155.

26 Bassler, ‘Mixed Signals’, 646.

27 For John's characterization of the Jews and the Pharisees, see Tolmie, F., ‘The ἸΟΥΔΑΙΟΙ in the Fourth Gospel: A Narratological Perspective’, Theology and Christology in the Fourth Gospel: Essays by the Members of the SNTS Johannine Writings Seminar (ed. van Belle, G., van der Watt, J. G. and Maritz, P.; BETL 184; Leuven: Leuven University, 2005) 377–97Google Scholar, esp. 395. Tolmie concludes that groups such as the Jews, the Pharisees or the crowd are not really characterized in depth in John because, from John's point of view, it is not important who these groups really are but how they respond to Jesus. In the case of the Pharisees, the most important thing is their almost completely negative response, which explains why ‘only a small number of traits are revealed’ of them. For John's characterization of the Pharisees, see also R. Hakola and A. Reinhartz, ‘John's Pharisees’, 131–38. Hakola and Reinhartz conclude that, while the Pharisees are not the only Jews that are blamed for Jesus' death in John's narrative world, they are the ones portrayed as seeking his destruction from the outset. They also note that Nicodemus is not typical of the Johannine Pharisees; only he stands out though even he does not openly express his convictions.

There have been attempts at defining the meaning of the term Ἰουδαĩοι in John as referring only to some particular Jewish group, be it Judeans or the Jewish authorities, but these attempts are not totally satisfying. For discussion, see Hakola, Identity Matters, 10–16 and 225–31. The indiscriminate use of the term shows that, even in those instances where ‘the Jews’ could be understood as a specific group of Jewish leaders or Judaeans, the conflict between these groups and Jesus is raised to a new and more general level. Cf. Culpepper, R. A., ‘The Gospel of John as a Document of Faith in a Pluralistic Culture’, ‘What is John?’: Readers and Readings of the Fourth Gospel (ed. Segovia, F. F.; SBLSymS 3; Atlanta: Scholars, 1996) 107–27Google Scholar, esp. 114; A. Reinhartz, ‘“Jews” and Jews in the Fourth Gospel’, Anti-Judaism and the Fourth Gospel (ed. Bieringer, Pollefeyt and Vandecasteele-Vanneuville) 341–56, esp. 348.

28 Conway (‘Speaking’, 331–9) identifies as ambiguous characters in John—in addition to Nicodemus—Peter, Pilate, the Samaritan woman, Martha and Mary of Bethany, Mary Magdalene, the mother of Jesus and the beloved disciple.

29 Sevrin, ‘The Nicodemus Enigma’, 369.

30 Conway, ‘Speaking’, 325.

31 For general introductions to the theory, see Hogg, M. A. and Abrams, D., Social Identifications: A Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations and Group Processes (London and New York: Routledge, 1988) 6–29Google Scholar; Turner, J. C., ‘Some Current Issues in Research on Social Identity and Self-Categorization Theories’, Social Identity: Context, Commitment, Content (ed. Ellemers, N., Spears, R. and Doosje, B.; Oxford: Blackwell, 1999) 6–34Google Scholar; Brown, R., ‘Social Identity Theory: Past Achievements, Current Problems and Future Challenges’, European Journal of Social Psychology 30 (2000) 745–783.0.CO;2-O>CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Haslam, S. A., Psychology in Organizations: The Social Identity Approach (London: Sage, 2001) 26–57Google Scholar.

32 Esler, P. F., Galatians (London and New York: Routledge, 1998) 40–57Google Scholar; Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul's Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003) 19–39. Two recent collections contain several articles introducing and applying the social identity approach. See Luomanen, P., ‘The Sociology of Knowledge, the Social Identity Approach and the Cognitive Science of Religion’, Explaining Early Judaism and Christianity: Contributions From Cognitive and Social Science (ed. Luomanen, P., Pyysiäinen, I. and Uro, R.; BibInt Series 89. Leiden: Brill, 2007) 199–229CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R. Hakola, ‘Social Identities and Group Phenomena in the Second Temple Period’, Explaining Early Judaism and Christianity (ed. Luomanen, Pyysiäinen and Uro) 259–76; J. Jokiranta, ‘Social Identity in the Qumran Movement: The Case of the Penal Code’, Explaining Early Judaism and Christianity, 277–98; Kazen, T., ‘Son of Man and Early Christian Identity Formation’, Identity Formation in the New Testament (ed. Holmberg, B. and Winninge, M.; WUNT 227; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2008) 97–122Google Scholar; R. Hakola, ‘Social Identity and a Stereotype in the Making: The Pharisees as Hypocrites in Matt 23’, Identity Formation (ed. B. Holmberg and M. Winninge) 123–39; R. Roitto, ‘Act as a Christ-Believer, as a Household Member or as Both? A Cognitive Perspective on the Relationship between the Social Identity in Christ and Household Identities in Pauline and Deutero-Pauline Texts’, Identity Formation (ed. Holmberg and Winninge) 141–61.

33 For minimal groups, see Tajfel, H., Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1981) 33–238Google Scholar and 268–76; Tajfel, H. and Turner, J. C., ‘An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict’, The Social Psychology of Intergroup Relations (ed. Austin, W. G. and Worchel, S.; Monterey, California: Brooks/Cole, 1979) 33–47Google Scholar, esp. 38–40.

34 Tajfel and Turner, ‘Integrative Theory’, 38.

35 Tajfel, Human Groups, 276.

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37 Turner, ‘Some Current Issues’, 12.

38 Oakes, P. J., Haslam, S. A. and Turner, J. C., Stereotyping and Social Reality (Oxford: Blackwell, 1994) 98Google Scholar.

39 Cf. Tajfel, Human Groups, 228–53.

40 Cf. Esler, Galatians, 45–49.

41 Most notably, see Bauckham, R., ‘For Whom Were Gospels Written?’, The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (ed. Bauckham, R.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 9–48Google Scholar. For a reconsideration of whether it is possible to trace the history of a specific Johannine community, see Kysar, R., ‘The Whence and Whither of the Johannine Community’, Life in Abundance: Studies of John's Gospel in Tribute to Raymond E. Brown (ed. Donahue, J. R.; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical, 2005) 65–81Google Scholar.

42 For methodological criticism of J. L. Martyn's two level reading of John, see Hakola, Identity Matters, 18–22.

43 See especially, Mitchell, M. M., ‘Patristic Counter-Evidence to the Claim That “The Gospels Were Written for All Christians”’, NTS 51 (2005) 36–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kazen, T., ‘Sectarian Gospels for Some Christians? Intention and Mirror-Reading in the Light of Extra-Canonical Texts’, NTS 51 (2005) 561–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For earlier criticisms of Bauckham's views, see Esler, P. F., ‘Community and Gospel in Early Christianity: A Response to Richard Bauckham's Gospels for All Christians’, SJT 51 (1998) 235–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sim, D. C., ‘The Gospels for All Christians. A Response to Richard Bauckham’, JSNT 84 (2001) 3–27Google Scholar.

44 Meeks, ‘The Man from Heaven’, 68. Bassler (‘Mixed Signals’, 637 and 638) speaks of Jesus' ‘surprisingly acerbic response’ to Nicodemus and adds that Jesus treats Nicodemus ‘rather shabbily’.

45 Bassler, ‘Mixed Signals’, 637–8.

46 Nicodemus and the blind man are compared—to Nicodemus's disadvantage—by Rensberger, Overcoming, 37–49.

47 Rohrbaugh, ‘What's the Matter?’, 151.

48 Tajfel, Human Groups, 243.

49 Marques, J. M., Yzerbryt, V. Y. and Leyens, J.-P., ‘The “Black-Sheep Effect”: Extremity of Judgments towards Ingroup Members as a Function of Group Identification’, European Journal of Social Psychology 18 (1988) 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marques, J. M. and Yzerbryt, V. Y., ‘The Black-Sheep Effect: Judgmental Extremity towards Ingroup Members in Inter- and Intra-Group Situations’, European Journal of Social Psychology 18 (1988) 287–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marques, J. M., ‘The “Black-Sheep Effect”: Outgroup Homogeneity in Social Comparison Settings’, Social Identity Theory: Constructive and Critical Advances (ed. Abrams, D. and Hogg, M. A.; London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1990) 131–51Google Scholar; Marques, J. M., Robalo, E. M. and Rocha, S. A., ‘Ingroup Bias and the “Black Sheep” Effect: Assessing the Impact of Social Identification and Perceived Variability on Group Judgments’, European Journal of Social Psychology 22 (1992) 331–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marques, J. M. et al. , ‘The Role of Categorization and In-Group Norms in Judgments of Groups and Their Members’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 75 (1998) 976–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Marques, J. M. et al. , ‘Social Categorization, Social Identification, and Rejection of Deviant Group Members’, Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology: Group Processes (ed. Hogg, M. A. and Tindale, R. S.; Oxford: Blackwell, 2001) 400–24Google Scholar.

50 Marques et al., ‘The Role of Categorization’, 986–7; Abrams, D. et al. , ‘Pro-Norm and Anti-Norm Deviance Within and Between Groups’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 78 (2000) 906–12CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, esp. 911; Marques et al., ‘Social Categorization’, 418.

51 For a similar kind of conclusion with regard to Gamaliel (Acts 5.21–42) and other relatively friendly Pharisees (Acts 23.1–10) in Luke-Acts, see Hakola, Raimo, ‘“Friendly” Pharisees and Social Identity in the Book of Acts’, Contemporary Studies in Acts (ed. Phillips, T. E.; Macon, GA: Mercer University, 2009) 181–200Google Scholar.

52 The portrayal of Jesus as an innocent victim at the hands of the Jewish rulers can be taken as an attempt to validate the social identity of the Johannine Christians who had abandoned basic markers of Jewish identity and marginalized themselves in relation to other Jews. See Hakola, Raimo, ‘The Counsel of Caiaphas and the Social Identity of the Johannine Christians (John 11:47–53)’, Lux Humana, Lux Aeterna: Essays on Biblical and Related Themes in Honour of Lars Aejmelaeus (ed. Mustakallio, A. in collaboration with H. Leppä and H. Räisänen; Publications of the Finnish Exegetical Society 89; Helsinki/Göttingen: Finnish Exegetical Society/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2005) 140–63Google Scholar.

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55 Cf. Setzer, C., Jewish Responses to Early Christians: History and Polemics, 30–150 C.E. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1994) 167–8Google Scholar. Setzer remarks that in early Christian sources Jews are every now and then presented as fair-minded and tolerant, even though the negative portrayals of Jews are dominant. Setzer asks whether the trend to depict Jews in more positive terms ‘is not underrepresented in ancient literature’. The favorable mentions of Jews would not have served early Christian communities because ‘if Jews are sensible and fair-minded, their refusal of Christianity becomes more problematic than if they are hard-hearted, vicious, and ignorant of their own Scripture’.

56 See Hakola, Raimo, ‘The Johannine Community as Jewish Christians? Some Problems in Current Scholarly Consensus’, Jewish Christianity Reconsidered: Rethinking Ancient Groups and Texts (ed. Jackson-McCabe, M.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2007) 181–201Google Scholar, esp. 192–7. Many scholars have found in John 8.30–31 a reference to some kind of Jewish Christians whose faith is denounced by John. Most recently Theobald, M., ‘Abraham—(Isaak-) Jakob: Israels Väter im Johannesevangelium’, Israel und seine Heilstraditionen im Johannesevangelium: Festgabe für Johannes Beutler SJ zum 70. Geburtstag (ed. Labahn, M., Scholtissek, K. and Strotmann, A.; Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2004) 158–83Google Scholar, esp. 175–7; Dunderberg, I., The Beloved Disciple in Conflict? Revisiting the Gospels of John and Thomas (Oxford: Oxford University, 2006) 194CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Tajfel, Human Groups, 132–3.

58 Kunda, Z. and Oleson, K., ‘Maintaining Stereotypes in the Face of Disconfirmation: Constructing Grounds for Subtyping Deviants’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 68 (1995) 565–79CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, esp. 565.

59 Hewstone, M. C. et al. , ‘Cognitive Models of Stereotype Change: (5). Measurement, Development and Consequences of Subtyping’, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 30 (1994) 505–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 523.

60 Cf. Hakola, ‘The Counsel of Caiaphas’, 159.