Copyright holder: Tyndale University, 3377 Bayview Ave., Toronto, Ontario, Canada M2M 3S4 Att.: Library Director, J. William Horsey Library Copyright: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Copyright license: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License Citation: Reynolds, Benjamin E. “Apocalyptic Revelation in the Gospel of John: Revealed Cosmology, the Vision of God, and Visionary Showing.” In The Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and The Shaping of New Testament Thought, edited by Benjamin E. Reynolds and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, 109-128. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017. ***** Begin Content ****** TYNDALE UNIVERSITY 3377 Bayview Avenue Toronto, ON M2M 3S4 TEL: 416.226.6620 www.tyndale.ca Note: This Work has been made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws of Canada without the written authority from the copyright owner. Reynolds, Benjamin E. “Apocalyptic Revelation in the Gospel of John: Revealed Cosmology, the Vision of God, and Visionary Showing.” In The Jewish Apocalyptic Tradition and The Shaping of New Testament Thought, edited by Benjamin E. Reynolds and Loren T. Stuckenbruck, 109-128. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2017. [ Citation Page ] [ Chapter ] 5 Apocalyptic Revelation in the Gospel of John Revealed Cosmology, the Vision of God, and Visionary Showing Benjamin E. Reynolds New Testament scholarship has long seen little connection between the Gospel of John and Jewish apocalyptic thought. The reasons for such an understanding are fairly obvious as the Gospel of John is known for its realized eschatology in contrast to the primarily future eschatol- ogy of the Synoptic Gospels. Since New Testament scholars have considered Jewish apocalyptic thought primarily as apocalyptic (future) eschatology,1 John’s Gospel has been considered to have little or no connection with it.2 Yet, as is being argued in this volume, Jewish apocalyptic tradition includes more than apoc- alyptic eschatology. In fact, the Jewish apocalypses have more to do with revelation of hidden mysteries than with an expectation of the end, even though the resolution of time is some- times the content of what is revealed. If Jewish apocalyptic thought centers on disclosure of 1. Philipp Vielhauer, “Introduction,” in New Testament Apocrypha. Volume 2: Writing Related to the Apostles, Apocalypses and Related Subjects, ed. W. Schneemelcher, trans. R. McL. Wilson (London: Lutterworth, 1965), 581-607; and Ernst Käsemann, “On The Subject of Primitive Christian Apocalyptic,” New Testament Questions of Today, trans. W. J. Montague, (London: SCM, 1969), 108-37. 2. Frederick J. Murphy, Apocalypticism in the Bible and Its World: A Comprehensive Introduction (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2012), 275-79; and Klaus Koch, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic, trans. Margaret Kohl, SBT 2.22 (London: SCM Press, 1972), 66-67, on Rudolf Bultmann. Most recently, in her response essay to the volume The Gospel of John and Intimations of Apocalyptic, Adela Yarbro Collins focuses almost entirely on John’s eschatology (“Epilogue,” in John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, ed. Catrin Williams and Christopher Rowland (London; New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 300-307. [ Page ] 109 things hidden, then could the Gospel of John be considered “apocalyptic”? Rudolf Bultmann did argue that the Gospel’s Grundkonzeption is revelation, but for Bultmann, the background of the Gospel’s revelation was to be found in gnostic documents and the “Gnostic Redeemer myth,” not Jewish apocalypticism.3 Considering that Bultmann argued for a gnostic background before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the resulting explosion of interest in early Judaism, his argument was plausible. In his evaluation of Bultmann’s thesis, John Ashton agreed that revelation is the central concept in John’s Gospel, but Ashton argued for Jewish apoca- lyptic thought as the proper background for this revelation.4 Even though Ashton revised his arguments for an apocalyptic background, and quite possibly undermined them,5 viewing the Johannine revelation in the context of revelation within Jewish apocalyptic thought makes much more sense with present understandings of Second Temple Judaism and, especially, the Jewish apocalyptic tradition. The challenge of viewing the Gospel of John apocalyptically is to think beyond apocalyptic eschatology to recognize that Jewish apocalyptic thought also includes the revelation or unveiling of heavenly mysteries, whether they include cosmology or wisdom.6 Since “apocalyp- tic” is often assumed by New Testament scholars to be equivalent with eschatology, I will focus on other revelatory aspects of John’s Gospel—specifically, its revelation of cosmology. In this chapter, I will discuss the Gospel’s revealed cosmology, its vision of God as revealed in and by the Son, and the Gospel’s language of revelation and visionary showing, in particular, the word used to speak of Jesus’s showing of the Father (deiknumi).7 Revealed Cosmology in John One of the features of an apocalypse as defined in Semeia 14 by the Society of Biblical Literature genre project is that the revelation made known by an otherworldly being “discloses a tran- scendent reality which is ... spatial insofar as it envisages another supernatural world.”8 John Collins speaks of this spatial aspect as including information about otherworldly regions and 3. Rudolf Bultmann, “Die Bedeutung Der Neuerschlossenen Mandäischen Und Manichäischen Quellen Für Das Verstandnis Desjohannesevangeliums,” ZNW 24 (1925): 100-146. 4. John Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel, 2nd ed. (New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 307-29. 5. John Ashton, The Gospel of John and Christian Origins (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014), ch. 6. 6. See Christopher C. Rowland and Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament, CRINT 12 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2009), 123. At the same time, the Gospel is not absent of an eschatology with its references to present judgment (John 3:18; 9:39-41; etc.), “the last day” (6:39, 40, 44, 54), and the resurrection of the righteous and the wicked (5:28-29). See Jörg Frey, Die johanneische Eschatologie. Bände 1-3, WUNT 96,110,117 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997,1998, 2000). 7. This chapter is not an attempt to solve Bultmann’s conundrum of the empty content of the Gospel of John’s revelation—that all Jesus reveals is that he is the Revealer (Rudolf Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, trans. Kendrick Grobel [New York: Scribner, 1951], 2:66). There are implications for answering that conundrum when John’s Gospel is compared with Jewish apocalyptic thought, but anyone seeking a complete response to Bultmann will only find the beginnings of one here. 8. Collins, Apocalyptic Imagination, 5. While this definition has been critiqued on numerous occasions, it does serve as a useful starting point for defining what is and is not “apocalyptic.” [ Page ] 110 otherworldly beings.9 Throughout the Jewish apocalypses, this spatial aspect of the transcen- dent reality is often indicated by appearance of an otherworldly mediator who descends to earth from heaven, a human recipient who ascends and is given a tour of heaven, or some com- bination ofboth. For example, in 4 Ezra, the angel Uriel is sent from heaven to answer Ezra’s questions directed to the Lord. In the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 14), Enoch enters into heaven, sees “the Great Glory” seated on the throne (1 Enoch 14:19, 24; see also Testament of Levi 3-5), and is later led on a tour by the archangels (1 Enoch 17-19; 21-36). In the Book of the Luminar- ies (1 Enoch 72-82), Enoch recounts what he has been shown by the angel Uriel regarding the sun, moon, stars and their movements. Although the apocalypse is not overly specific concern- ing Enoch’s journey, the content of the Book of the Luminaries reveals a cosmological perspec- tive of the heavens and earth.10 In Apocalypse of Abraham, the supernatural world is disclosed through the descent of Yahoel and his escorting of Abraham to heaven. There, in heaven, Abra- ham worships the Lord, and the Lord himself shows Abraham the heavens, earth, the abyss, and many other things. Testament of Abraham tells of the multiple descents of Michael the archangel from heaven and of Abraham’s ascent and tour of the earth with Michael as his guide. In 3 Baruch, Baruch is led through five levels of heaven by Phanuel, and some of what he sees includes aspects of cosmology. All of these apocalypses reveal the existence of heaven and earth and of heavenly beings. Human beings are from the created realm of the earth, but heaven is another realm where the celestial bodies travel, and where God and his angelic mes- sengers dwell. "Otherworldly Regions” and Jesus as "Otherworldly Being” in the Gospel of John The Gospel of John, like the Jewish apocalypses, reveals a spatial transcendence. The above and below language that appears overly mysterious when the Gospel of John is compared with the Synoptic Gospels seems less mysterious and quite apocalyptically revealing when laid side by side with the Jewish apocalypses.11 The contents of the narrative of John and the narratives of the Jewish apocalypses are all clearly different, but the Gospel of John similarly discloses a cos- mological portrait of heaven and earth. 9. John J. Collins, “Introduction: Toward the Morphology of a Genre,” Semeia 14 (1979): 1-20 (7). 10. Cf. Kelley Coblentz Bautch, .A Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch 17-19: ‘No One Has Seen What I Have Seen”, JSJSup 81 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2003), 199-205. 11. Cf. Edward W. Klink HI, “Light of the World: Cosmology and the Johannine Literature,” in Cosmology and New Testament Theology, ed. Jonathan T. Pennington and Sean M. McDonough, LNTS 355 (London: T & T Clark, 2008), 74-89, who focuses on cosmic dualism and cosmic drama with no indication of similarities with Jewish apocalyptic thought. [ Page ] 111 The opening section of the Gospel reveals a primordial sense of time in which the Word was with the Father. The Word’s involvement in the creation suggests a cosmological sense in that the Word is separate from what has come into being.12 In 1:9, the Gospel writer states that the true light has come into the world. The implication is that a realm separate from the world exists and it is that realm from which the light comes. This realm becomes more explicit in 1:32 when John the Baptist states that he has seen the Spirit descending out of heaven like a dove. And again, more spectacularly, in 1:51, Jesus tells Nathanael that he will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man. The opening of heaven has obvious connections to Jewish apocalyptic thought in the multiple instances of the opening of heaven in the Jewish apocalypses (e.g., 2 Baruch 22:1; Apocalypse of Abraham 19:4; Testament of Levi 2:6). In the Gospel of John, the opening of heaven makes possible the vision of Jesus as the one who unites heaven and earth, the light coming into the world, and it indicates the Gospel’s revelation of the spatial axis of a transcendent reality.13 The revelation of cosmology occurs again in John 3, where Jesus tells Nicodemus that to enter the kingdom, one must be born above (anothen; 3:3; cf. 3:7). Similarly, in 3:13, Jesus states that he has descended from heaven, and as such, is able to reveal the things of heaven (3:12). That this statement is made in the negative highlights Jesus’s exclusive claim to ascent, but more importantly, his superiority of origin in that he did not ascend first to descend with heav- enly mysteries.14 Rather, “his true home is in heaven,”15 and thus he only needed to descend to earth. His heavenly origin gives him more authority to disclose revelation (cf. Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Elijah, etc.). At the least, the passage indicates the cosmological reality of heaven and earth, the existence of earthly things (ta epigeia) and heavenly things (ta epouravia), and that Jesus is a heavenly figure who has descended from heaven. John 3:31-36 summarizes the mis- sion of Jesus, the one who is from above (anothen) and is above all (epano pantone, 3:31). Jesus is from heaven, has been sent from heaven by God, and speaks the words of God. The phrase ex teis geis (from the earth) which is repeated three times in 3:31 contrasts sharply with Jesus’s ori- gin from heaven (ho ek tou ouranou erkomenos). Another cosmological indication comes in Jesus’s dispute with the Pharisees in 8:12-30. In 8:23, in response to their question about where he is going that they cannot go, Jesus states, 12. Ashton, Christian Origins, 145-55, argues that John 1:3 does not refer to creation. 13. For further details, see Benjamin Reynolds, “Apocalypticism in the Gospel of John’s Written Revelation of Heavenly Things,” Early Christianity 4, no. 1 (2013): 64-95. 14. Contra J.-A. Bühner, Der Gesandte und sein Weg im 4. Evangelium: Die kultur- und religionsgeschichtlichen Grundlagen der johanneischen Sendungschristologie sowie ihre traditionsgeschichtliche Entwicklung, WUNT II/2 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1977), 374-99, and others. See Madison N. Pierce and Benjamin E. Reynolds, “The Perfect Tense-form and the Son of Man in John 3:13: Developments in Greek Grammar as a Viable Solution to the Ascent and Descent,” NTS 60, no. 1 (2014): 149-55. 15. J. Louis Martyn, History and Theology in the Fourth Gospel, 3rd ed., NTL (Westminster John Knox, 2003), 131-32; Ashton, Understanding, 240. [ Page ] 112 “You are from below (ek tone kato), and I am from above (ek tone ano). You are from this world, and I am not from this world (ego ouk eimi tou kosmou toutou).” The statement clearly reveals a transcendent reality; Jesus is not from earth but from heaven. Again, in 8:42, he says that he has come from God (ek tou theou; cf. para theou, 9:33). The revealed cosmology of the Gospel is obvious in Jesus’s statements in the last discourse, where he claims to have come from the Father (13:3; 16:27-30; 17:8). Further evidence of the Johannine revelation of a transcendent spatial reality is noticeable in Jesus’s trial with Pilate. Implying that Pilate is correct that Jesus is a king, Jesus tells Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world (ouk estin ek tou kosmou toutou, 18:36). Pilate himself only has authority, Jesus says, because it has been given to him from above (anothen, 19:11). Jesus is not only a heavenly figure who is not from this world, but he will also return to heaven from this world (cf. Wisdom in 1 Enoch 42). Hints of this return are noticeable in his ascent mentioned in 3:13, and again, in 6:62 and 20:17. As the Gospel progresses, Jesus speaks about his going away, which is the same as his returning to the Father in heaven, the one who sent him (7:33; 8:14, 21-22; 13:3, 33, 36; 14:4-5; 14:28; 16:5,10,17; cf. 3:8 of the Spirit). “The Jew’s” and Jesus’s own disciples’ lack of knowledge about where he is from (pothen) contrasts his heav- enly origin with those from this world (7:27-28; 8:14, 22; 9:29-30; 14:5; 19:9).16 While the Gospel of John does not unveil levels of heaven or astronomical details, it does reveal a spatial transcendence. Heaven does exist and Jesus is from heaven and is returning to heaven. Similar to the Jewish apocalypses, John’s Gospel reveals that Jesus is an otherworldly being from an otherworldly region. “Otherworldly Beings” in the Gospel of John While the Gospel discloses the existence of heaven and earth (“otherworldly regions”) and of Jesus as an otherworldly being, the Gospel also indicates the existence of more otherworldly beings. Although angels make little appearance in the Gospel, they are depicted as ascending and descending on the Son of Man (1:51), and two angels are seen by Mary when she looks into the tomb after Peter and John depart (20:12-13). The appearance and description of these two angels is only briefly mentioned, but such brevity is typical of most depictions of otherworldly figures in Jewish apocalypses (1 Enoch 20:1-8; 4 Ezra 4:1; 5;14; 10:30; 2 Baruch 55:3). Another otherworldly figure in John’s Gospel is the “ruler of this world” (ho arkone tou kosmou toutou, 12:31; 14:30; 16:11). This figure is also called Satan (ho satanas, 13:27), the devil (ho diabolos, 8:44; 13:2; cf. 6:70), and the evil one (ho poneiros, 17:15), yet as both Jutta Leonhardt- 16. Ashton, Understanding, 493, comments that pothen has an important revelatory function in the Gospel. [ Page ] 113 Balzer and Loren Stuckenbruck note, he acts through people and not on his own.17 The contrast between the devil and God is set forth explicitly by Jesus in 8:42-44. Here, Jesus states that his opponents do not have God as their Father, but rather the devil is their Father because they do not accept Jesus, the one who is from God. While Jesus’s kingdom is not of this world (18:36), the devil is the ruler of this world. Jesus’s glorification and exaltation bring about the casting out of this ruler. And ironically, it is the devil who brings about his own demise when he enters into Judas and begins the betrayal of Jesus, which leads to Jesus’s glorification through the cru- cifixion.18 The Jewish apocalypses are full of evil figures—from Asael and Shemihazah in the Book of the Watchers, Azazel in the Apocalypse of Abraham, and Mastema in Jubilees. Similarly, John’s Gospel reveals the existence of otherworldly beings, but as with the Gospel’s revelation of heaven and earth, little more is said of these beings. Although the above discussion has merely scratched the surface of the revealed cosmology of John’s Gospel, what is clear is that the Gospel of John’s revelation unveils a transcendent spatial reality that bears similarities with the spatial revelation of the Jewish apocalypses. The Fourth Gospel does so more than the Synoptic Gospels in that John’s Gospel reveals a figure who comes from heaven to earth, and who will return to heaven. In contrast to the Synoptic Gospels, the Johannine Jesus speaks of heaven and earth and uses the language of above and below. He dis- closes things of heaven to those on earth and reveals the existence of angels and the devil. His death and resurrection are part of the cosmic struggle, and they result in the casting out of the devil from his place of rulership (12:32). It is in this revealed cosmology that the Gospel of John indicates at least one similarity with Jewish apocalyptic thought; however, as Bultmann has noted, the Gospel reveals no details of the heavenly world.19 Unlike the revelation of vari- ous levels of heaven, the places of the dead, or God seated on the heavenly throne as depicted in Jewish apocalypses, the Gospel of John tells us nothing about heaven except that Jesus is from heaven, unites heaven and earth, and is returning to heaven. The concern of John’s Gospel is not cosmological speculation but information about the one who came from heaven. The Gospel clearly reveals a cosmology that is in tune with the world of Jewish apocalyptic thought, but the portrait remains distinctly Johannine in that Jesus is the one from above who has been sent from the Father, has come into this world and returns from this world to the Father.20 17. See Jutta Leonhardt-Balzer, “The Ruler of the World, Antichrists and Pseudo-Prophets: Johannine Variations on an Apocalyptic Theme,” in John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, ed. Catrin H. Williams and Christopher Rowland (London; New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 180-99; Loren T. Stuckenbruck, “Evil in Johannine and Apocalyptic Perspective: Petition for Protection in John 17,” in John’s Gospel and Intimations of Apocalyptic, ed. Catrin H. Williams and Christopher Rowland (London; New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 200-232. 18. Judith L. Kovacs, “‘Now Shall the Ruler of This World Be Driven Out’: Jesus’ Death as Cosmic Battle in John 12:20-36,” JBL 114, no. 2 (1995): 227-47. 19. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 2:62. 20. For a discussion of the use of kosmos in the Gospel of John, see N. H. Cassem, “A Grammatical and Contextual Inventory of the Use [ Page ] 114 The Vision of God in the Jewish Apocalypses and John The Gospel of John’s emphasis on the vision of God in the person of Jesus also forms part of its revealed cosmology. God is in heaven, and thus otherworldly, but Jesus makes possible the vision of God. This vision of God forms another example of the Gospel’s similarity with Jewish apocalyptic thought. For, as Christopher Rowland states, “The vision of God, the heart of the calling experiences of Isaiah and Ezekiel and the goal of the heavenly ascents of the apocalyptic seers and rabbinic mystics, is in the Fourth Gospel related to the revelation of God in Jesus.”21 As the quote from Rowland implies, the Jewish apocalyptic visions of God have their begin- ning in Hebrew Bible visions. For example, Moses sees God on Mount Sinai (Exodus 24) and is shown God’s glory (Exod 33:18). Elijah, also on Mount Sinai, has an experience of meeting the Lord (1 Kgs 19:9-18). Neither one of them sees God’s face, since Elijah wraps his face in his man- tle before going out to speak with the Lord (1 Kgs 19:13) and Moses only sees the Lord’s back. Micaiah prophesies that he sees the divine council (1 Kings 22). But Isaiah’s and Ezekiel’s visions of the Lord became the most influential in shaping the depictions of heavenly ascents in the Jewish apocalypses.22 By the time the Jewish apocalypses were written, heavenly speculation seems to have increased to the extent that in order to describe God, an ascent to God’s throne in heaven was practically a requirement.23 In the Book of the Watchers, Enoch takes the plea of the Watchers to the Lord and he is taken up into heaven. He enters through the house of fire, then into the house of ice, before he finally comes to the place where God is seated on a throne. Enoch says that he does not see God’s face (1 Enoch 14:19) and that he is on his face prostrate (14:24), but enigmatically, he is able to describe the throne and the Great Glory sitting upon it (14:18-20). God speaks with him and tells him what to say to the Watchers (14:24-16:4). The ascent to heaven makes possible Enoch’s vision of God, even if in this instance, Enoch and the angels (14:21) are unable to see the Lord.24 Similarly, Enoch has a vision of God in the Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 46-48, 62, 71) and also in 2 Enoch 22. In both of these texts, there is little or no reticence about God being seen by Enoch. Levi also sees “the Holy Most High” seated on a throne (Testament of Levi 5:1), as does Daniel who sees the Ancient of Days take his seat (Dan 7:9-10). In Apocalypse of Abraham, of Kosmos in the Johannine Corpus with Some Implications for a Johannine Cosmic Theology,” NTS 19 (1972): 81-91; Klink, “Light of the World.” 21. Rowland and Morray-Jones, Mystery of God, 124-25; idem, Rowland, Open Heaven, 84. 22. Martha Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heavenin Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 9-28; Rowland, Open Heaven, 78-80. 23. Rowland, Open Heaven, 80. 24. George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of l Enoch, Chapters 1-36; 81-108, Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), 265, points out that some angels are able to approach the Lord. [ Page ] 115 Abraham has a vision of the heavenly throne and the fire encircling it (Apocalypse of Abraham 18), yet his angelic guide Yahoel tells him: “You will not look at him himself’ (16:3).25 Baruch in 3 Baruch is told that he will see the glory of God (3 Baruch 4:2 Slavonic; 6:12; 7:2; 11:2; 16:6 Slavonic), but he is turned back when he reaches fifth heaven (17:1; 17:l-4).26 Not to mention John the seer who has a vision of the Lord on his throne in Revelation 4.27 In comparison with these Jewish apocalypses of heavenly ascent, the Gospel of John’s state- ments that no one has seen the Father and no one has heard the Father apart from the Son are quite striking. Jesus, the one who is from heaven, is the one who has seen the Father and reveals the Father. No one else has seen the Father (1:18; 6:46), and no one else ascends to heaven (3:13). Most scholars have noted the polemical nature of these claims.28 It may be claimed that Abra- ham, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, and Ezekiel have seen God or even have ascended to heaven, as well as Enoch, Baruch, Levi, and others in Jewish apocalyptic tradition. While visions of God are possible in Jewish apocalypses through ascents to heaven in the attendance of an other- worldly mediator, in the Gospel of John, Jesus, an otherworldly being, is the vision of God.29 One of the most significant passages regarding visionary experience in the Gospel of John is the reference to Isaiah’s vision. In 12:41, as the Gospel moves from the narration of Jesus’s life to his passion, the evangelist states that Isaiah did not see the Lord’s glory, but Jesus’s glory. This statement follows right on the heels of two citations of Isaiah: Isaiah 53:1 in John 12:38 and Isaiah 6:10 in John 12:40. The latter citation comes from the Lord’s speech to Isaiah during his visionary calling. In Isaiah 6:1-5, Isaiah saw the Lord seated on his throne and the six-winged angels surrounding the throne. Isaiah responds to the vision by saying “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (NRSV, 6:5). For the Gospel of John, Isaiah’s vision of the Lord is truly a vision of Jesus.30 Herman Ridder- bos states, “the glory of God as the prophet foresaw in his vision was no other than that which the Son of God had with the Father before the world was ... (17:4; 1:14,18).”31 This explanation 25. Andrei A. Orlov, Heavenly Priesthood in the Apocalypse of Abraham (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 46-53, has highlighted the “anti-anthropomorphic tendencies” of the Apocalypse of Abraham. 26. Alexander Kulik, 3 Baruch: Greek-Slavonic Apocalypse of Baruch, CEJL (Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2010), 179. Kulik notes here that the “glory of God” may refer not to God specifically but “to a disclosure of his works,” which is of interest considering Jesus’s revelation of the Father’s works in the Gospel of John. 27. Cf. 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch which have no vision of God. 4 Ezra 8:20-21 seems to reject heavenly speculation. 28. Hugo Odeberg, The Fourth Gospel: Interpreted in Its Relation to Contemporaneous Religious Currents in Palestine and the Hellenistic-Oriental World (Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksells Boktryckeri, 1929), 72; more recently, James H. Charlesworth, “Did the Fourth Evangelist Know the Enoch Tradition?,” in Testimony and Interpretation: Early Christology in Its Judeo-Hellenistic Milieu. Studies in Honour of Peter Pokorný, ed. J. Mrazek and J. Roskovec (London: T & T Clark, 2004), 223-39; Reynolds, “Apocalypticism in the Gospel of John’s Written Revelation of Heavenly Things,” 76-78. 29. Rowland and Morray-Jones, Mystery of God, 128,131; Jey J. Kanagaraj, 'Mysticism' in the Gospel of John: An Inquiry into Its Background, JSNTSup 158 (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 214-47. 30. Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel According to John (l-XIl): Introduction, Translation, and Notes, AB 29 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), 487, connects Isaiah’s vision of Jesus with John 8:56 when Jesus says that Abraham saw his day and rejoiced. [ Page ] 116 of Isaiah’s vision furthers the Gospel’s claim that no one can see God except the Son. Isaiah saw Jesus’s glory and not the Lord’s, yet it is possible for God to be seen. John 12:38 has just asked the question from Isaiah 53:1: “To whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed (apekaluphthei)?”32 The implied answer to that question is that all who have seen the works and signs of Jesus have seen the Lord’s glory, just as Isaiah did (12:37; cf. 1:14; 2:11; 12:23).33 The vision of God which is the heart of Jewish apocalyptic ascent is possible in the person of Jesus who has descended from the Father. In John 14:6, Jesus states that he is the way and no one comes to the Father except through him. This statement is another exception, like those in 1:18; 3:13; and 6:44. Jesus is the only one who has seen the Father, only he comes from the Father, and he is also the only one through whom people can come to the Father.34 In response to Jesus’s claim to be the only way to the Father, Philip asks Jesus to show the disciples the Father. Jesus says that if the disciples have seen him, they have seen the Father (14:8-9).35 To see Jesus is to see the Father (see 12:45; cf. 5:19-30; 8:23-30; 17:6-8).36 There is no need for heavenly ascent because the revelation or vision of God has taken place on earth. It is this inversion which is one of the primary reasons Ashton has claimed that the Gospel of John is “an apocalypse—in reverse, upside down, inside out.”37 All that Jesus as the otherworldly mediator speaks, does, makes known, etc. reveals the Father. Bultmann has noted that there is no esoteric knowledge or mysteries that are commu- nicated in this revelation,38 which is why Bultmann claims that the revelation indicates only that Jesus is the Revealer and no more.39 Saeed Hamid-Khani disagrees with Bultmann, argu- ing that there is content to the revelation. He asserts that Bultmann’s claim goes against the message of the Gospel and contends that the incarnation, including the crucifixion and resur- rection, sums up the Johannine revelation.40 31. Herman Ridderbos, The Gospel of John: A Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997), 445. 32. This is the only use of the verb apokalupto in John’s Gospel. 33. Catrin H. Williams, “Seeing the Glory: The Reception of Isaiah’s Call-Vision in Jn 12.41,” in Judaism, Jewish identity and Gospel Tradition, ed. James G. Crossley (London; Oakville, CT: Equinox, 2010), 186-206 (198). This is an excellent study of the reception Isaiah 6 in Jewish apocalyptic literature and particularly John. 34. See C. K. Barrett, The Gospel according to St.John:An Introduction with Commentary and Notes on the Greek Text, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978), 459. 35. See further discussion of this passage below. 36. See Craig R. Koester, “Jesus as the Way to the Father in Johannine Theology (John 14,6),” in Theology and Christology in the Fourth Gospel: Essays by Members of the SNTS Johannine Writings Seminar, ed. Gilbert Van Belle, J. G. Van der Watt, and P. Maritz, BETL 184 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2005), 117-33. 37. Ashton, Understanding, 328-29. 38. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 2:62; Rudolf Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. G. R. Beasley-Murray, R. W. N. Hoare, and J. K. Riches (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1971), 254. 39. Bultmann, Theology of the New Testament, 2:66. 40. Saeed Hamid-Khani, Revelation and Concealment of Christ: Theological Inquiry into the Elusive Language of the Fourth Gospel, WUNT 11/120 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 351-52; also Sjef Van Tilborg, “Cosmological Implications of Johannine Christology,” in Theology and Christology in the Fourth Gospel: Essays by Members of the SNTS Johannine Writings Seminar, ed. Gilbert Van Belle, J. G. Van der Watt, and P. Maritz, BETL 184 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2005), 483-502. See Ashton, Understanding, 528-29.; Cf. Gail R. O’Day, Rev- elation in the Fourth Gospel: Narrative Mode and Theological Claim (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 92. [ Page ] 117 The enigma of the Johannine revelation cannot be solved in a short essay directed in multiple directions, but the world of the Jewish apocalypses offers a much more promising comparison than that of Gnosticism and its redeemer myths.41 Granted there is no list of revealed things in John’s Gospel, but in agreement with Hamid-Khani, something is revealed. The heavens open and a connection is made between earth and heaven. God’s glory is made visible, but in the human being, Jesus. To see Jesus, the Messiah, Son of God, and Son of Man, is to see God the Father.42 Unlike otherworldly mediators who speak for God, Jesus speaks and acts for God. Jesus is able to give life and judge in the same way God is because God has granted him the authority to do so (5:20-27). His words, which are the words of God, are words of life (8:28-30; 12:48-50). Language of Revelation: Visionary Showing One final connection with Jewish apocalyptic thought concerns the Gospel’s language of rev- elation. Ashton has pointed out how an examination of the theme of revelation in the Gospel of John is made difficult by its language. First, the noun apokalupsis is not used in the Gospel, although, by comparison, there are multiple instances of the word in the Pauline literature (1 Cor 1:7; 2 Cor 12:7; Gal 1:12; 2 Thess 1:7; etc.).43 The verb apokalupo is used only once in John’s Gospel and that is in the citation of Isaiah 53:1 in 12:38 mentioned above. Other verbs gener- ally synonymous with apokalupo include: