Festivals, cultural intertextuality, and the Gospel of John’s rhetoric of distance

Warren Carter

doi:10.4102/hts.v67i1.802

Abstract

Imperial and civic-religious festivals pervaded the late first-century city of Ephesus where John’s Gospel was, if not written, at least read or heard. How did Jesus-believers as likely members of somewhat participationist synagogue communities negotiate such pervasive and public celebration of festivals? Did they participate in, ignore, or oppose such festivals? And how might John’s Gospel have encouraged them to respond?This article engages these questions by focusing on the narrative presentation of festivals in John’s Gospel (some 42 times) as, amongst other things, occasions of conflict and condemnation. Employing Sjef van Tilborg’s notion of ‘interference’, which prioritises the Ephesian civic interface of the Gospel’s audience, the article argues that the cultural intertextuality between the Gospel and an Ephesian context destabilises and problematises Ephesian civic festivals and shows there to be fundamental incompatibilities between Jesus’ work and Ephesian society, thereby seeking Jesus-believers to absent themselves from festivals. The Gospel’s presentation of festivals belongs to the gospel’s rhetoric of distance vis-à-vis societal structures.

Highlights

According to a 568-line inscription displayed at the entrance to the Ephesian theatre and in the Artemision (IE 1a 27; Wankel 1979–1984),1 a wealthy, landowning Roman of the equestrian order, C
Salutaris established a procession through Ephesus every two weeks
Did Jesus-believers in Ephesus - amongst whom John’s Gospel was, if not written, probably read and heard2 - avert their eyes, turn their backs, utter the name of Jesus, or find another route? Or did the procession not trouble them so that they continued on with their daily business? Or did they join it as active participants and/or as spectators? We cannot know for certain; historical imagination is inevitably at work in the argument that follows, just as it is in all historical reconstruction

Summary

Original Research

Cultural intertextuality, and the Gospel of John’s rhetoric of distance. Affiliations: 1New Testament, Brite Divinity School, Texas Christian University, United States. Dr Warren Carter is a member of the editorial board of HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies; this article is dedicated to Prof. How to cite this article: Carter, W., 2011, ‘Festivals, cultural intertextuality and the Gospel of John’s rhetoric of distance’, HTS Teologiese Studies/ Theological Studies 67(1), Art. Employing Sjef van Tilborg’s notion of ‘interference’, which prioritises the Ephesian civic interface of the Gospel’s audience, the article argues that the cultural intertextuality between the Gospel and an Ephesian context destabilises and problematises Ephesian civic festivals and shows there to be fundamental incompatibilities between Jesus’ work and Ephesian society, thereby seeking Jesus-believers to absent themselves from festivals. The Gospel’s presentation of festivals belongs to the gospel’s rhetoric of distance vis-à-vis societal structures

Introduction

Pervasive Ephesian festivals

Intertextuality between Gospel narrative and Ephesus