Jesus’ Death in John's Gospel: A Survey of Research from Bultmann to the Present with Special Reference to the Johannine Hyper-Texts

Abstract

The influence of R. Bultmann's and E. Käsemann's interpretations of Jesus’ death in John's Gospel has been enormous. Their interpretations set the parameters of the debate right up to the present day. Bultmann and Käsemann insisted that Jesus’ death was not at the centre of Johannine soteriology and that it was not an atoning event. One of the results of this ‘Bultmann–Käsemann paradigm’ was that a number of crucial Johannine texts were overlooked or not taken seriously. One such set of Johannine texts that suffered in this regard was the so-called ‘ hypertexts’. The trend away from the Bultmann–Käsemann paradigm, in the direction of a tradition atonement interpretation of Jesus’ death, is shown to be gaining ground especially in Germany. When the Gospel text is taken seriously as a unity and when all the evidence concerning Jesus’ death in John is taken into account (especially the important hypertexts), a more traditional atonement interpretation seems to be the result.