John 11: 1-46 : an examination of the text from the diachronic approach

Abstract

After the Enlightenment biblical scholars, especially from the Tübingen School, began to question the historicity of many of the events narrated in the Bible. In addition, new light was thrown on the different authors of the different biblical books. What had been taken for granted and believed for many years was now seriously questioned, especially in the case of the four gospels. Thus, for example, scholars concluded that the Fourth Gospel was not written by one person, at one go, but that this work reflects a long history of composition. In view of this hypothesis scholars tried to identify the different layers of tradition, or sources, behind the actual text of this gospel. This kind of approach became prominent through the so called historical-critical method, or the diachronic approach. This approach considers the text as a window through which the scholar can look in order to reach the original audience to whom this text was written. Under the umbrella of the historical critical method scholars included textual criticism, source criticism, form criticism, redaction criticism, and social-scientific criticism, to mention a few. In fact, social-scientific criticism is the latest critical method which falls under the umbrella of the diachronic approach. It developed in the 1970s, at a time when the diachronic approach was being seriously challenged by the scholars advocating the synchronic approach. During this time, a group of scholars opted to bring new literary analysis into the reading of the biblical text. These scholars declared that they were no longer interested in the different layers of tradition behind the text but were interested in the text itself, as it stands from beginning to end. The synchronic approach, also known as the literary approach, considers the text as a mirror, with the reader standing before it and being directly involved in the narrative. Within this approach scholars speak of the real author and the implied author; of the real reader and of the implied reader. Different literary devices, including irony and double meaning, are employed in this approach. Critical methods falling under the umbrella of the synchronic approach also include rhetorical criticism and narrative criticism. The advantages of the diachronic approach are that it helps scholars to appreciate the history of the text and the historical background of certain ideas presented within the same text. As a matter of fact, many good commentaries and monographs which have taken this approach have come out with scholarly results. It is an approach which gives ample information and remains valid and important to the study of the biblical text, even though it needs to be complemented by the synchronic approach. In this dissertation, we intend to present the importance and relevance of the diachronic approach, starting by discussing some of the various critical methods which fall under its umbrella and then presenting a case study of how the text regarding the raising of Lazarus in John 11: 1-46 is examined from the perspective of this approach.