The Creative Impulse of the Memory of Jesus in the Johannine Tradition

Abstract

In the previous study (Bible Review 2012 / 3-4) I tried to identify some of the signs that reveal the existence of a hermeneutic Christological remembrance of Jesus in the synoptic tradition. The analysis of the changes that these memories experienced in the various phases of the process that led to its inclusion in a story of the biography has shown that the question about Jesus drove This development, which culminated in the composition of the Gospel according to Mark and, later, the other two Synoptics, who took the story Marquiano as a model.
In this second study I will analyze from the same perspective the development in the Johannine tradition. The Gospel according to John, as well as the other books about Jesus that were composed in the first two centuries, including the synoptic gospels, are part of the process of re-reading of the memories about him that took place after his death. From In fact, in the Johannine tradition we not only find episodes that narrate the Synoptics (Jesus in the Temple, the multiplication of the loaves, the passion, etc.), but also others that are very similar to them (weddings Cana, healing of the blind, etc.)
The peculiarity of this tradition does not lie so much in the type of memories as in the selection and peculiar interpretation that the Johannine groups made of them. These groups, in fact, looked especially at some of Jesus' words and actions, and tried to discover their deeper meaning. This hermeneutic attitude, which translates into a conscious activity of interpretation of these memories, is the trait that best defines the development of the memory of Jesus in the Johannine tradition.