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So go and get some books. Welcome to the new books network. How does the metaphor of Jesus as King unify the message of the gospel of John? Do you know, as we speak with Beth Stoval, a matter of monograph mapping metaphorical discourse in the fourth gospel?
Beth asserts that John's gospel describes the just character of Jesus' kingship, the subversion of power implicit in his crucified form of kingship, and the necessity of response to Jesus as King and his reign. You're listening to new books and biblical studies on the channel of the new books network, and I'm your host, Michael Morales. Beth Stoval is professor of Old Testament at Ambrose University and is working on commentaries on Ezekiel, the minor prophets, Ozea, and the gospel of John. Beth, welcome to new books and biblical studies.
It's great to be here. So tell us about yourself and how you came to write a book on John's gospel. Yeah, so I've got three main stages of my life. I was born in Italy, and then when I was young, moved to the US, and then moved to Canada in my 20th.
So about half of my life has been in the US and half in Canada. I married a wonderful Canadian man, John Stoval, and we have three teenage kids. I grew up in a Christian family. My dad was an Ashkenazi Jew who had become Christian.
So I grew up with a lot of the sense of how Hebrew scriptures connect with an Intestiment, and real interest in that Connect was connection points. And so I ended up doing both my part of my master's degree, as well as my PhD in this relationship between the Hebrew scriptures and the New Testament, and obviously in the PhD with a focus on John's gospel, which is where the book came from. I currently teach at Ambrose Seminary, which is part of Ambrose University in Calgary, Alberta, which is in the Western part of Canada, really close to the Rocky Mountains. We do a lot of hiking and spending time out in nature there, so great.
My formal title is Professor of Old Testament, but I actually teach Hebrew scriptures, Hebrew language, biblical theology, which is old and new, and then also New Testament, joining literature kind of makes sense. So yeah, so that's a little bit about me. And then you can hear already a little bit of how I ended up being excited about John's gospel. I mean, I didn't mention, but part of my degrees were also in English literature.
So my undergrad degree with classics in English literature, my master's degree was English literature, spiritual theology and the New Testament. And so because I did these combined degrees with English literature, I love metaphor, and I love things connected to all the things connected to how we do narrative, how do we think about the different literary themes, and what metaphor specifically, which is kind of where I ended up focusing. John is so full of a metaphor. And the metaphor is so rich, richly connected, I would say both to Greco-Roman context, as well as to Jewish, Hellness to Judaism in general.
And so I was really interested in how the Hebrew scriptures were connected to John's gospel in these different kinds of metaphors. So we picked up kingship in part because I kept seeing it everywhere, but I kept seeing authors saying, well, it's only here, but not here. And when you put all the scholars together, someone would say, well, it's in, definitely in John 1 and John 18, but not in the rest of John. And then someone else would say, oh, it's in John 3 and maybe John 19, but not in the rest of John.
And so it was, oh, but it's in John 10. And I was like, well, okay guys, if it's in John 1 and John 3 and John 10 and John 12, but we just say it's all over John. And so that got me really interested. I also, during my master's degree, read an amazing book by Mary Colou, which is God Welles with us, Temple of the Elizabeth of the Fourth Festival.
And it was the first time I read someone who sounded a little like me, like what I could imagine myself to be as a Johansson scholar. Other types of Johansson fellowships sometimes felt a little bit different than how I would approach things. But when I read her book, I was so excited and I thought, I want to do this. This is what I want to be a PhD to be.
Would you give us something of a summary of the kingship theme and the Hebrew scriptures? Sure, sure. And so I would say there's two ways to come out. This one is to trace the theme in Hebrew scriptures in terms of the narrative or the structure of the book.
And another is to talk about the metaphors that develop when you do that process. So quick overview of how it fits in the narrative from the start when we hear the creation language, it has elements of how ancient Near Eastern people would think about kingship. So the kingship of God is sort of from the beginning. We see God against Pharaoh and Exodus and we see this language of like, what is the king supposed to be, a human kingship in Deuteronomy 17?
So this idea of the relationship between God and the king, that the king used to be chosen by God, that the king used to be among his Hebrew brothers, it's for the sense of like quality there, there's limitations on royal power and a real dependency on God. And that becomes really important as we look at what we see about kingship throughout the rest of the Hebrew scriptures. So you get this tension in judges between Israel wanting a human king and God saying, well, I am the great king, can you just connect to me? And they're like, no, we want a human king.
And so God installs human kings, but I think really that Deuteronomy 17 idea is a big piece of whether or not those kings, we could say do a good job or not. And there's a strong emphasis on those who do follow those elements in kingship and those who don't, those who serve God and those who don't, which is a lot of the story, both as first and second, Samuel and kind of the, both of the books of kings. As we get into the next stage, we have the, you might say like the fall of human kings. And so as we get into Assyrians, Assyrians come in as one of this giant opposing force and it comes the explanation that's given in the Hebrew scriptures is that this is because of a failure of readership.
We get that also in the Babylonian exile, which happens a few hundred years later, the people on the leaders get taken away from the lands. And so there's this, this boy of kingship, but also God reasserting himself. And so that language comes up again and again, in sort of that time of exile and after the exile, especially we get a lot of this language of God as king and there being a huge emphasis on that. And so we can see that in books, in case you're traveling through some of the minor prophets, at the beginning of the minor prophets, we can hear this kind of language of God as king, trying to fix what's happening with human kingship.
In the exile books, exilic books like Ezekiel, you get a strong emphasis on the shepherds, the kings who have messed up versus God, who's gonna come in and take that face. And we get us also in the Psalms as we move to the end of the Psalter, the later half of the Psalms, 89 and what happens after as a strong emphasis on God as king and the failure of human kings. And so we see that name across and it brings up a few key metaphors that we pick up in John. So the king is someone who's anointed by the Holy Spirit and by oil, the king is connected to shepherds.
So David was a shepherd, a literal shepherd, and then he was called to be, to shepherd God's people. As I mentioned, Ezekiel 34 has this idea of God who is gonna be the good shepherd, who will be, who is king and his weight of shepherding is reigning. And then we get temple language, which is really commonly associated in the ancient world with kingship. David wants to build a temple and eventually his son is the one who builds that temple.
We get Father's son language, which also is Father king to his son who's a king language. We see that in the promises to David, the generations that follow him. And then there's lots of royal symbols. So crown, saptor, throne, even the name, the name of the language has a royal aspect to it.
And then things like God who is a divine warrior, who is also king. And a lot of times those are really close together. God who is creator, who is the king of the universe. God who is an eternal king.
So his reign is forever and ever. And God who in his kingship is just. And so we get some of that language, for example, in Psalm 72 where he says, the king, the king needs to be just as I am John. And then some figures, like the son of man figure Daniel seven who is not depicted as divine per se, but enthroned with God.
So the language of kingship is used, we don't know exactly what that figure is in Daniel, but whatever that figure is, it's thrown alongside God, which uses that kingship language. And so that's kind of a rundown. Some of the major ones, there's a lot. But yeah.
So how does John's gospel employ this kingship theme? Yeah, so a lot of the things we just talked about come up in John. And in fact, when we put them all next to each other, it's these terms that we just talked about over and over again in different ways. And I would say that John's gospel has these key moments.
And they're both in terms of narrative. So key moments of identifying who Jesus is and his relationship with disciples, Jesus' salvation looks like, what his death and resurrection means, but also structurally. So they come in key structural moments throughout the book. So everywhere from John one to set up the structure of the narrative to places that are transitional spaces, like John 10, where we get a shift in the book between to the first half of the book and then a movement towards the passion and the second half of the book.
And then we get it a lot, like an accumulation more and more as we get to the end of the book. So in 18 through 20 of those chapters, you get perliferation, lots and lots of this language. So if we just start with John one, we have John the Baptist starting at verse 19. He has a set of questions about who is Jesus.
And then he ennoits Jesus with water, but the spirit comes and ennoits. And either the language of Son of God or chosen one of God is used to describe. It's a little unclear which of those words is used, but one of those two is used. And both of that language, both chosen one of God and Son of God are both royal language.
And so we get this language not only of the anointing itself, which is connected to this idea of the anointed one, Messiah, but we also get this Son of God where it chosen one language. And it's interesting, the Messiah language shows up several other times in John's gospel. An example would be in John 11, where Martha confesses, you were the Son of God, you were the Christ. And so again, the Son of God and Christ being put next to each other is similar to what we see in John one.
Then we go from that scene to a scene where Jesus is talking to Philip and Nathaniel. And Nathaniel in his interaction with Jesus, again, calls Jesus the Son of God and he adds the king of Israel. And so now the Son of God and the king of Israel are being put next to each other. And so if we look at the whole section, and then we continue to verse 51, where he talks about himself as the Son of Man.
So you've got this combination of several, five different of these different words that I just talked about in the Old Testament that are all in different ways connected to kingship with other kind of flavors to them. So sometimes Son of God would have more of a family kind of association, but also with kingship. Son of Man has this connection to the humanity, but also this picture of being enthroned. And so each of them gives us something new, but together they all emphasize kingship.
When we get to John three, Nicodemus and Jesus have a conversation and this notion of the eternal king that plays into this idea of what eternal life means alongside the kingdom of God, the language. And the other thing that we get here is the language of born of God, which is interesting because while we often think of birth as associated with maybe feminine imagery, we've got birth and in sonship right next to each other. And so the birthing language and the family language come together, both with God, the king as the one who has these children. So that's from about as connected to the Psalms, and we see some about language connected to other parts of the Hebrew scriptures as well.
Then we get into this big discourse in John 10, where Jesus calls himself the good shepherd. And the language in this is very similar to what we talked about in Ezekiel 34 and similar imagery where God is shepherd, where there's divine shepherds and God shepherds, wicked shepherds, in Zachariah. So those two are put together. So if you just read it without that background, you would just be like, oh, this is all shepherd's up, which it does have a lot of shepherd imagery in it.
It does have a lot of shepherd language. But that shepherd language has another layer when we read it in light of the things that Jesus is. The language Jesus is using. Visit BetMDM Casino and check out the newest exclusive, The Price is Right Fortune Pick.
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Which is explicitly this shepherd king language. And so this connects to that notion in the ancient Near East that existed also in the Greco-Roman world, that kings were gods and that their function was to shepherd the people. And so many of us would be familiar with seeing, for example, a Pharaoh holding a staff, like a shepherd's rook that comes from the same idea, that he would be shepherd and he would be king. And so we see that language in John 10, as he builds on Ezekiel and Zacharya.
So then we see Jesus in John 12 entering Jerusalem and the language is explicitly kingship language. So blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, which is from Psalm 118, which is a coal kingship aspect to it. He's directly called blessed is the king of Israel. And then there's a quotation from Zacharya and I, they'll do not be afraid that our Zion's your king is coming seated on a donkey's cold.
And so it's interesting because we've got this use of Psalm 118 that's linked to a use of both Zacharya and I and Zephaniah III and all together, what they're doing is showing, okay, so he comes in the name of the Lord, which is associating him with God, but also he is the king of Israel and he is a form of refuge in fear and in the midst of fear. And in my broader study, I talk about refuge, how we frequently see God as protector and refuge, when he's depicted as king. And so we see that happening in John 12. And then I would get to the section that is the most extensive section with the most imagery, John 18 to 19.
And I often think that this is because we are reaching the climax of the story, the crucifixion, the resurrection, everything in some ways has been leading up to this. And so it's not surprising that the imagery we've seen before all layers on top of each other when we get here. And so we've got the section leading up, the two do this crucifixion and interview with Pontius Pilate in John 18, who asks, is Jesus king? And there's this whole discussion between Pilate and Jesus about what kingship is, where is it from?
And it's this question about what is Jesus's relationship to the empire? What Jesus does is very careful language. So he says, yes, while saying no to a part of what Pilate's worried about. And so it's why Pilate can sort of release him because he does it directly say, yes, I am challenging there and for her.
Had he done that, Pilate would not be able to say, this is out of my hand. But what he says instead is that his kingdom is not from this world. And this language is pointing to the way that Jesus's kingdom is not limited to the world that we're in that is actually beyond that. But Pilate understands that to mean that his kingdom, he doesn't have a kingdom here, that's some kind of spiritual idea.
And so there's this interesting back and forth about this role of king. And so reading it one way we see Jesus affirming his kingship, while also not giving a direct answer to Pilate of what Pilate wants. When we get to John 19, we shift from this around-about way of talking about kingship to a lot of direct kingship imagery. So in terms of mockery, they put a crown on him.
He's dressed in a purple robe, which was the colors of royalty. His title that's put over his head is that he is the king of the Jews, hail Jesus king of the Jews, in multiple languages. And the Jews clarified their accusation that Jesus should die because he claimed to be the son of God, which is again, playing into Psalm two and David as the son of God, and then this kingship language. And then there's all this language in the rest of 19 about the son of man being exalted.
And there's this interplay that's unique to John compared to the other gospels. John has this interesting, what we call prolipsis, where he grabs from the future to talk about the presence. And he has the exultation on the cross, as the son of man, Jesus, is put on the cross. He's raised up, the cross is raised up.
That is pictured as the exultation of the resurrection and his enthronement as king. And so it is a very interesting description that is very different. The other gospels, many of them really emphasize the pain of the cross or the difficulty of the cross, whereas John's gospel is affirming the sense of the royal, he does not lose his royalty on the cross. He is exalted in his moment on the cross, as he is in his resurrection.
And so as we get from that, which I think is the claymactic picture, we then, the next chapter in John 20, has John the gospel writer stating why he wrote this. And his language is kingship language. That Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, there is life in his name. And so Messiah language, Son of God language, name language, we mentioned all are kind of part of this kingship connection.
And I think taking together what we see is these metaphors of Jesus's kingship that come out of the Hebrew Scriptures are from the start to the finish of the book. And it answers these questions, who is Jesus? Is he king, what kind of king is he? As a way of understanding the gospel.
It doesn't preclude other kinds of metaphors. I actually think it actually connects us to lots of other kinds of metaphors. So sometimes people when they're responding to this, it says me, do you just think king is the metaphor? I'm like, no, no, no, no, king is the metaphor.
That's connected to all of these other metaphors. They're also doing their work. But what do you see as the culmination of the kingship theme in John's gospel? Yeah, I do think that this last section in 18 to 20 is really like a tour de force of kingship imagery.
It's also funny because this is where scholars are like, okay, clearly there's kingship language here. So no one disagrees with this language here. The only question is just what is that kingship? And so what's interesting is when you do a list.
So here's the list, Christ, son of God multiple times, son of man multiple times, eternal king language, name language, symbols of kingship, crown, robe, title. He says basically the pilot, yes, I'm here because I'm king and we get this combination of all of this language in a relatively short space. And by doing that, it does something that linguistically we talk about lexical relation, which is collocation where you are putting a lot of words that have a similar overlap next to each other. And when you do that, it creates cohesion around a particular emphasis you're trying to make.
So this would be like if I was saying candle, light, wick, flame, if I did that, you would know I was trying to talk about candles and the light they produced. And I was emphasizing that because I had all those words next to each other. And so by doing that, it really makes these chapters, I'd say almost like spell, like fill with kingship in a particular way. That's really important.
So when we talk about what does it mean for Jesus to die and rise again? And so, yeah. Well, before letting you go, do you have any current projects you can tell us about? Sure, okay, I'm gonna tell you about four, but I'm gonna be fast.
So I'm finishing a commentary on my whole, on my Hebrew Bible side, I'm finishing a commentary on the Meta Prize for the story of our Bible commentary series with Andra van Akademiek. So that should be coming out relatively soon. On my John's side, I'm working on two books. One is actually an extension of the book we're talking about right now.
So taking the theme of kingship and the metaphors of kingship and expanding it, also talk about John's letters and the book of revelation. And so that's coming as called, gonna be called Jesus our King. And that's gonna be with Baker Academic. And then I am writing a John's gospel commentary for the Word and Spirit commentary series with Baker as well.
And then both of those will take a little more time to come out more recently or sooner. I'm gonna have a book coming out with Aaron Heim, who's a Pauline Suller. We are writing on interpreting biblical metaphor. And hopefully that'll be out next year with Baker.
That's thank you for joining us and sharing your insights on John's gospel. I'm really thankful that you invited me to do this. This was great. Friends, thank you for joining us on new books and biblical studies, a channel of the new books network.
Until next time, goodbye. Bye.