The Word and the Words of Eternal Life—The Predominance of the Word in the Community and Gospel of

John

Gary W. Sneller

To a remarkable degree, the Gospel of John is dominated by “the

word.”1 The opening sentence of the Gospel sets the whole tone of

the Gospel in this striking way—“In the beginning was the word

(logos) and the word was with God and the word was God” (1:1).

Among all the gospels we have available to us today, this language

about “the word” is unique. Later, the author transitions from the

ethereal world of the eternal word to the space-time continuum of

human existence and his story of Jesus in this way, “And the word

became flesh and tented among us and we beheld his glory, glory as

the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth”

(1:14).2

Now it is true that the author abandons all further usage of

“the word” as a title3 in his story of Jesus, but throughout the

Gospel of John, Jesus focuses explicitly on his own words in a way

that we seldom encounter in the other gospels.4 In the Gospel of

John, Jesus constantly talks about the importance of his “word” in

language that is both confrontational and decisive for faith and

life:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word andbelieves in him who sent me has eternal life; that one does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. (5:24)

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Jesus then said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” (8:31-32)

I know that you are descendants of Abraham; yet you seek to kill me, because my word finds no place in you.(8:37)

Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. (8:43)

Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, that one will never see death. (8:51; see also, 8:52, 55)

The one who rejects me and does not receive my words (rhemata) has a judge; the word (logos) that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day. (12:48)

Jesus answered him, “Whoever loves me, will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me, does not keep my words (logoi), and the word (logos) which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me.” (14:23-24)5

You are already made clean by the word which I have spoken to you. (15:3)

In addition, Peter’s confession in the Gospel of John is expressed

in a way that focuses on “the word”:

Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words (rhemata) of eternal life; and we have believed and come to know, that you are the Holy One of God. (6:68)

Clearly, “the word” of Jesus in the Gospel of John is more than

simply a reference to the “sayings” of Jesus; “the word” of Jesus

throughout the Gospel of John functions much like “the word” of God

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that we encounter in the Prologue. It is direct and

confrontational; it is powerful and life-giving.

But in addition to the explicit emphasis on Jesus’ “word” in

the Gospel of John, Jesus in the Gospel of John is portrayed

throughout as the speaker par excellence, and he speaks in a manner

quite unlike that which we encounter in the Synoptic gospels.

Rather than speaking in the discrete oral language forms of

parables, apophthegms, and dominical sayings,6 Jesus in the Gospel

of John speaks in extended dialogues and discourses that often blur

the lines between Jesus and the author of the Gospel of John as

speaker7 and the disciples/other dialogue partners and the

readers/hearers of the Gospel as listeners. Because of the way

that Jesus speaks in the Gospel of John, it is extremely difficult

to isolate what might be typically identified as a “sayings

tradition” in the Gospel of John,8 but the clear impression that

one gets by simply reading (or hearing) the Gospel of John is that

Jesus is constantly speaking. And by his constant speaking, Jesus

in the Gospel of John is effectively portrayed as the word of God

that has become flesh.9

How does one account for such a predominance of “the word” in

the Gospel of John? Typically, Johannine scholarship has focused

attention on the history-of-religions antecedents or the

philosophical/theological categories of “the word” (logos). This

paper will suggest that a more fruitful answer to that question may

be found by focusing on “the word” in the community and gospel of

John precisely as word i.e. as linguistic phenomenon (both spoken

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and written). Specifically, this paper will suggest that “the

word” both in the Johannine community and in the written gospel is

so predominant precisely because “the word” functioned not simply

as an abstract philosophical or theological category, but as a

fundamental and powerful linguistic experience.

1. Rudolf Bultmann and Ernst Käsemann were undoubtedly correct

when they both emphasized “the word” as a key element in their

understanding of the community and Gospel of John.10 But

unfortunately, this important insight became mired in subsequent

discussion about history-of-religions antecedents and

philosophical/theological categories, specifically the presumption

of a gnostic influence by both scholars and Bultmann’s effort to

demythologize Johannine theology in terms of existentialist

philosophy. Now, thanks to recent studies in linguistics and human

consciousness, it may be possible to revisit their important

insight about the priority of “the word” in the community and

Gospel of John with new understanding and appreciation.

In his landmark Theology of the New Testament, Part 3, “The

Theology of the Gospel of John and the Johannine Epistles,”

Bultmann masterfully wove together his understanding of the gnostic

redeemer myth (presumed to be in the background of John’s

presentation of Jesus) with insights from existentialist philosophy

to create a Johannine theology that seems both totally in sync with

the message of the Gospel and yet at the same time quite foreign to

it. A complete description and analysis of Bultmann’s Johannine

theology (which is brilliantly presented in meticulous detail in

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his commentary on the Gospel of John) is beyond the scope of this

paper, but it is significant that his synthesis of gnostic redeemer

myth and existentialist philosophy into a coherent Johannine

theology comes to a climax in these two important phrases:

“revelation as the Word” and “faith as the hearing of the Word”.

In his role as Revealer, Bultmann declared, the work that Jesus

accomplished, the works that “bear witness” to him, “are his words”

(60).11 These words are to be understood as “personal address” (61),

according to Bultmann, aimed at the hearer/reader which demand a

response (faith or unbelief). In this regard, Jesus’ words in the

Gospel of John are not really designed to reveal specific content

(heavenly knowledge that brings salvation), but rather only that

Jesus is the Revealer (in whom God’s salvation is present). So

that in effect, Jesus’ words and his identity/ person are identical

(63); to hear and receive the one (Jesus’ words) is to hear and

receive the other (Jesus, the Word of God). Hearing Jesus’ words

and thereby encountering the person of Jesus, thus places the

hearer in an existential moment of decision. It is for this

reason, Bultmann said, that “practically all the words of Jesus in

the John are assertions about himself … but that does not mean

Christological instruction or teaching about the metaphysical

quality of his person” (63); rather, it means that God is

addressing the world directly through him. Thus, the content of

Jesus’ word is not really a matter for debate (or even

substantiation); instead, the “fact” of Jesus’ word as personal

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address by God must be recognized by the hearer/reader and a

response made.

This important recognition then comes to fruition, according to

Bultmann, in “faith as the hearing of the Word”. Since in the

Gospel of John, Jesus and his word are identical, “in the

proclaimed word the Proclaimer himself is present, acting” (71).

Therefore, “faith” in the Gospel of John is not simply belief in

the message of Jesus, but rather it is faith in Jesus as the Word

of God (i.e. God’s address to the world). Faith then as we

encounter it in the Gospel of John, according to Bultmann, proceeds

from truly “hearing the Word” and finds expression in “keeping the

Word” within the context of human experience (history). Faith “is

not the acceptance of dogma upon which there follows a disclosure

of items of esoteric knowledge or mystical vision. No, faith is

everything” [i.e. existential abandonment/eschatological life]

(74). Bultmann concluded his discussion of Johannine theology with

this statement about the Johannine community:

It is not through a discipline of abstention from theworld, an ascetic conduct of life, or a sacramental cult that this Church seeks to achieve its eschatological character, for it is the Church of theWord—the Word from which it lives, the Word which is also its commission to the world. Its life is impelled by the living Spirit within it; it is the power which brings forth both knowledge and the proclamation of the Word. (92)

Ernst Käsemann in his book, The Testament of Jesus, took up

this idea of the Johannine community as “the Church of the Word”

and developed it into a full-blown ecclesiology. He began by 6

noting that the Gospel of John “does not seem to develop an

explicit ecclesiology” (27). But he quickly refined that

observation by going on to say that in reality, “John does not

unfold the kind of ecclesiology which the historian would expect to

find in a representative of the Christian Church at the end of the

first century” (27). Instead, Käsemann concluded, the Johannine

community seems to have been a “conventicle” (32) existing on the

“fringe” (39) of the developing Church—a community dominated by an

“enthusiastic tradition” (31) emphasizing the praesentia Christi (36)

through prophetic activity (38). For John then, according to

Käsemann, “the Church is basically and exclusively the fellowship

of people who hear Jesus’ word and believe in him; in short, it is

the community under the Word” (40).

Thus Jesus as the word-event of God in history continued in the

identity and the proclamation of the Johannine community—“The words

of Jesus are simply the ever-new proclamation of the one Word,

which is Jesus himself in different ways and circumstances. … It

is the interpretation of the Word having become Spirit, through the

Word becoming flesh entering a specific time and space in the

Christian proclamation” (49). In conclusion Käsemann wrote:

John, with his message of the revealer who has come and who is one with the Father, places the community in the situation of which his first verses speak, in the situation of the beginning when the Word of God came forthand called the world out of darkness into light and life. This beginning is not a past occurrence in saving history,which is lost forever. It is instead the new reality eschatologically revealed, which in the Christian community is disclosed every day and on earth through the

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Word and which every day and on earth must be received andlaid hold of in faith. The community under the Word livesand exists from the place granted to it in the presence ofthe Creator and from its ever-new experience of the first day of creation in its own experience. (53-54)

In all of this, Bultmann and Käsemann seem to have captured the

very essence of the message of the Gospel of John—encounter with

“the word”—and yet their analysis in terms of gnostic antecedents

and existentialist philosophy also seems quite foreign to it.

Perhaps there is a more organic approach to “the word” in the

Gospel of John—precisely as linguistic phenomenon. And in order to

investigate this possibility, it is necessary briefly to go back to

the beginning.

2. No one knows for sure when and how “words” first emerged in the

human experience, but this much seems certain—that words and the

human mind/human consciousness evolved in a symbiotic

relationship.12 Cognitive scientist and philosopher Daniel C.

Dennett in his book, Consciousness Explained, argues that words,

which in our solar system are uniquely human, played (and continue

to play) a fundamental role both in the evolution of the human mind

(its architecture, enhancement, and function) and in the evolution

of human consciousness.13 According to Dennett, human memes

(complex ideas that form themselves into memorable and fecund

units), words, and language ultimately emerged from primitive

“information” collected by the sensory nerves of living organisms.

In order to survive, any living organism must either armor itself

against negative things in its environment (and hope for the best)

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or else develop methods of getting out of harm’s way and into more

favorable environmental conditions (or state of well-being).

Nervous systems/brains in living organisms evolved to facilitate

the development of these methods. Thus, the brain’s fundamental

task, according to Dennett, is to “produce future,” i.e. to guide

the organism through a world of shifting conditions and sudden

surprises by gathering information from that environment and using

it to optimize survival (144). Because the organism is under

significant time pressure to stay one step ahead of disaster, the

brain must quickly gather information, anticipate outcomes, and

trigger action/reaction. The primordial problem, then, for every

living organism to solve is—“now what do I do”. The nervous system

helps to solve this problem by tracking and anticipating important

features in the environment.

At a minimum, a nervous system gathers just enough information

to react when something begins to go wrong. Short-range

anticipation evolved next in living organisms, according to

Dennett, then regular “orienting responses”/vigilance in animals to

potential dangers, and finally, gathering information for its own

sake (curiosity/exploration) just in case that information should

prove valuable someday. Animals who engaged in gathering

information for its own sake in effect became “informavores” (181).

Homo sapiens who over time developed a huge and plastic brain which

facilitated this practice have become the ultimate informavores—

gathering information widely and prolifically, storing that

information effectively and efficiently, and communicating that

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information in various ways to other humans. Memes, words, and

language emerged to facilitate that gathering, storing, and

communicating of information, and over time, memes/words/language

transformed the human mind into a virtual “meme-nest” (206) which

in turn led to the creation of a variety of “meme-vehicles”

(media). So much so, that eventually, the human environment has

come to include not only physical/material conditions, but also

(and more profoundly) “words, words, words” (417). Words/language,

thus, not only enhanced human communication prolifically, they also

contributed significantly to the very structure/architecture of the

human mind. Words/language as a uniquely human phenomenon made

possible the development of the uniquely human mind.

Language, according to Dennett, plays such an enormous role in

the structure of the human mind that “the mind of a creature

lacking language—and having really no need for language—should not

be supposed to be structured in these [same] ways” (447).

Accordingly, spoken and written language each played a distinctive

role in the development of the human mind because “pre-literate

mentality would involve a significantly different class of ‘virtual

[mental] architectures’ from those encountered in literate

societies” (220). Indeed, so intimate is the connection between

words and the human mind that Dennett postulates our sense of

“self” in fact stems from it—each normal human individual makes a

“self”/spins “a web of discourse” (words and deeds) which is our

“self” out of the raw materials (memes) that exist virtually in the

human brain (416). Therefore, our existence as “us”—i.e. “as what

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we as thinkers are”—is not independent of memes/words (208);

rather, words and human mind (human consciousness) are inexorably

connected.14

Theologian Lloyd Geering in his book, From the Big Bang to God,

also argues that words and human consciousness are intimately

connected. Words as language phenomena made it possible for the

human species to evolve in a way completely distinct from other

animals. More than the meaningful cries of other animals,

vocalized words in human language are “symbols of meaning”15 which

enabled humans to develop a whole new dimension of consciousness

and communication. Internalized, words allowed humans to become

“the thinking creature par excellence”16 and gave Homo sapiens the

ability to create a whole new kind of world—the world of human

thought which then found incarnation in a variety of media. As

inherently symbolic,17 words introduced a measure of abstraction

into human consciousness allowing for distinction, differentiation,

and definition in human thinking, but also creating a sense of

separation, alienation, and judgment in human experience. Words

accelerated the development of human knowledge and culture and

provided a means by which that knowledge and culture could be

retained and shared. Above all, words enhanced human communication

exponentially. By adding vocal sounds (spoken words) to gestural

forms of communication, humans created a form of communication that

was a quantum leap over any other form of communication in the

animal world. Words enabled humans to communicate more precisely

and prolifically. Words as symbols of meaning made it possible for

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humans to communicate not only basic information (things, places,

actions), but also intention, desire, feeling, value, purpose,

reason, and significance. Words allowed humans to reveal their

“inner life” (spirit) to other humans to a degree that is simply

impossible for other animals to experience.18 Words are at the very

core of human consciousness, life, and experience. More than

anything else, words make humans human.

3. So perhaps it is now possible to understand and appreciate the

predominance of “the word” in the community and in the Gospel of

John precisely as linguistic phenomenon, not simply as an abstract

philosophical or theological category. Since Werner Kelber’s

pioneering work in orality and textuality,19 biblical scholars have

had a new appreciation for how the modality of “the word” impacts

the message. Each modality of the word—orality and textuality (and

now digital modality)—shapes the message and its meaning in a

particular way by virtue of the distinctive psychodynamics/noetics

inherent in that modality of the word. But perhaps, it is

necessary to go deeper and acknowledge the fundamental role that

“word” plays in the human experience of communication and

consciousness, and thereby gain new insight into the predominance

of “the word” in the community and Gospel of John.

Precisely as linguistic phenomenon, “words” are fundamentally

about communication—human to human communication and by extension

God to human communication. Since words are the quintessential

human method of communication, it follows that humans would

naturally come to conceptualize and express their experience of God

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to human communication as “word”. In much of human religious

experience, this “word” was expressed in the form of stories. But

especially in Hebrew religious experience, this communication was

portrayed most prominently as direct speech—the God of the Hebrews

is the One who is constantly speaking.20 Even a cursory reading of

Hebrew Scripture reveals how much “the word of God” dominated the

Hebrew religious experience. From the opening words of Genesis

where in the creation story God speaks the world into existence to

the closing words of the prophet Malachi where God’s voice is heard

speaking “directly” to the people of Israel through the prophet,

the predominant Hebrew experience of God is as the One who speaks.

And in all of this speaking, God’s “word” is portrayed as dynamic,

powerful, and effective (Isaiah 55:10-11). Is it any wonder, then,

that an early Christian who was steeped in this rich experience

should begin his story of Jesus—as the one by whom God is truly

made known (John 1:18) i.e. communicated to mankind—by focusing on

“the word”?21

The whole Hebrew experience of God as the One who speaks leads

organically to encounter with “the word”. In his “word”, the God

of the Hebrews was present and active in the world. In his “word”,

the God of the Hebrews was revealing himself to humanity. In his

“word”, the God of the Hebrews was communicating his will for all

of creation and inviting humanity to respond by living in dialogue

(covenant) with God. For the Evangelist John, Jesus embodied “the

word” of God perfectly. In Jesus, God was present and active in

the world. In Jesus, God was revealing himself to humanity. In

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Jesus, God was communicating his will for all of creation and

inviting humanity to respond by living in dialogue (covenant) with

God.

Bultmann and Käsemann were certainly correct in identifying

Jesus as “revealer” in the community and Gospel of John, but they

were incorrect in linking this role as “revealer” to a presumed

gnostic revealer myth. Far more universal in the human experience

is “word” as communication and far more universal in Hebrew

religious experience is God’s word as self-communication/self-

revelation. “Word” was thus the perfect word to use to express the

profound experience of God’s self-communication/self-revelation in

Jesus. In terms of word as communication, it can truly be said

that in Jesus “the word was made flesh”; Jesus could truly say that

“the word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me”;

and Jesus could truly promise that “whoever hears my word and

believes in him who sent me has eternal life.” Jesus is “the word”

who speaks “the words of life” precisely because he perfectly

communicates God to the world.

But why should it be that Jesus is portrayed as the “word”

(logos) in this Gospel and not in any other? Perhaps the answer

lies not in history-of-religion antecedents or

theological/philosophical categories but in another aspect of

“word” as linguistic phenomenon: “word” fundamentally shapes human

mind/consciousness. Word creates “world” in human consciousness.

Although Johannine scholarship was once dominated by an effort to

identify a written source behind the distinctive speech material of

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the Gospel of John (Bultmann’s “revelation discourse source”22),

more recent scholarship has convincingly argued that the Johannine

community was dominated by the spoken word as prophetic members of

the community made inspired utterances in the name of—more

precisely as—the present, living Jesus.23 In this world dominated

by the spoken word, the consciousness (minds) of its community

members would have aligned with the inherent psychodynamics of the

oral word. Sounded words are eventful, personal, dynamic, and

efficacious; therefore, oral language fosters a sense of power and

action. So too, an inherent sense of authority arises from the

efficacious act of speaking. Oral words are always spoken by

people to people; consequently, they foster a sense of encounter

and personal presence. Oral words promote a more direct

relationship between word and referent so that the spoken word

gives the impression that the reality to which it refers is present

or actualized. The spoken word also creates a synthesis of message

and messenger—the message is always intimately connected with the

speaker. Oral language fosters an acoustical logic that is

indirect, circular, and spiral; consequently, oral thought and

expression is cyclical rather than linear, copious rather than

precise, additive rather than subordinative, aggregative rather

than analytic. Oral noetics is empathetic and participatory rather

than objectively distanced.24

Tom Thatcher in his book, Why John WROTE a Gospel: Jesus—Memory

—History, has argued convincingly that in a community dominated by

deeply-residual orality (if not primary orality), the spoken word

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(prophetic utterances) would have created a formidable “counter

memory” (or alternative “world”) in the minds of community

members.25 This alternative “world” built on the

psychodymanics/noetics of the oral “word” would have focused on the

presence of the living Christ who spoke “directly” to the

community, the power and efficacy of his spoken word (“words of

eternal life”), and the authority of the prophets who spoke in the

name of (as) Christ. Whether this prophetic activity in the

Johannine community represents a late first century holdout from

the kind of early charismatic activity described in some of the

letters of Paul (1 Corinthians 12 and 14 in particular) or arose as

a revival of such activity in the late first century as a reaction

to second or third Christian generation transfer of authority in

the emerging Church26 makes no difference. In the community of

John, the spoken “word” would have created a “world” dominated by

the psycho-dynamics of orality, and in that world, encounter with

“the word” would have been a powerful and personal life experience.

But in the Gospel of John, the written “word” created a new

“world” dominated by the psychodynamics of textuality. Writing

tends to subvert the hermeneutics of oral language by giving the

“word” a whole new context for meaning—the world of the text

(“space of intersignification”27). In the world of the written

text, rather than in the socio-physiological world of oral speech,

“the word” is transformed (and the minds of the community members

are ultimately transformed) by introducing a heightened sense of

pastness/absence, stability/permanence, and external/objective

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authority with regard to the “tradition” about Jesus. As Tom

Thatcher points out, with a written gospel claims about Jesus are

“objectified,” the portrait of Jesus is “fixed”, the pool of data

about Jesus is “limited by the information contained in the text”,

and there is no longer any dispute whether or not Jesus did or said

certain things only a discussion about “the correct interpretation”

of what is contained in the text.28 The text now is the locus of

authority, meaning, and encounter with “the word”.

In this new world of the written text, the historicizing story

of Jesus effectively anchored the oral “word of life” in the

written “Word made flesh,” but it does it in a way so that the

authentic and authoritative voice of God may continue to be heard

(and encountered), not in the utterances of Christian prophets but

in “the word” of Jesus who though now gone away should be regarded

as the one and only true witness to God. The author of the Gospel

of John thus takes the very powerful and personal experience of the

spoken “word” and reimagines it as “the word made flesh” in his

written gospel. In so doing, he maintains the power and personal

impact of the spoken “word” in the way Jesus speaks and is

presented as “the word” of God in his story of Jesus, but he also

transforms it by giving that “word” a certain concreteness,

stability, and finality that the oral “word” could never have. The

result is a gospel that gives the hearer/reader the experience of

personal address (encounter with “the word”) and yet clearly

anchors that “word” in the “historicized” story/person of Jesus

Christ.29

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Thus, in conclusion, we need not look to history of religion

antecedents or theological/ philosophical categories to understand

the predominance of “the word” in the community and Gospel of John.

The predominance of “the word” arises organically from the “word”

as a fundamental and powerful linguistic experience in the

community of John which continues, although in a new way, in the

Gospel of John. Encounter with the word of God through Christian

prophets becomes encounter with the Word of God through Jesus the

Christ in the hearing/reading of the written gospel.30

Endnotes1There are two Greek words used for “word” in the Gospel of John

—logos and rhema. Logos occurs 40 times (only three times in the plural—7:40; 14:24; 19:13); rhema is used 12 times (exclusively in the plural). Over all, logos occurs 330 times in the New Testament;rhema 70 times. There does not seem to be a clear distinction in the usage of logos and rhema in the Gospel of John, although rhema may focus a bit more on the specific act of speaking while logos seems to focus a bit more on the totality of what was spoken especially when used in the singular. In some Johannine passages, the author moves easily between logos and rhema—5:19-47 [v 24 logov/v38 logov/v 47 rhemata]; 6:60-69 [v 60 logos/v 63 rhemata/ v 68 rhemata]; 14:1-24 [v 10 rhemata/v 24 logoi and logos]; 15:1-27 [v 3 logov/v 7 rhemata/v 25 logos]; 17:1-26 [v 8 rhemata/v 14 logov/v 17 logos/v 20 logou]. In 12:48, the author uses both words in the same sentence with no apparent difference in meaning—“Whoever rejects meand does not receive my words/sayings (rhemata) has a judge; the word (logos) that I have spoken will be his judge on the last day.”

2My translation; I use the word “tented” intentionally because there seems to be an intimate connection between the theme of “testimony/witness” in the Gospel of John, the Hebrew Scripture “tent of meeting/witness” [tabernacle], and the “incarnational” theology of the Gospel of John.

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3I hesitate to use the term “title” since that word already indicates a certain intention on the part of the Evangelist John; it may be better to say that the author abandons all further absolute usage of “the word” in his story of Jesus.

4Except for Mark 8:38//Luke 9:26; Matthew 7:24, 26//Luke 6:47, 49; Mark 13:31//Matthew 24:35//Luke 21:33; and, Luke 24:44 (the resurrected Jesus).

5Note also references to God’s “word”: 5:37-38—And the Father who sent me has himself born witness to me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen; and you do not have his word (logos) abiding in you for you do not believe him who he has sent.” 17:6—“I have manifested your name to the men whom you gave to me out of the world; they were yours and you gave them to me andthey have kept your word (logos).” 17:14—“I have given them your word (logos); and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” 17:17—“Sanctify them inthe truth; your word (logos) is truth.

6See Rudolph Bultmann, The History of the Synoptic Tradition, translated by John Marsh (New York: Harper and Row, 1963; paperbackrevised edition, 1976).

7And other speakers, e.g. John the Baptist in 3:25-36.

8For my Ph. D. studies (dissertation unfinished) I once attempted to identify the amount of speech material (discourses anddialogues) in the Gospel of John. According to my count at that time, of the 842 verses of chapters 1-20, 628 involve some sort of dialogue or discourse material. That is fully three-fourths of thegospel. Chapters 18-20 alone contain 54 of the 214 non-speaking verses of the Gospel of John. Of the 729 verses of chapters 1-17, 569 involve some sort of speaking; thus, 4/5ths of the Gospel of John, outside of the passion and Easter stories, consists of dialogue or speech material. I abandoned this project when it became apparent that a typical form-critical identification of sayings tradition in the Gospel of John simply was not adequate to demonstrate the extent to which “speech material” dominated the

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Gospel of John. It is much more apparent to the ear than to the eye.

9It is for this reason that Bultmann is on target when he says that Jesus in the Gospel of John is portrayed as “the Revealer.”

10Rudolph Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, vol. 2, translated by Kendrick Grobel (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1955) and Ernst Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus, translated by Gerhard Krodel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968).

11For ease of reading I have simply inserted page numbers in thetext for quotations from Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament and Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus; also later for quotations from Daniel C. Dennett, Consciousness Explained (Boston/New York/London: Little, Brown and Company; Back Bay Books, 1991).

12John Shelby Spong in his book, A New Christianity for a New World (HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), pp. 37-55 argues very convincingly that the human experience of God is also connected to the development of human consciousness/mind.

13Dennett makes a fundamental distinction between the human brain and the human mind; the human brain allowed for the development of the human mind (a virtual phenomenon), not vice versa; however, there is a fundamental and intimate connection between human brain and mind. Brain, according to Dennett, is the “hardware” and mind is the “software” and together they create human consciousness/sense of self. Some functions of human mind are hardwired in the human brain; other functions operate “virtually.” One fascinating conjecture about this connection thatDennett makes is that in the beginning, humans used spoken words toelicit and communicate information from person to person. In this process, an information channel became hardwired in the human brainbetween the human vocal system, human ear, and human brain. And then one day, a human asked a question out loud with no one presentand discovered that they heard their own question and already had the answer or could surmise the answer on their own! Over time, this “autostimulation” became completely internalized providing for

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the acceleration of private thoughts/reflection/discovery (pp. 193-199). We may have residual confirmation of this in the fact that our internal conversation/stream of consciousness is always soundedwords, not visual/textual words. [This, of course, does not deny that some of our internal “memories” are eidetic/ photographic/visual rather than sounded.]

14Dennett references a quote from Helen Keller to denote the essential link between language/words and human consciousness: “Before my teacher came to me, I did not know that I am [emphasis mine]. I lived in a world that was a no-world. I cannot hope to describe adequately that unconscious, yet conscious time of nothingness. … Since I had no power of thought, I did not compare one mental state with another.” (p. 227)

15Lloyd Geering, From the Big Bang to God (Salem, OR: PolebridgePress, 2013; Kindle Fire edition), Chapter 5, paragraph 10.

16Geering, Chapter 5, paragraph 3.

17Although words are connected to ideas, objects, and actions inthe real world, there is no direct connection between the spoken sounds/visual images of “words” and their intended referent; thus, “words” are inherently symbolic.

18Other animals may indeed reveal something of their “inner life” through meaningful sounds, but human words provide a depth and clarity of “inner/spiritual” revelation not possible for other animals.

19Werner Kelber, The Oral and the Written Gospel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983).

20Eugene B. Borowitz makes this observation in his book, LiberalJudaism (New York: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1984), p. 256.

21There seems to be a similar idea of this Hebrew religious experience expressed in Hebrews 1:1-2—“in many and various ways God

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spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last dayshe has spoken to us by a Son ….” and in 1 John 1:1—“that which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life ….”

22 Rudolph Bultmann, “Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandaischen und manichaischen Quellen für das Verstandnis des Johnanesevangeliums,” in Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 24 (1925): 100-146; reprinted in Exegetica, Erich Dinkler, ed. (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1967), pp. 55-104; The Gospel of John, trans. by R.W.N. Hoare and J.K. Riches; G.R. Beasley-Murray, gen. ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1971). Also, Heinz Becker, Die Reden des Johannesevangelioms und der Stil der gnostichen Offengraungsrede, Rudolf Bultmann, ed. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1956).

23See especially the work of David Aune, The Cultic Setting of Realized Eschatology in Early Christianity, Supplements to Novum Testamentum, #28 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972), Aune, Prophecy in Early Christianity and the Ancient Mediterranean World (Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1983), Eugene Boring, Sayings of the Risen Jesus (Cambridge: University Press, 1982), Ernst Käsemann, The Testament of Jesus, trans. by Gerhard Krodel (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968), Tom Thatcher, Why JohnWROTE a Gospel: Jesus—Memory—History (Louisville, KY: Westminster/JohnKnox Press, 2006), and David Bruce Woll, Johannine Christianity in Con flict , SBL Dissertation Series, #60 (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1981).

24See the work of Kelber, The Oral and Written Gospel and WalterJ. Ong, The Presence of the Word (New Haven, Conn.: Yale UniversityPress, 1967); Interfaces of the Word (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977); Orality and Literacy (New York: Methuen, Inc., 1982).

25Thatcher, especially pp. 69-102.

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26A contemporary example of this latter phenomenon is found in the 20th century Pentecostal/ Charismatic “Rhema or Word of Life” Movement.

27Paul Ricoeur, “Biblical Hermeneutics,” Semeia 4 (1975): 104-105.

28Thatcher, p.154.

29Which in turn gives rise, I would maintain, to the many metaphysical conundrums of the gospel that have plagued us ever since; we take the “words” of the gospel (symbols of meaning) as metaphysics rather than as metaphor/sign.

30Two important papers that touch on the impact of written sacred text in a primary oral or residual oral culture are: RichardGoode, “Orality and the Function of Written Texts in the World of the New Testament”, Paper given in the Social-Scientific Criticism of the New Testament section, Society of Biblical Literature, San Antonio, 23/11/2004; and, Jonathon Draper, “The Bible as Poison Onion, Icon, and Oracle—Reception of the Printed Sacred Text in Oral and Residual Oral South Africa” Journal of Theology for South Africa (March, 2002): 39-56. A Hebrew Scripture example of the power of the written text to promote a sense of “direct speech” andevoke a response may be found in 2 Kings 22 when during the reign of King Josiah “the book of the law” was found while repairing the Temple in Jerusalem. If this book was indeed the biblical book of Deuteronomy, then the dramatic response of the King and the people of Israel may have been primarily due to the hearing of the words of Deuteronomy as the “direct speech” of Moses, and not simply as are-discovered ancient document.

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