Spring 2021 · Vol. 50 No. 1 · pp. 107–109
Book Review
A Complicated Love Story: Focus on the Fourth Gospel
V. George Shillington. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2019. 158 pages.
After teaching courses on the Fourth Gospel for many years, V. George Shillington, professor emeritus at Canadian Mennonite University, takes a fresh look at this multifaceted text, “on its terms” (ix). A Complicated Love Story reads the Gospel closely while also interacting with the early second-century community of its author.
The introduction makes a case for the Gospel writer’s anonymity, although early church tradition ascribed the scroll to the apostle John. His largely Gentile community included minority Jewish members living in a Greek-speaking part of the Roman world. The Gospel reflects this situation in Jesus’s interactions with the Jews. Shillington argues that the author is aware of the Synoptics and challenges their accounts on several points. The Book of Signs (John 1-13) shows Jesus revealing the truth of eternal life, culminating in the events of the Book of Passion (John 14-20). Shillington observes that the Gospel narrative may be jolting and chooses to follow the evangelist’s pattern to good effect.
Shillington proposes that the site of this early Johannine community was Antioch of Syria in the early second century (110 CE). The Gospel of John presents this Messianic community as seeking to remain faithful to the belief that Jesus is the Christ in the face of mounting pressures from Rabbinic communities to abandon it. This love story tells of God loving an “ambiguous world” and not sparing the Son or even the disciples for the sake of others (chapter 2). It also invites communities living in memory of John the Baptist to transfer their allegiance to Jesus the Christ (chapter 3). While rabbis like Nicodemus are portrayed in a positive light (chapter 5), the three healings of Jesus reveal a deeper conflict with “the Jews” (chapter 7). The resuscitation of Lazarus reveals a growing division between the two groups (chapter 8). Tensions between them meant that some believing Jews abandoned the faith while followers of the Messiah feared expulsion from the synagogue (chapter 9).
Shillington also explores the many ways in which the Fourth Gospel challenges and rewrites the Synoptics. For instance, whereas the Synoptics portray Jesus as rejected in Galilee, John has him revered there. The Synoptics and John differ on aspects of John the Baptist’s ministry, the prominence of Mary, the relationship between Jesus and his brothers, the exchange between Jesus and Pilate, the events of the cross, and the details of the tomb. Likewise, John’s retelling of the story of the Passover entrance into Jerusalem—the origin of the crowd, the kind of tree branches they cut, the honorific titles they called out, the kind and number of animals Jesus sat on—deviates from the Synoptic story (chapter 10). {108}
The distinctive message of the Fourth Gospel, says Shillington, elevates Jesus above his competitors and proclaims his identity as a peaceable king ushering in a kingdom not of this world. He agrees with C. H. Dodd that love (fifty-seven occurrences in the NASB) is the guiding theme of the Gospel. After the resurrection, the question remains: Will Peter love Jesus on Peter’s terms (philos) or on Jesus’s (agape)? Belief is also a major theme (ninety-eight occurrences), culminating in Jesus’s appearance and Thomas’s confession (John 20:31).
Key figures in the Gospel remain anonymous, a dynamic that serves to elevate Jesus’s position in the early Christian community. These figures include the mother of Jesus, the woman at the well, and the beloved disciple. Shillington’s discussion of Jesus’s brothers (chapter 6) sets the stage for an extended consideration of the anonymous beloved disciple. Contrary to the Synoptics, the Fourth Gospel presents the brothers as supporting Jesus from the beginning. (The phrase, “for not even his brothers believed him” [John 7:5] would have been a later scribal insertion. However, the Greek text of this verse shows no alternative readings.)
Convinced of the brothers’ resolute support for Jesus, Shillington presents an “irrefutable case” for the true identity of the beloved disciple (chapter 11). He was not John of Zebedee—tradition got it wrong. Rather, ten observations from the Gospel indicate that the beloved disciple was James, the brother of Jesus. This proposal adds a new name to the list of candidates (others include Lazarus, John Mark, and Nathaniel), one that immediately raises questions of coherence. For if the witness of the beloved disciple is the source of this Gospel (John 19:35; 21:24), and if the recent death of the beloved disciple raised concerns in the second-century community (John 21:20-23), then how could James, who died almost fifty years earlier in Jerusalem, be that disciple? And why would John call James the beloved disciple given the distinction between disciples and brothers (54-55)?
The “inexplicable mystery” of the empty tomb and resurrection occupies chapters 14 and 15. What happened to Jesus’s body? Shillington persuasively argues that the resurrection body of Jesus was not like Lazarus’s; unlike the latter’s, the appearances of Jesus in a resurrected body reveal characteristics “suited to eternal life” (139). But Shillington’s explanation of the empty tomb raises difficult questions if, as he suggests, the family of Jesus took his body from the tomb before sunrise to give it a proper burial in a family tomb (138). First, how could Jesus’s brother James (the supposed beloved disciple) witness the empty tomb as if he did not know the body was buried elsewhere (John 20:2)? {109}
Second, if Shillington is correct, why did the religious leaders not look for the body in the family tomb and discredit Jesus’s family? Matthew 28:11-15 indicates that they had no doubt that the tomb was empty. The theft story was intended to explain his disappearance. Finding Jesus in the family tomb would have quickly confirmed this story.
And third, without a credible resurrection what could explain the transformation of once cowardly disciples and brothers into fearless evangelists after Jesus was crucified?
Finally, what does Shillington mean by saying that the resurrection was not bodily but the disciples’ post-crucifixion experiences of Jesus were nevertheless real (146)? Jewish readers would have expected a resurrected Jesus to have a physical and spiritual body, which would require both an empty tomb and a transformed body. Paul applies the bodily transformation argument to Jesus and the resurrection of believers (1 Cor. 15:35-49; 2 Cor. 5:1-9). Granted, exactly how the mortal body is swallowed up in immortality is an “inexplicable mystery,” which we can only receive in faith.
Shillington’s hope for A Complicated Love Story is that “the material should generate ongoing dialogue and perhaps new ways of interacting with the Fourth Gospel” (xi). Scholars and lay readers will indeed discover fresh insights in this provocative book that will generate dialogue and breathe new life into the reading of the Gospel according to John.
