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Echoes of Friendship in the Gospel of John
Martin M. Culy
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Friendship in the Graeco-Roman world took a wide variety of forms, with some ‘friendships’ involving nothing more than a political alliance or patron–client relationship and others involving deep personal intimacy. When Jesus says his disciples are to be called ‘friends’, what type of friendship does he have in mind?
Friendship may seem a relatively insignificant motif in the Gospel of John, since the author does not explicitly set out to provide a philosophical discourse on the nature of friendship, nor does he explicitly state that the narrative is about friendship. In this study, however, Culy, having carefully examined Graeco-Roman literature on friendship, demonstrates that the language of what he calls ‘ideal friendship’ actually pervades the Fourth Gospel from beginning to end and serves as a primary vehicle for characterizing the relationships that are introduced in the Prologue and fleshed out throughout the course of the narrative.
Taking up the friendship motif as a tool of characterization, the Gospel of John points to a striking implication of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus: that followers of Jesus are invited to enjoy a level of intimacy with him that can actually, and perhaps only, be compared to the level of intimacy that he enjoys with the Father. The Johannine Jesus, then, came not just to save the world but also to offer those who would follow him a relationship that Graeco-Roman philosophers only dreamed of, a relationship where all the ingredients of ideal friendship were present.
Martin Culy is Associate Professor of New Testament and Greek, Briercrest College and Seminary, Caronport, Saskatchewan. |
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Contents
1. FRIENDSHIP, LITERARY MOTIFS, AND THE AUTHORIAL AUDIENCE
Recent Studies on Friendship
An Eclectic Approach
The Friendship Motif and Authorial Reading
Literary Approaches to Non-Literary Text
Overview of This Study
2. FRIENDSHIP IN THE ANCIENT MEDITERRANEAN WORLD
Methodological Considerations
The Implied Readers of the Fourth Gospel
Greco-Roman Views of Friendship
3. FRIENDSHIP IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL: JESUS AND THE FATHER
Friends and Family
The Prologue
Identity, Knowledge, and (Mis)Understanding in the Fourth Gospel
Jesus’ Relationship with the Father
The Holy Spirit’s Relationship to the Father, Son, and Followers of Jesu
Conclusion
4. FRIENDSHIP IN THE FOURTH GOSPEL: JESUS AND HIS FOLLOWERS
Jesus and his Friends
Echoes of Friendship in the Upper Room
Reading John 15:13-15 in Context
Friendship in John 18-21
Conclusion
5. READING THE GOSPEL OF JOHN AS AUTHORIAL AUDIENCE
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Reviews
Echoes of Friendship in the Gospel of John constructs a conceptual field related to friendship in ancient Greco-Roman and Jewish literature and then uses it to inform our reading of the ways in which the Gospel characterizes Jesus’ relationship with God and with his followers. As a result, this well informed and nuanced study enriches our understanding of how audiences would have read the Gospel in the first and second centuries, and thereby opens various aspects of the Gospel to fruitful reexamination. This monograph will become a standard in the field. R. Alan Culpepper, Dean, McAfee School of Theology, Mercer University.
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